Author: Katherine

Poetry writer and author

Meta-language,language and the babble

Sometimes when we speak, although it’s words
They are at the level  of the screams of birds
Because it’s all in words don’t mean it’s language
Remember all that screaming does minds damage

Words are truly signs and symbols perfect
But what they point to   may have its own defects
The imaginary, wordless  and imperfect
The real in words resigned to own  the phallic.

Symbols are deep wells   with built in buckets
We had one but someone must have struck it
Some thought it was the call  to evening worship
While rabbits bored holes through my mother’s turnips

Meta-language,language and the babble
Let’s decide we all are more than rabble

The future’s fiction,and Ted Hughes has spun it

I ought to write a sonnet,oh goddamit.
The future’s fiction,and Ted Hughes has spun it
A sonnet quite informal for the planet
I ought to write one but I need a permit.

If I’d like to write a sonnet ,I will plan it
As Mary Queen of Scots embroidered rabbits.
The sonnet is  much too strong a habit.
Get the Book or I shall steal or grab it.

So I want  to write a minute  yet perfect sonnet
If there’s a  prize   so far I ‘ve rarely won it
Ask Dante, was  it Petrarch who just done it?
A sonnet is  a sexist name.Goddamit

You think it’s really great to write Platonic?
If you saw my form , you’d learn I’m not a cynic

 

The future’s fiction,it is not too late 2

If words  cost  money,what do you think you’d say
When we ate  our meal  late in the day?
If words cost that much money, would we dare
To spend all  that we had  to mouth  a prayer?

If words cost  money,how  good is your bank?
If we are rich I have your work to thank.
If words cost money, do write me a cheque
Before I start  to talk  or to regret.

If words cost   money, are  the wealthy rich?
Their words are  worth  less  than a needle stitch.
If words take all your money, here’s the Word
He said,give it away,but we’ve not  dared.

He is the Word   which spoken made the world
But  why have such great evils since  occurred?
Why would  G-d   who’s Love  and Logos too
Be  daily killed  as humans fight anew?

The burning bush no longer has  its flames
Jesus dies;  the angels weep in shame

I could not measure justice nor what’s fair

When I was burning with  the fire of rage
Or speaking in a voice emotion bare
I did not find escape from my small cage

When I misused the knowledge of my age
And for another did not feel much care
I was burning  bright with  fire enraged

When I  with my  own mind did not engage
I could not   measure justice nor what’s fair
I could not find escape from my small cage

But when I saw the view from off the page
At this right angle  placed, I knew  to say:
I  shall not fight a friend ,when trapped in rage

Now I thank the metaphoric trade
Which symbolises feelings’ higher ways
I found   at last the exit from my cage

Looking  with the broad view of  child’s play,
I found the path   which seems to be my way
No longer burning with  the fires of rage
I  found escape from my unholy cage

An ancient ,holy sound begins the Spring.

Although it’s dark out there the blackbird sings
His territory  is the same as in the past
An ancient ,holy sound begins the Spring.

These birds are little dinosaurs with wings
Like the spider they adapted and so last
Although it’s dark, out there my blackbird sings.

What other pleasures will the season bring?
Alas the seasons come and too soon pass
An ancient ,holy sound begins the Spring.

In my leafy wood, birds wisely throng.
We have no cat nor greenhouse with its glass
Although it’s dark, out there my blackbird sings.

In my heart, for Northern moors I long;
The heather where we loved, the sheep shorn grass
As ancient ,holy sounds began the Spring.

Yet I am never mournful for the past
God lives in each small moment,life’s our Mass
Although it’s dark out there the blackbird sings
An ancient ,holy sound begins the Spring.

Nostalgia and its problems

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https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/feb/25/mohsin-hamid-danger-nostalgia-brighter-future

 

“Why are we so strongly attracted to nostalgia today? In part, I think, because the pace of change is accelerating. Despite our close relationship with technology, at this point in our evolution human beings are still animals, and animals struggle to adapt to change that occurs too rapidly. Given enough time, polar bears might migrate off the Arctic ice, evolve darker coats, find a different diet and thrive in a new, warmer climate. But if the ice on which they depend disappears in a few decades, they are likely to die. Our adaptive capacity is far greater, but we too experience change as stress. The world my grandparents grew up in would not have been that strange to their grandparents. “

The Destruction of Sennacherib

BY LORD BYRON (GEORGE GORDON)
The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.
   Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen:
Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.
   For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!
   And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,
But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride;
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.
   And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail:
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.
   And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!

