Day: Feb 9, 2026

The promised land

England’s green and pleasant Land

England's green and pleasant Land [from Jerusalem,by William Blake]

Note: This was a surprise to me when I was writing the last part .I will try to explain.At first I started off wanting to write a poem about nature,And evening falling as the sun set.However something else seemed to take over for the last few verses.I was especially surprised by the end….”.at last we have reached the promised land”

That is the best thing about writing poetry,that it can surprise the writer as much as if it were written by someone else.Also it is very absorbing so that the time seems to very quickly.Sometimes a serious poem has turned into a funny one and I laugh out loud.So it saves having to buy funny books….I can amuse myself.Writing  is even better than reading.

Just think of anything at all for the first line,then make a second line,then all of a sudden …you are off.Some days are better than others and you need an hour or two to do it.Or come  backto it later to edit it and knock into shape.It is a bit like sculpture,I imagine.

Joy sings out loud in golden light

Yet after day comes black of night.

New moon is rising by gray trees

This earth is where I want to be.

I want the day,I want the night

I want the darkI want the light.

I want to see and to be seen,

And not to lose myself in dreams.

The sun has set ,gray clouds turn black,

The day just gone will not come back.

I’ll rest in quiet reverie

Until the Reapers’s scythe takes me.

And then I drop and mix with dust,

And worms and beetles sate their lust.

I fall into ten thousand motes

And in sunlight ,dance music’s notes.

No more striving.no more ambition,

No more fighting,nor competition.

Every particle’s the same,

Without even a personal name.

And side by side,we all are one.

The lusts of life have been and gone.

We dwell with dirt and grain and sand

At last we’ve reached the Promised Land,

Europe is corrupt

Beyond  the image, man dwells now abject
We treated fellow creatures worse than worms
We do not talk of genocide, such tact.

What we can’t yet know, in us reacts
Europe is in trauma,I’m informed
Beyond imagination dwell  those acts

God   is  outside language,  he’s no fact
We can’t digest  the meaningless unformed
We do not dwell on genocide, such tact.

 

The  gypsies innocent were cruelly wracked
The men  who loved another man were burned
Beyond  the image, man dwells now abject

 

The s ghosts of Auschwitz  weep as Europe  coughs.
The past’s an old compartment in the train
We do not feel that genocide, what  lack

 

Oh, to wind the film back till we learn
Killing, torture, gassing,  we must mourn
Beyond  the image man dwells now abject
Enlightenment , ambivalent ,  has cracked

Thinking in the open doorway

How will I know when it’s my last summer sitting in the open doorway smelling the soft green dampness

Later  suddenly opening the door I see the snails have gathered on the step again

Maybe they are discussing my future as they move on the red tiles.

I can’t go out without stepping on them and my foot is not so cruel today

I close the door again.

Nothing is so important that it could justify killing snails

And can they see us when they stop gluing themselves to the ground?

How would we find out whether the snails could see us?

If I had asked the teacher at school she would have said that I was being difficult or recalcitrant or simply stupid.

Well in the religious lesson we learned something about God but we also learned that God is unknowable.

And I’m wondering whether snails are also unknowable.

Still one snail can know another snail whereas one God cannot know another 

Because there is no other

That means God is very lonely but that must not mean anything.

Just because we can write the sentence down in English it doesn’t imply that it mean something.

But what is pleasant for humans is to know another human

And for snails perhaps that is also the case

Yet God the indivisible has no Other

Is that why he created snails

But how would you know what the snail was when there were no snails?

And how would he have imagined the butterflies and the moths

The ladybirds and the book worms.

I guess he is an interesting fellow. But unknowable to us.

In that case it’s good to be courteous and not to be too proud.

We are just a few steps up from the worm and the beetle and the butterfly

Maybe my words don’t mean anything but I’m thinking

I’m thinking I love snails.

People are stealing eggs

If someone thinks that they can’t write, for example essays when you’re at school or the short  story when you  are an adult, it crossed my mind to think that when we speak we are being creative because we don’t plan what we’re going to say and then repeat it word for word now we open our mouths and let it come out. We are naturally creative and otherwise life would be very boring

Naturally we have a general idea of what we’re going to say but we’re not going to have it there word for word

So if we can speak we should also be able to write.

Another idea I had recently was related to a conversation with a friend who said she wouldn’t go for counseling or therapy because she would rather keep her troubles and trauma  to herself.

It is as if she thinks there’s a script that she’s in possession of.

But I think if you talk to anyone but especially to therapist or a trained listener you don’t know what you’re going to say until you start talking and different people will evoke different conversations

So although you have your own ideas about your past or present suffering if you talk about it to the right person it will give you a new perspective I think.

Already I have noticed that with  different friends I have totally different conversations and one in particular cannot bear it if I sound even the slightest bit emotional or especially sad and he will tell me to go into the kitchen and do the washing up and that will make me feel better but he doesn’t want to know or even to hear on the phone just a tone of my voice when I’m sad or anxious

Going back to the idea of talking to a trained listener.

You might say you would rather talk to a friend but depending on what you want to talk about what’s happened to you in your earlier life or your current life you may find that some of your friends cannot listen to so you end up talking about the price of butter or the way people are stealing eggs from the supermarket

It’s quite a clever method of stealing because you just take two packets of eggs one is the cheapest type often referred to as essential eggs in the most expensive supermarket and then you have your free range and your special kinds of eggs whichever 300% more expensive so you get hypothesis and you swap the exorba put the expensive eggs into the cheap packaging and then when you go to the till you are actually getting the posh eggs for the price of the cheap ones

And I don’t think it’s the poor who are doing this at all because they wouldn’t even know that in Waitrose you can get this about ten of varieties that’s also sorts of prices.

Of course they can’t do that with alcohol!