I’m in deep now,never been this deep before The world’s hollow like a shell and I’m out its door. In so deep, the ocean has its own startled floor. I’m down,down.down.never been so dark , so more
I can’t rightly tell how I got where I am I think I had an accident,fell over, then I swam. Sometimes it’s a loss, be times it’s my man. I guess I only do it cos I know some folk can.
I don’t know if the joy is worth the pain Would I choose to relive if, I was born again? The deep joy is the amazing gain. But the sorrow is damn sad, let’s admit it plain.
I’m in deep and it’s over my head What was I thinking of,when I fell out of that bed? I look up and the sea’s so turquoise like that mist is red When we get good and mad and wish some loon was dead.
At first, it was all just black,black pain But from the bottom of the well, I looked up with awed love again. That’s when I recalled,feelings are deep and sane Joy is much greater when we’re in the deep,deep zone.
I dunno if I’m ever comin’ out. We can’t control it,ain’t that what life’s all about? I’ll never love with innocence again,nor not feel doubt. But I’m no teapot and the devil ain’t got my spout.
I’m swimming and the ocean’s so mysteriously bright Down here we don’t have no day nor no night Fish nudge me with big grins and teeth white Sea flowers fondle me and whisper,turn off that light
The tulips pushed the primroses away They took the pot from these innocuous plants Nature is not kind in such display The powerful plants can do just what they want.
However, I admire their flowers of red The shape is elegant, the colour clear. And had they been in a much bigger bed Both flowers would give us pleasure without fear.
And now magnolias pink my eyes adore Two of them I see from off the bus. A visual parable, a story for The short sweet life of all including us.
We deceive ourselves in order to survive. But shallowness makes trivia of our lives
London is bewildered by its roads The Circular, the North,the South, th da wase QCodes The Morse and the Enigma, Turing broke So now we have new bicycles with spokes Once we had the A to Z in hand Turn it upside down and you’ll be grand New technology has made great strides Carrying us to Eden ,what a ride The motorways are empty for tonight God decided we had too much Light He taught the bare cheeked Moon on Jesus’ Mount To turn the other side when love’s about I liked to use a compass and a map But now, my dear, most everything’s on tap I crouch beneath my sister as she drives In the dark on the M 25 But if it’s closed, we are completely foxed We left the old Road Atlas in a box Along with all my ex’s underpants And naturally his principles of Kant We may be in Watford or in Bucks I often wonder what will rhyme with luck We may be near St Albans, we can’t see The car ran up the trunk of an oak tree We rang 999 and they are here A fire engine filled up with Kentish beer A ladder for the ladies to climb down Now they are just women on the town London exists no more as a real spot MI 5 are joining all the dots
I tried to draw this from a photograph when I had only just begun to learn joy so it’s not at all realistic but there’s something about it that my sister likes and so because of that I have helped her she is the one on the extreme left.
I’m the only one still alive now
It’s the cancer. I’ve not long left
You’ve been a good sister
For several days I was able to send messages to comfort her and help her and once you could no longer speak one of her sons read out one of my poems to her and a little smile came on her face.
She was still a devout Catholic I never believed that I would consider giving anybody some rosary beads or that it might help anybody but in fact she told was she was using her fingertips because she had no beads to pray on and so I sent her some rosaries and she was holding them in her hands when she died.
I asked if I could have them then but they had left them in her hands.
So I have to get some more because it’s a sort of link to her and to my mother and others. I don’t think it’s idolatry. People need something to touch when they had no longer speak properly or at all and she knew when she touched them that I had sent them to her so it was all I could do since she was 160 miles away from me.
In a way hearing the diagnosis was worse than when she actually died because at first she was in a terrible mental state and was suicidal but she lived long enough to see her daughter’s second baby born and the baby was one month old when she died
Now the babys 10 months old and very lively and full of interest but of course she won’t remember my sister that is what is so sad for her mother.
Soul making is a phrase from Keats.{ link to article by Jeffrey C. Johnson in Paris Review]
We saw Wolf Hall on TV recently and it is so wonderful.I am just writing down a few of my thoughts not about that but about Anne Boleyn… I meant it to be funny but I could n’t manage that after seeing the play.
ANNE BOLEYN
Anne Boleyn withheld to win
As Henry lusted in his sin.
Once a virgin,sweet Madonna;
Henry turned in rage on her.
She bore him but one living child,
For her quips,she was reviled.
Henry knew not the fault was his
It seems the king had syphilis.
Or Anne was rhesus negative
then just her first born child would live.
We women make our worst mistake
When power for love we wrongly take
Our strength lasts but till we submit.
