No  bridge destroys its power, no currents sin

The geese have moved their flight path to the East
I miss the  gladness of their graceful wings
And wish I were a bird and not a beast

In the river, they have had their feast
While the sparrows watched and gently sang
The geese are gone, their flight path’s to the East

Seeing their grace at sunset gave me peace
The  natural  world such beauty to us brings
The wish I were a bird and not a beast

North East London’s  cut up by the Lea
No  bridge destroys its power, its currents sing
The geese have moved their flight path  further East

The geese do not  make nests  in a  tall tree
But dwell upon the water  like the swans
I wish I were a bird or honey bee.

As the infant  wisely grabs and clings
So the geese will fight  if threat descends
The geese have moved their flight path to the East
Oh, to fly at sunset  with the least

 

 

 

Advent flight

The ducks swim in the gaps between the ice
Cold blooded , yet kept warm by fluffy down
The river looks uncertain in this light

The sky hangs down a curtain of snow white
The sun, precocious, shines and then it frowns
The ducks swim in the gaps between the ice

Ah, think of Morecambe Bay in sunshine bright
Across the sea the Pikes stand out so proud
My river looks uncertain in this light

Britain’s mountains fierce attract like vice
Like alcohol or sex or low cut gown
Unknowing ducks swim on despite thick ice

Thanks to God for hearing and for sight
The mystery is the Love which was disowned
My river looks so cold as comes twilight

Here is Bethlehem, the little town
Where Christ was born and grew to be cut down
The ducks swim by, the swans walk on the ice
Look up and see the geese in Advent flight

Did poetry die?

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/29/opinion/eliot-waste-land-poetry.html

Of course, poetry isn’t literally dead. There have probably never been more practicing poets than there are today — graduates of M.F.A. programs working as professors in M.F.A. programs — and I wager that the gross domestic chapbook per capita rate is higher than ever. But the contemporary state of affairs is not exactly what one has in mind when one says that poetry is alive and well — as opposed to, say, on a luxe version of life support.

I’m hardly the first person to suggest that poetry is dead. But the autopsy reports have never been conclusive about the cause. From cultural conservatives we have heard that poetry died because, for political reasons, we stopped teaching the right kinds of poems, or teaching them the right way. (This was more or less the view of the critic Harold Bloom, who blamed what he called the “school of resentment” for the decline in aesthetic standards.)

O

This leaves us in the somber position of Eliot’s speaker in “Ash-Wednesday,” whose “lost heart stiffens and rejoices/In the lost lilac and the lost sea voices,” mourning the absence of something he cannot name.

More on poetry

This leaves us in the somber position of Eliot’s speaker in “Ash-Wednesday,” whose “lost heart stiffens and rejoices/In the lost lilac and the lost sea voices,” mourning the absence of something he cannot name.

More on poetry

Keep moving

Now you have survived the cruel war.

Never ask me what this mess was for

Leave the Field of battle, leave your mates

If you don’t start tpo run you won’t escape

You have to find an aim and then your life.

Steal the pointed daggers steal the knives.

Look around and guess the way to go

Over the faint blue mountsains over the snow

Under barbed wire fences, underhand

Through the crazy marsh the sinking sands

In your dream you’ll find your home again

And quite rightly you have earned #ith pain

Stan enjoys Purgatory

acer-palmatum-shindeshojo

Mary woke up on Tuesday feeling dazed.She had been dreaming of Arnold,her student boyfriend.so sweet and shy.
I wonder where he is now, she thought.Then she recalled he was in fact a world famous cancer researcher.She hoped he had found a shy sweet partner would it be better if he had found an extraverted jelly kind of wife.
Emile was yowling on the landing despite the large bowl of Superior Cat Food he was standing next to by the bookshelf
I believe that people and animals like not just to eat, but to be fed,Mary thought.Stan used to make the dinner but he always wanted her to serve.

Emile would eat his food after she stroked him.But who would stroke, Mary?This was a hard and topical question because Mary had stopped eating.However, as she was quite large, she could live for a few weeks on water only.So she mused
Mary put on a pair of purple trousers and a lomg lavender coloured top.She gazed into the mirror wondering why three hairdressers had failed to help her style her fair hair.

