Month: Mar 2024

In the end we step with shuttered eyes

Katherine villanelle  

In the dark street with its glaring lights
Deserted pavements, cars that multiply
I see two of everything in sight

Twenty dogs two owls that fly by night
Two black cats  with amber eyes run by
In the dark street with its glaring lights

As I walk I sing  to cats’ delight
I sing Joan of Arc,I wonder why
I see two of everything in sight

The song takes seven minutes,or it might
If I sang like Leonard ,  if I sighed
In the dark street with its glaring lights

No-one can detect my wandering sight
Yet now and then I wail or emit cries
I see  more than you do with insight

These little deaths mount up as our time flies
In  the end we step with shuttered eyes
In the dark street with its errant lights
I see two of everything in sig

The past a lost abyss

What to you may be a worthless weed
Bears its little flowers to make its seeds
Thus it spreads itself as Love requires
Humble speedwell,hear of our desires.

In the pavements cracks were home to grass
The sidestep slabs were broken like thick glass
When deep frost came, rain made frozen pools
I trod in them as I tore up to school

The crackling ice, the mist dropped on the park
Our ginger cat, the trees, the dog that barked
A woman in the kitchen making tea
The oven by the fire, the big door key

Little signs spark tender memories
The future fiction, past a lost abyss

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.”

Even in black darkness all is well

Cut off from humankind in my dark well
Unimagined death had my love scorned
I lay grieving in a prison cell

How did I get here, am I in hell?
My soul was leaving from my body warm
Cut off from humankind in my dark well

Shall I too fall where my lover fell?
I felt such pain,I was a skinless worm
A person grieving in a prison cell

I did not wish in this black place to dwell
I felt a force that pulled till my heart tore
Cut off from humankind in my dark well

In despair I had no thoughts at all
Until a golden light around me formed
To hold this person grieving in her cell

In gratitude great tears ran as I learned
Love had followed me when I was harmed
Cut off from humankind in my dark well
The ladder of his thorns broke my death spell

In winter

Against winter, nobody should preach

The icy cold,the wind and then the sleet

The seed must die before the growth can start

The simple garden has so much to teach.

In this  way, we too repair our hearts.

The inner meetings of the soul and flesh.

Oh, winter

At the start the psyche is made flesh

The soul descends according to god’s wish

The mother’s arms create an inner nest

And thus the entire psyche is possessed

After penance comes the little fast.

Thus we have the love eternal blessed

Oh,summer

Against sadness


J

Against sadness:no-one here can weep
Nor lounge about in melancholy deep.
Was Van Gogh senseless to adore his muse.
For his masterpieces ,was the price too steep?
We see the yellow chair but not his views
Nor his mind where technique made such leaps.
Nor was his journey broadcast on the news.
Against sadness.

Happiness or joy is hard to find
When we rest, the News feefs on our minds
Yet some are cold towards the slaughtered priest
His nose a beak of bone in old face lined
Then Muslims went to Mass and join Christ’s feast
Against sadness.

What rages in the mind make men kill thus?
In Syrian wars the innocents fare worse.
But these are our near neighbours so we weep
And wonder how to end the frightening curse
The sins we once committed hold us deep
We hold our hands out wanting to be nursed
Against sadness

On this ground, the Holy Spirit died.

Once the Soviet troops were welcome there
In Auschwitz   thousands.millions disappeared.
The Soviet Army came  in  winter’s  chill
Nazis were advised to speed their cull

It was not only  Jews    gassed daily  there
Gypsies,plotters  also disappeared.
Can Christian faith   permit such  genocide?
On this ground, the Holy Spirit died.

What God exists depends  upon our minds;
When we choose evil,   what God can we find?
The end of Christianity came here,
As Christ was killed again   in chamber bare

God is dead to us for we have sinned
Against the Holy Spirit whom we killed

The War’s not over when the fighting stops

IMG_0276We sense the sacred in these peaceful walls
Yet men have died in places that appal
Women too and children then unborn
Fell  into  cold dark earth in lands forlorn

As our weapons grow, our hearts are hard
The people live in Gaza behind bars
The water all polluted as taps drip
Is this  war  or is it vengeance  fit?

In Britain, it’s the poor who lose the war
As it was  when Jesus Mary bore
Yet here are clerics blessing marching bands
A military show for all the land

The genocide in Europe of  the Jews
The self destructive actions of the proud
The fields of France filled  sick with blood and bone
Who are we to cast  judgemental stones?

The War’s not over when the fighting stops
The soldiers and the  tortured suffer  shock
The widows and the parents all bereaved.
The  unborn children  hover in unease

We let the prisoners out from  camps of death
But who would take them in  or take their path?
The injuries will travel down the years
As still we fight and  still we live in fear

It’s Europe’s  grasp and greed which was the cause
Of death in Gaza, Syria,  in long wars
Yet we  judge we are more civilised
When we self defend with bitter lies

The world cannot ever be the same

IMG_20181231_225554.jpg

A world in  which genocide has occurred can never be he same world.And it is not only the victims who suffer.It remains in our shared minds.
As with a nuclear bomb being used, the world is  irretrievably changed
Now our mouths gape with horror and all that we have seen  or known
But I didn’t like to mention it

Evolution and death

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Of crypto-theological  progress
Of humans rising from the humble worm
Where is Evolution’s  grand success?