Writing and depression

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People think writing is therapeutic but this article explains why that is not always true.And if you are professional that adds to the problems.Not many writers become rich.

 

http://www.elizabethmoon.com/writing-depression.html

“In fact, if you wanted to make a cheery person with no predisposition to depression depressed, you could stick him in front of a typewriter or computer for hours a day–feed him a typical writer’s diet–forbid him to exercise, isolate him from friends, and convince him that his personal worth depended on his “numbers.” Make him live the writer’s life, in other words, and watch him sag.”

The Tyger

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies.
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp!
When the stars threw down their spears
And water’d heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Tyger Tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Love of Alfred

Oh, Alfred, my beloved, do not go
Do  not leave, but warmth to me bestow,
Lie beside me in my bed all night
Succour me when stormy dreams affright.

Oh , Alfred, 'tis your eyes  that turn me on
The green and golden light is never gone.
Affection constant,  touch and feeling shared.
I am not embarrassed when you stare.

For you , the  gallant male, have ever  seen
My naked form well lit by  Jove’s sunbeams
And if I wear a gown of winceyette
You love it ,as it’s made for paws of cat.

Alfred,we can’t marry   yet I fear.
Cats can’t read the Book of Common Prayer

From the Economist
Europe and America: Vis-à-visas
Yesterday the European Parliament voted to suspend visa-free travel temporarily for Americans visiting the EU. The reason is that America still requires certain Europeans to obtain a visa before travelling there, which violates the EU’s requirement that all its citizens be treated equally. The vote is not binding-the European Commission must decide whether to implement it. But it marks a growing chasm between once-close allies

My jokes

You know all those Coffee Shops staffed  by foreigners?
Yeah.
The Government is  going to build 7 meter high walls around them.
So America is going metric at last!

Why are we afraid of Arabs?
Because they invented Al-Gebra

Why are we afraid of God?
He gets our goat.

Why was Mary a virgin?
Tampax were not invented then

Why did God use Prophets?
I’m lost.

Why do they sell rock  at the seaside?
They can’t sell the sea.

Why is  the UK not a republic?
It’s private.

Extract from Burnt Norton T S Eliot

Small flowers

 

http://www.davidgorman.com/4Quartets/1-norton.htm

Love is itself unmoving,
Only the cause and end of movement,
Timeless, and undesiring
Except in the aspect of time
Caught in the form of limitation
Between un-being and being.
Sudden in a shaft of sunlight
Even while the dust moves
There rises the hidden laughter
Of children in the foliage
Quick now, here, now, always—
Ridiculous the waste sad time
Stretching before and after.

When you’re feeling down at heel

When you’re feeling down at heel
When your soul feels like a sewer
When your thoughts make your head reel
When  new thoughts are getting rare.

Recall that judgment lies with God
Rumination solves no vice
Make friends with the dark and  fog
Do not ask a fool’s advice.

Then look up and see the sky
Breathe again and take in air
See the geese as home they fly
Hide with foxes in their lair

Nature heals  yet also kills
Mysterious God,mysterious will.

 

Writing for healing

 

 

redsquirrelformby2016-2http://phyllisklein.com/writing-for-healing/the-therapeutic-benefit-of-poetry/

“Rather than diminish the excellence of the poet’s art, the poetry therapist enhances it. Poet Gregory Orr, in his book Poetry and Survival says “…the elaborative and intense patterns of poetry can…make people feel safe…the enormous disordering power of trauma needs or demands an equally powerful ordering to contain it, and poetry offers such order” (Orr, 92). Poetry structures chaos.”

Despite the scent of spring we sense in air

The scent of  growth , of spring, is in the air
It urges us to wait for life is near
Despite the flowerbeds empty  with despair

Yet winter  left the trees and shrubs so bare.
With that emptiness  we have a common fear
The scent of  growth , of spring, is in the air

To emptiness and lowness we bring care.
Despite the vision bringing us to tears
Despite the flowerbeds empty  with despair

We too have seasons  miserable or fair.
In our darkness monsters may appear
Despite the  scent  of spring  we sense in air

Like faces children see when they long stare.
From the patterned wall paper they leer
We need the  faith that growth comes from despair

Now we shed a  handful of salt tears
For memories that slide down all our years
The scent of  growth , of spring, is in the air
To tempt the flowerbeds empty  with despair.