Now,she recalled Arnold was a Russian Jew by inheritance though he had lived in the USA all his life until taking up research into cancer at the ancient university Mary attended.

If she had married Arnold she could have pretended to be religious,converted and then worn a wig.
Annie came running upstairs.
Whatever are you doing,she yelled.It’s 11 oclock! Her make up was melting despite being Max Doctor’s All Day Creme Mousse
I was wondering if I could find a Jewish man who would marry me, purely legally, just so I could wear a wig.
What a load of tripe,Annie retorted.No wonder you’ve had no breakfast.If the man was religious he could not marry a lapsed Christian. Or an agnostic.
If you want a wig just go online.
You have no imagination,Mary answered,I spend half my time wondering what would happen if I did A,B or C.And what I might wear
And then you do D,Annie joked merrily.Or X.
Where are you going in purple trousers,she continued.You should not wear them at your age.
Do purple trousers have a meaning,asked Mary.I got them in Windsmoor’s sale for £12.
I refrained from buying a jersey jumpsuit as it looked like a burkini and I am a bit nervous now of racists coming into the open.
Very sensible ,Annie told her.I bet the French are jealous because Muslim women and certain Jewish women don’t get skin cancer nearly as often as Christian or agnostic English women.Should we convert?
I don’t think they would like it if it were only to save ourselves from cancer,Mary mused.
True,said Annie,dully

IMG_0042

Mary felt hot so they went into the kitchen and made some tea.Annie was wearing snakeskin pyjamas and black patent shoes.
Do you sleep in those pyjamas,Mary asked?
Oh,no.These are day pyjamas or leisure suits ,Annie smiled.They are comfy.You can get them in the market for £2.
Mary heard a strange noise

.Stan ,her late spouse ,appeared in the kitchen carrying a big leather bag,
Hello,he grinned.I’ve just come to say I have bought a detached house in Ealing.
But you are dead,Mary whispered thoughtlessly
Yes,I am a ghost but I have bought the house via Dave.I paid cash.
Why Ealing,Mary asked suspiciously
I like that song,Neasden and it’s quite near on the North Circular.And Ealing is healing!
So that’s where you’ve been while I have been grieving,Mary said.On the North Circular Road enjoying Willie Rushton’s songs as you drive
And besides, I want to re-marry and get a wig.
Well,you can get the wig,Stan told her handing her £4,000 in cash from his pocket.But don’t get married until I am in heaven
When will that be,the ladies asked.
Dunno,he cried.It’s such fun in Purgatory where the ladies are naughty but not actually evil.
And so say all the men.Ah,men

Emile and the superfish: the beginning

Mary looked at herself in the webcam.She was looking very  beautiful as she had washed her pale gold hair and applied some scented oils to it and though she was normally not interested in peering into mirrors she was intrigued by the Webcam.
She was happy as she had just removed Superfish from Stan’s Lenova laptop though she wondered whar else might lurk there…Supershark?Emile had been waiting ever since he heard her say
I am getting the superfish out today,Stan,dear.We can have Onion
Tart for lunch.
I shall wait for the super fish,thought Emile excitedly.I can just imagine what it will taste like… wonderful.
Meanwhile Mary who had never been bold enough to act at school was discovering her potential on mini videos one of which was going to be on Twitter soon. asking people to vote for Labour despite Miliband’s adenoids……But though she seemed bold as she spoke out,it was not her native temperament but a kind of madness that had come over her.
Polemical Poison,one might say.
Shall we have tomato salad,asked Stan sweetly as they had a bag of cherry tomatoes.
Mary did not answer because after making her video she realised her face was lopsided.How horrible,she thought.No wonder it’s evil to look in mirrors too much as it makes one self conscious which is bad.To forget one’s self is the best way to live if you can achieve it without taking heroin or laughing gas.
Gas never made her laugh at the dentist who had committed suicide shortly after removing 4 of her teeth and barely managing to bring her back from the clouds above.
He was a gambler and an alcoholic but her mother had loved him and sent all her children there for treatment.Surely that was unethical thought Mary petulantly.
Even if dad was dead ,consorting with drinken dentists was utterly foolish.What  a pity her mother has lived before the invention of vibrators,though come to think of it the dentist’s drill vibrated angrily at times!I had better push these thoughts away Mary decided and warm up the tart as it were
English has too many ambiguous words.

