Why not eat men who make quiche
Thinking to bake it on a beach
The sun’s  no oven,I   have   found
Nor is the London underground

Why not make some pastry?
You can  fill a tart with grated cheese. cooked onions ,fried bacon in ittle pieces,put a  thin layer of cooked sliced potato  under the other ingredients if you need more bulk
For a smallish flan o beat one egg with 1/4 pint of milk
Add seasoning and nutmeg Pour over the cheese etc
Bake in a medium oven 35 minutes  or so

First time?
Stay near the oven and check.If it’s not cooked  increase the heat and leave a bit longer
Best eaten the same day but will keep well

Metal  flan dishes give a crisper  pastry.

1.Add quick macaroni to soup for 5 minutes to make it  into a filling meal
2..Make a cheese bread and butter pudding ;leave out sugar and raisins.Add grated  cheese
3. Hardboil eggs and eat with any salad you can  conjure up
4.Again with  above eggs you can  make a curry sauce with tinned tomptoes and eat with rice or bread or pasta
6.Make stuffed eggs

https://www.myrecipes.com/holidays-and-occasions/easter-recipes/stuffed-egg-recipes

Red lentils cook faster than other kinds
Cook some and mix with cheese sauce then bake in medium oven for about 25 minutes
Add bits of cooked bacon if you  have any
Rice goes well with it.
I just found some mince pies but I am afraid to eat them!

http://shipwrecklibrary.com/borges/borges-craft-verse/

The Beginning

This Craft of Verse

Jorge Luis Borges
Edited by Calin-Andrei Mihailescu
University of Harvard Press, 2000.

I have spent my life reading, analyzing, writing (or trying my hand at writing), and enjoying. I found the last to be the most important thing of all. “Drinking in” poetry, I have come to a final conclusion about it. Indeed, every time I am faced with a blank page, I feel that I have to rediscover literature for myself…. I have only my perplexities to offer you. I am nearing seventy. I have given the major part of my life to literature, and I can offer you only doubts
—Jorge Luis Borges, “The Riddle of Poetry”

It is impossible to begin a review of This Craft of Verse without commenting on the Borgesian nature of the discovery itself. From 1967 to 1968, Jorge Luis Borges delivered the Charles Eliot Norton lectures at Harvard University. Having never been transcribed, they were subsequently assumed lost—until the end of the twentieth century, when a dusty recording was discovered in a library vault. There, committed to magnetic memory, was a voice from thirty-odd years ago, the voice of a poet now silent for half that time. A voice perhaps even more vital today, after the long and often controversial course of postmodernism has delivered us to a new millennium; a voice urging us to keep language alive.

Click the link to read the rest

Review of Borges’ “This Craft of Verse”

Father, it is fifty years since my last Confession
I didn’t  realise  you were an old person

We;l I was only  eight last time
You mean,  you have only been once?
Yes, it was a terrifying experience
Surely an eight  year old  would not have committed a  lot of sins?
It’s not the number, it’s the seriousness
Do remind me what you dId?
I made the cat have a bath
Is that immoral?
Well, the cat didn’t like it
Why did you do it?
I thought it would stop her needing to lick herself all over.
And did it?
She moved next door and lived there for 20 years
Well, that’s not too bad.What have you done now?
I keep dreaming about strangling Boris Johnson
That’s  only a sin if you  injure him
If only I could tell him how I feel
He can’t listen.He’s an egoist
Is that a religion
Yes, in a sense.They  adore themselves.
How about prayer?
They have no other god they worship
How miserable.Can’t they worship flowers?
I  wish I knew
What would Jesus say?
Look at the lilies in the field.
Well, we have none
It is a simile or metaphor.Look at the dandelions
I’ve always felt they were underrated

And so do all of us

Yes!

