Author: Katherine

Poetry writer and author

Are we to blame?

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Mike Flemming is to blame for this photo

http://bostonreview.net/forum/barbara-fried-beyond-blame-moral-responsibility-philosophy-law

 

“There are other possibilities that neither hold us hostage to reactive attitudes such as blame nor require us to view others from a position of moral superiority or indifference. We could begin by extending to others the interpretive generosity we would wish for ourselves were we standing in their shoes. Here is Erin Kelly’s eloquent account of what such a standpoint might entail:

While it seems to me that we are not morally required to enter into a wrongdoer’s perspective enough to appreciate the difficulty of the obstacles that led her to falter, the possibility of a compassionate recognition of the reasons for a person’s moral failures humanizes relationships and opens possibilities for understanding, forgiveness, and an honest reckoning with faults we might share.

Which kind of respect would you rather have? “

In some cultures customs become laws,is this logical?

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This photo is from Russia Today.I thought it was the Radio Times for a few minutes

Why  or when should a custom become a law? Why would it be necessary? If it were the custom to eat Christian missionaries in some remote African tribe,ought that to become a law thus ensuring their descendants would cry:
But mother I don’t want to eat a Christian missionary,I want some green leaves and a banana!
And as many of the missionaries were celibate the supply would run out hence it follows that these poor folk would have to build ships and sail to Britain to find some more as they were common here once but now only a few are left in the wilds.
Would you agree that customs might  make bad laws and which of your customs would you love or hate to become laws?

Human words

By Katherine

Words have far more power than we know
We speak with little care and little thought
Hitting human hearts like leaded snow

Thoughtlessly we chatter as we go
Loving silence needs now to be taught
Words have far more impact than we know

On and on in speech we let it flow,
Or by a news reporter we are caught
Hitting human hearts like leaded snow

Some use their words mainly as a show
Meaning nothing, harming those untaught
Words have far more power than we know

When we speak there is an undertow
Like a turning tide well out of sight
Hitting human hearts like leaded snow

Oh, where is there a place with better light?
We did not intend to start a  fight
Words have far more power than we think
Stinging human hearts until they sink

Words of wisdom

 

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I did this using Microsoft Paint on Windows Vista which was a very simple programme
On Windows 10 it is more complex but you have to draw with the cursor which is hard in either case

“It is not inertia alone that is responsible for human relationships repeating themselves from case to case, indescribably monotonous and unrenewed: it is shyness before any sort of new, unforeseeable experience with which one does not think oneself able to cope. But only someone who is ready for everything, who excludes nothing, not even the most enigmatical will live the relation to another as something alive.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

“You don’t know what work these conditions are doing inside you”

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“Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any misery, any depression, since after all you don’t know what work these conditions are doing inside you? Why do you want to persecute yourself with the question of where all this is coming from and where it is going? Since you know, after all, that you are in the midst of transitions and you wished for nothing so much as to change. If there is anything unhealthy in your reactions, just bear in mind that sickness is the means by which an organism frees itself from what is alien; so one must simply help it to be sick, to have its whole sickness and to break out with it, since that is the way it gets better.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

All our ethics fled as hate ran loose

The old man stumbles as he sits by me
We were both athletic in our youth
Now we’re wounded by life history.

We sat in pain on plastic sloping seats
London Transport fears  a crazy thief
The old man stumbles as he sits by me

Oh,I would love to sit down by the sea
And let the tide  remove my tears of grief
We’re  each wounded by life history.

Yet we’ve lived three times as long as Keats
The artist soul who died still in his youth
The old man stumbles as he sits by me

My granny  had 10 sons  but four would die
Another  shot in France,oh God on high!
We’re  each wounded by life history.

The genocides and wars unstructured truth
And all our ethics fled as hate ran loose
The old man stumbles as he sits by me
We  wound   and kill  the Others as they flee

 

What is Sacred? by Lee Herrick

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https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57225/what-is-sacred

Launch Audio in a New Window
I have no idea what priests
dream of on Christmas Eve, what prayer
a crippled dog might whine before the shotgun.
I have no more sense of what is sacred
than a monk might have, sweeping the temple
floor, slow gestures of honor to the left,
the right. Maybe the leaf of grass tells us
what is worthwhile. Maybe it tells us nothing.
Perhaps a sacred moment is a photograph
you look at over and over again, the one
of you and her, hands lightly clasped like you
did before prayer became necessary, the one
with the sinking cathedral in Mexico City rising up
behind you and a limping man frozen in time
to the right of you, the moment when she touched
your bare arm for the first time, her fingers

Feel their geometry in the mind

It’s Autumn weather, geese fly by,

Autumn rust, red, gold, low,high.