I am no tart,cried Annie rudely .I do it free.

Well.what would Wittgenstein make of that,thought Mary tp herself

Whereof one cannot charge,,thereof one cannot do !

The Dress and Zip

girl holding white birdcage standing behind trees
Photo by Tú Nguyễn on Pexels.com

Mary was sitting in her coral and teal kitchen  wondering if she needed some new clothes.The weather had been unusually warm  and she  had forgotten where she had
put her summer dresses.A “special place” is easily forgotten
A crash in the hall  meant the post had come.Here was Lands End   sale catalogue
Mary began to look through it though there  not many summer clothes and shorts did not suit her
Then she  found a   lovely blue dress with a draped front
Annie, her neighbour, tapped on the door and came in, a very lovely sight in her orange striped shift dress with matching lipstick and shoes
Hey, Annie, what do you think of  this  blue dress?
Annie had lost her contact lenses so she peered at the description

Elegant 3/4 sleeve dress with
Exposed statement back zip

The zip sounds weird,hard for a woman to so up,Annie said
Is it to attract men, she coninued?
Well, if a man undid it while I was at a dinner party I would be embarrassed,Mary cried
So would the man,said Annie, when he saw you were not wearing a camisole nor a bra
I suppose it’s a kind of flirting or teasing. Mary murmured softly.
She was ignorant of such things since studying Schrodinger’s equation and his dog.

But it’s not an invitation to bare  me to the four winds
Well,  this is the problem,Annie enthused.To some men it would be preciely that.Not to mention gay women
The most odd thing is that Lands End sell more sporty casual clothes
If it were made of towelling you could swim in the river and then put it on, Annie rambled like an old lady who drank too much brandy
I could put it on anyway but would you like a zip on your naked flesh, asked Mary
in her jocose yet feminine way?
No,I like soft fluffy things on my naked  flesh
Well, please don’t mate with a rabbit,Mary ordered
I only want a merino wool or cashmere cardigan and I can’t mate with that.
Don’t you know I am 103?
No, you are 73, Mary said correctly.I think we should call 999 and see what Dave the 
 skilfull  paramedic thinks about the dress
What a waste,mewed Emile who was hiding inside a  large copper pan.With so many people ill it would be wrong.
Since when have you studied  Ethics,Annie asked him
You don’t need to go to Magdalen College to know wasting NHS money is wrong
Well, he keeps us sane and that saves money, she retorted.
You can’t  grumble, the vet is expensive and he doesn’t call to make us tea,
Nor  does he drive to Barnard Castle to test his hearing aids.
So true
Soon Dave ran in wearing a new sundress made of gingham
That looks stunning,Annie told him
I made it myself, he said, smiling
Well,we would like some.Mary haa mislaid all her dresses.
I’ll bring some patterns round.Dave answered shyly
Maybe  when Boris Johnson resigns
We can’t wait.Look at this dress Lands End are selling
It looks uncomfortable Dave repied.Why not wear a sheet with a leather belt to keep it secure?
Why not indeed?
You may get complaints from the neighbours
And so say all of us

Susanne K Langer: a snapshot – The Philosophers’ Magazine Archive

D

https://archive.philosophersmag.com/susanne-k-langer-a-snapshot/

O

In her Philosophy in a New Key (1942) her intent was to authenticate a new notion of the “rational,” but how she does it is of fundamental importance. The classical tradition, Langer claimed, generally identified the rational with the “logical,” with discursive thought and objectivity. It then had the difficult task of explaining, or explaining away, such important human concerns as art, ritual, myth, and religion. Langer showed that these forms of meaning-making were embodied in vast sets of symbols and symbolic practices with their own distinctive “logic,” a non-discursive logic, quite different from the discursive logic of language and mathematics. They belonged to the domain of “presentational forms,” not “discursive forms,” a key distinction of her work. Presentational forms, Langer showed by an examination of their logic, are not mere effusions of an irrational subjectivity but articulations of the felt sense of things to which they give us unique access. They orient us in the world in the deepest existential manner, effecting participation in vital values and giving us visions, embodied in symbolic images, of our place in the cosmos. Langer, prior to extensive developments in semiotics, showed that they are worthy of philosophical study in their own right. Her work compares favourably in heuristic power with, and complements, C S Peirce’s great attempt to avoid logocentrism. We are a symbolic species at every level and not just language-endowed animals, although Langer held discursive symbols in the highest regard, as did her intellectual companion, Ernst Cassirer.