We need less love and far more wit.
Whatever lusty men may say,
their “love” dies when they get their way.
And they will take their wife by force
As cannons pound on oaken doors.
As for women,we must not
Promise gold we have not got.
Conception is a game of chance;
We come to be by happenstance.
we sin in pride in promising
What only God or Nature bring.
We deceive and trick and charm
At last our hearts bang in alarm
The man who begged upon his knees
Chops off our heads when we displease.
For Emperors and Kings and Lords
Wield fearful power by the sword.
Yet when for judgement they shall stand
How will point the knowing hand?
And just like us they’ll ashen be
When true majesty they see.
Into dust and crumbled ruin
they will go by their own doings.
Each day create with grace your soul.
Cracked shall be the golden bowl.
Keats wrote this extract below [read all by clicking on soul above[ and he died when aged only 25 years:
I will call the world a School instituted for the purpose of teaching little children to read—I will call the human heart the horn Book used in that School—and I will call the Child able to read, the Soul made from that school and its hornbook. Do you not see how necessary a World of Pains and troubles is to school an Intelligence and make it a soul? A Place where the heart must feel and suffer in a thousand diverse ways!
It seems that our friends are part of our immune system in a very real sense to coin a phrase. If you see what I mean etc
We don’t need an excuse to hug our friends
Find a friend or family member and ask for a hug. That warm squeeze will give you a lift — and could even make conflict less upsetting, according to one study.
Hugging could also help your immune system, another study says.
Don’t put a comments box on your post because if people put comments on you’ll have to reply to them and that will take up your precious time.
Never read blogs written by other people. You have read all the great writers so why bother?
Don’t allow “likes” either because people might “like” things that they’ve not read
Then the only statistics you get will be the number of visitors and their countries. You don’t even need to bother to look at that
So why would you continue to blog once you put all those restrictions on your blog?
Well you just have to try it. You are still writing and someone might read it possibly but you will never know and you’ll certainly won’t know who they are or whether they are interested in the same things as you etc
Maybe you want to show your friends or your family that you have a blog but you don’t want anything negative written on it although as a matter of fact most people are very courteous and dont write really horrible comments like the following
Do you consider yourself to be a poet? You must be very conceited.
These poems are getting worse month by month so this is my duty to tell you that you’re wasting your time here. You’d be better off going for a walk.
Do you consider these to be short stories? Even children wouldn’t bother to read them and they normally like stories are some cartoons as well it might help but I can’t guarantee that unless you improve the quality.
Well if only you would stop writing it would free up 45 minutes of my time every day and I could stay in bed longer in the morning looking at the clouds go past my window.
Of course I could ignore your blog but you might think that was rude
Perhaps you could write an article about why people like to stay in bed longer in the morning. And is it true when you are getting older?
Personally I’m sick and tired of being in bed and I’m in bed because I’m sick and tired.
I am sorry that going to the pain in my hands at the moment I cannot do copying and pasting but this article is very worthwhile and it includes a video
It’s hard to find something at the right level and it does not make you have to memorize lots of long names that you will never really find useful in your writing
Because what matters is to write not to fast examinations about writing although it’s obviously very useful to know as much as you can manage of techniques even if you don’t want to use them.
Saturday was shopping then a walk Epping,Ongar,Finchingfield by car Reading book reviews and chewing stalks Buttercups and meadows,Henry Moore
Driving back from Chelmsford, cornfields flamed Smoke and fire and earth, the sun dismayed Farmers working hard, a harvest, grain The sky through mist a cobalt blue displayed
Standon with its fords and wandering cows Little rivers,Essex, flowing down The Stort joins with the Lea,a gurglimg sound Water for the Thames and mossy ground
The earth feels like my body sacrificed An artist’s canvas stretched , a matricide
Oh, lidded kettle boil me water fast I cannot live without your heated blast Your spout is small but perfect for its use And, as your lid is hinged. it can’t get lost
An electric kettle made by Russell Hobbs A teapot with a spout and lid with knob Are what the Britons need in times of storm If crisis comes, we need tea hot,not warm
I don’t object to diverse kettle brands. We had a coal fire once with kettle stand. Its metal black from soot and burned by coke We made our neighbours tea which seemed to smoke.
Ah,kettle ,instrument of civil life We cannot boil our water on a knife
Are bring and buys considered decorous,Emily fretted.
Give help immediately to Jackie’s kittens,Lorna.
My name often passes quotidian testing.
Why X-rate your zoom?
And buy cameras down Eastside for Greta.
Have I Jolted Klaus’s lot?
My number often precedes quantities rendered silent.