Apples hang low near the ground.
robins chirrup all around.
sun on glowing maple leaves
gives a red glow that deceives.
Autumn air is flowing near,
though it’s still bright summer here.
wind dismays the flowering rose
as with arrogance it blows.
Leave me one flower for my eyes.
Leave me roses,as I sigh.
Leave me not my dearest one.
Soon enough we shall be gone.
What remains is love alone.
If your heart is not of stone,
Fear not sorrow,fear not woe.
Into this earth we all must

https://youtu.be/f7McpVPlidc

Love thinking about you.
Love,thinking about you.
Love thinking,about you……
Thinking about you,love.
Thinking love about you.
You, thinking about love.
You thinking about love?
You love thinking about….
You about,thinking love?
About you,love,thinking.
About thinking,love you.
About.com,Love Thinking
Love About.com,
Thinking
Thinking,love About.com.
Come love,stop thinking.
How come there’s love about?
Think about it

Copyright ©

I love it that through out blogs and comments we can reach out to anyone in the world who has a phone , tablet or computer.We may be isolated physically but we can   feel the presence of others or write about what it’s like for us going through trials

And remember the people who  have no food or money here  and across Africa,Asia etc
Maybe  donate some money if we  have a bit more than we need.
Be grateful that in the UK we  can get help 24 hours a day via 111
without worrying about paying for medicines or  for doctor appointments
Why   not phone someone near you  who  lives alone  or is in self isolation.
Other than that, listening to your favourite music  is very beneficial at reducing panic and anxiety  and helps the heart as well
You can get films on youtube

Love shines from your eyes
and makes your face so beautiful.
Your smile has a rare beauty
like a foreign flower
transported into a bare garden.
Though it’s winter now,
it’s summer in my heart
as I lose myself in
the colour
of the sea within you

https://whitmanarchive.org/criticism/current/encyclopedia/entry_54.html

Extract:

Throughout, Whitman emphasizes that his personal history has been shaped by geography and history, which in turn are the results of cosmic, natural processes. At the same time, he implies that he was in just the right places at the right moments to experience the epic transformations of the nineteenth century. The result is a kind of justification of his life course as the author accommodates himself to his physical debility and the approach of death—and strives to ensure his place in the continuum of American democratic development.

Specimen Days presents the formation of a self through participation in communal and even ecological process; unlike most confessional autobiographies in the Western tradition, Whitman’s emphasizes the dependence of individual identity upon community identity, and thus upon historical placement. Even in the early genealogical portion of the book (the conventional starting point for biographies of the day) the poet links his family experience to the public experience of the nation as a whole. Meditating on the succession of generations buried in the Whitman and Van Velsor cemeteries on Long Island, representing a lineage going back to the first European settlement of the area, he also describes the setting in nationalistic terms, drawing attention to a grove of old black walnuts, “the sons or grandsons, no doubt, of black-walnuts during or before 1776” (Specimen Days 6).

Similarly, when narrating the key experiences of his early life, Whitman emphasizes such events as learning to set type under a man who remembered the American Revolution, being lifted up as a child and kissed by Lafayette a half century after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and experiencing the growth of New York City—which for Whitman epitomizes the emergence of modern America. Throughout the book one finds such links between geography and history

https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/1018466/posts/2628020068

“As much as we might admire what is fresh and innovative, we all learn by imitating patterns,” writes Irina Dumitrescu in The Times Literary Supplement. “To be called ‘formulaic’ is no compliment, but whenever people express themselves or take action in the world, they rely on familiar formulas.” It’s true. For her review-essay, Dumitrescu reads 5 books about writing and explores how writing advice is caught in a paradox: to get people to communicate clearly, logically, and find their own voices, instruction must first teach them rules and provide enough room to learn by copying. This is why most of us writers begin by imitating established writers. We find someone whose style or subject reflects our own – someone in whom we hear our ideal selves, someone who sounds like we want to sound one day – and we mimic them. This could start with a parent, move to a cool friend, then end with a famous novelist or memoirst, before we emerge from the pupae of literary infancy. In other words, to facilitate originality, we must teach formula, encourage imitation, and push for eventual independence. She explores the value of craft, structure, exploration, and formula, and the way sticking to rules erodes a writer’s style, their character, even the essence of the art. She contrasts John Warner’s book Why They Can’t Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities with the book Writing to Persuade, by The New York Times‘ previous op-ed editor, Trish Hall.