Langer was a devoted lover and practitioner of the arts, especially music, which she had studied in detail in Philosophy in a New Key. In 1953 she published Feeling and Form, a masterful generalisation and application to all the arts of the theory of music elaborated in that book. Its key idea was that feeling had a distinctive “morphology” that is exemplified in different ways in the different genres of art. Art works, she claimed, give us knowledge of or insight into ways of feeling the world in every shade of its expressiveness. They articulate feeling and are not mere expressions of personal feeling. They are presentational symbols and their meaning-contents are the “primary illusions” peculiar to each art form: virtual space in the pictorial and visual arts, virtual powers in dance, virtual experience and virtual memory in literature, virtual time in music, the ethnic domain in architecture, and so on. Langer showed art to be an authentic symbolic form and her notion of a “morphology of feeling” exhibited in the artwork is a permanent contribution to aesthetics.

In the last twenty-five years of her working life Langer attempted to develop the notion of feeling as a term to cover all the manifestations of minding. The result was Mind (1967-1982), published in three volumes over a fifteen year period, and which remained incomplete, due to her advancing age. It anticipated many of the current concerns in neuroscience, cognitive psychology, and philosophy of mind. Its central idea is that feeling is an emergent property of natural processes but that its paradigmatic manifestation is the rise of symbolisation and the proliferation of cultural forms and their attendant conflicts and permutations. Central chapters in this book carry out and reformulate Langer’s central insight and claim: symbolisation and the power of abstraction are the keys to what it means to be human. In a return to and deepening of her initial proposals in her first philosophical work, Langer distinguished between generalising abstraction and presentational abstraction, the two fountainheads of all those frames of meaning in which we live out our lives. It was the working out of the implications of this distinction, present at the beginning of her intellectual journey, that forms the connecting link of her whole remarkable philosophical career.

Robert E Innis is professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of Massachusetts Lowell and author of Susanne Langer in Focus: The Symbolic Mind (Indiana University Press).

Share and Enjoy !

SHARES

You might also like…

Subscribe to The Philosophers’ Magazine for exclusive content and access to 20 years of back issues.

SUBSCRIBE

Copyright © 2023 · The Philosophers’ Magazine · Website by Anchored Design

When after death I lie deep in the earth

O happy worm that of  my flesh might eat
When after death I lie in deep in the earth
My bosom,hands and eyes  become your meat

You have no sun as you enjoy your feast
And none is  chosen as we were at birth
O happy worm that of  my flesh might eat

All of us are equal in defeat
None are high or low , what are we worth?
My brain,my hands,my eyes  become worms’ meat

In the soil, we rest  in comfort sweet
Let us all be blessed,God  make no curse
You made the happy worms who   will  us  eat

O  remember the deep  ash from Auschwitz’ heat
The little children killed without Kaddish
Those  hearts ,those hands, those eyes   no worm   could eat

,
Why should we  be satisfied by wish

When  people burn or starve  beside our dish
O Godly worm that of  my flesh might eat
Let my very self  become your meat

Yet deep in earth, worms silently repair

The Seasons



The season alters imperceptibly;
No point exact which demonstrates the turn.
Yet soon come changes which our eyes can see
Leaves dry and crack, the acers seem to burn.
And so it is with human beings too.
Each day our loved one looks the same to us
And yet the body alters like leaves do.
Small changes made with neither noise nor fuss
.We change into transparent ghosts of self
Thus totter down the avenue of life
Death approaches with its common stealth.
To separate the husband and the wife.
In winter all is black and we despair
Yet deep in earth, worms silently repair

Life is not what’s said but what we heard

Katherines history, Thinkings and poemsvillanelle  September 3, 2019 1 Minute

Life is movement life is song and word
We try to capture life in all its forms
Life is wild as tigers,sweet as birds