To understand videos we x-ray your zapper
As boys create dens essential for growth ,her inner Joker laughed merrily
Need often precedes qualitative results so theory uses watery.X rays
Yonder zodiacs are better counted down each Friday given her inept jangling locks.
My needs often pessimistically quell roosting turkeys.
Use version Waterman.X, yes,zero.
Amwell ,because Christmas Day exists for gaging her inner judge.
Lend me no open papers,questions rated summarily tested when?
Your X zapped Anna.Be clear,darling,
Enjoy framing geese,hens, joked Larry,
Men need only present quarry sent to Wigan.
X Y Z
Shall I miss the journeys that we made
Up sheer cliffs and through deep muddy yards
Chased by geese and then in heather laid?
I cannot catch you now, it is too far.
You cleaned my boots back in the cottage sweet
On the bed, you covered me in coats
Tenderly you stroked my crooked feet
And hot and sugared tea you once more brought
A dog stopped by and held out its clean paw
It shook your hand and gazed with amber eyes
Remote and cold, the Hartland Cliffs we saw
Where have you got to now, my love, disguised?
Danger and delight then drew us on
I cannot find your face, where have you gone?
You may never have read a poem in your life, and yet you can pick up a volume of Mary Oliver say, or Neruda, or of Rumi, open it to any page, and suddenly find yourself blown into a world full of awe, dread, wonder, marvel, deep sorrow, and joy.
Poetry at its best calls forth our deep being. It dares us to break free from the safe strategies of the cautious mind; it calls to us, like the wild geese, as Mary Oliver would say, from an open sky. It is a magical art, and always has been — a making of language spells designed to open our eyes, open our doors and welcome us into a bigger world, one of possibilities we may never have dared to dream of.
This is why poetry can be dangerous as well as necessary. Because we may never be the same again after reading a poem that happens to speak to our own life directly. I know that when I meet my own life in a great poem, I feel opened, clarified, confirmed somehow in what I sensed was true but had no words for. Anything that can do this is surely necessary for the fullness of a human life.
Autumn rust,red,gold,so gay.
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.
Feel their geometry in the mind.
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 great silence
My mind opens 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.
According to Hopkins, its intended effect was to reflect the dynamic quality and variations of common speech, in contrast to the monotony of iambicpentameter. His own poetry illustrates its use; though there have been few imitators, the spirit and
While there is life there is hope because while we’re alive we can change our perception and if we change our perception we will see new things that we’ve not been able to see before and one of those might be what we need
But if we are certain that we are right then we will not change our perceptions and we will try to inflict our views on everybody else.
The wisdom of these old sayings is very interesting and it shows that most of the things that we know where discovered by ordinary people not by academics
Of course there are some wonderful academics but sometimes I wonder about this
Do you think it might be a urinary tax inspection ?
You have to tell them how much urine you pass in a day. I’m not sure what are the rate of tax is
If you have sepsis you stop passing water and so getting sepsis could be aware of avoiding tax although it may only be for a very short time before you die and then you would not have to pay any kind of tax
Do you mean that we are allowed to die in this country without paying any tax?
Yes if it’s a sudden death.
When we have assisted dying then you can notify the tax office of the date you’ve chosen and ask them are you liable for tax? If not you could die twice for the same price. That is free
When they say that they’ve got a virus what they mean is that a virus has got them
Viruses that kill people are not very sensible because the viruses will die when you die or soon afterwards. Is that why they put you in the fridge?
What is this sense of humour you’ve developed today? I blame it on the doctor.
I thought she was going to diagnose me with cancer and all it was was a bloody infection.
If it’s bloody you might have crystals in your urine.
That sounds promising can I sell them to anybody?
You see everything is transactional now even friendship.
So I’m offering my friendship on the following formula
One for the price of two.
In other words I will be your friend if you pay me double the normal rate and anyway who tells us what’s the normal rate for friends to be paid or to pay?
Of course we all pay the price of our sins but that is in a metaphorical sense… sin diminishes us. It limits our perception and therefore our behaviour based on that perception. So anything that improves perception changes the world that we see and then our own actions will change it more for other people.
We don’t hear the words sin much nowadays. But that doesn’t mean that there is none.It is a cunning trick.
By the way some parents in Germany have been forbidden to call their child Lucifer. The judge said it might limit the child’s job opportunities in adult life
Do you think that I’ve made that up? No it was in one of the leading newspapers in Britain
And where are they leading us I wonder in this confusing and dangerous era?
Time will tell but there’s a lot of disaster around
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/roger-housden/importance-of-poetry_b_884319.html
How my heart speaks 