Are there rules in writing free verse?

 

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http://writersrelief.com/blog/2009/06/free-verse-the-hidden-rules-of-free-verse-poetry/

 

Free verse is a challenging form that utilizes the natural cadences of common speech to create rhythm in lieu of the strict usage of meter found in classic forms. Free verse is the breaking of some old rules and the utilization of new tools, not the elimination of any and all rules.

 

Sat here at the table where I write

 

 

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Photo by Mike Flemming 

{I  blame Mike for the moth holes in my clothes}

I must be poor I’m wearing a thick coat
Sat here at the table where I write
I  know my grammar  and I made a note
Sat  here is allowed but it ain’t right

My coat is dirty green and a bit black
So I can sit on stairs when  in a  shop
They don’t have chairs  not even a stuffed sack
When I can’t walk, they tell me I must hop.

If science was taught they’d  know well that  a hop
Puts twice the weight onto a single foot
Maybe I should give my legs the chop
And get some steel ones when there is a glut

My coat is better now for I feel hot
My hanky’s red for I have spilled my blood
My nose was bleeding from a vein I cut
I never took a drug but I pretend I could

LSD is too wild for  my mind
And even at my age I am with child
I fear the risk of growing  yet more kind
The child’s my nephew and he ‘s very mild

 

 

 

To learn from grief

When we’re chilled by illness or bereaved
The  spring tides of  the seas of memory  lust
The mind’s door swings,  the  torture scene’s retrieved

Children   have no power and  cannot leave
Adults  fearful,wild, and, more, callous
Caught too soon  by fools and madmen’s weaves

In Europe where our vicious wars  conceived
Children  dwelled the   depths of   frozen malice
And dreadful  memories steal their minds like thieves

Are  souls mature  enough to learn  from such deep grief
When we feel  like  rubbish, thrown adrift, alas?
When we’re struck by hardships  , we still seethe.

Adults have  the power to look, perceive,conceive
Each child is Jesus,tortured,tried, and tossed.
This is the birth  and death of memory

My heart is   pierced  by children on the News.
Echoes shake  this heart till black and blue.
Whether  felled by error,war ,disease
With patience , can we tolerate unease?

Children saw ,too soon, cold human malice

When we’re chilled by illness or bereaved
Memories, shatter,seem to drown us
The mind’s door swings  the evil scenes retrieved

Children   have no power
Adults  fearful,wild,seem callous
Whether they were ill or sad, bereaved.

By Europe’s  many vicious wars  deranged
Children   felt the  cold and heartless  malice
Now dreaded early memories are retrieved

The eye and soul mature  are less constrained
Yet  we fear like children do
When we’re felled by illness or bereaved

Adults have  the power to look, conceive
Our minds are  broader  we know values
Despite the  dreaded  early memory

It’s hard to watch new suffering on the News
Echoes shake  our hearts till black and blue.
When we’re felled by illness or bereaved
With patience   may we tolerate unease

Mother Courage-Dorothy Rowe

wisley_commonmorpho

Photo by Mike Flemming .Copyright
http://home.btconnect.com/mike.flemming/

http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/columns/justine-picardie/TMG3453815/Mother-Courage-Dorothy-Rowe.html

wisley_whitemorpho

http://home.btconnect.com/mike.flemming/

“She acknowledges that modern women have the advantage of not living in a society ruled by sexual taboos and secrecy – ‘my mother never even told me the facts of life’ – but also observes that an insistence on the overriding importance of sex can be equally oppressive. ‘Once you’ve satisfied your curiosity, and had some children, if you want them, then there are more interesting things to do. I remember a survey that showed that the majority of women preferred gardening to sex.When I say that to women in their fifties they usually laugh and agree. All this emphasis on having to enjoy sex as you grow older – why?’ Rowe has an equally no-nonsense view about women’s struggle to stay as slender as the celebrity blueprint – ‘We don’t have to believe that simply because a woman is very thin she sets a standard that has to be emulated’ – nor is she convinced by the punishing diet and exercise regimes adhered to by a female icon such as Madonna. ‘Your experience gets written on your face. Her face is very hard, and there aren’t too many laughter lines. It’s a tough, unsmiling face, and that’s a bit sad, for a woman who has achieved so much.’ As you might expect, she is no more impressed by the 21st-century vogue for cosmetic surgery. ‘General anaesthetics are serious – they carry a risk of death – but to have one in order to get a bit of your body changed is the utmost foolishness.’ Her dismissal of human folly is, however, tempered with sympathy; so that when we talk about the sheer physical horror of a face-lift – your nose being broken and your face destroyed before it is rebuilt – she says, ‘How little you must think of yourself, to choose to do that to yourself. That’s so very sad.'”