Life is what we get yet don’t deserve
The birth of infants and the  food of worms
Life is movement life is song and word

Life is not what’s said but what we heard
Grace comes down like leaves as Autumn turns
Life is wild as tigers,small as birds

Like a boiling pot that must be stirred
We need to watch  for only then we learn
Life is movement life is song and word

Love comes to the empty, is not earned
The heart   like Joan of Arc  is made to burn
Life archaic , everlasting curves

Of our empty fantasy we’re shorn
Like the fields of wheat and barley corn
Life is movement life is song and word
Life is a wild melody   lovelorn

Quiet Mind – Wikiversity

https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Quiet_Mind

A quiet mind, and human wholeness, are available through controlling discursive thought and developing nondiscursive perception. Like learning to walk or to talk, using the mind well is a matter of patient repeated efforts. This course provides a simple method for controlling discursive thought; and for making nondiscursive awareness your primary perspective, through which discursivity is guided in creating a flourishing life and a flourishing Earth.

Praise these creatures in the grime

Winter weather, frost, grey sky,
See white geese and silver stars.
Two cooing doves with collars red,
Are watching out for seeded bread.

From the sun, low in the sky,
Light falls slantwise to my eyes.
Trees bud, though invisibly,
Nothing that our eyes can see.

Bulbs shoot up from dark cold soil
Where worms and beetles quietly toil.
We take for granted air and sky,
Love the birds we see fly by.

But who can love the worms and slugs
And those creatures we call bugs?
So in our dark cold winter time,
Praise these creatures in the grime.

Without these worms, our crops would die.
No cornfields for us to lie,
Amidst the poppies’   wild red  blooms.
So we forget all winter’s gloom
.

Praise the snails and bees and ants
For these and spiders, let’s give thanks.
As the lightness needs the dark,
From darkness come life-giving sparks.

Enrich darkness with our gifts.
Look not always to the swift.
Slow and patient like these worms,
Nature’s lowness is my theme

Wild Geese

Leaves have gone so suddenly
Small birds float on the wind
Like boats astride a choppy sea.
Their swaying soothes my mind.

Wild geese fly past at dusk again,
They head towards the North.
The holly berries glow in sun,
Nature gives joy birth.

I gaze intently at the sky,
The clouds hang dark and low.
If I too were a mere wild goose
I’d know which way to go

But I am left with only words
To find my destination.
Yet words do carry down to us
Wisdom from past generations

We use old words in unique ways.
We structure them to form
A new design not seen before
A new sentence is born

I send my words with love to you
I hope you safely catch them.
Give me answers from your heart
And I’ll do my best to match them.

Geese fly by

I like this old poem I wrote 10 years ago when I had no idea what I was doing.The last two lines surprised me.I reaised
that poetry is not logic



brown and white goose on clear water
Photo by Denis Linine on Pexels.com






 It’s Autumn weather, geese fly by;
Autumn rust,red,gold,so gay.

Drystone walls, edging fields,

Apples gathered,holly berries

Flash so brightly

Look like flowers

Sun shines sideways,shadows long

Of trees appear I dwell among

Woods of gentle beeches sing

Swaying with the sideward wind.

See their roots, all intertwined.

Feel their geometry in the mind.

Look up now into the sky,

See the V formation high.

Geese fly home at end of day.

My heart is moved by patterned dance

In this peace and great silence

My mind opens like the sky

And in this moment I would die,

So I could stay with this still vision

Of geese set out on autumn mission.

Snails in rain pools slither near

My feet upon the terrace here

And look,upon their whorled backs

All the sense of life is packed.

And yet so easily Life’s destroyed,

When blind foot steps into the void.

‘Clients say it feels like we’ve always known each other’: the mental health experts who believe their autism has turbocharged their work | Mental health | The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/feb/03/clients-say-it-feels-like-weve-always-known-each-other-the-mental-health-experts-who-believe-their-autism-has-turbocharged-their-work

The knife and fork

You can go hunting with the knife and fork

When you are looking for green peas to stalk

But if you want to catch a polar bear

You must go hunting with a knife and care.

If you can’t see the wood for the trees

Cut them all right down to your knees

But then you have destroyed the lovely wood

We would put them all back if we could.

