He told me once that saying Mass is just a piece of cake

The fishing nets have tangled round a  little submarine
Can the sailors pull it up, or will their nets all break?
We wonder  who might live in it,  it can’t be the Queen

I looked once in the mirror and I see my face is green
Maybe I’ll eat soup again and not a giant rump steak
The fishing nets once tangled round a  little submarine

We once had a Bishop but he just  had a Dean
He told me once that saying Mass is just a piece of cake
We wonder  who might like such food,  it can’t be the Queen

I  get washed  with olive oil and in summer I feel clean
I wish that little wafer were a Cadbury’s chocolate  flake
The fishing nets once wrangled and their maths was quite marine

If I see my boyfriend now,I might let out a scream
Feeling his proximity, my entire heart might break
We wonder  who might  enjoy that  it can’t be the Queen

Life can be  much better with a little pat and stroke
Wash your mate in olive oil, he’s such a lovely bloke
The fishing nets did tangle round a  little submarine
We wonder  who might live in it,  God has not been seen

 

 

 The funniest things I did year 2018

When my electric blanket broke, I tried to warm my cold feet with a hairdryer.It is no use.I put 3 pairs of socks on  and somehow got warmer

I realised, when your husband dies, it’s pointless crying when you lose your necklace or watch as nobody else is interested [ maybe that is not true]
I sang “Joan of Arc in a Canadian accent at the bus stop [ so I am told]
I told a man “I am Leonard Cohen” even though I am a woman.Transpersonal?
I put my clothes on inside out before I went to a dinner party.Noone said anything
I forgot who I was.Then I read my blog.Need I say more?
I made up conversations in my head but never said anything out loud to a  live person
I played Trivial Pursuits
I  forgot what Quantum Theory was.This may help my social life
I decided never to argue again.The logic is dependent on axioms and, if we do not have the same ones ,it is pointless.
I told a neighbour I used to be very quiet and she said, you still  are very quiet.
I remembered a student crying when I was teaching the history of mathematics.She was crying  with happiness and asked, why were we not taught like this at school [  maybe because I am unique]
I wonder if  people live alone for a long time they may lose their emotions as  I believe emotions are interpersonal

A dark day when liars and cheats lose no votes.They “like his face”

This will go down as a dark day for British democracy

 

Extract

 

Just this week we saw a sophisticated attack on the story of a poorly four-year-old boy seen recuperating on the floor of Leeds General Infirmary by social media bots.

People had been duped by a ‘Facebook post that proved the pictures were false’. Of course, they were not. They highlighted the miserable state that the NHS finds itself in, yet fake attempts to discredit the story muddied the water for many voters.

 

Fascism and post-modernism

flight sky sunset men
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“A world view quite similar to Nazism, Fascism was a pagan religion with worship of the state….main arguments…..
Like postmodernism, fascism promoted the view that reality is a social construct and that all cultures determine their own values. Vieth wrote: most people do not realise the tenets of postmodernism have been tried before in a political system, cultural determinism… The rejection of the transcendent, the rejection of Reason and the revolutionary critique of the existing order are tenets not only of postmodernism but also of fascism
men in black and red cade hats and military uniform
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saint basil s cathedral
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Extract
The intellectual roots of fascism are deep, intertwined, and often paradoxical. Most of its rudimentary ideas were formed in the second half of the 19th Century and were a reaction against the Enlightenment (modernism). Almost all of the major thinkers of the late 19th Century made some contribution to fascist thinking, though there were a myriad of minor players. Some of the major ideas that contributed to this unholy brew were: romanticism, Darwinian evolution, alienation, and existentialism. Even Marxism must be considered in the shaping of fascism since some of the prominent leaders, Mussolini, for example, were Marxists, though the movement in some respects, evolved into a reaction against Marxism. Both Marxism and fascism opposed classical liberalism, both were revolutionary, and advocates of absolute government. The Italian strain of fascism looked more to Machiavelli and the idealism of Hegel, while the Germanic version took more of a cue from Nietzsche and the German romanticists.

