http://www.universalteacher.org.uk/poetry/metaphys.htm#2

“Metaphysical poems are lyric poems. They are brief but intense meditations, characterized by striking use of wit, irony and wordplay. Beneath the formal structure (of rhyme, metre and stanza) is the underlying (and often hardly less formal) structure of the poem’s argument. Note that there may be two (or more) kinds of argument in a poem. In To His Coy Mistress the explicit argument (Marvell’s request that the coy lady yield to his passion) is a stalking horse for the more serious argument about the transitoriness of pleasure. The outward levity conceals (barely) a deep seriousness of intent. You would be able to show how this theme of carpe diem (“seize the day”) is made clear in the third section of the poem.”

Stan was teaching social statistics to a group of elderly neighbors.Since he was 109 it gave them all hope to see him demonstrating his prowess with various techniques.He was planning to do some logic and philosophy too.Annie was sitting by the door so she could answer the bell if any paramedics turned up for tea.
I’m not going to calculate ” the standard deviations” he murmured.”I just want you to grasp the general purpose.”
“Deviation,they’re not normal are they?” enquired his neighbor “Henry,an ex-English teacher.”So how can they be standard.It’s confusing..”
“Are you thinking of deviants?” Stan enquired calmly yet firmlililily.”Certainly not,at my age I’m a bit past that!””Still it adds a bit of excitement to the class.” he thought.
How do words in ordinary language relate to those in Statistics?”asked Henry kindlily.
“They are just more precisely defined in statistics.To say someone is a deviant is a rather vague term.”
“No,it’s not!My neighbor is a deviant.He always dresses entirely in yellow.”
“Well,that must be hard to do.Certainly unusual.” Stan agreed boldly.
“But in another country that might be the norm.So it’s a matter of context.In statistics it’s more boring.There’s a formula.It’s totally independent of context.Have you ever wondered why so many mathematicians have more than a touch of Asperger’s syndrome?”

“No,it’s not something that wanders through my mind much”replied Henry
A shudder passed through the room at hearing the word “formula“,which perhaps they considered something of a deviant!Anything with letters and numbers mixed together is certainly not welcome in many people’s minds, along with their more unusual sexual tastes,desires and inclinations which were kept secret even from themselves in many cases.

“Time for tea.” called Annie,hoping to divert their attention.She carried in a platter of mouse sandwiches kindly donated by the local ambulance service and some iced Victoria sponge she and Stan had made
the day before.
“Just a quick word about next week.We’ll take a look at ratios and proportions and maybe see how that relates to the concept of rationality.”
“That sounds fun!” Annie called encouragingly.Henry decided to act on a deviant desire and fell onto her lap.”Oh,dear!” she gasped loudly as the chair collapsed under her.”Why can’t you be deviant at home?”
“My wife won’t let me!” He kindlily answered.
“And look,” Stan continued,”we’ll have to ring 999.This chair is in fragments.I thought for one day we’d be able to avoid calling them out!”
“Well,life is not controllable.” said a quiet but fierce looking lady with sharp green eyes.”That’s what makes it tolerable“
She then greedily consumed a large piece of iced cake .
“I can stand the thinking if the cake is good” she whispered to her shy friend Amy.”That’s rather a feeble argument,”Amy retorted.”You can’t really compare cake and statistics.”
“I’ll compare anything I like!” the green eyed woman snarled loudly.
“You do what you like but you must keep a sense of proportion!”
“Now then,have you rung 999?” Stan queried of Annie.”Yes,here they are,and they’ve got a stretcher for the chair!”
“Well,that’s certainly unusual,even deviant“,Stan thought anxiously to himself.”Where do they get their funding? Is there a fund for distributing money to help chairs which are not normal?

.To be continued.. and continued

Art by Katherine 2005

http://www.rhymezone.com/r/rhyme.cgi?Word=mosquitos&typeofrhyme=nry&org1=syl&org2=l&org3=y&loc=home_ac_mosquito

Our other whose art is heaven
Mellow is your name
You’re king,how come?
You’re still bygone
On earth as it is so unpleasant
Live us today with holy dread
And forgive us our whispering
As we forgive those who whisper against love
And lead us yet into expectation
So believe fuss is evil
Be you whether,however, divine.