Drystone walls edging fields,

Apples gathered,holly berries

Flash so brightly

Look like flowers

Sun shines sideways,shadows long

Of trees appear.I dwell among

Woods of gentle beeches sing

Swaying with the sideward wind.

See their roots, all intertwined.

 

Look up now into the sky,

See the V formation high.

Geese fly home at end of day.

My heart is moved by patterned dance

In this peace and vast silence

My mind widens like the sky

And in this moment I would die,

So I could stay with this still vision

Of geese set out on autumn mission.

Snails in rain pools slither near

My feet upon the terrace here

And look,upon their whorled backs

All the sense of life is packed.

And yet so easily Life’s destroyed

When blind foot steps into the void

While buildings ,once thought beautiful, decay

 

Life is  lonely in the city here
We left our birthplace seeking  work that paid
So many folk, yet nobody is near.

The mass of crowds  brings on a paranoia
While buildings ,once thought beautiful, decay
Life is   alien in the city here

From the doorways ugly faces leer
Like evil children,  tortured by dismay
Many people,  nobody who’s near.

The birds don’t sing  yet I can hear them jeer
Then fly in circles in a fierce display
Life is alien in the city here.

My eye is dry, it lacks a single tear
As I become neo- static with despair
Many people,  nobody who’s near.

Why can’t I be merry, if not gay?
Why do thoughts so savage my heart flay
Life is  lonely in the city here
So many folk, so few  who will come near

If God won’t come to me, then I’ll go there

I planned to make a cake for Easter Day
Almonds ,raisins, sugar, eggs and flour
But God and my old man,have gone astray

If they’re not near,I wonder should I pray?
Into who’s ear shall my words be poured?
I planned to make a friend for Easter Day

If God won’t come to me, then I’ll go there
In my mind, I’m off at any hour
But God and my old man,have gone away

Can I buy a ticket on the way?
I’ll wear a mac and hat with little flowers
I planned to make a cake for Easter Day

Alternatively, should I see that Play?
Erase my google history in the shower?
As God and my old man,have gone away

Disabled and half blind, I laugh at power
I am so wise my humour seems to glower
I planned to make a cake for Easter Day
But God and my old man are in that Play

 

To lose our self in seeing brings us peace.

Attention in each moment gives us grace
To lose our self in seeing brings us peace.
We see the most when we are most effaced

Life is like a tapestry of lace
The little threads connect and never cease
Attention to each moment brings us grace

A friend who never doubts, we can’t embrace.
They make themselves more boring than a beast
We hear the most when we are most effaced

A friend who’s open gives our hearts solace.
With these, we share the wine, enjoy a feast
Attention to each moment brings us grace

We will meet new lovers as we play;
Who notice the sweet details, most and least.
We feel the most when we are most effaced

In our soul, we feel the spring release.
Guarded by attention, not police.
Attention in the moment, that is grace
We see the most when we are most effaced

  The Nightmare Complex

 

To write a poem I dream an undreamed dream
The woods in France deformed by dead young men
A nightmare complex in its perplexed themes

In our dream the narrative has means
To make those killed communicate again
To write a poem I dream an undreamed dream

Later, in another war, trains steamed
To take the “insect” Jew, no longer “man.”
A nightmare simple in its evil themes

The little pearls we half see, as we scheme
The evasions we ignored but which remained.
We read a poem, we dream an undreamed dream

Who we are and who we might have been
At 4 am in isolated pain
The Nightmare Complex, come to share your screams

Can any see the woods as Dante aimed
To recreate the moment where we change?
To write a poem embodies soldiers’ dreams
Nightmares dark yet piercing wartime themes

Thinking about a poem I wrote after my husband died

Why I am writing this is because when I wrote the poem below it took am unexpected turn.I wrote

I thought maybe I’d follow,
To see where you have gone

Which is how many of us feel when bereaved.
But the next line was a total surprise

But there’s a  hand upon this tiller    That is not mine alone.

So another part of my mind was sending me a message that I must not decide by myself  that I should follow my husband {I would never do that unless I was terminally ill but many of us feel  that way]

.That another part of me or my soul is saying:

The hand upon my tiller
The mystery of the dark
The unknown one who lives in me
And sings like a skylark.