Alienation

There can be little doubt that fascism was in some way the result of the alienation that followed the industrial revolution of the 19th Century. Science, technology, political changes, the philosophy of the enlightenment, and economic realities, created a barrier to man’s unity with the natural world. The philosophy of the 19th Century described the cosmos as a giant machine. That man was machine-like, and part of the greater machine, led to the feeling of not only being isolated from his fellow man, but also from nature. Veith says:

Fascism is essentially a response to the alienation that has been a part of the spiritual landscape of the West since the Enlightenment.

Logic and rationalism, with their cold analyses and denial of basic human impulses, have seemed stifling, heightening the sense of alienation. If objective knowledge is alienating, subjective experience is liberating and healing. Authentic existence comes from unleashing the emotions, cultivating the subjective and irrational dimension of life. The attempts to resolve the dilemma of alienation, understandable as they are, would find concrete and political expression in fascism.[7]

Romanticism

Romanticism became the antidote to alienation. It asserted the value of the natural world in that it was seen not as a machine, but as a living organism. Nature must not be approached with reason and intellect, but by experience, emotions, and irrationalism, as opposed to rationalism. The immanence of God (or gods) was emphasized while transcendence was denied. Romanticism was also characterized by nostalgia for the past and an admiration for the primitive. It was believed that primitive cultures were morally superior because they were more in tune with the natural world. Isaiah Berlin in his book: The Roots of Romanticism, says:

Fascism too is an inheritor of romanticism, not because it is irrational—plenty of movements have been that– nor because of a belief in elites—plenty of movements have held that belief. The reason why Fascism owes something to romanticism is, again, because of the notion of the unpredictable will either of man or of a group, which forges forward in some fashion that is impossible to organise, impossible to predict, impossible to rationalise. That is the whole heart of Fascism.[8]

Darwinism

In a sense Darwinism was a refutation of romanticism which held that by observing the beauty and harmony of nature one could be taught lessons of harmony and peace. Darwinism, however, saw the other side of nature, i.e., struggle, violence and cruelty. The law of nature is the survival of the fittest. Progress comes from ruthless competition, the strong destroying the weak. Darwinists theorized that if progress comes from struggle on the natural level, it must also come about that way on the social level (Social Darwinism). Darwinism gave new notions of heredity, race and environment. The Nazis took Darwinism to its natural conclusion: If you can breed better sheep by selective breeding why not human beings (eugenics)? Zeev Sternhell says Darwinism:

stripped the human personality of its sacramental dignity. It made no distinction between the physical life and the social life, and conceived of the human condition in terms of an unceasing struggle, whose natural outcome was the survival of the fittest.[9]

Much to the chagrin of modern-day evolutionists, Richard Weikart has written a whole treatise on the Nazi application of Darwinism to race and culture. If you want the proof, you will find it in: From Darwin to Hitler. In this incredible volume, Weikart quotes a German zoologist to show the extent of the Darwinian application among Nazi-fascists. The scientist was Robby Kossman.

Where our consolation is

When  others acts push splinters through our souls

And into strangers ears we pour our woes..

When grief and sorrow shudder thriough our walls.

And whether all is lost we cannot know

When what is in or out we cannot tell

When fantasy and dream become confused.

When darts of agony are felt to maim each cell.

When sensibility is utterly bemused. .

He ,in whom I to trusted, wills to fail

For what he  claimed  was friendship  was desire.

Now pain and disappointment make  me frail;

With torment know this person was a liar.

Then, having lost all other means to live,
oo
We turn to darkness where our consolation is

Patience will not smart

After Xmas many people part
The bills appear, the credit card is maxed
Divorce appeals to those with strangled hearts

Is such action foolish,will it  smart?
Do you really want your true love axed?
After Xmas many people part

The ghosts of Xmas past may seem to taunt
As if from some old wardrobe they’re unpacked
Divorce may leave us all with mangled hearts

Crude hate with its afflictions hits the charts
Can’t we focus more on  love than lack?
After Feasts too many people part

Unlike the worms so humble in the dirt
We have faces angry and alert
Divorce may leave  the hasty with  sad hearts

Forgive  but  if you can’t,  can you forget?
We expect so much of Xmas that it hurts
After Xmas many people part
Divorce appeals, oh, cheer your strangled hearts

 