The mind is deeper than a well and wilder than a star
I lose myself in waters deep ,symbolic ,sweet and clear
I rest embraced by this love and wish for nothing more
I dream I walk in meadows sweet
The daisies in my hair

The heart has reasons and desires as if it were a mind
If it’s soft as cashmere wool then it will remain kind
Yet if it’s hard then it may crack and we will split divide
I dream I walk by river fleet
With heart and mind combined

The other self that dwells alone in privacy divine
Needs sacred care and fierce respect and peace from what’s malign
The inner nature of us all is given and then transformed
I dream I walk on long white sands
By seas blue, crystaline

I have so many phones I can’t go out
My handbag is too heavy for my arm
And watching them charge up makes me feel doubt

I had one and then got it a mate
This one was pink and so it had great charm
I have so many phones I can’t go out

Then I needed Android to read owt [owt= “anything”]
As I had google play books as a balm
And watching phones charge up made me get gout

I got a Windows phone to fend off louts!
I said to someone,can this do me harm?
I have so many phones I can’t go out

Then from my own chiropodist I bought
An i Phone 5 to act as an alarm
And watching that charge up made me grow stout

Around my bed, these phones float in a swarm
I am lonely for a human arm
I have so many phones I can’t think straight
And watching them charge up makes me feel nowt

=[nowt means “nothing” in Northern England]

Martin Buber: I and Thou, dialogue or touch?

” Consider, says Buber, the language of so-called primitive people, meaning those who are poor in objects, and whose life develops in face-to-face relationships of strong presence (p 69). The result is that “man becomes an I through a thou.” (p 80) This was and is always true, but the thou is becoming weaker, less present, in the contemporary world, as the it becomes more.

In sick ages [like our own] it happens that the it-world, no longer irrigated and fertilized by the living currents of the thou-world, severed and stagnant, becomes a gigantic swamp phantom and overpowers man. (p 102)

People want certainty, which leads men to flee from everything “unreliable, unsolid, unlasting, unpredictable, and dangerous” to a world marked by possessing things. You may treat your iPhone as a thou, but it will always remain an it, and you will become more it-like if you forget this.”

Oh, steam iron how I love your heat
And how you make my clothes so neat.
A flat iron is no use to me
For no open fire is here , you see.
And though I liked the flickering coals
I feared those faces that looked droll.
They were in the flames and peered
At anyone who ventured near.
I wonder how the people past
Kept their trousers neat and pressed.
Now I’ve bought a hand steamer
To keep the germs off my femurs
I didn’t like to say, my crotch
In case the devil is on watch.
I never ever used to think
My body perfume was distinct.
And yet it may appeal to men
I don’t want to try again.
One old husband is enough
Though he did enjoy a cough
He had asthma and bad eyes
Looking out with wild surmise.
He saw my golden hair float by
As by his window, it did fly
All at once he fell for me
And we sat by an apple tree.
His clothes were wrinkled so I thought
I would iron them for a start.
He could darn and polish floors
Cook lamb chops and apple cores.
So my steam iron sees much use
I wonder if it’s self-abuse
For as a woman feminist
I’m not meant to iron vests
I’m not meant to boil men’s socks
Nor underpants of interlock
I’m not meant to make them tea.
What a naughty person, me!
I must confess these wicked sins
Then I’ll polish my cake tins.
Satan wants me down in hell
Don’t say he needs work as well!
As he was an angel proud
I’ll save him into One Drive Cloud.

A ghost drives an old  cart by here at night
But few have ever seen this plaintive sight

I love you like an avocado pear
Would love a little lemon juice inside
I love you most when you are barely  there

I love you drinking porridge made with  beer
I loved you when  your cat with me abode
I love you like a sweet yet prickly pear

I hate a man who’s always dressed  and near
I  giggle when  your daydreams all collide
I love you most when you are rarely  here

I fear  real sex so why can’t  you  turn queer?
I said I liked it  out of cowardice
I love  myself and no one  compares.

I hate your touch so keep your  hands quite clear
Your arms are open but they are too wide
I love you when  there is no atmosphere.

It’s wrong to say that one sweet love has died
For often love has never been alive
I love you like an apple  or pear
I love you when you  tolerate my fear

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/oct/03/news.johnezard

“William McGonagall is under the direst threat today in his apparently unassailable position as author of the world’s worst poem.

The 19th century Scots bard’s notorious lament for The Tay Bridge Disaster:

And the cry rang out all o’er the town, Good Heavens! the Tay Bridge is blown down

has been challenged in favour of a single appalling last line by a more exotic British versifier, Theophile Jules-Henri Marzials: “Drop / Dead. / Plop, flop. / Plop”.

