Day: March 10, 2024

Walls

I used to be shut in by heavy walls

Traps to keep me safe when life appalled

Was I hiding,was I in a jail?

Safety in the prison of the failed.

One day I was freed and found the light

A spacious place,a meadow of delight.

Will defences fall and free the heart?

When we love another it’s a start.

The many walls of Jericho fell down

When the trumpets blasted them with sound.

The soul is fragile yet its also strong.

Praise your love in music and in song

The mystery of our old house

Shedding tears there’s nothing much to say

Everybody dies in their own way

While we’re healthy we can bawl and shout

Serious illness makes us feel afraid

Conscious of the messes we have made

Remember birthdays and the bag of cards

When they’ve died it feels so cruel so hard.

We like to think we’ve got a chance for Grace

We cant know the time of death or place

Our house is for sale it looks so small.

The vestibule has gone there is a hall

I can’t believe the other people dwell

In a place that we lived in so well

We had no inside toilet we felt cold

Menstruation bleeding we were bold

So we look at photographs with care

But still we see no toilet anywhere

The one outside has disappeared from view

Whatever do these people have to do?

Excretion is a nuisance for us all

But go on sweetheart let your sad tears fall

For rears are clean and will not do as harm

Uric acid rarely has much charm

If this be love

If this be love,then let me have your hate.

If you be true then let me hear your lies.

For this, my heart, your message comes too late.

For now my need is for the thoughtful wise.

If this be marriage,let me have divorce.

If this be holy, hasten I to hell..

For love comes in its time without such force.

And of its message who am I to tell?

If this be love,then let me dwell alone.

If this be love, I will be forever chaste.

Your love is like a blow that breaks my bones

A love that lays your world and mine to waste

.

Love can shake us to our inner core.

Hence of your love, I wish to hear no more

The  still,small voice cannot whisper,sad distraught

Why do the sins of rage return again
When we’d learned of genocidal hate
How do we change the heart and mind human?

Images of children grieving damned.
Has Evil won the war,become our fate?
Why do the sins of hate return again?

Industrial murders, manhood’s great orgasm
Guns and blood and gassing escalate
How could we change the heart and mind of man?

Ethics and commandments have not won
The still,small voice is silent we’re distraught
I feel the sins of hate return again

Goodness is skin deep,it is a sham
God was here but we put him to flight
Who might change the heart and mind human?

When we love, are safe, we feel delight
We must not trust the armies of the night
Why must the sins of hate return again
How do we change our hearts to be as one?

Writing makes me breathe differently

Sometimes writing makes me breathe differently.
I can feel the silence settle around me,
Like a prayer shawl.
i accept it gratefully.
There’s a thin feeling to the day
As if the sun might have tried harder
to come through
But it had a blue feeling
And the clouds were greedy,
Wanting too much to melt
And shed their moisture.
Some perfume please.I think it was £27.99
Yes,I like that one even more than jasmine oil.
Pour it down over London
Like a blessing.
A black woman laughed and patted my arm,
You’re so funny, she cried.
And I smiled coyly
As if someone hidden was taking my photograph.
Sometimes life’s too sweet
And needs a little pepper.
The chair creaks as I lean forward
Trying to see everything at once
As if it all happened now, not yesterday.

Dad’s smokey jacket

In my dreams I travel deep and low
Into the happy world of long ago
The jacket on the chair that smelled of smoke
The funny tales, he sang, he laughed, he spoke

So faint the memory ,strong are its remains
Security and love in our domain
The brushes and the stipplers all stood by
For noone told his tools that he would die.

On his shoulders, like a queen I rode
So safe and happy on the path he trod.
His voice was clear and he could whistle too
In those days men were used to do

And love shone from him onto mother dear
She laughed and made us cakes for Sunday tea
What tragedy to leave his children five
But in that distant space he is alive

The fire as red as any glowing rose
We were dressed so well in home made clothes
Too happy, needing no words to relate
Our sense of being in this generous space

I can’t get back to them I cannot swim
The passages too wet, the light so dim
Yet I feel it in my body faint and clear
Death is not the end of those so dear.

Deep inside our minds , ancestors live
And to out hearts a depth and breadth they give
Yet missing him,I hover near the place
Where I might dive into his lost embrace

The table where we banged our little heads
The chairs so close together like a bed
The teapot always full, the sugar bowl
The fire, the kettle , pussy cat and coal

The fireplace had its oven nice and warm
Looking at red coals made me feel calm
The children seem to play in that far space
And all around is love and on and on I gaze

Why Being Certain Means Being Wrong

https://hbr.org/2011/07/why-being-certain-means-being

Provisional truth requires that we think of our explanations as hypotheses — always subject to replacement based on new information or alternative ways of structuring existing information. Provisional truth means challenging our interpretations with disconfirming evidence and alternative perspectives. Provisional truth does not preclude drawing conclusions or taking action; but it demands that we be skeptical about our first reasonable explanations in the realm of complex problems. It keeps us humble and mentally flexible, constantly asking ourselves if we’ve really got everything figured out and responding, “Probably not.”