A painting of Walberswick

I am looking at the painting by Philip Steer that I have described to s friends before of the place in Suffolk where the Freud .. family used to take their summer holidays and know some of them live there. It’s called Walberswick 

It’s in Suffolk and when I’m looking at the picture of the girls on the pier going out towards the sea I can see the sea itself in my mind’s eye I can hear the ripples of the waves and I’m standing on the sand and just behind me is a wooden building which is an art gallery which also sells paintings and now I can see this picture as it was ..  hanging on the wall which is made of cream coloured wood and there are other similar paintings and more recent ones by modern artists and the sand comes right up to the door of the art gallery and I can see the sea and hear it lapping on the shore.

One benefit of having beenlaud up  is that my visual memories have become even more powerful. I can see everything even the sea far out where there are fishing boats.

The air is pure and salty I could almost believe I’m there now.

Next to the art gallery there is a cafe where we sat outside in the garden one afternoon to drink tea and because of my vision just having deteriorated I couldn’t judge the depth of the tea in the cups so they overflowed then the puddles were wiped up by a merry waitress. You see I was using w teapot!

You need three dimensional vision or you’ve got to be very very careful which I now am

I’m determined to see as much as possible of everything in case my vision gets worse so I see the weeds in the grass and I see the the boat man rowing.. he’s rowing people across the river Blyth in his little boat.

The .air is so clear I seem to hear noises from far away 

.. children getting out of cars and running about.. the air is clear and beautiful… No other place seems to have air like this.

Now I have dropped my eyes . I am back in this room but the sun is shining today and there are magnificent clouds… Winter will be over very soon the daffodils are coming out too early it’s  the crocuses I love best.

I feel like running about like those children with my arms and legs bare just running in circles on the sand…..

Why do we have to grow up so totally ,?

Cai.n and Abel

Cain and Abel fought the bitter fight
Posted on February 11, 2018

Cain and Abel fought the bitter fight
Like baby eagles, sharks and all that bite
For parents stand aloof as if amused
By sibling killing sibling for their food

This may be the crime original
So common it may seem to be banal
Inside the heart of love lurk greed and hate
Genetics brings destruction as a fate

So hatred precedes love if any grows
As dead egrets have no claw to show.
Families have their scapegoats all will harm
No-one seems to notice wild alarm

So Cain was not unusual nor mad
Indeed he was a hero, that is sad.

The adventures of Rosa

Professor Rosa Benchez was in the staff-room at Middle-Jeans-Rise University collecting her mail and having coffee at 9.30 am on Monday morning after running 10 miles on her rowing machine.It rowed and she ran
How are you? enquired Danny her friend and colleague in the School of Learning.
I’m feeling very insignificant today,she replied. quietly.I am giving a lecture on Semiotics and it’s those French people who use such idiotically complicated language.We all know that an object like a bird has to have a name before we can talk about it.
Well.,said Danny, I thought you’d just say,”In the pink” as usual to my greeting, so you must feel bad.Does each bird have to have its own name,he continued wonderingly?
Well,it depends on the context, she informed him coolly and enigmatically.
First,if we are looking at birds as a class or set, they just need a name like “bird”.It could have been anything but somehow it was” bird” that occurred like x is used in algebra.We may just study one bird then we give it a number to identify it.That is its name
Danny gazed at her beautiful bosom under her semi-transparent pink blouse.Did she dress like that on purpose to provoke men or did she feel so deep;y insignificant that she didn’t realise anyone at all could see her purple lace bra and her green silk and wool thermal vest with matching briefs, though fortunately, the latter were invisible from outside sp
Danny,I’m talking to you, she called sympathetically.Why are you quiet?
I dunno, the world famous biologist replied.Maybe I am not quite here today.
You too,she murmured quietly ,like the stream in Little Walsingham by the ruined Abbey.
Are you anxious about your lectures,she enquired softly and caringly?
No, not really ,he said tearing his eyes away from her revealing clothing.
Is there a biological reason why a scholar like Rosa would wear this unusually exciting outfit.
The truth was more mundane.Rosa bought her clothes in Sales and was indifferent pr unaware to the way men might feel seeing her like this.After all,did she notice if they wore deep purple underpants that showed above their low rise jeans or gold coins on a chain with matching long earrings?
She only looked at their faces while they naturally were drawn to see what outfit she was wearing that day. and what her new lingerie looked like.
What did her partner feel?Had he left her for a woman who dressed in thick beige blouses and stockings with grey skirts?
To dress well takes time and Rosa did not give it enough although so far she had not lectured in a string bikini nor an evening dress she had found in a jumble sale.
These French people have made a fortune by re-labelling well know things like birds as “signified” and the word “bird” as signifiers!
It reminded her of a sociologist who got a large grant to see if women were more scared walking under a railway bridge at night if there were no streetlight there
The conclusion seems obvious.And that was what they proved “scientifically”
Statistics,numbers, that’s what journals want.
She went to her lecture room and turned on the lights.Eighty students gazed at her happily.She was almost the best and funniest lecturer in the place.
I put 30 handouts in Dr Bevan-Finnish’s drawer for the seminar but someone has stolen them, she said menacingly.I write these handouts myself and if they do not appear by noon ,nobody will get another one for the entire semester
With that, she turned to the blackboard and defined ” the signifier”
Well,it’s better than taking the insides out of chickens on a conveyor belt she thought silently as she moaned on while the students took copious notes or wrote limericks on kleenex tissues with their own blood
After lunch Rosa was in the staff room talking to some women colleagues when Dr Bevan -Finnish came over,blushing dark red as he approached.He said the handouts were back in his tray
Why is he so shy, Rosa asked herself,not realising it was her outfit that provoked his blushes.And that is a very important thing to remember… whoever we are with affects us so a bold man like Bevan-Finnish seemed shy when with Rosa whereas with another more sensibly dressed woman he was quite at ease.
There may be a few men who are not affected this way but not many otherwise the human race would die out and then where would we be?Nowhere!
What a pity nobody tells a lady like Rosa the facts of life so she goes about causing sinful longings in her colleagues quite oblivious.Even some of the women were getting affected but nobody dared to tell her.At least it drew students to her lectures and who knows, they might have learned some Linguistics as well.And it kept them off the streets.Which streets nobody knows.Yet!

