It is very hot here today which makes it harder for the people in the fire-torn block.I went ahead and erected my garden parasol as I have not sat outside for 3 years.We used to eat there.I was thinking, here is me in my garden and all the poor folk are crammed into dangerous buildings which I think must be uncomfortable even normally.My perennial geraniums have run wild.I can’t manage to download the photos yst

I

f you live in West London the Red Cross say they need blankets the most,Clothes as well.This puts things into perspective.

London suffers  more catastrophe
As  screams awaken sleepers in this tower
A high rise block with only one exit
Oh, many now will take their mourning flowers.

Some  have made the SOS sign now
Seen by people standing in the street
The firefighters are not allowed  inside
So soon it will be death these people meet

Who designed these cheap and dangerous flats?
I can’t believe they had no fire exits
Was the Referendum a cheap vote?
Will we be asked to suffer through Brexit?

These cheap flats  brought death to many folk
To leave the EU  now seems but a jape.

The seed of God is in us.
Given an intelligent farmer and a faithful field hand,
it will thrive and grow up to God
whose seed it is and, accordingly,
its fruit will be God-nature.
Pear seeds grow into pear trees.
Nut seeds grow into nut trees.
God-seeds into God.
 
Go to the depths of the soul,
the secret place of the Most High,
to the roots,
to the heights.
For everything that God can do,
is there.

Meister Eckhart, Christian mystic, Germany (1260-1328)

• Been awful scary  in the night
• Bees were forgiven by wasps
• Be not a maid without a head
• It’s still my soul what heals
• Do Thou My Revision
• Before the Sun Burned Bright
• Blessed are aspirins
• Testicles for women now
• Obstacles  for the blessed detergents
• I’m tickling  the free children.I’m a gnat
• Why bees were right
• Go  brown, O loaf insane
• Come, wholesome toast
• Come, hordes, and marry not
• See my pay, my proof, my lies
• Come, rejoice before your baker
• Come,  those Holy Spirits, Come. I’ll have brandy, he wants rum
• Come, come, come to the Mersey
• Fall over Niagara

Catholic priest giving Absolution to a man murdered by the British Army on Bloody Sunday 1972

Donald Trump looks orange on TV.And Theresa May wants to link up with a political party in Northern Ireland who were once called Orange men.They are Unionists,Protestants, who are called after William of Orange who ruled Great Britain with his wife Mary, the daughter of James the 2nd. She was a  Protestant.James was a Catholic and he had a son who would take the throne.William of Orange’s mother was the daughter of Charles 1st.
William invaded England and  ruled with his wife.Some places like Ireland wanted  James to be King.He was defeated at the Battle of the Boyne.
Many of the horrors that happened in Northern Ireland began when Orange men led huge parades through Catholic areas.One day Catholics demanded the right to vote  like the blacks in the USA but this was about 1969.You could only vote if you owned a house…. Catholics were poor.
On Bloody  Sunday English troops shot civilians holding a peaceful march

Wikipedia:

Bloody Sunday – sometimes called the Bogside Massacre^[1] – was an incident on 30 January 1972 in the Bogside area of Derry, Northern Ireland, when British soldiers shot 28 unarmed civilians during a peaceful protest march against internment. Fourteen people died: thirteen were killed outright, while the death of another man four months later was attributed to his injuries. Many of the victims were shot while fleeing from the soldiers and some were shot while trying to help the wounded. Other protesters were injured by rubber bullets or batons, and two were run down by army vehicles.^[2][3] The march had been organised by the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA). The soldiers involved were members of the 1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment, also known as “1 Para”.^[4]

Two investigations have been held by the British government. The Widgery Tribunal, held in the immediate aftermath of the incident, largely cleared the soldiers and British authorities of blame. It described the soldiers’ shooting as “bordering on the reckless”, but accepted their claims that they shot at gunmen and bomb-throwers. The report was widely criticised as a “whitewash“.^[5][6][7]The Saville Inquiry, chaired by Lord Saville of Newdigate, was established in 1998 to reinvestigate the incident. Following a 12-year inquiry, Saville’s report was made public in 2010 and concluded that the killings were both “unjustified” and “unjustifiable”. It found that all of those shot were unarmed, that none were posing a serious threat, that no bombs were thrown, and that soldiers “knowingly put forward false accounts” to justify their firing.^[8][9] On the publication of the report, British prime minister David Cameron made a formal apology on behalf of the United Kingdom.^[10] Following this, police began a murder investigation into the killings.