And if the money burns a hole in your pocket

Get a little padlock and please lock it.

If you want to take an iphone and a fork

Your father must have been all heart

How to Use Poetry to Live a Better, Saner, and Happier Life | by Dale Biron

https://betterhumans.pub/49-life-altering-lessons-i-learned-from-reading-a-million-poems-78f70f3071b0

*

Here again, the challenge is when our unconscious beliefs and assumptions speed right past being adaptive and helpful, careening into an unhelpful, even dangerous place of rigidity. We say to ourselves and others, “Listen, I already know how the world works!”

And from this perspective

Bless the hand that points us past the known

I cannot mend the lamp that we both chose
The top and bottom split when  he fell down
But I can make it look as if it glows

The candle burns, has fragrance of a rose
That takes away my sadness and my frown
I cannot mend the lamp that we both chose

I find it hard to  bear the pain of loss
The concept is  more verbal than it’s noun
But in my home  the candle  brightly glows

In Blythburgh church, a lighted candle  bless
See the painted angels and their crowns!
I  will bear this breakage and its cost

I will get the strength to bear my cross
Oh,haul me, holy one, if I fall down.
Beyond  these lights we sense  the Light of God

Bless the hand that points us past the known
Where each of us must travel, perhaps alone
I cannot mend our lamp that we both chose
I  wander in my grief amongst the low

Swimming in a sea of words

I’m swimming in a sea of words

Some may find this concept absurd

Is it metaphorical at best?

How is reality expressed?

The poets and the novelists must play

In the sea of words everyday.

But some of us have made our own small pools 

Where we control the words by rigid rules.

I like floating idly by

Lost in my own  sweet reverie.

Laziness is really hard to learn 

Willpower has to take its turn

I’m smiling in a sea of words

Causing consternation in the birds.

I’m floating in the warmth of Shakespeare’s spell 

Why don’t you come in with me as well?

Mary tries to tell a lie

  •  qq.jpgMary was just running out of the front door when she realised she had not combed her hair.
    She looked around, and found a small wire brush labelled,”For nubuck and suede shoes”…..
    Peering into the old mirror she ran it though her gold and silver hair,powdered her nose with her Estee Lauder natural beige foundation in powder form and slapped some coral lipstick on with haste.. and accuracy.
    Right,that’s it,she thought.Enough to show willing.
    She met her old friend Maureen at the bus stop.
    Have you been seeing Joel again? Maureen asked naughtily.
    No,I’ll be damned if I see him again,Mary said shyly.He told me he was living alone in a large house up the hill, then I met him with his wife.Who was he trying to fool?
    Maybe he hoped you would not notice?
    Not notice what,her wedding ring?
    Luckily the bus came down the road and stopped beside them.They jumped on and ran to the back. for a gab.
    Are you going shopping? Maureen asked.
    No,I am going to take some photos of the jazz band playing on the pavement by the bank… but I told Stan I was going to the pharmacy to buy some Vaseline….
    Why,does he not like you taking photos?
    Not when an old boyfriend of mine is in the band.
    Exactly how old is the boyfriend?
    About 69 I guess.
    Well he’s not that old!
    He is an ex I should have said.I knew him in primary school and used to ride his tricycle.He was my first love.We were only 5 years old.I think it was his red curls and the tricycle that attracted me… but we split up when we were 6.
    Surely Stan would not be jealous;it is 63 years ago,
    And to me it was like last year!Well. you know time does not exist in the Unconscious.
    How wonderful.
    Yes and no.Good memories can be there but also pain can seem as if it just happened even when it is from 50 years ago.
    Have you had a lot of men admiring you,dear?
    How would I know?There could be thousands if they were too shy to speak.
    You know what I mean!
    Not so many.. I had my second when we were 10.He had golden hair and long eye lashes and lots of games in boxes.He was very sweet but we were to young to be engaged so I decided to give men up and study mathematics instead as that has its own icy beauty…
    Wel,,nice meeting you.Have you dyed your hair;it’s got brown streaks.
    Oh,dear,Mary thought.Is it shoe polish? But who polishes suede shoes nowadays?
    Stan was following Mary on his Face Bike.He was watching her from behind the bike racks in front of the HSBC Bank…
    Mary had had many bikes in her life.. what would a fortune teller make of that,he asked himself.
    Still,she had no idea Stan was nearby as she wandered nonchalantly along the grey pavement in her Rosella dress and Gabor suede Mary Janes..
    Now then, where shall I go to take the photos,she thought…maybe I’ll sit outside this Coffee Shop and pretend to feel faint if anyone asks me to buy coffee…
    she opened her bag and took out her Kindle Paperwhite… she was reading,
    Creative Imagery and Healing… and also Cars and Peace by Leo Wholeshaw.. a futuristic novel set in North London.In the first chapter a grandmother has been beheaded in North London.
    That’s a bit far fetched,Mary had thought when she read it but in fact Wholeshaw had been right on the ball when he wrote his e book and self published it on Cramuzon for £3.89…
    I wonder if I’d like to write a novel, Mary mused… just then she saw Stan on the other side of the road talking to a blonde bombshell dressed all in pink.
    I see,she thought.He didn’t know I’d be here as the pharmacy is half a mile away.
    Who is watching whom?Well.the morals be lacking but my grammar is incorrect, damn it!
    And  so swear of us