I am more than ” me” or my conscious self and if you believe in God you might say God has other plans.
I hope he likes my short hair!
We don’t need to mention God, we can say a deeper part  of our self.

 

DON’T LEAVE ME

Come back to me,my sweetheart

Don’t leave me all alone.

Come back to me,my darling

I can’t believe  you’ve gone.

I’m  crying  ‘cos I’m feeling blue again.

I’m  crying’cos I’m falling like a stone.

 

Oh, let me tempt you with my beauty

And my voice forever young.

Let me tempt you with my spirit

My laughter and my songs.

I’m crying ‘cos I never did you wrong.

I’m crying ‘cos with you I do belong.

 

I thought maybe I’d follow,

To see where you have gone

But there’s a  hand upon this tiller

That is not mine alone.

I’m crying ‘cos I wrote this old blue song.

I’m crying ‘cos we’ve been apart too long.

 

The hand upon my tiller

The mystery of the dark

The unknown one who lives in me

And sings like a skylark.

I’m singing ‘cos I wrote you a new song.

I’m singing ‘cos  with music we belong.

Well, if it is retweeted it is eternal,in a very real sense

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Drawing by Katherine I think
She cut my  hair very short so it won’t drop  out if I have cancer
Can you get cancer in your hair?
She said it looked thin if it was long but now it is almost invisible.
If you have cancer,it will take your mind off your hair
So that’s where my mind has gone!
Anyway,cancer is common now
Don’t be so insulting.I am poor but educated
That’s  a surprise.
Why?
Your vocabulary is small
Well,I am, trying to lose weight so I cut out all the words like Schrodinger, infinity, theologian,mystery,Israel,Jesus,love.Jordan,Negev, glottal stop and algebraic topology
So you must be bright if you can remember them even though they were deleted
What is ” deleted”?
It’s the opposite of defeated.
I can’t believe that.
How about retweeted?
Well, if it is retweeted it is eternal,in a very real sense
We deleted “eternal” but God is still here.
So we can’t delete God?
We can delete “God” but not God.
It’s a bit like the gap between the nameless and the name as Leonard Cohen sang in “The Window”
Was it Windows 10?
No it’s about Love coming in through an open window.
And I suppose it goes out through the door
Eventually  it seems to
While we bless the continuous stutter of the Word being made into flesh
Wow.
That was  what LC sang
So  tell me, can you get cancer in your mind?
It would be a metaphor ,like some part of your mind is out of proportion to the rest
No doubt too much higher education can do that
Yes, they are hoping high fees will save the minds of the multitude
Can I believe the Government is doing it out of Love?
Well, there is faint chance.
Infinitesmal.
Be careful or you will put more weight on!
I’ll have to go dumb
For someone Irish that is hard
I’m only 62% Irish
62.5,actually.
Well,I am trying to accentuate my Viking genes
I do like your jeans.Where did you get them?
I found them on a chair in  the bathroom.
Has someone left them?
It’s those elves that come in the night and move all your stuff about.
But their jeans would be very small
It’s all relative.
And so say all of us

My cat

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When Oscar sits on the windowsill
And sees someone within,
His mouth opens wide in soundless cry,
He gives us his cat grin.
Oscar rubs around my legs
He’s such a friendly soul.
He then rolls round upon his back
And waves his long striped tail.
But after Oscar’s greetings done,
He’s off to do his rounds.
He sets off from the white door
To the long thin gardens end.
Every inch of soil and seed
Is subject to his nose.
The garden looks one way to us,
But he can see much more.
I wish that Oscar cat could talk
And tell us what he’s found.
Ten thousand spider’s weaving webs,
A slow worm on the ground.
A million ants climb up the rowan,
I sometimes watch them too.
I see the striped wasps and honey bees
In this small natural zoo.
The hedgehogs sweet have long been gone,
but we have diverse birds.
Oscar sits on my tall stool.
He watches them for hours.

Human Textual Despondency

Freud wrote a book called Moses and Monotheism during the transition he was forced to make  to the UK from Vienna  owing to fear of Nazi arrest and its consequences.His four sisters all died in those Concentration Camps.In this book he apparently suggests that Moses was Egyptian.Edward Said has also written a book about Moses.Some people say he was a ruler in Egypt who had to leave for political reasons….He was obviously very talented.

