Month: November 2019

Stan and the angel

  • \
  • imageedit_13_4106504267Stan had eaten too much pizza because he was extremely ravenous from doing the washing. and hanging it up on the mulberry tree in his long garden Now he felt lazy and haphazardly dim and other worldly and liable to have visions..
    Now and then he saw an angel whom he called Yael in his home.But having looked up Yael on a website he realised she was not a very nice woman unlike his dear wife Mary.So he was planning a new name for the angel with her permission
  • Do you mind if I change your name,he enquired gently when Yael came in through the French window.
    Well,what to? Yael asked him familiarly
    How about Ysabel? Stan offered.It’s got just an extra b and s.
    Or how about,Sybael?
    You seem fond of b and s, the angel answered in confusion.
    It was just mere chance,said Stan somewhat defensively.
    Ok I’ll take Sybael,the angel said loudly .

    I want to change my name too, said Emile the cat of Stan.
    How about Mebiles or Melibes or Eimbles….
    I don’t know, pouted the cat haughtily.
    How about Semile,said Stan.T
    hough it has no letter b in it, he bragged.
    They all pondered quietly as the sun shone in through the window and made a lovely lacy pattern on the wall.

    In came Mary,Stan’s sweet old wife and his computer aided extension too.
    You are very quiet,she murmured.What’s going on here ?
    We are trying to find a new name for Emile,Stan told her as Sybael waved her wings about.
    It seems very draughty in here,Mary said.
    And Emile can’t change his name because it will change his personality.
    I didn’t know I had a personality,the little cat purred.
    It is what is most characteristic of you.For example, if you always hurt those you love then you have a cruel personality or you have got diabetes.Some people want love but they are too harsh and demanding.
    So true,Stan added pensively.
    Anyway,I have some awfully strange news,Mary went on.
    You just won’t believe this but Dorothy Grey who lives at the bottom of the hill has just had a heart attack.
    How come?
    She had an online love relationship with a rather peculiar but intriguing and clever elderly man who turned out to be a sadist in disguise.So when she ended the affair he flew over and attacked her with an air gun and some cat’s claws which he had bought from a cat market
    Is he a wizard,asked Emile.
    No, he flew on a stolen magic carpet from Persia.
    Persian carpets,I’d love one here said the cat greedily
    Actually it’s a kind of plane,said Stan.
    How boring ,said Mary angrily.
    Anyway Dorothy was so shocked her arteries spasmed and she is in A and E now on morphine,she added…
    What a shame that she got that instead of a spasm elsewhere….Stan muttered thinking of Freud.
    But who’d have sex with such a horrible old man? Mary asked.
    An equally horrible old woman,maybe? Stan riposted.
    Any way it all goes to show the dangers of online love, he informed the room.
    It’s not real love,is it, because in real love the other person is as important to you as yourself.Mary said theologically.
    Well. now Eros is a kind of love,too.But many old men just want their washing done and a companion.Eros has departed from their world.
    Sybael smiled and then flew out of the window.

    What was that noise, said Mary anxiously.
    Just an angel’s wings,said Stan quietly
    If only Dorothy had seen an angel instead of that harsh old man she might be much better now.Mary mused.But not everyone can see them.Their world seems full of horrible old men and beautiful young women
    Emile winked at Stan and then ran out to chase a butterfly amongst the scented tulips.. there were lots of angels there every day but only he knew.
    Angels don’t like big modern cities but they like old abbeys and cathedrals and places where such things used to be before post modernist architecture took over.
    And cat’s claws are not meant for scratching your loved ones either.And online dating should be avoided except with atheists and agnostics.They are less judgemental about women’s place and roles.It’s strange how harsh many religious people are.Harsh and unforgiving.