Bloody Sunday was one of the most significant events of “the Troubles” because a large number of civilian citizens were killed, by forces of the state, in full view of the public and the press.^[1] It was the highest number of people killed in a single shooting incident during the conflict.^[11] Bloody Sunday increased Catholic and Irish nationalist hostility towards the British Army

One of my friends was there.She testified.She moved to England.

I am crying now

In the sudden heat of a June day
The bench beside the roses seemed set right.
We sat and talked about the flowers so gay,
and whether Love is visible to sight.

The flowers seemed more beautiful and rare
Than any flower I've dared my eyes rest on.
I welcomed them with bold yet merry stare.
Ah,all too soon bright summer will be gone.

The sun was at the apex of the sky.
We caught the moment like a netted fish.
And as we looked the broad white clouds blew by.
All we can do is wish and wish and wish.

Now back to marking essays,making tea.
I lived so well because you so loved me.

Momentous changes stunned the  British  lords
Deceived by  numbers and the frequent polls
We deprived them of their  powers and of their voice

They thought they had it fixed, we had no choice
The game has changed, the young demanded balls.
Momentous changes stunned the  British  lords

Now they scurry, looking for new words
Their script is finished, gone their hateful goals.
We deprived them of their  powers and of their voice

Now a new play starts and they run scared
Our politics is not  for them alone
Momentous changes stunned the  British  lords

The referendum  made the racists  heard
Since the Brexit vote, most people groan
We deprived our rulers of their  powers, their voice

Now the truth is out, the cover’s blown
And Europe laughs to hear  our rulers moan
Momentous changes stun the  British   hordes
As we barbecue  our burgers with hot words

Two million people “live” in the Gaza strip.They have electricity only 4 hours a day.That is to be cut by 45 minutes.This includes hospitals and desalination plants used because water is very short.It makes me wonder how those people survive.Imagine that for just one week
Apparently, Abbas has asked Israel to do this to put more pressure in Hamas but so far he has not succeeded.Should Israel be taking part in such a  thing? It beggars belief

Mike Flemming

When true love’s gone and doom hangs over head

When life runs like a river to the sea

Then shall I take new lovers to my bed?

And with their carnal touch consoled be?

When my love lies so breaks my tender heart.

When life seems grey and rocks bestrew my path.

Then, shall I my life of evil start?

And on the world shall I bestow my wrath?

When true love lies and wrecks all loyalty.

When puzzlement makes all my world seem mad.

Then I shall upend causality

And let myself do deeds which make me glad.

For I have love’s sweet child inside my soul

And I shall tend her till at last she’s whole

She found an old and muddy mug of beer
The Tudor hunting grounds and Palace were nearby
The Roman street called Ermine passed by  here

Washing  dishes showed her love so clear
Despite the many tears and sudden sighs
She found an old and muddy mug of beer

Shall we test this beer, or should we fear
That it is full of mould and we might die.
By the Roman road called Ermine Street.my dear?

Our sorrow shared, the pain has been severe
But with another human, we can cry
Then drink  the old and muddy Roman beer

Shall we compare ourselves to summer’s leers
The solitude can be a strain allied
On the Roman road called Ermine Street.my dear.

What,  the beer has caused a  fearful fray?
I don’t believe you nor what else you say
We found an old and muddy mug of beer
The Roman street called Ermine passed by  here

Two broken lamps, a  painted china bowl
The table with its glass and wicker shaped
The sea shells we brought home, the sandy holes

Two mugs  each painted with a heart of gold
A cashmere shawl I bought too late
Two broken lamps a ache inside my soul

Do you believe that men are bold?
Do they have  thoughts they must negotiate?
The sea shells we brought home, their well-shaped holes

How do trees feel when the weather’s cold?
Do they feel a tenderness where branches broke?
Two broken lamps ache by   this china bowl

In my hands, my destination’s told
There is a fire but never any smoke
The sea shells we brought home, their salty holes

Your suffering face, your nose just like a hawk’s
Your sea green  eyes, how well they  used to speak
Two broken lamps, a  painted china bowl
The sea shells we brought home, where is my soul?

http://johntranter.com/prose/2004-mp.shtml

“These days it’s the Cambridge don J H Prynne who waves the flag of obscurity in Britain. Here’s a sample, from the book Not-You: ‘lank laces ready numb / or to touch at a cute burr segment, able / grains prevail in their bonus tear-off coupon.’