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Moses was an Eruption I hear.So he had to be kept warm in a basket.
Then Foureyes daughter let him gloat  down on the  River Nile…till a bull rushed him
Then he turned into a shrew and found God.. or God found him
But God would not let him find Galilee so he found Emilee ,Loelee and Phoeebilee linstead.
He had many children such as Matthew,Hark,Look and Gone.They were all men and had more children with no wives.They didn’t have any women so who did Cain and Abel marry?Eve?
Is this what Freud never realized… men used to marry their mothers and later their daughters who were also their sisters,Crikey,what a blunder
Blimey what is this Bible?Libel?
As we were taught in school Daniel lived with a lion and a lamb.I’m unsure if they had children…. it might explain a lot if they did.
And finally Solomon was very wise.It was easier then when there was no judge or jury to stop him cutting a baby in two… well, he was just pretending.
I say,the Shrews were very shrewd and clever.Like who told Adam and Eve what to do before Masters and Johnson wrote that book.. the Human Textual Despondency?
In any case Adam could not read.In fact they didn’t write either.And to think children here can write so young.Adam and Eve  have lots of family
Everybody on Earth… pity they are dead and can’t see us though Goodness knows they’d be shocked if they saw our behaviour with our family.

 

What it’s like writing a poem

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Sometimes it’s absolutely plain and simple .I am sitting in the garden and this enters my mind:

Random apples
Fall Silently
On unknown Newtons

That was it.

Sometimes I get a sentence,usually a line of song with music which I hum.
Quite often it is not the first line,but a middle line.I write it down when I get home:

Your words have cut my heart like  freezing snow

Then I have to decide what kind of poem.It suggests a villanelle to me so I have to get a first line

I  opened your last letter  with no clue

I like half rhymes
I  opened your last letter  with no clue
Eating  in my garden by the pond
Your sentence cut my heart like  freezing snow

 

I have changed the last line  as sentence implies judgement as well as a structure of words

Snow and pond  have a lot of rhyming words so I  think I can use this stanza to begin

The  Letter sent by a coward
I  opened your last letter  with no clue
Eating  in my garden by the pond
Your sentence cut my heart like  freezing snow

 

I opened  your last letter then I knew
I mistook your words,I had been conned
I  opened your last letter  with no clue

My heart  beat wildly wondering what to do
My eyes went blind, your hatred was unearned
Your sentence spat on me like  hail and snow

Round my mind, like birds emotions flew
No  cause nor explanation I discerned
I  opened that last letter  with no clue

My face  turned white,my voice  was muted so
Silently, I staggered from my chair
Your sentence cut my soul like  freezing snow.

What helps us when we have such pain to bear?
Will we  want to live or  love or care?
I  opened your last letter  with no clue
Your sentence,  like a  rod, beat me anew

I shall leave it like this.I might post it because if I imagine another person reads it I can see it more objectively and may see weaknesses.Sometimes I change it when I move it to a poetry website.

 

Fake friends and fake news

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http://www.wikitanica.com/2016/05/fake-friends-quotes.html

 

“From my opinions here are some tips to look out for friends if they are real or fake?

  1. Do friends bully other friends?
  2. Do friends swear a lot?
  3. Do friends backstab each other?
  4. Do friends gossip when you nor around?
  5. Do friends fake being your friend?
  6. Are friends  around you when you feel down?
  7. Do real friends exist?

Question to ponder on: Are you a good friend?

He was so handsome my ears wept

Photo0746.jpgHe was so handsome my ears wept
I smile crookedly as the 23 injections  of anaesthetic was very unaesthetic including a scar like a winding river down the side of my nose with 38 little holes were the stitches went
He was so charming I collapsed and died.
Her smile was completely vertical and so was I not.
His face was a parabola  of joy
My figure became an ellipse and my lines  vanished
He was so ugly, it was a relief to kiss him
As he aged  he shrank so it was easier to kiss him without standing up or down.

As dancing bends the space around the movers rapt, sublime

My lover went to Lapland for he found  my love too warm
You  porcupine, he hollered out, I prefer a seal
Are you sure.I questioned him, for I did not wish him harm
I need to get away from you, I  want  a conger eel.

He set off in his brand new car, the ferry was quite late
He  was a little angry but drink gave him false calm
He got talking to a mermaid and  now she is his mate
She lives deep in the icy sea and he loves her frigid arms

I don’t know how you would feel, if after twenty years
Of being called a porcupine, when swaddled iin his arms
Your lover  found the Northern Pole, and left you only tears
At least I can enjoy my bed without  his wild alarms

The melody is not the words but how they are combined
I  have lost all faith in men , unless their names form rhymes
I  know we have got clocks today but meter bends the time.
As dancing bends the space around the movers  rapt, sublime