The poem is titled A Tragedy. The opening lines: “Death!/ Plop. / The barges down in the river flop. / Flop, / plop,” suggest that the author is brooding about suicide.

The 1873 collection of verse in which it was published, The Gallery of Pigeons, was once highly praised. But – in picking Marzials as one of the new entries for its website today- the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography says the poem is now claimed as the worst ever written. It quotes the last line as an example.”

When we’re born, it’s then we see the Light
After travelling single  and malformed
Through a tunnel like the circus fright
With no-one else to keep us well informed
No bus stop,no rail station,no train track
There’s only one direction, which is out
The walls themselves gyrate behind our back
Yet some are struck   and stuck by  fearsome doubt
The head is squeezed, the brain protests and fears
The body’s like a fish stuck in a spout
Here there are no fall back engineers
No drain inspector ,plumber to call  out.
Yet by  happy fortune most emerge
The light shall dazzle and  the love converge

The tree of colour is a noble find
Especially when it lives in your own mind

I am having a lot of  pain at the moment so I may be absent for a while.I have to do what is vital.Then I shall come back

https://www.londoncalling.com/features/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-poetry-translator

Extract

LC: Every single word holds its own importance in poetry. How do you translate the meaning of an individual word if there isn’t a translatable word in English? 

CP: Finding a solution is part of the fun. English is a very extensive, nuanced language, so there’s usually some way to do it if you think long enough.

LC: What challenges do you face when translating a poet who has a very different heritage and culture from your own? 

CP: The fun is that the challenges are always different. Translating the Somali poet Caasha Lul Mohamad Yusuf brings technical challenges because her poetry is structured around alliteration. She often references the Quran so there are allusions I can miss that would be obvious to a Somali audience. You worry about misunderstanding, and that you might not be able to carry a poet’s particular formal skill or music into English.

LC: In Somalia, poetry is regarded as the highest art form. What themes do you find reoccurring in Somali poems, and why do you think this art form is so important to their culture? 

CP: There’s lots of romance. Love, men and women, the romance of the land itself. The green after the rain; the honey. It can be very delicate and lyrical. There’s also politics. Lots of politics. There’s a real sense that poetry matters, that people are listening to what poets say. Somali culture was traditionally nomadic, so it’s no surprise poetry is important. Unlike other art forms, a poem is so light you can carry it in your head.

LC: What is your involvement with the Poetry Translation Centre? 

CP: I’ve been translating Somali poems for them for five years now, and Somali week has become a very important date in my diary! I’ve particularly loved working with Caasha Lul Mohamad Yusuf, and am excited that the PTC are going to publish a major book of her work next year with Bloodaxe called The Sea- Migrations. She writes so powerfully about being a black Muslim woman and immigrant. Her poems feel very necessary right now. I’m also involved in the PTC’s translation workshops. Every week we look at a poem from a different language, hear about the context and culture from a literal translator and attempt a group translation. Last term was a crash course on everything from Chinese poetical ambiguities to Swahili syllabics. It’s amazing what good translations the collaborative process can create.

LC: For someone who has never read translated poetry before, where is a good place to start? 

CP: The Poetry Translation Centre anthology My Voice is a wonderful way in. It has the originals facing the translations which is really important. The magazine Modern Poetry in Translation is also fantastic.

LC: What do you think the medium of poetry does that no other art form can do? 

CP: I’m drawn to the intensity. In a novel it can take several hours of emotional investment to get to the place where you cry, a good poem can do it in thirty seconds.

The empty tomb is here inside my house
Not entire and not destroying all
This space  where used to dwell  my  loving spouse

The consolation is   bitter excuse
The loss of  love, my future state appals.
The empty tomb is here inside my house

As I live, to whom am I of use?
Where is the voice that to my heart will call?
A space  where used to speak  my  loving spouse

There is no resurrection for  our race;
But from the nuclear threat we each recoil.
The empty tomb is here inside my house

How is the world now ruled by the debased?
Are we redeemed  ever from our  Fall?
I miss  exchanges with my artist  spouse

Must we build  more iron  prison walls?
How bitter, Jesus,  is the human  bile.
The empty tomb is here inside my house.
This space  where we  mused, as spouse to spouse

 

So dust to dust and ash to ash,oh lord
Let us mourn without more wrath,discord

In the war the artist made small maps
For  agents  dropped   in  occupied terrain
Then she bore her child with love  that gripped
And took her  like  kind armies might a town

Shaken by the wildness of  the good
She  let new life begin within her womb
Yet  those who’re occupied by what is bad
Will create not life but  their own tomb

The feminine, the artist soul,  the cup
Containers  made to hold  and so create
Can they  judge when passion takes a grip
The nature  fierce that  longs  and wills to mate?

