In The Courage to Be, Paul Tillich asserts:
He who does not succeed in taking his anxiety courageously upon himself can succeed in avoiding the extreme situation of despair by escaping into neurosis. He still affirms himself but on a limited scale. Neurosis is the way of avoiding nonbeing by avoiding being.
https://hokmahrevision.wordpress.com/2012/09/17/tillich-on-signs-and-symbols/
We believe just what we want and then we find
All unaware, unconsciously, within
The evidence we need to close our minds
We might as well be deaf and if not, blind
Perception lies, conception is then thin
We believe just what we want which we then find
We justify our actions, are unkind
Cast first stones as if we never sin
With evidence invented by closed minds
By the blood of others our own soul is stained
Starving children grovel in waste tips
Affectless we look, we cast off blame
The widespread wars, the rage, the napalm aimed
The slaves who make our clothes, who feel the whip
Are evidence we choose to close our minds
The punishment for blindness will now stick
Our souls and minds degraded by one click
We believe what suits us and then we surely find
The evidence we need to shut our minds
If this were 2040 I’d be 70 ….. so how does that grab you and your grocery delivery slots?
I am over 70 and am very variable.Can I book a delivery or a funeral?
I am 69.9999999
Must I wait infinitely long for any delivery.I’m an asymptote.I never reach the end.Unless I die of starvation and fall off the curve
Ny husband says pi is a real number.I say it’s a meal.Can you deliver either of these?
I am 69 and 3/4.Can I round that up to the nearest whole number? You’ve never heard of whole numbers? Just guess.No it’s not holy.
I should be 70 but I was overdue and stayed in the womb 3 weeks extra.Now I might suffer starvation which seems cruel.I can’t get back in to the womb.Tell the manager.
I am 91 and highll y visible.Please give me a slot. Do I pay after tasting?
I am very frail and can no longer ride my bike.Shall I die or will you send my order
Or both?
I will survive if and only if you anwer the phone.Yes ,I am a mathematician but I can’t live on numbers alone.Send some protein I beg you.
I just stumbled upon this site.May I book a slot? No.not for letters I want some food
I can’t see any other answer to my prayers.God says he’s never seen me before.
I’ve had to live on pizza for 2 weeks.I shall be 70 tomorrow.Any chance of a delivery?
I was born at 12.02 April 3rd am 1 in 950 weighing 3lb 6 oz.I was premature.I still am.Any chance of ordering some baby food for delivery?
Don’t make me die hungry.
Shall we die of flu or suicide?
Or shall we live as sanguine as sweet joy
Who by wild statistic is deprived?
Which man shall now look out in wild surmise
Perception is not truth,does that annoy?
Shall we die of flu or suicide?
What will shops sell now when noone buys
Do not yet despair when self employed
Such daft statistics make old people cry
Think about the sadness of a bride
A cancelled wedding, her good day destroyed
Would she die if anger brewed inside?
I ate ten bars of chocolate in my rage
That was all the food I could afford
When by strange statistics I was caged
Write sweet songs and do not folk ignore
Then turn again to love, that aged whore
Shall we die of flu or suicide?
Who by damned statistic is deprived?
Sometimes we don’t like our thoughts.
They tell us we are no good, ugly or a failure
I believe that we can get CBT as therapy. here in Britain
This makes us challenge the thoughts we hate
Now since Freud is dead I’ll tell you my idea.
Stop hating your thoughts but don’t love them either.
Let them flow along like a stream of clear water.
There, that didn’t cost you anything.Your therapy is over Continue reading “Therapy is over”
St Margarets Bay, the cliff top the wild flowers,
We lay in warm soft sunlight, lighthouse tower,
The clifftop where we lay has come to grief
Don’t blame us, we kissed on Hampstead Heath
The ground is shifting underneath our feet\
This curious government deserves defeat
They tried to make a human sacrifice
What, turn the telly off or it may spie?
Then I saw the dress I wore at sea
They took us off the cliffs to give us tea
The lifeboat men had saved us from the drop
The sea was greeny blue, at least on top
They took us into Folkestone for some beer
I prefer green tea, I am sincere
Actually I told another lie
I’ll drink Earl Grey tea until I die
After that my memory grows dim
I fear my entire life is one long sin
Shall I be one of those who get no care
The framework of the doctors’ thoughts lies bare
Who can say migrainous hearts are weak
Who has got a heart valve which might leak?
