Photo by zhang kaiyv on Pexels.com

Photo by fotografierende on Pexels.com

I was planning to put on a quotation from William James but can’t   find the exact words he used,so this is a paraphrase:
The art of wisdom is knowing what to overlook”
Another thought:
Over the last twenty years we’ve been
recommended to be more assertive [women,especially]
Silence is a neglected response nowadays but it sometimes produces better results  
And finally I have been reading “Anger” by Carol Tavris.I likeit very much.
She shows that the fashionable notion of getting your anger out
#by shouting,hitting cushions or indeed hitting someone else does not get rid of your anger ,it increases it.
Accepting your anger and counting to a hundred can often reduce the amount of anger you feel long term.
And divorced people who kept on talking about how nasty their ex-spouses were for years after the divorce did much less well
than people who once the first shocks were over refused to let  themselves keep repeating the stories about their evil partners to their friends and acquaintances.
So it seems self control,tongue control and self discipline maybe making a comeback.
However,moderation in all things even moderation is probably a good idea

• Given that teaching at Cambridge University is to be online until summer 2021 (Pass notes, 20 May), is there any chance of some of the empty college rooms being used by rough sleepers after they’ve been turfed out of their hotel rooms?
John Beresford

From the Guardian newspaper

A few years ago I was still  feeling very sad.The doorbell rang.It was a neighbour whose husband had died
She came in and stood by the fire  and I sat down
She didn’t speak, just cried
I didn’t know what to do.I started to cry
We both cried for about 20 minutes
She then said, thank you and left
I never spoke

I’m waiting for delivery
I didn’t even know you were expecting
I only heard this morning
Will it survive?
Survive what?
Being 9 months premature!
Are you crazy?
Not yet

I’m going to move after this crisis
Yes,I agree, it was Pontius Pilate.
He denied it
Counted?

???/

I don’t like the Telegraph
No,to Hell and back
Is it God’s wrath?
No,Sylvia Plath

My order is delayed
Disorder was unpaid
At least it was spared

Where is God?
Nowhere in our language space.
Orlando’s, great!
Sandwich Base
Anguished face
Sanguine grace
Penguin stays
Felix raves
Long disgrace
I’d like a date
Find a plate

On the e referal form it said, witch  particular doctor do you want to see?
I thought, they must  be using voice typing except we had  to write the answer
Is it a Freudian slip?
Or maybe with the pandemic we are going to get witch dctors where there aren’t enough
medical ones
Which witch doctor  would you like?
Would you like a witch doctor?
I feel bewitched already
Be off Witch

Attracted by the first line of your verse
I set myself in aspic and feel worse

Drawn  over  to your garden  by a rose
I broke my glasses then I broke my nose

When I left I felt like being soothed
 Oriental massage made me  bruised

When the books I read were full of dust
I  felt I had to get them off my chest

I wonder why the doctor  was so kind
I was dead but now I’m going blind

My doctor is  a  brilliant young man
He’s  got a Ph.D,  she’s çalled Diane 

He wondered why I  eat just Weetabix
Why ask a pin to explain why it pricks?

Mother gave us Ovaltine and cake
Surely  one day she must  learn to bake

I said there’s no access,not,you’ve got sepsis
I said.we’re having chicken today not where  the dickens is May
I said, why not go to bed, not, try not to wed
I said turn off the taps, not take a nap
I said,good night darling ,not god, that’s appalling
I said, give me a  kiss not, what a near miss
I asked if you were  here, not can you steer
Well, that was an error,I was full of terror

Ice cream,burgers,pancakes pizza,swell
Deliveroo brings succour, if you ask
What to eat in Lockdown, Jezabel?

What did Adam look like when he fell
No nurse,no Urgent Care, no breathing mask?
Just ice cream,burgers,pancakes  bloody hell

Elijah  climbed a mountain,man impelled
Who cared for him, who fed him at great risk?
What to eat in Lockdown, Jezabel?

The angry Queen  pursued him,wished to kill
In high Caves he loitered, that’s the gist
No ice cream,burgers,pancakes, who  fried hell?

He heard a little whisper on  this Hill
What do you here,Elijah, God had hissed
What to say in breakdown,  who can tell?

Snaking   round the hilltop feeling pissed
From the peak we see what we have missed
Ice cream,burgers,pancakes, snails with shells
Where to  sleep ,whose arms will be my cell?

Corned beef and banana  balls with tamed rice
Roast egg yolks in batter with pure peas
Burnt bacon and  boiled beans on mashed potatoes
Lamb’s tongues on  the Oxford English Dictionary [page 45]
Pike and tinned carrots in gravy
Half a dictionary roasted  on olives and macaroni
The other half  made into a  collage with my thesis  and brandy butter
Father Xmas  on Ice with Creamed Minced Pi and Temple

On Saturday I read the book reviews
The day feels calm and still, we  get up late
I sometimes catch my breath and hear the News
War past War, past War, but not past Hate

I read how civilised is modern man
See the architects’ designs illuminate
See Cathedrals.Synagogues, new plans
Mosques and little Chapels consecrate

Yet offending other Peoples is innate
Like children stealing toys and throwing stones
Through what maze do adults reach that state
Where order,frames and boundaries are known?