We’re not supposed to say

You know the widow’s sad and can mourn and grieve all day
But the anger and the hatred,she’s not supposed to say
She can cry  upon the duvet, she can scream under the stairs
But the rage and  irritation are  not to be declared
She can order man size tissues in boxes multiplied
But the venomous ,vindictive  imply that love had died
She can  be  dissociated, she can be without affect
But if  she says how well  she hated him, everybody’s vexed
Who can live so closely for forty and five years
Without needing a  dressmaker to sew up all the tears?
Who can  be accepting when money and time’s scarce
There’s a war inside the heart of us,   everybody knows
Scratched and bitten daily,   struck by falling stars
Who  knows what we’re feeling . what is out too far?

His love was all too clear

I  am angry he has died and left me  here
He hated my intelligence unwise
Yet while he lived  our love contained our fear

He loved whiskey even more than beer
He loved my skin and  even my great eyes
I ‘m angry he has died and left me  here

He did not have much money that was clear
But oh he sees a bigger car, then buys
Yet while he lived  our love contained our fear

He drove too fast when angry, I was scared.
He brought me  lovely gifts as a surprise
I ‘m angry he has died and left me  here

He woke before he died and uttered  here
You are a brilliant presence,Katherine, wise
And while he lived  his love contained my fear

I was a trophy wife, what will men  try?
He liked my looks but  not  how bright my mind
I ‘m angry he has died and left me  here
Though while he lived   he drank  my nectar dear

 

 

 

He is in the dark

I have nightmares, is that a surprise?
The time is coming for the new bright Ark
What one  might love another one might  hide

My husband drags me  out  so we can fly
To  where he chooses,I have made no mark
I have nightmares, is that a surprise?

I resist,I fear  more UTIs
I’m unwell but he is in the dark
Where one  might live another one might   die

Some fiend attacks us,   danger is no lie
I cannot fight, my weapons are too sparse
I have nightmares, is that a surprise?

Another night, it’s insects dark, malign
Then my husband leaves me ,won’t converse
What one  might show another one might  hide

Is my life a list of times adverse?
Of sleeping and of waking, which  is worse?
I have nightmares, is that a surprise?
Where one  might laugh another one might   cry

 

 

 

The Second Coming

dublin night reflections sea
Photo by Picography on Pexels.com

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43290/the-second-coming

 

The Second Coming

Launch Audio in a New Window

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
n/a
Source: The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats (1989)

 

Yeats’ most famous poems

 

 

white concrete building beside the body of water
Photo by Mark Dalton on Pexels.com

10 Most Famous Poems By William Butler Yeats

 

#1 THE SECOND COMING

Published: 1920

This poem was written at the end of the First World War and the beginning of the Irish War of Independence. In it Yeats uses Christian imagery regarding the Apocalypse and Second Coming to describe the atmosphere of post-war Europe. The speaker first gives an account of anarchy and violence in the world; and then uses it as a sign to indicate that “the Second Coming is at hand.” He concludes with the prophesy that a rough beast is on its way to Bethlehem, the birthplace of Christ, to be born into the world. The Second Coming is regarded as one of the most important works of Modernist poetry. It is one of the most influential poetic works of the 20th century and the most famous poem by William Butler Yeats.

Excerpt:-

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

United in Bravery

Photo by Mau00ebl BALLAND on Pexels.com
Photo by Oleg Magni on Pexels.com

The horror of the London Bridge attack where 2 people were killed brought  out the best in some men nearby as they tackled the  man  before the police and prevented him stabbing anyone else

After Brexit, let’s  be  grateful  for  our   brave people, who risked their own lives and stop the civil war of words and actions

 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/nov/30/narwhal-tusk-and-fire-extinguisher-used-to-tackle-london-bridge-attacker

 

Extract

Three members of the public, including one armed with a fire extinguisher and another a 5ft narwhal tusk, grappled with and eventually grounded the London Bridge knife attacker before police arrived.

Footage has emerged showing people at the scene surrounding the attacker, who is eventually pinned to the ground. One man sprays him with a fire extinguisher before trying to hit him with it, while another approaches him with a narwhal tusk, lunging at him. It is believed the item was pulled from the wall of Fishmongers’ Hall.