Since I see the world throught just one eye
Will that be enough to let me die?
My thyroid gland is fading as I age
I do not have the energy for rage.
We have no rights from God [ is he a lie?]
Kant’s Imperative deserves a try
If I’m looking pale or even sad
That does not mean I wish that I were dead
Austerity was hardest for the poor
Now the Graveyard waits, there is no cure.
https://www.scribophile.com/blog/10-ways-to-supercharge-your-poetry/
EXTRACT
Emotion. One of the traps of poetry is the temptation to write around an emotion, rather than to fully immerse yourself in and write with and through that emotion. Don’t be afraid of feeling! Without a doubt, this can be one of the most fulfilling aspects of the art. Emotion is the currency of poetry. Show me the money! Take a class. Continue to learn about poetry. Look for a university extension class being taught by a local poet, or a night school class, or a workshop at your city’s writer’s collective, or even on-line correspondence course. If nothing else, at least read a book about the art and craft of poetry. I recommend Poemcrazy by Susan G. Wooldrige. It’s fun, easy to read, and has lots of great exercises. I’ve had great success with it.
I remember mother’s beauty and her coal stained and cracked hands
Each little line was etched in black, like a map to other lands
She always wore an apron that she made from an old dress
How I loved my mother,I did I must confess.
I remember mother’s beauty and the row of nappy pins
She always wore them like a brooch, while we kids made a din
The baby had her rusks and milk, she had a little pot
She slept inside a cradle then she moved into a cot
I remember most Mum’s cooking, the apple dumplings steamed
The kettle too sat on the fire , I played and then I dreamed
She had a tin of buttons, she was ace at making clothes
She knitted like an acrobat to forget her many woes
Her daddy was a miner till he had a heart attack
He came home black and dusty, then he filled his old tin bath
When he retired he got a dog, he loved her very well
He called her Lassie for her name, she was beautiful , my belle
Her daddy came to see us after our own daddy died
He help my mother with odd jobs, then we all ate cake and cried
There is humour in the Bible we revere
Soles are heeled,partitions sent to God
Perfect love will complicate your fear
Five thousand people shared a single deer
The meat was cooked by one fierce lightning rod
There is humour in the Bible, we can hear
There is nothing much to salvage the impure
But plentiful the ways to cut off heads
Perfect love can escalate one’s fear
God made Jonah subtly disappear
And caught Elijah when in caves he hid
There is humour in the Bible if you peer
With a wail from Jonah,God appeared
His still small voice got louder by the Flood
Perfect love will castrate perfect fear
After many liars are burned as wood
I hope Gomorrha we will all be good
There is guidance in the Bible, but laugh here.
Perfect love will tame that perfect fear
I remember reading of Gommorah
Sodom too where no good men were found
I’ll get the Bible out to read tomorrow
We don’t act but wait and wait forever
While homeless people lie upon cold ground
I remember reading of Gommorah
Jesus spoke, it’s we who must deliver
We act as if we’re mentally unsound
We’ll get the Bible out to read tomorrow
The politicians may be very clever
Yet I don’t like the way they act or sound
I remember reading of Gommorah
We have a dusty Bible made of leather
It may not be in Jesus ‘ native tongue
We’ll get that Bible out to read tomorrow
Our home is on this earth where all belong
Yet after all these years we still do wrong
I remember reading of Gommorah
I’ll get the Bible out to dust tomorrow
How can you love someone who is cruel
Beauty,lust and brilliance do not last
Then every word you say is used as fuel
Masochism and loneliness for fools
Soon your love is in the misty past
How can you love someone who is cruel?
Conversation must not be a duel
We should not cling when we are now harassed
When every word we say is used as fuel
In our breast the heart may sing and howl
How can we control our own disgust?
How can any love the one so cruel?
Why not take defeat and use this tool
Change our life whatever way we trust?
When every word we say is used as fuel
The wisdom of the heart is killed by lust
The work of men and women is unjust
How can you love someone who is cruel
Where every word you say is used as fuel ?
https://www.splicetoday.com/writing/what-happens-next
Extract
. After an initial period of doubt, I’ve come to accept that we must stay indoors, even if we’re well, in order to avoid spreading the virus to those who are more vulnerable, and to free up capacity in our chronically underfunded health service.