By our own ignoring we’re deranged

Our sado-masochistic people jump for joy
Taken in by ads and lies and rage
Soon enough we’ll find we are mere  toys

Johnson knows the tricks in his employ
While from each other, subjects are estranged
Our sado-masochistic people jump for joy

We think we want  the best but are destroyed
By our own ignoring we’re deranged
Soon enough we’ll find we are just toys

Too late now  for a message to convey
We chose helplessness and angst  to have their reign
Oh, sado-masochistic people jump for joy

We will be numbered  like the European Jews .
Our rulers  kept them out, oh moral stain
Soon enough we’ll find we ‘re numbered toys

Once we had  our heads to hold our brains
Now our minds are trapped like that of Cain
Sado-masochistic people jump for joy
Yet by  ignorant  suffering  we’re destroyed

 

 

Christ came down  as weak as candle light

In a stable with no heat or light
Who will celebrate the birth of God
When we each deny our rage and spite

Psychosis swallows up  the dark of night
The star that shepherds saw  has filled with blood
Above a stable with no heat or light

We live with fear, we  know who has the might
Can our  minds contain both  bad and good
When we each deny our rage and spite?

We fail to know how others suffer fright
That they are persons  too , not understood
 Christ came down  as weak as candle light

We are each a world, there is no fate 
I see the tears  run down the face of God
When we each  engage our rage and  spite

Shall we  lose in darkness  or in  flood?
Asked a  man   bereft of  his  true love
In a stable with no heat or light
Love is born, is  frozen, is denied

 

 

Watched by men who  look  without a face

Boris Johnson  thrown out by his wife
Now he has a different tole in life
He has a  girlfriend will he have more kids?
Lucian Freud was  surely up for this
They say he might have had perhaps  thirty   two
With all that sperm what is a man to do?
He could take Precautions as they say
I  prefer icecream  but let’s go  stray
Lucian Freud  was not a man to  rule
They say he once burned down his own Art School
He married once, he married twice but no
He would not be captured  in Soho
Beautiful and strange he made his mark
Boris Johnson   has a  nuclear heart
Winter will come down upon us all
Europe we are sad, almost appalled
Sadness for the surgeon who cured me
The cancer  grew  like rampant lush ivy
He is Greek and no-one else was skilled
To leave me looking   better  than God willed
Will he  go back   to where  his grandad  came?
Say a little prayer for my dear face
I don’t want  to suffer but  all will
We’ll die sooner,  sadly Boris kills
The NHS is  going slowly  to its grave
Watched by men who  look  without a face

 

We may miss the  very clues we need

Emotional claustrophobia is widespread
We fear   our feelings,fear the sudden dread
We swing between attraction and dismay
Others have been seen to sink to prayer

Yet all alone at Xmas we are sad
Even   our other choice was dread
People who  can madden with crude noise
Feel some  one else might love their voice

Silence is  like music in  its  joy
No intrusion, no strong  words to annoy
But if we flee intrusion   at great speed
We may miss the  very clues we need

Oh, to find a lover  joyful in our space
When we long  for  touch, for wild embrace.

Between intrusion and abandonment

Between intrusion and abandonment
We  hope to find a  place  of trust and care
A place where we can  spend our loving wealth

Communion starts.our hearts enjoy love’s health
Here our bodies and our souls are bared
Between intrusion and abandonment

Walk  as does the tiger with its stealth
Treat your loved one well  as  both prepare
A place where  each can  spend this loving wealth

And if you are  alone, stay with  yourself
Do not neglect   that soul who’s always here
Without intrusion or abandonment

Quietly sings the soul  for all is meant
We’re inspired  by hope  and  not by fear
To  clear  a space , to  learn the dove’s  lament.