Click the link at the top

Image by Mike Flemming

Mary was  wearing her piink and red glasses while reading a blog  on Simone Weil,the French mystic.Mary knew her brother Andre was a mathematician.Is that a form of mysticism? And is mysticism   of any value? There’s more value in  helping a neighbour than in mystic bliss.
Annie ran in carrying a green  bucket and  blue spade  in a plastic bag
I’m going to Cleethorpes for a day trip . she cried cheerfully
I don’t think so,Mary said while mentally assessing Annie’s outfit of  imitation leopardskin  leggings covered  in part by a guava coloured tunic which matched her trainers very well.The whole topped by a down coat in pink and purple stripes which she got in a sale online in the  summer

Do you think leopardskin  is suitable for a beach?You might want a donkey ride
The  donkey won’t know the pattern,Annie said.sincerely yet uncaringly.Indeed some may say she was rude to the point of  a dagger

Her full lips pouted ,showing off her coral lipstick and matching eyeshadow from Gillete  of Rochdale and Hebden Bridge not far from  Sylvia Plath’s grave.Oh,my>
Her foundation cream was not unlike that of Donald Trump which Mary had not mentioned, unwilling to shatter Annie’s dreams of wondrous love in waiting.
Although in would have made more sense to tell her  to dress  with more dignity and charm if she wanted a man

.With modern fashion it’s hard to know what will attract people.Who’d have thought leggings and bikini tops would be worn to go shopping?
Pyjamas seem popular too.
Why don’t we go to Hebden Bridge?
With all these storms its been under water for weeks
Oh,blagger, there’s always some problem
Well, we are getting older and I don’t want to die in Hebden Bridge by drowning
So where would you like?
Dundee.They make nice cake
You won’t need cake where you will be going
Actually I am going to the Diabetic Clinic
You never said you were diabetic
Annd you never said you had 33 teeth.
Well,I am a  Viking
That’s no excuse
I can’t alter my genes
What are they,little patterns?
To be honest ,I don’t really know
Let’s go to Waterstone’s  and buy Hilary Mantel’s new book.
It is very heavy
But if we are put in quarantine we will be able to read it
I’ll plant some tomato seeds in a carton of  compost
Whynot? I might grow some herbs

And so will all of us

The politicians squabble and the journalists work hard
I have spent my free time searching the museum of my heart
Here are all the people I still  treasure from the past
I  walk around, here daily  to get my sustenance

I  know we must go forward but will we turn to salt
If we look over our shoulders when the  day is growing cold?
We don’t know where to go  to a nd we don’t  know when to rest
The museum of  the heart, we can   visit  it at last

All  of our defences totter as we see the Daily News
Suicide is tempting but that we must refuse
Ask  for someone’s help, if you feel too much alarm
Then talk to a good friend  and read the greatest psalms

Leonard Cohen suffered, but when questioned on TV
He said suicide’s bad manners and  on this we can agree.

The richness   of the natural world

I’d like to wear a hat to shield my eyes
In Blackpool how I longed for a pork pie
There were toilets every hundred yards
I could not pass much water, people stared

The beach was covered infinitely well
By people  drinking tea  as hot as hell
Stalls sold boiling water in white jugs
You  used your own  fresh tea, your own tea mug

There was no shade, no tree , no grass, no flower
We lay and burned  like heretics in fires
We say we are not terrorists .we’re kind
Tell that to the charred remains  refined

Go to Blackpool if you  feel the need
Buy a  pie for me and I won’t read

Friends  visiting

I’d like to imagine the Bible as a  Play
So when Jesus says,love your neighbour as yourself
He turns round and winks at the audience .
And when he said, let him who is without sin cast the first stone, he  didn’t do it.
If he had then others would have done too.Because we don’t know whether we are good or not.Psychopaths probably think they are good.
They are good at charming the innocent.So don’t be innocent.Sin now!
St Augustine thought we were sinful because we touched our mother’s vagina,
Well, in the womb there are no knives.And if God made us , he made vaginas.
So he liked them
Others say by being born into a society we are born into sin
Well, it’s hard to conceive and give birth without meeting anyone else!
I can see it with apartheid.Many a long hour we spent in South Africa House copying by hand articles about torture there.My husband was a journalist for a time.And he had  been in South Africa  teaching in a college for black students when they were not allowed into white Universities
Is having whites only colleges a  sin?
Yet it is political
Well anyone in Britain has seen how we hate  others who don’t agree with us
Is there any group of humans who don’t do things others dislike?
I bet God laughed when Jesus fed the 40,000.He  like a bit if fun and so do I
Without fun the world would not exist
That’s what I believe

Instead of writing I’ve been talking to the police.If my neighbours dogs  or my neighbour

come near me I will lose it and let rip with some unkind words  like:How are you?