I’m not, however, in lockdown. I’m meditating. I’m on retreat. I’ve become a hermit in my own home. The strongest feeling I’ve had since going into isolation is that we’re all being thrown in on ourselves. We’re being made to look inwards. And the really interesting thing about this is that, when you look inside yourself, you find everyone else there too.
I find I have two distinct kind of thoughts: those that are about myself, how I can look after myself and ensure that I come through this crisis intact, my self-preservation thoughts; and thoughts that are about other people, wondering how they’re feeling, and what I may be able to do to help.
The thoughts about other people have more power than the thoughts about myself. If I have a selfish thought I find that it’s almost immediately countered by something more generous. We’re all in the same boat really, all going through the same thing. It’s hard to pretend you’re a special case when everyone’s suffering; hard to make out you’re unique when the whole world is in exactly the same position.
You must get married if and only if you are mature
That’s rude.I am not made of cheese.Who are you,anyway?
You must write if and only if you are always polite
That’s me ruled out then as I am rude on Fridays
You must write a novel if and only if you are related Stephen King
How will you know?
You must write in free verse if and only if you want to be famous
I only want the money.
If your IQ is too high have your brain reduced in size by reading bad books
How about watching TV?
You must love your father or go to hell or both.
If you are God,I don’t love you anymore
You made me
You must not envy others
Is it possible by will power alone?
Comsumer Society is based on Envy
And it is base.
I spurned the other cheek.
Adjourned but never leaked
I spurned the other’s sheep
I turned the others weak
I learned maths last week
I burned like fire to meet
I earned his ire while bleak
I turned the gyre ,oh beak
The falcon cannot speak
My thinking is oblique
I’m spanking fit and neat
My husband’s hands were sweeet
I churned, my backside creaked.
Yeats wrote twice a week
Keats’ letters weep.
Was Mozart ‘s mother Greek?
Hebrew is our meat
Did angels look so chic?
God must be unique.
Now we can’t go out, we stay within
Let’s not start a war we cannot win:
Wagner played so loudly that it hurts
Responses to our friends that are too curt
Even groups set up to help and guide
Cause altercations, splits,and even lies.
People we idealise do wrong
Then we feel so hurt we won’t belong
Energy and fear make minds derail
Rejection makes us feel we always fail
The great Unknown is there for us to trust
The inner guide will often be the best
Lean on others,let them lean on you
Lurching but upright we walk as two
This lovely photograph was taken by Mike Flemming 2020 copyright
My street has got a WhatsApp group so that older people and sick people can ask someone to buy them food etc
Last night a man put some photographs of 3 coats belonging to his [ex] partner and asked if anyone would like to buy them.
Another person got angry and said this group is not for such purposes
Now they have both left the group after a few more exchanges… so even something trivial can blow up into a big problem
I think it waas inappropriate because if others began selling things it would fill up the messaging and detract from the aid being offered to the vulnerable.
But for both to leave seems sad
You must love your mother or go to hell
Can’t I go to the Cinema and see Oedipus Wrecked?
Why do you tell lies?
Who else can I tell?
I may be odd but I will get even one day
A mathematical miracle.
I like to read my books
What else could you do with them
I feel for my husband now
Put the light on and use your eyes
I am thinking of leaving Britain
To whom?
I can’t write any more poems this year
That is unprovable.
I am not being rational
No, you just act rational
Why be alive and be 6 feet away from my lover?
Use your imagination.
Why read in bed when you have a wife?
She can’t read out loud
Well, why sleep in bed if you have a wife?
Can she sleep for me?
Why eat a meal and quarrel?
It must be genetic,generic or genuine
You must love your mother or go to hell
Can’t I go to the Cinema and see Oedipus Wrecked?
You must always be obedient
No I am O,Beady.Bent
Does your father love you?
How can he, he is dead
Do you love your father?
Who is he?
Why do you tell lies?
Who else can I tell?
I may be odd but I will get even one day
A mathematical miracle.
Don’t believe what I say
I believe what you say is a lie
So I must believe it
I believe in a lie
That can’t be right
I don’t believe what you say
When we’re empty what will fill our hearts?
What can be created in this space
Where Eros lived creating love’s sweet darts?
War has outdone Love on every chart
What race is run without the nuclear waste?
When we’re empty what will fill our hearts?