London editor Robert Potts has said that Prynne’s poetry is regarded as ‘hermetic, baffling, difficult of access, uncertain of interpretation,’ and admits that for years he found Prynne’s poetry repellent, until ‘the work itself changed my mind.’ The critic John Sutherland suggested that ‘only four people… can understand him’. Yet he does have readers: when his selected poems were published a few years ago thousands of copies were sold, and the book was nominated for a New Yorker magazine book prize. And in China, a translation of his oblique booklet Pearls That Were has sold more than 50,000 copies.

I found Mr Prynne’s poetry baffling until I came across his book of poems The Oval Window some twenty years ago. It deals with hearing (the ‘oval window’ is part of the inner ear, and other organs in the inner ear give us our sense of balance) and offers complex vistas of history, culture, economics and society, viewed from a variety of conceptual windows.

A few years ago I heard Mr Prynne deliver a series of lectures on poetry in Cambridge, and I was impressed by his wide reading and the depth and clarity of his thinking. His poems have an even greater range of reference and are more concentrated and multi-layered than his lectures. I have to confess that most of them go right over my head. But what’s wrong with that? ‘A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, / Or what’s a heaven for?’ The notoriously obscure Robert Browning wrote that, in his poem ‘Andrea del Sarto’.”

Mike has made this image from his photograph.I love the depth….so if I disappear…. look here!

I thought I had put my blog back online but owing to the conditions of my mind and    the UK I seem to have become confused.I am still here!

The old man standing by me in the bank
Fragile in the outfit of beige-grey,
Looked as if the News had made him sink

In this society, he has no rank
I asked him what he thought of polling day
This sweet man standing by me in the bank

He said that Corbyn was a fool and crank
Who must drop the  Atom Bomb  or pay
He looked as if the News had made him shrink

He sunk into the mud, I threw a plank
I offered him  a sandwich made by May
This dear man standing by me in the bank

As he walked away, he gave a wink
He may seek for a bomb with which to play
He looked as if the News drove him to drink.

I guess this country’s needs advice, so pray
For an alternative to Theresa May
I wish that old  man standing in the bank
Saw the News  as second to high jinx

If I’m feeling bored in the morning
If I’m feeling bored in the night
I  play with real numbers
While my partner slumbers
Then I fall asleep in the light

When one is bereaved and in mourning
That  makes one  feel empty within
It’s painful, not boring
To hear lions roaring
Will they bite a big hole on your skin?

Fill up the sorrow with learning
For study is rarely a sin
Unless it’s just chick lit
Or a very tawdry writ
In which case, then here is the bin

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/06/make-time-for-boredom/524514/

“One team of psychologists discovered that two-thirds of men and a quarter of women would rather self-administer electric shocks than sit alone with their thoughts for 15 minutes. [10]”

https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/poetry/gioia/gioia.htm

Extract

How Poetry Diminished

ARGUMENTS about the decline of poetry’s cultural importance are not new. In American letters they date back to the nineteenth century. But the modern debate might be said to have begun in 1934 when Edmund Wilson published the first version of his controversial essay “Is Verse a Dying Technique?” Surveying literary history, Wilson noted that verse’s role had grown increasingly narrow since the eighteenth century. In particular, Romanticism’s emphasis on intensity made poetry seem so “fleeting and quintessential” that eventually it dwindled into a mainly lyric medium. As verse–which had previously been a popular medium for narrative, satire, drama, even history and scientific speculation–retreated into lyric, prose usurped much of its cultural territory. Truly ambitious writers eventually had no choice but to write in prose. The future of great literature, Wilson speculated, belonged almost entirely to prose.