Rosa Benchez almost gives a lecture

wisley_feb28-1

 

 

Professor Rosa Benchez was in the staff-room at Mid-Rise-Jeans University collecting her mail and having coffee at 9.30  am on Monday morning after running 10 miles on her rowing machine.It rowed and she ran
How are you,Rosa? enquired Danny her  friend and colleague in the  School of Learning.
I’m feeling  extremely insignificant  today? she replied.I am giving a lecture on Semiotics and it’s those French people who use such idiotically complicated language.We all know that an object like a bird has to have a name before we can talk about it.
Well.,said Danny, I thought you’d just say,”In the pink” as  usual to my greeting,  so you must feel bad.Does each bird have to have its own name,he continued wonderingly?
Well,it depends on the context, she informed him  coolly and enigmatically.
First,if we are looking at birds as a class or set, they just need a name like “bird”.It could have been anything bit somehow it was” bird” that occurred like x  is used in algebra.We may just study one bird then we give it a number to identify it.That is its name
Danny gazed at her  beautiful bosom under her semi-transparent  pink blouse.Did  she dress like that on purpose  to provoke men or did she feel so insignificant that she didn’t realise anyone could see her purple  lace bra  and her green silk and wool thermal  vest with matching briefs, though fortunately they were invisible
Danny,I’m talking to you, she called sympathetically.Why are you quiet?
I dunno, the world  famous biologist replied.Maybe I am not quite here today.
You too,she murmured quietly ,like the stream in Little Walsingham by the ruined  Abbey.
Are you anxious about your lectures,she enquired softly and caringly?
No, not really ,he said tearing his eyes away from her  revealing clothing.
Is there a biological reason  why a scholar like Rosa would wear this unusually exciting outfit.
The truth was more mundane.Rosa bought her clothes in Sales and was indifferent to  the way men might feel seeing her like this.After all,did she notice if they wore  deep purple underpants that showed above their low rise jeans  or gold coins on a chain with matching earrings?
She only  looked at their faces while they naturally were drawn  to see what amazing  and colourful outfit she was wearing that day. and  what her lingeries looked like.
What did her partner feel?Had he left her for a woman who dressed in  thick beige  blouses and stockings with grey skirts?
To dress well takes time and Rosa did not give it enough although so far she had not lectured in a  string bikini nor an evening dress she had  found in  a jumble sale
These French people have made a fortune by re-labelling well know things  like birds as “signified”  and the word “bird” as a sign!
It reminded her of a sociologist who  got a large grant to see if women were more scared walking under a railway bridge at night if there were no streetlight there
The conclusion seems obvious.And that was what they proved “scientifically”
Statistics,numbers, that’s what journals want.
She went to her lecture room and turned on the lights.Eighty students gazed at her happily.She was the kindest and cleverest lecturer in the place.Take that how you will.
Now, she informed them,I  put 30 handouts in Dr Bevan-Finnish’s drawer  for the seminar but someone has stolen them, she said menacingly.I write these handouts and if they do not appear by noon ,nobody will get another one for the entire semester
With that, she turned to the blackboard and defined ” the signifier”
Well,it’s better than taking the insides out of chickens  on a conveyor belt she thought silently as she moaned on while the students took notes.
After lunch Rosa was in the staff room talking to some women  colleagues when Dr Bevan -Finnish came over,blushing dark  red as he approached.He said the handouts were back
Why  is he so shy, Rosa asked herself,not realising it was her outfit that provoked his blushes.And that is a very important thing to remember… whoever we are with  affects us so a bold man like Bevan-Finnish seemed shy when with Rosa whereas with another more sensibly dressed  woman he was quite at ease.
There may be a few men who are not affected this way but not many otherwise the human race would die out and then where would we be?Nowhere!
What a pity nobody tells a lady like Rosa the facts of life so   she goes about causing sinful longings in her colleagues quite oblivious.Even some of the women were getting affected but nobody dared to tell her.At least it drew  students  to her lectures and who knows, they might have learned some Linguistics as well.And it kept them off the streets.Which streets nobody knows.Yet!