Poetry reading

His hair stood out like fuse wire in a rage

His eyes gleamed like the sun trapped in a cage

As he read his poem I was impressed

By the gift of words he has been blessed.

The women were enraptured as they gazed

His poetry was as complex as a maze.

His voice played on my heart I was well used.

Music is the food of love,I mused.

And poetry is our music,our music and our guide

If we cannot listen,out hearts will shrink and die

War has come again

An act of war when no war is declared
Makes war a problem of the entire world
Now we see a plane burn in the air
Was this just an accident bizarre?

No land is safe, all meadows killing fields
We all are soldiers, none of us have shields
We must pretend for how else can we live
To make the children safe, what must we give?

Once we had imperatives,now gone
There is no order, ethics are undone
War is undeclared , we now shall share
The fate so many suffer unprepared

Global markets lead to global war
The essence of the incident lies bare

Oh Lord. You want to have psychotherapy?

Please lie down.Tell me what brings you here
Not literally?            [ could be autistic]
No, you are always here in a sense.
Well, you know English is not my first language [ excuses]
No,  you were here before language.How hard to imagine.
I have come here because of my guilt   [ trying to be human ]
I’ll be judge, I’ll be  jury, said cunning old fury

Very adroit [Shows off his skills]
What’s  that?
The opposite of maladroit
Why did you send the Flood over the earth\~
I pressed the wrong button.                [Teases me]
That is absurd. There were no buttons then
Not even on coats?                    [Pretends to be ignorant]
Well you should know
I don’t like little  details in my creatiity           [ Thinks he is superior]
Come on, tell me whatever comes to mind
I like playing with water and fire as well          [ Melanie Klein  come here]
You tell me
It’s such fun                         [ emotionally stunted]
Like War?
It was not so bad to start with { always an excuse…. lacking in adult responsibility]
What, even Cain and Abel?
Very sad but it’s just a story      [ Derrida,Levinas, Enid Blyton]
Don’t tell me you are a post modernist
I can be what I want , for  fun you know    [ repeats himself]
I didn’t know God has fun
Well you do now           [ Humour]

Right that is £120

What, you think I should pay?           [ feels superior]
I have to live,Lord.I have a family [     childish plea]
So  did I once             [Sarcasm and grief]
Well,  any alternative?
I’ll  give you  an indulgence/
How about Martin Luther?
Should he have one?
Why not, he’s just human like you.
But Hitler?
I retain the right to silence        [ knows the law]

Well when you stop sulking make another appointment
Can no-one help me?
Don’t give up hope.
Goodbye for now.

Nature can help children with autism

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/15/well/family/nature-autism-children.html

D

Nature isn’t only relaxing for young people with autism, it is also an exciting place for them be, Ms. Brans said. The same ability to focus in on one thing that can get them hooked on video games allows them to zero in on minute details — the sound of a single insect, the texture of a blade of grass. Of course, the autism spectrum is broad, and each child’s needs and strengths vary.

ADVERTISEMENT