Free verse, sonnets,nonsense villanelles
Choose the form  and then  begin to tell

Startled by the lilac of the sky
More blue dilutes the pink I saw before
Dark branches stand like fingers pointing high

The little bay tree potted is too dry
I gave it drops of tea but it needs more
Entranced by  softest lilac ,oh, the sky

I see two trees have grown like Russian spies
They got stuck in and blossomed then I saw
Dark branches,unboned fingers pointing high

Elderberry,cherry, seeds  have strayed
Don’t tell us that  green Nature may have flaws
Enhanced by  lilac , darkening, goodbye

Soon will come the ending and the prayer
The drama is all done, if any care.
Dark branches ,boneless fingers, pointing high

We may live, but God it is that stares
Like the Langdale Pikes watch Windermere
Down beneath the  silence of the sky
Dark branches stand like judges  from on high

He hit me with a flying pan
No, he bit me  with a  jar of jam
No can

Do you have a sinner every night?
Not on Sundays

Where is the olive oil?
No, never boil
In coils

We liked apple pie  hot
Sorry, it leaves me cold
I say, stop!

My sister  is like a  triplet
We  miss the other one
Never met

Who reads books these  days?
The editors?
Google say?

Ted Hughes was gay?
So his sister says
Trying to illicitly advertise for  the dead now!

I pretend my right arm belongs to someone else
Then I stroke my left arm gently
I know it’s not you
But I like it anyway

I saw the black cat slink away
I didn’t know he has been near me
Now he has gone
For today

In the night I heard a siren
Was it inside me or outside
I seemed to have no boundaries
What do you say?

At the hospital, they seemed angry
How long have my feet been deformed?
Since I was in the womb
Before that, I don’t know.

Why do I have to be normal?
Feet weren’t made for shoes
I might go to a blacksmith
Tell me the way

I wanted mustard not custard on the pork
I said  please write to Fred,not  he is dead
I said double cream,not devils scream
I said he wants butter not he’s a nutter
I said IOU, not loving is taboo
Her new dress is pure milk
Her collages are a fright to withold
Can I handwash my brows?
A new tooth brush is a goodbye
What’s the latest on Horace?
We studied Freaks and Nomads at school
I gave up history  for cretins
He missed out on statins
Transmigration is  hard to get  the rites for
Five million  contortions a year
He  died in the  glue athletics
It’s all academic
I failed Geography  for Dummies
All my food was poached on her
Am I a spy? Don’t tell a lie!

Who saw the bricks fall?
 Who awed clicked and bawled?
No more to gnaw

You are a complete idiot
You stare at my widgets
Broke budget

You showed me an atlas
Esau see,Sodom was
Because, because

I love reading the bible
I was here for her arrival
Got stifled

You are the best wife I’ve had
Swear an oath then be God
Not in that  flood

I love you more than the cat
I have just floored my flat
Hypocrite

Of course I love you,dear
Uproar  above your fear
Can you steer?

I have no  hard suit case
Lust muted ,bar taste
Can’t be embraced

He was once  was my lover
Was too much bother
Got another

Boris Johnson is known
Morris dancing on a phone
He might  well groan

I loved cellos and men
Hello, yes I can
Spam

Forty Hall

I never said your IQ was lower than an imbecile’s.
I said :I like your flowers more than many ideals
But keep them concealed

I never said you would have failed the 11 plus
It was: You should have mailed the  abacus
After all you’ve added to us

I did not say,you are a complete nut case
I said ,furthermore you have  a very snall waist
Copy and waste

I never said,I  think you are obese
I cried,I think it’s the police
It’s our  demise

I not say women  are inferior
I said women have an interior’
Queer’re ya?

Not, you are a  pain
I said, you taste’s sublime
Or divine

Art by Katherine

A Life of One’s Own: A Penetrating 1930s Field Guide to Self-Possession, Mindful Perception, and the Art of Knowing What You Really Want

Excerpt:

oon as I began to study my perception, to look at my own experience, I found that there were different ways of perceiving and that the different ways provided me with different facts. There was a narrow focus which meant seeing life as if from blinkers and with the centre of awareness in my head; and there was a wide focus which meant knowing with the whole of my body, a way of looking which quite altered my perception of whatever I saw. And I found that the narrow focus way was the way of reason. If one was in the habit of arguing about life it was very difficult not to approach sensation with the same concentrated attention and so shut out its width and depth and height. But it was the wide focus way that made me happy.