As occupation by an egoistic force
Can make us sinful humans truly cursed

A book of patterns. beautiful as lace
But lacking life and warmth and  zest and fun
We need more than mere geometry of space

We need the flesh ,we  need the long  embrace
Where what was two shall turn into just one.
Passion,action, jewelled  with love’s grace

What is most human is the human face
To join our eyes and smile, so  life begins
We need more than a geometry of space

To show a blank face  is to show distaste
Schizoid,alien,anguished, with no twin
Passions mindful, orchestrated ,save.

How can we experience and not waste
The precious life we get when we are born?
We need a life  connected  like the waves.

Timeless, all is woven into one
The right, the wrong, the to the fro, the calm
A book of patterns. beautiful as lace
With living flesh we make a  holy space

The nearer  peace,more savage are the acts
Abhorrent to the atheist in us all.
History, undigested ,splits and cracks

As we whites  did evil to the black
With little difference, hate in glory calls.
The nearer  peace, the more savage the acts

All of us can  disremember facts
Israeli hands  have gripped and then appalled.
History, undigested ,splits and cracks

As ,with Bomber Harris, Dresden packed
Burned  like grass the refugees to ghouls
The nearer  peace, the more savage the acts

We deny the  healing  we have lacked
For  Jews we helped destroy, psychotic fools
History, undigested ,splits and cracks

Palestine’s own Arabs are  ill ruled
And in return,  explode  like stubborn mules
The nearer love, the more  the  hatred whacks
History., unconceivable,   directs

sweet spontaneous
earth how often have
the
doting

fingers of
prurient philosophers pinched
and
poked

thee
, has the naughty thumb
of science prodded
thy

beauty, how
often have religions taken
thee upon their scraggy knees
squeezing and

buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive
gods
(but
true

to the incomparable
couch of death thy
rhythmic
lover

thou answerest

them only with

spring)

Oh,  Oh,ginger cat you make your parents wince
As they watch you from the window  of their home
Why not go inside and eat their mince?

These  humans who have let you stay a dunce
And let you sleep upon  a cushion foam
Oh,Ginger you are making Mike and his wife wince

You sensed their home was warm and smelled of quince
And yet you hunt for birds and often roam
Why not go  and purr and eat sweet mince?

Adoption is a treasure fit for prince
And yet you  never write them a short poem
Oh, ginger cat you make your parents wince

Do not wash your whiskers and not rinse,
Conditioner makes your coat  get a good shine
So why not go inside and eat cat mince?

It’s hard to  draw correct cross species lines
And though you are a cat, you seem to  reign,
Oh, ginger cat, you give your parents  angst
Why not go to  town and rob a bank?

As useful as a nail without a head
As  stunning as a handbag full of lead
As loving as a man who seems quite dead
As tasty as a worm on  mouldy bread

These similes will indicate  to you
My bills arrive and I am getting through
As soon our morals will  be  fried in glue
Love itself will find no avenue.

As loving as a god who died for you
As  acid as a lemon when you’ve  flu
As  powerful as a tiger trapped in  zoo
Love will come and nobody  is true.

The metaphors and similes fly through
The minds of all the children who once knew
That meaning is a story writ by you
Imagination slowly saves the  few

His mission is to have a nuclear war
Then he would be appear in history books
The only questions , what  this war for?

Nuclear bombs  to him  are shiney   toy
Although  no  future author will be left to look.
For his vocation is to start the  final war

The death instinct is stronger than we know
For suffering humans and for legal crooks
The only questions  what  this war for

How the sins,  like fish, shall  leap and glow
Until the decent are untimely hooked
So opening the gates with Nazi heirs

On  tweet all the liars and their whores
On come ghosts and Satan’s  well trained cooks
The only question, what  this war  is for.

Oh, there will be no mourners  with their rites
As millions fry  without  long drawn out fights
His destiny, to have a nuclear war
The only question , what  this world is for.