No way to grow our love has yet been thought
Even though we know of every taste
Since Eros lived creating love’s sweet darts
Love is free, we find it where we ought
We do not need to grasp to obtain grace
When we’re humble love will fill our hearts
Love cannot be measured on a chart
We see in human beings god’s new face
Eros works creating love’s long darts
Whose the finger that my feature’s traced?
Whose the womb that bore me and embraced?
When we’re empty trust will help our hearts
The gratitude of rivers ,mountains,Arks
Make a cheese sandwhich.Cut into quarters and tie each up with cotton thread
Then deep fry them No,I haven’t tried it yet
It’s just a way of getting excitement back into our lives but don’t let your cat eat it!
Where do dreams go while we are awake?
Where does logic go to in the night?
Why does laughter make our body shake?
Why do men like eating home made cake?
Why do little children want to bite?
Where do dreams go while we are awake?
Why is Windermere not Winderlake?
Why do we have wars and want to fight?
Why does laughter make our body shake?
Why do people not read William Blake?
Why is it so rare to have insight
Where do dreams go while we are awake?
Why do we so often feel like fakes?
Why do people like to see the Light
Why does laughter make our body shake?
Oh, to see an eagle high in flight
Oh, to see a friend and love the sight
Where do dreams go while we are awake?
Why does laughter make our body shake?
How did he feel?
He’s dying to go to Heaven
I feel your pain
Leave it alone.
How is the doctor
Very patient.
How is the phone?
It’s not alive!
Oh,my.Where shall we bury it?
Where is my dinner?
On page 67.
Why are we eating on our knees?
So we can pray while we dine
Where is the cat?
She ate the goldfish and has gone to Confession
But can animals sin?
She can’t even talk
There are silent ways of sinning
If we get divorced we could give that a whirl
But we’re Catholics!
That makes it even more sinful
I can’t wait
But it’s not a sin
You bet?
Excited by the epidemic ruse
The front page item of the evening news
People rush together to convey
What they do not know or cannot say
Contorted faces wincing as they pass
No funeral. no wedding and no Mass
Lost inside the nightmare of the head
Imagination captured and well fed
Will Cremation kill the bug widespread?
Can we know the judgement of the dead?
People die in accidents and cars
Flying through the air and seeing stars
Are we bored by ordinary life?
No wars, no murders, just the death of wives
The honeysuckle ,heavy as a crown,
Wanders,waving ,in the windy air
Yet its roots are anchored in the ground
The branches wave like arms without a sound
Searching for another wild and bare.
The honeysuckle ,heavy as a crown,
Soon will come the flowers, a pink nightgown
Who can hold the treasure hidden there?
Its roots are anchored in the underground
We don’t always know what we have found
Illusion cloaks perception till it tears
The honeysuckle ,heavy as a crown,
Shall we describe our virtue with a noun?
New perception tortures what is rare
But roots are anchored in the underground
Knowledge hides inside a new nightmare
In the darkness ghosts come out to stare
The honeysuckle ,heavy as a crown,
A stunning ship now anchored in the ground
How did you find my street?
Very pleasant
I’m moving
You’re very moving
Who told you my name?
The teacher in infant school
That was eighty years ago
That was when she told me
Were you in my class?
I am now
What is it?
Old and vulnerable
How did you know where I was?
I followed you on FB
Shall we go out?
I thought we were.
Shall we go in?
What?
What’s wrong?
I feel of of place
Why not go to bed?
We’ve not got up yet
So how are we outside?
We’re in a tent
I thought I was going mad
You’re mad already
What a relief.I can manage this just about
Shall we go out?
Shall we get married?
Yes, but not to each other
In the wanton woodland ,birds flash by
Busy with their mates and with their nests
Caught a glimpse there in my cornered eye
I walk held up by silence undefied
Life is plain when we don’t send the texts
In the gentle woodland ,birds flash by
I call out softly with a plaintive cry
No bird will understand my strange request
Caught in movement from my cornered eye
The sun showed through the highest branches sly
Lit the birds up as it wandered West
In the mossy woodland ,birds arise
Nature’s not in lockdown as we are
They find their food, the insects and the rest.
The many coloured berries gleam like stars
We do not see the murders and the feasts
The magpies eating nestlings we detest
In the shadowed woodland ,birds flash by
I see this from the corner of my eye
How my heart speaks 
Selected comment
Indeed
Salary should be dependent upon how soon people notice that you haven’t turned up for your work.
It would be a long time before anyone went looking for Jacob Rees Mogg compared to a refuse collector, n