I shall live again

My heart is crushed like petals on the road
When spring winds blow and cars speed by like shot
The weight of caring is too hard to hold
Yet such a pastime seems to be my lot.

When buds appear I dread the frost of sin
When leaves uncurl ,I bear my breathless dream
I was not always of this mind so grim
Neither did I ponder complex schemes.

Shall I descend to ploys and plots of doom;
Wreak revenge on those who trouble me?
No,I ‘ll not give home to conquering gloom
I’ll sit it out and find what good’s for me.

My heart is crushed but I shall live again
Far from the habitat of wolf-like man.

The inner sea will comfort me

Inside my shell, I dream of pearls,
Caterpillars, snails with whorls.
I dream contented, all enwrapped
With reverie and dream, I’m lapped.
The inner seas will comfort me,
While gods allow my eyes to see

Oh, sweeter than confectionery
Is my worn old dictionary.
The words whirl round and fall to shape
The sentences, which my world drape.
This furnishing is rich and strange
Yet magically self-arranged.

Oh, sweeter than the love of man
Is reading works of poets long gone;
And feeling deeply their dark tides,
Upon which our boats may glide.
The sea infinite we float on
Is the same warm sea that ancients swam.

Sweeter still is this spring air
And the blossom spreading fair.
We’ll drown ourselves in deep green fields
To the gods of poetry yield.
We’ll rise again and spring up tall
To grow more rich until we fall.

Sweet it is to live and die
And to write my poetry
Touch me with your ardent souls
My mind and yours shall all be whole

If you don’t believe anything

In my garden near the apple tree

If I didn’t believe anything.

I would know there is another me

That knows more that I do

That I am not omniscient

There are many things I cannot see in normal consciousness

Some I have seen when my life slowed down to a snail pace

Some only another person can see

What does a snail see?

Fast anxious scanning just not reveal a world of value

It only tells us whether we are about to be devoured by lions

Does not show us blue moths nor birds,not butterflies

Pinpoint eyes do not see the rainbow or the star

If you don’t believe anything what does it mean to say what would you believe then?

I believe there are other people other minds

That should make us listen more because these other minds are not our mind

Don’t we want to know what another mind perceived?

A woman in the art class says she hates Picasso

Is it that she hates to see what Picasso saw?

Can’t she just say,this is not what I see?

Don’t we realise that sight needs development. Did Plato not see more than I can or ever will be able to and what about Jesus what did he see ,?

It’s not automatic that we see the way the great artists saw.

But it might show us a way, a path, a new direction.

Probably slowness is better than speed

And it’s not quantity that’s important

They wanted to call mathematics quantitative methods

As if it had no qualities.

As if it had no quality

No e-quality

Not all activities are of equal value

But how do we judge?

If we can’t see then we can’t judge

Democracy is in dangér … From those who think they already know everything