Trust the dark

Photo0205

Photo my own

Trust the unknown force that grew you,
From the  union of two cells.
An act of love  and total giving,
Which has produced whom you call self

Trust the dark,the unseen aspects
Of the life we all do live.
Trust that there is wisdom elsewhere,
To your emptiness to give.

Wait in patience for the time
When inspiration comes at last
Trust in darkness,silence,lowness.
Opposition forms the cross.

Pain is bearable in lowness,
Like the worm in earth I dwell.
When I look I see the sunrise
And I trust all shall be well.

Love without reward

img_20191128_114117http://micahlapidus.com/love-without-reward/

Extract:

What is spirituality? It is connection. It is either the desire to connect with another person, the natural world, or something intangible, or the recognition that this connectedness is an essential part of the human experience.

The love that Levinas describes is an expression of this connectedness. Love cannot exist without connection. Connection is the foundation of spiritual experience. Love is a heightened form of spiritual experience, a connection so deep that it falls into this profound relational category.

Does it matter what the numbers where?

 For 1600 days I woke alone
Does it matter what the numbers where?
25 x 64  unknown

For 1600 nights I sleeping moaned
Does sorrow  have to make us feel too bare?
For 1600 days I woke alone

1600  dreams , you   cracked my bones
Does  there have to be  a number bar?
25 x 64  unknown

 For 1600 , 2  to power stole
Does   crime like that  show how you broke my heart?
For 1600 days I woke alone

For 1600, 5 is squared and  bold
Does that   throw us off the apple cart?
25 x 64 , a poem

Why  does the mind  too lone become a liar ?
Who will stoke its everlasting pyre?
For 1600 days I woke alone
32 x 50  what’s this game?

200 days times 8……my mind now claims
For forty days  did Jesus learn Love’s  game
400 days times 4,   is that  your claim?
100 days times sixteen, naught remains

Illusions

Women screen themselves without the veil
Wear their   cream foundation, dye their hair
Get push up bras with wires as thick as cords
Thongs  that I have seen  when jeans are worn!
They wear dark glasses, strands of  lucid pearls
Hoping to attract a deviant earl
They wear pyjamas ,claiming to be cold
Or polyester nighties   men can’t hold
But Shakespeare said that all the world’s a stage
This fills me with  annoyance. even rage
Yet I see it’s true  when I go out
Disguise myself  with crutches and shoes stout
Cut my hair till hardly any’s left
That is right,I  act like I am deaf
I wash it in the kitchen with  the plates
The water’s hot and  hair cannot escape
It looks pathetic  yet I am so old
White hair is the fashion for the bold
I smile with pensive attitude and    plead
Do not  quarrel if I act with speed

Jewish English touch of humour

1.

Who’s the most famous Jewish man ever?

Jesus Christ!

Don’t you wish  God was your Father?

2

Which Jew   was most famous  relatively?

Do shut up about Albert Einstein

3
Can mechanics be Jews?

Only Quantum Mechanics 

4.

My cat looks Jewish

Is he canny?

5.

Why are Jewish people more intelligent ?

So  God could send messages

Does he text?

Not yet but he can whisper.

6.
I’ve heard Nothing

I’ve seen Nothing

I’ve  felt Nothing

Now I almost know Nothing.Give me time, oh Lord

7
It’s so dark at night I feel soulful

Well. put a  light on

On what?

8

We forgot to turn the TV off  before Sabbat Dinner

We can’t turn if off for 24 hours since it is electric

Just   cover  it up

Is  it a crime?

No, it’s   only a  sin

I feel shamed

Join the club

But it’s Sabbat!

It’s  a Sabbat Club but it meets on Sundays

Are we all shamefilled?

No just the duvets

But shame has no feathers

They are in the duvets of the world

Is it a duck?

Don’t ask me,I’m Jewish

You might be an ornithologist

Not today, thanks.I’m an atheist

A Jewish atheist?

No, A Catholic atheist!

How many non existent Gods are there?