Take the tiller, love itself may steer
Our voyage through the  unknown ocean’s near
Between intrusion and abandonment
We  seek a   space  to share our loving wealth

 

 

This frail membrane  is our boundary

My room is warm and comforting and light
This feels  like kindness , brings my skin delight
I remember  being held in loving arms
And soothed by songs  as sweet as any balms

Let the lamplight run across  the eyes
Let them soften to a wider gaze
Let the hair  be free from wax and sprays
Let the skin enclose us, be our way

We can’t deny the skin is often pricked
Or beaten by a parent who’s too strict
More fragile than a leaf from any tree
This frail membrane  is our boundary

Floating into sleep in  reverie
I lose myself  while God imagines me

Well as it’s free we do not have to pay

I went to vote, the queue ran down the street
Strange to see the British change their ways
None were holding phones  nor were there bleeps

Eager faces, animation sweet
Well as it’s free we do not have to pay
I went to vote, the queue ran down the street

The staff were  kind, the voters  were no sheep
They did not need a shepherd  for this Play
None were holding phones  nor were there bleeps

The politicians   crippled by conceit
Put fake websites on the net  today
I went to vote, the queue ran up the street

I alas am  old  but I still sweat
The stupidity of   gossip  is  made clear
No-one made a video   of my seat

I  did not queue, a cripple  may   shed tears
All I  have is  sight loss and  burnt ears
I went to vote, the queue  stood   with no light
Smiling, patient people black and white

Never join conspiracies or choirs

Why do we love  those who love us least
To prove we can obtain whom we desire?
He makes cruel comments at the wedding feast

Do not call  this man a nasty beast
An animal is  better than a liar
Why do we love  those who love us   least?

He shouts  in rage because his shirt is creased
Throws your letters into the coal fire
He makes crude comments   at our Xmas feast

I do not mind  if you are dressed in fleece
Wear nylon shirts and  shoes with laces wired
Why do we love   most the late deceased?

Never borrow  men  who have no price
Never join conspiracies or choirs
If they make  “remarks”   don’t on them feast

The  old cathedrals have  the tallest  spires
With older men the risks are  sadly higher
Why do we love  those who love us least
Who  cannot be polite at wedding feasts?

 

I googled “Ending war”  but nothing came

 The wilder edges, hidden  cliffs of life
Sorrow slides into the hearts unnamed
As we see our neighbours fall to strife

We make our minds up,  this won’t happen twice
We  act from some gut feeling  reason’s lame
Walking the wild edges,tossing dice

The anger and the rage pierce  all, disguised
No caring for opponents. sharing blame
As we  and  many neighbours fall to strife

The smartphone has no answers I surmise
I googled “Ending war”  but nothing came
The Pennines have wild edges that surprise

The white rose and the red rose  compromised
The Queen  used like a weapon  in the game
As we  and once loved  neighbours fall to strife

See our faces wet with bloody stains
We prefer to fight, than use our brains
Oh,wilder edges,   flowers,  would bring delight
If  our neighbours end this goddamned   fight

 

 

 

 

I shan’t be alone

In my coffin I will have no phone
At last I shall be free  like  new born babe
But how will people hear my mobile groans?

Who shall write  my story on a  stone?
I can’t ring Emergency  for aid
In my coffin I will have no phone

I must have a linen sheet untorn
Be reminded I’ve already paid
How will people hear my mobile groans?

Out we go, as in we, came alone
Will someone sing for me ,   oh humming bird
In my coffin I will need no phone

We will  die as we have lived, atoned
I hope  a human person hears my words
Help  us all,dear God, to forestall groans

Free  from medications  .free of  nerves
 Straight to Heaven  atop our loved ones prayers
In my coffin I   shan’t  be alone
I want to go with all my garden gnomes

 

 

 

My naked flesh

On my journey into sleep I hold
A little bag which holds a tiny phone
I hold a spray of GNT  to bomb
My arteries as wide as a mother’s thumb

Yet I’d like to go in naked form
Trusting in the darkness as a balm
Before  all, this  I loved my naked flesh
That with my loved one I might be enmeshed

Now I seem in danger from myself
My own heart is severed from its wealth
Migraine of  the heart can lead to death
Through my artery I  express   wrath

What other mysteries can my body  know?
Thank God,I  only signed for Pay and Go

 

I pray the  silent music brings relief

img_20191201_185332-1Underneath the silence there is peace
A stratum clear  ;a different way of life
With music ‘s just discernible  relief

In the calm we find a pure release
Love can heal the wounds of a sharp knife
We embrace the silence ,welcome peace

The self  may break ,may shake in disbelief
Render us to fragments,soul denied
Does music   give discernible  relief?