Those who are imperfect cause distress
Soon we want to murder the deformed
Oh! crypto-theological  progress

Evolution’s natural life works best
Eugenics led to genocide in turn
Who is Evolution’s  grand success?

Soon  arose the measurements and tests
As if no human being could discern.
Oh! crypto-theological  progress

 

Is your IQ less than all the rest?
Does testing impede  children’s wish to learn?
Where  is Europe’s  great  evolved  success?
See the Nazis and the books they burned
Did any living people feel concern?
Re  crypto-theological  progress
Has Europe evolved yet  into success?

A jagged silence taunts us overhead

Like a broken shell, our world  has cracked
Whose the foot  that  heavily did tread?
Now we wander  in  this City sacked

Once worlds break  how can we bring them back?
Must we  mourn  until our hearts are fed?
Like a pretty shell, our world  has cracked

Where once stood towers  the buildings lie down  flat
A jagged silence taunts from overhead
 As we wander  in  this City sacked

What New Messiah can  find  and love the gap?
Who will give the wine and whose the bread?
Like a cockleshell, our world  has cracked

The death of  God in Auschwitz  on the Rack
The torture of  the Arabs, children  bleed
We cry out , the slouching beast is back

Did we ever think of those in need?
The children of the genocide still plead
Like a broken shell, the world   has cracked
Now we stumble,blind to what we lack

Like children’s   golden tears in a black sun

 Like children’s   gleaming tears in a  bright sun
That can be dried respectful of the source
The points of light on holly leaves  each shone

The  pink horse chesnuts’ flowering  has begun
May flows on to June  as rivers  course
As children’s   gleaming tears drop in  the sun

Nothing human should be broken,shunned
Yet evil screams till its sharp voice is hoarse
The points of light on holly leaves  still shine

When we learn of genocide , it stuns
I was  unborn, did not know of  such force
As children’s   greying tears dropped  under sun

Each  child is God,  yet such vile acts are done
Anne Frank ‘s  haunting memories now cursed
The points of light on holly leaves  will wane

Where did   our evil start,what makes it worse?
Unheld and hungry   baby needing breast?
Like children’s   golden tears in a   black sun
The points of shame, the prickling leaves may win

The children of the genocides still plead

Like a broken shell, our world  has cracked
Whose the foot  that  heavily did tread?
Now we wander  in  this City sacked

Once worlds break  how can we bring them back?
Must we  mourn  until our hearts are fed?
Like a pretty shell, our world  has cracked

Where once stood towers  the buildings lie down  flat
A jagged silence taunts from overhead
 As we wander  in  this City sacked

What New Messiah can  find  and love the gap?
Who will give the wine and whose the bread?
Like a cockleshell, our world  has cracked

The death of  God in Auschwitz  on the Rack
The torture of  the Arabs, children  bleed
We cry out , the slouching beast is back

Did we ever think of those in need?
The children of the genocide still plead
Like a broken shell, the world   has cracked
Now we stumble,blind to what we lack

Where do tears come from?

Where do tears come from,wet our eyes?

Where do griefs come from,where our sighs?

Will we have mourned enough one  new day?

Where does love come from, what does love say?

Does even God weep, where are his eyes?

Does even God weep as more children die?

Where is the saviour, where is the Cross?

Knock down the churches, they are no loss.

Weep with the grieving weep with the lost

Weep tears of blood for we all know the cost.

See vultures circling, eating the dead.

Can you love Western culture when you see where it’s led?

See the poor children hungry in school.

The scientists have proved they themselves are the fools.

Economics and warfare developed our brains

We are the victims by new mathematics chained.

Bring me the music bring me the song

The rhythm of the future beats like a gong

The Ways of the Will, by Leslie H. Farber – Commentary Magazine

https://www.commentary.org/articles/edgar-friedenberg/the-ways-of-the-will-by-leslie-h-farber/#:~:text=His%20central%20concern%20is%20with,even%20on%20the%20psychoanalytic%20couch.

Dr. Farber is anything but surgical. His central concern is with the evil consequences of treating people as if they were passive objects—and with the virtual impossibility, in our society with its scientific and linguistic conventions, of treating them in any other way, even on the psychoanalytic couch. But perhaps good surgeons, too, are assisted by their awareness of their patients’ humanity even while refusing to become sentimental about their disorders.

The integrity of this book is attested to by the fact that it hangs together like a well-constructed mobile even though it is a collection of ten essays published over the past decade, all but one of them in technical journals. Taken together, they demonstrate their author’s consistent concern with the same moral issues. But there is no repetition at all. A psychiatrist whose fundamental interest is in the relationships of ethics to personal style and authenticity could surely ask no richer or more diverse opportunity for participant-observation than that afforded by an established practice in Washington, D.C. Dr. Farber’s genius loci is also responsible, I suspect, for his selection of the phenomenon of despair—of which Washington has become the unrivaled world source—as the topic for three of the most original of his essays.