How can we  answer that?

GOK

 

 

A petrol bomb

As down St Giles I cycled late one night
The road as silent as an empty church 
A speeding car  attacked me from the right

I saw, I knew, I felt no touch of fright
Time was stopped until  I felt the punch
As down St Giles I cycled in the night

 Flying like a moth  towards the light
Is this my end or shall  my  mind  come back?
A speeding car  attacked me from the right

The car drove at right angles  to my bike
I had no time to scream or speed my foot
As down St Giles I cycled in the night

I saw stars,  when flung to fearsome flight
I landed on my head, a flash,  a flood
A speeding car  attacked me from the right

The choir   rehearse without  my  voice ,now crushed
To Woodstock  and to Banbury  cars  rush
As down St Giles I cycle in the night
A speeding car, a petrol bomb , ignites

 

 

 

 

Song of the earthworm

They tell me that trees are a wonderful sight
They have leaves hanging on them all day and all night.
They tell me the golden sun shines in the sky
It’s said to be so much brighter so high.
I’d like to hear birdsong and thunder and hail.
At all these pursuits worms are likely to fail.
We only make holes in the soil as we move
And we know almost nothing about feelings and love.
We don’t know why we’re here or what purpose we serve
And our earthen workplace is also our grave.

 

You have to laugh or else you’ll cry

 

 

Autumn 2013 008

My image  of my own garden

 

 

Since my husband died I have been afflicted with recurrent UTI’s.
This year  has been the worst I have only one  entire month  when I was well.
Unfortunately   they affect the brain  and hence the mind.I have had scans but it seems my immune system is not strong.I wondered if it was the steroid injections as steroids do affect things like white blood cells etc

Anyway, today I have something humorous to tell you.~
I  have  had antibiotics then they doctor asked me to take a sample to send to  the pathology lab
I took it yesterday.When I gave it  to the receptionist she said in a  rather unkind tone
Why have you brought this?

I wonder why?
I might have said, it’s your morning  coffee replacement
Your plants need watering.
It seemed a good idea at the time
It’s so pale I wonder if I have anaemia.
I was bored and wanted to see you.
Mind your own business
However I just said the doctor told me to
Are they trying to economise even on lab tests?
The government has told doctors to delay the referring for cataract surgery
As my mother used to say:You have to laugh or else you’d cry

A more understandable article about Godel’s theorem

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

img_20191122_203051https://www.perrymarshall.com/articles/religion/godels-incompleteness-theorem/

Excerpt

Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem says:

“Anything you can draw a circle around cannot explain itself without referring to something outside the circle – something you have to assume but cannot prove.”

Stated in Formal Language:

Gödel’s theorem says: “Any effectively generated theory capable of expressing elementary arithmetic cannot be both consistent and complete. In particular, for any consistent, effectively generated formal theory that proves certain basic arithmetic truths, there is an arithmetical statement that is true, but not provable in the theory.”

The Church-Turing thesis says that a physical system can express elementary arithmetic just as a human can, and that the arithmetic of a Turing Machine (computer) is not provable within the system and is likewise subject to incompleteness.

Any physical system subjected to measurement is capable of expressing elementary arithmetic. (In other words, children can do math by counting their fingers, water flowing into a bucket does integration, and physical systems always give the right answer.)

Therefore the universe is capable of expressing elementary arithmetic and like both mathematics itself and a Turing machine, is incomplete.

Syllogism:

1. All non-trivial computational systems are incomplete

2. The universe is a non-trivial computational system

3. Therefore the universe is incomplete

You can draw a circle around all of the concepts in your high school geometry book. But they’re all built on Euclid’s 5 postulates which are clearly true but cannot be proven. Those 5 postulates are outside the book, outside the circle.

You can draw a circle around a bicycle but the existence of that bicycle relies on a factory that is outside that circle. The bicycle cannot explain itself.

Gödel proved that there are ALWAYS more things that are true than you can prove. Any system of logic or numbers that mathematicians ever came up with will always rest on at least a few unprovable assumptions.

Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem applies not just to math, but to everything that is subject to the laws of logic. Incompleteness is true in math; it’s equally true in science or language or philosophy.

And: If the universe is mathematical and logical, Incompleteness also applies to the universe.

Stephen King : How to Write

Scilla_aristides2018-1.jpg

http://uk.businessinsider.com/stephen-king-on-how-to-write-2014-8?r=US&IR=T

1. Stop watching television. Instead, read as much as possible.
If you’re just starting out as a writer, your television should be the first thing to go. It’s “poisonous to creativity,” he says. Writers need to look into themselves and turn toward the life of the imagination.

To do so, they should read as much as they can. King takes a book with him everywhere he goes, and even reads during meals. “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot,” he says. Read widely, and constantly work to refine and redefine your own work as you do so.

2. Prepare for more failure and criticism than you think you can deal with.
King compares writing fiction to crossing the Atlantic Ocean in a bathtub, because in both, “there’s plenty of opportunity for self-doubt.” Not only will you doubt yourself, but other people will doubt you, too. “If you write (or paint or dance or sculpt or sing, I suppose), someone will try to make you feel lousy about it, that’s all,” writes King.

Oftentimes, you have to continue writing even when you don’t feel like it. “Stopping a piece of work just because it’s hard, either emotionally or imaginatively, is a bad idea,” he writes. And when you fail, King suggests that you remain positive. “Optimism is a perfectly legitimate response to failure.”

3. Don’t waste time trying to please people.
According to King, rudeness should be the least of your concerns. “If you intend to write as truthfully as you can, your days as a member of polite society are numbered anyway,” he writes. King used to be ashamed of what he wrote, especially after receiving angry letters accusing him of being bigoted, homophobic, murderous, and even psychopathic.

By the age of 40, he realized that every decent writer has been accused of being a waste of talent. King has definitely come to terms with it. He writes, “If you disapprove, I can only shrug my shoulders. It’s what I have.” You can’t please all of your readers all the time, so King advises that you stop worrying.

4. Write primarily for yourself.
You should write because it brings you happiness and fulfillment. As King says, “I did it for the pure joy of the thing. And if you can do it for joy, you can do it forever.”

Writer Kurt Vonnegut provides a similar insight: “Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about,” he says. “It is this genuine caring, not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style.”

To risk perception is a fear we share

The pools of water on the pavement gleam
Reflect  the colours  of the   shops and cars
Giving us a feeling all’s serene

As I walk I wander and daydream
I sit on an  old wall,  the moss like hair
The pools of water on the pavement gleam

I invent a   sentence and a theme
Will I forget before I have gone far
Taking back the feeling all’s serene?

I notice how the old wall seems to lean
To risk perception is a fear  we share
The pools of water on the pavement gleam

I feel the moss ,I love the colour scheme
I love the texture with my  hand  unbared
Giving me a feeling all’s serene

Each lovely brick is different  yet is fair
Evoking in my mind  the sacred  word
The pools of water on the pavement gleam
A light rain falls and  this world feels serene

 

That is not mine alone.



Come back to me, my sweetheart
Don’t leave me all alone.
Come back to me, my darling
I can’t believe you've gone.
I’m crying ‘cos I’m feeling blue again.
I’m crying’cos I’m falling like a stone.
Oh, let me tempt you with my beauty
And my voice forever young.
Let me tempt you with my spirit
My laughter and my songs.
I’m crying ‘cos I never did you wrong.
I’m crying ‘cos with you I  still belong.
I thought maybe I’d follow,
To see where you have gone
But there’s a hand upon this tiller
That is not mine alone.
I’m crying ‘cos I wrote this old blue song.
I’m crying, I’ve been lonely for too long.
The hand upon my tiller
The mystery of the dark
The unknown one who lives in me
And sings like a skylark.
I’m singing ‘cos I wrote you a new song.
I’m singing ‘cos the cat ain’t got my tongue