Unhinged

redsquirrelformby2016-2
The handyman said that in his culture they believe if someone dies they will want to persuade their loved ones to join them so you must tell them off  if you see  them and  order them to go away.And generally be off hand and rufe
I said, Wow,what religion  do you follow?
I am a Catholic he replied proudly
I never knew they taught that
No, it’s because I am from Trinidad he informed me  graciously
But  you are not black,are you?
Yes,I am.I am  an Indian
Well, my neighbour is  half Ethiopian  but when the older neighbours ask where he is from I say Neasden because his mum lives there.She is white.His dad is black I guess.Why are people so curious I wonder?
We stood there as I ransacked my  large blue purse to find the  notes.
I  have never seen my husband since he died,I told him..But I would not chase him away with my broomstick.I could not
Are you a witch with owning that broomstick , he asked with  0.6% interest
I might  be but I don’t tell strangers, I told him
I am not a stranger.I am your husband.
I picked  up my broomstick and  whacked him one.Then I threw the £70  after him.That will show him,I thought
He thinks I am a lone woman but I have plenty of weapons in my hall.The main one is my brain.
After he had gone I realised I don’t need a door on the bedroom now.I could just have an opening and  then the bathroom would be en-suite, almost.It’s like fuzzy logic.There are not just two answers…….
They call maths hard but it’s easier than real life…….

Ahaha

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Lead us not into devastation

  • Our Other,dwelling in Heaven,
    Helloed and helloed be Thy Name.
    In Kingdom come, may Thy Will be done
    As it is not in Syria and by the USA.
    Give us this day,no more dark Dread.
    Forgive us our Christmases,
    As we forgive those who Christmas with us.
    And lead us not into Devastation
    But teach us acceptance and kindness
    For Thine is the Wisdom,the Love and the Hatred
    As ever was, and shall be.Amen

Rosa muses

 

12799247_673073696165845_6684362272588328293_nRosa Benchez realised as she walked by the River Wrench that she did not  really like her ex-fiance Prof Charlie Blogge,mainly because he  bought her engagement ring on Amazon for  £27.
I bet he buys them by the dozen and tantalises women who are ready to settle down and have a child.After he has had his fun he breaks up and tells them they can keep the ring
It’s enough to make one into a hermit, she told herself,or a lesbian.How much easier to be schizoid and not want to be close to anyone for more than a few minutes.
She said this to her colleague Dr Norman Arches, who told her off.
You should not desire to be like that,he said.I treated a man who was rather that way and he was very unhappy and felt sad at being unable to be like us.
What do you mean,like us? Rosa asked
People who enjoy the company of others and can tolerate a few mishaps albeit with pain.
Yes,I never knew about all these types of people till I was at Uni.
Why do you refer to Cambridge as Uni.he asked her pensively.
I suppose I don’t want my supposedly brilliant  intelligence to be a barrier between me and other people.I asked  a man once if he thought I was too intelligent and he said he didn’t think I was above the average.
That could mean he is a genius or that he is so stupid he can’t  recognise intelligence when he meets it.
Or he doesn’t want to do so,she whispered.
If you are only average you did well to pass your degree exams so well! Norman muttered.By the way are you free to eat with me tonight?
I’d like that, said Rosa.Will you cook?
Yes I have already got Beef in Beer simmering in my slow cooker
I am glad you like cooking because restaurants are so noisy.
What about a pudding, she said hungrily
I have made a Russian  cheesecake from  the Penguin Russian cookery book.
I did that one once Rosa cried.It’s lovely.Do you have a pet?
After my wife died I bought 2 cats called Tiny and Daisy but it’s not the same.They love each other and not me.
Do they not sleep on your bed,Rosa enquired gently/
Only if I  give them smoked salmon and pay them not to make love on my duvet.
Well, does it bother you? Or so they scratch the cover?
It makes me feel jealous, he said.
Well, they don’t do it on purpose.They are not malicious,s he cried.
I could get an extra one but who  knows what will happen?
You must make Tiny and Daisy  get married first.
That doesn’t stop human beings so why should cats be better?
I would have though the  garden was the place they would prefer.
Well,I’ll see you later.
Rosa picked   up ” Teach Yourself Linguistics” and   began to write a lecture.
Why don’t you all educate yourselves this way?It’s cheaper than Uni and my niece only got 3 hours teaching a week in her Final Year.
And so say all of  us graduates.