Do not bury loss and hide your grief
We mourn  what’s gone and those who  have late died
Company in  silence   brings  us peace

Did you see your body lying creased
On the bed below your   hiding place?
Play with music, pray for  some relief

I  find myself  lie broken in a box
A jigsaw needing time beyond the clocks
Underneath the silence there is peace
I pray the  silent music  brings relief

 

Young Men Who Chase After Ghosts from “A Small Blue Marble” by Syd Weedon

Young men who chase after ghosts amuse me,when I fight through haunted night to keep them at bay.I want to say, “Just give them time; they’ll arrive,”but I don’t want to spoil their fun. Tissue frays; sharp becomes fuzzy. Night falls.Look straight ahead, not side to side. Shades gather.Don’t make eye contact or answer, or […]

via Young Men Who Chase After Ghosts — A Small Blue Marble

When after death I lie deep in the earth

O happy worm that of  my flesh might eat
When after death I lie in deep in the earth
My bosom,hands and eyes  become your meat

You have no sun as you enjoy your feast
And none is  chosen as we were at birth
O happy worm that of  my flesh might eat

All of us are equal in defeat
None are high or low , what are we worth?
My brain,my hands,my eyes  become worms’ meat

In the soil, we rest  in comfort sweet
Let us all be blessed,God  make no curse
You made the happy worms who   will  us  eat

O  remember the deep  ash from Auschwitz’ heat
The little children killed without Kaddish
Those  hearts ,those hands, those eyes   no worm   could eat

,
Why should we  be satisfied by wish

When  people burn or starve  beside our dish
O Godly worm that of  my flesh might eat
Let my very self  become your meat

The biggest part of our minds is the unconsious

 

 

 

 

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My art

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20160315-the-enormous-power-of-the-unconscious-brain

Exract

The non-conscious mind also plays a role in more sophisticated actions, whether it’s deciding on attraction to the opposite sex, completing mathematical sums or forming political views. There are even strange cases where people who are ostensibly blind can ‘see’, thanks to the non-conscious part of their minds: a phenomenon known as blindsight.

“There is debate in the field about whether consciousness even has efficacy,” says Eagleman. “By the time your conscious mind registers something, is it always just the last guy to get the news, and it doesn’t even matter what it thinks?”

Indeed, designers and advertisers have known how to control our non-conscious decisions for centuries. By using subtle cues designed to bypass conscious awareness, they can “trick” us so that we drive more safely, navigate cities in ways we do not realise and even drink more alcohol at the bar.

Race for the bottom

ashdown-house-2019-1

 

 

 

From the Guardian Newspaper

 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/10/racism-election-defined

Rather than understanding that all racisms, while distinct, are entangled with each other, we are encouraged to regard racisms as organised on a hierarchy of severity – one that perversely mirrors the power imbalance established by the idea of race itself. The reason why antisemitism is seen as more representative of “serious” racism is precisely because it has largely been seen as belonging to a “more racist era” in the past.

In contrast, the fact that Facebook ruled Islamophobic posts did not violate its “community standards” shows that Islamophobia has seeped so much into the everyday as to be seen as something other than racism. The same can be said for the racism facing black people, migrants, asylum seekers and Roma – especially as the Conservative manifesto has explicitly committed to confiscate the property of Gypsies, Roma and Travellers. Similarly, nearly 700 people drowned in the Mediterranean while trying to reach the shores of Europe this year alone, but the rising death toll of Fortress Europe is never identified as “racism”, due to our poor public understanding of race and racism.

Here in Babel

If I wrote the perfect poem this week
After  musing on the style and words
The world would end and no-one else could speak

How would the voters feel if this news broke?
  Election Day would be no doubt absurd
If I wrote the perfect poem this week

From the Mail, God seems to be a freak
The journalists  by such endings  are  deterred
The world would end and no-one else could speak

What is perfection, when does  judgment cease?
Here in Babel   which tongue will declare
If  I   write   the perfect poem this week

My pen leaks, now my paper sheet is creased
Is this war or love, block eyes that glare
The world may end then no-one else can speak

As we bite the apple or the pear
We leave the milk for infants  and their tears
If I wrote the perfect poem this week
This world would end then God might  find life bleak