Author: Katherine

Poetry writer and author

With my mistress, Annie fair.

Stan and Mary went in town
To buy Stan a new dressing gown.
But he wanted a woollen one
In March that is not on.

The shops are full of summer clothes
But Stan’s not warm enough for those.
Mary likes to look around
But see how old Stan frowns.

So Mary says,I’ll go online
I’m sure I’ll find some fully lined
Made of wool and acrylic…
Them you can make your pick.

Thank you,Mary,you are kind
despite that brilliant,anxious mind.
I am the best dressed man in town
And soon I’ll have my gown.

Would you like cafe au lait?
I have my pension,I shall pay.
Very nice,dear Mary said…
I’d like a piece of bread.

Won’t you have a slice of cake?
I know it’s not quite what I make.
No,just plain bread,sweet Mary said
She then turned very red.

Mary,you look very hot
Is it healthy in this spot.
The central heating is too high.
She gave a weary sigh.

They drank their coffee and made jokes
About old folk who never spoke…
They bought some fresh fish for Emile..
They alway shop with zeal.
..
When they got home.Stan dialled Dave
Who told him he was very brave
and not to stand near a bus door.
Or he’d fall on the floor.
.
Oh,how I’d like to lie down there
With my mistress Annie fair.
but Mary is at home today
So i’ll just have to pray.

If you’re in pain and can’t have sex,
They say that prayer is second best
Morphine is so hard to get…
and it makes me feel sick.

So tomorrow Mary works
Stan and Annie have their perks
Dave calls round to bath the cat…
How obscene is that?

If you would like your cat washed
Or if your shopping has got squashed
Just dial 99999
The service is divine.

Symbolism in poetry and other literature

photo0022

 

Symbolism

Example #1

We find symbolic value in Shakespeare’s famous monologue in his play As you Like It:

“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
they have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,”

The CIA determined that individuals linked to Moscow stole Democratic party emails, according to the Washington Post.[From the Guardian Facebook page]

controversy11n-8-web

Agence France-Presse in Washington

Saturday 10 December 2016 09.29 

US intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia interfered in last month’s presidential election to boost Donald Trump’s bid for the White House, according to reports.

A secret CIA assessment found that Russian operatives covertly interfered in the election campaign in an attempt to ensure the Republican candidate’s victory, the Washington Post reported, citing officials briefed on the matter.

A separate report in the New York Times said intelligence officials had a “high confidence” that Russia was involved in hacking related to the election.

The revelations came after the US president, Barack Obama, ordered a review of all cyberattacks that took place during the 2016 election cycle, amid growing calls from Congress for more information on the extent of Russian interference in the campaign.

The wrong sin

Leggings

He’s writing the definitive book on sin.
Do people want to hear any more about sin?
Any more? I’ve heard very little recently.And which people?
The Word has vanished!
You read the wrong newspaper.
Can a newspaper be wrong in itself,intrinsically wrong?
Can a newspsper be a Sin?
Well,there’s one called the Sun!
Why don’t they just call it The Big Sin and have done with it?
You should write to Rupert.
Who’s Rupert?
You know him,Murdoch!
Now Iris Murdoch,she was a right one.
Well,she certainly wrote a few!And bedded more than a few
A few too many,in my view.
Too many for whom?
My,you talk posh don’t you?
Should it be,you talk poshly?
Me!I’m as common as ,as ,as as,aas,..muck!
Do stop,you’ll fall down a crack in the pavement soon and then where will you be?
I’ll be in Australia with Rupert!
Suppose you came out in New Zealand?
Well,it would be a change. I’m tired of England.
You never mentioned it before.
I didn’t want to upset you.
Well,I’m not so keen myself.
You sound like a knife!
Do you mean,a wife?
No, a knife…with a blade.
Yes, it does look well made.
Shall we buy one?
But do we really need it?
Do we really need anything?
Get a move on,you’re not at college now you know.
Who’re you?
My name is Wisdom.
I’m so sorry.
Why are you sorry?

It’s hard to be called Wisdom when you are a complete idiot.
Well,better a complete idiot than a sharp tongued wasp!
Do you mind!
Not at all.Better an idiot than a mutton dressed as lamb.
Are you a vegetarian?
I do eat the odd vegetables.
And who eats the even ones?
They all go to the supermarket.
So that’s how it works.You are so clever.
Well,I’m an economist.
I believe in economy for all.
I prefer comics myself.
No,they are called graphic novels now.
A bit like those Rupert books we had as children.
I wish Rupert Murdoch was called something else.
I’m sure he will be in tomorrow’s papers.
I mean,it defiles the memory of Rupert the teddy bear.
I learned to read from those.
A pity.
Why?
If you couldn’t read,think of all the other things you could do.
Like writing?
If you coudn’t read ,it would seem to follow that you couldn’t write.
Yet there are people who can read but not write?
Yes,it’s all to do with Venn diagrams and symmetry.
Venn is a weird name.
Yes,pity he wasn’t called Diagram.
I thought he was called,Venn Diagram.
All I know is that diaphragms were a form of birth control.
I was puzzled by that because we all have diaphragms, yet some of us have no control of any kind.
If your diaphragm doesn’t move you can’t breathe so you can’t procreate.
No,you’d be dead!
A very strange form of birth control.
Maybe you just faint and you husband can have his way with you.
But would you want sex with someone unconscious?
It’s another case of a-symmetry.. a man can have relations with a faint woman but if the man faints that’s the end of it.
How about carrots?
What for?
Can they faint?
No,but they make a nice flan.
Fancy that!
I do fancy it actually.
What is it?
It’s a big carrot!
How superb.It seems a shame to eat it.
Well, would like to worship it?
Not today.
Well,it won’t last forever.
In that case I’ll stick with God:
I’ll stick with Thee
Fast falls the chill of night
Semd me an angel,I need something bright.
I have no fear,with Thee I’ll be alright.
Why not give in and have electric lights.
You are very odd.
Well,it makes a change…
Not with you,you’ve always been odd.
So,in a way I’m not odd.
You are right!
Odd. is’t it?
And yet even simultaneously.
It seems almost like quantum theory.
Those were the days.
From Schoenberg to Schrodinger: cats for all.
Enberg to Dinger.
You could call the cat Dinger.
What a good idea.
Mioaw.

When thinking hurts

Young_Lady_Old_Woman_Illusion

My title has two meanings.One is that sometimes we have to think about a painful event or a person who has hurt us.Or even some past events…I recall pain when  I was told about Hitler and Stalin

On the other hand some of us  use thinking in words as a way of blocking painful emotions.whilst this  may work for a time,it may give  a lot of trouble when we need to deal with pain.Essentially we do not wish to “know” the truth in the full sense… we deceive ourselves and maybe others too

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201110/the-essential-guide-defense-mechanisms

William Blake wrote this poem

Joy and woe are woven fine,

A clothing for the soul divine,

Under every grief and pine

Runs a joy with silken twine.

It is right it should be so;

Man was made for joy and woe;

And when this we rightly know,

Through the world we safely go.

I’ve been reading Sylvia Plath recently.I see that after her husband left her she went into a frenzy of activity.She had two very young children.was often ill with flu but she wrote all her most famous poems at this time;then she moved to London antd socialised a lot to prove she was not just a deserted wife.After this she became more, ill,there was a severe winter….then she crashed into the depths…I feel that  her frenzied writing was a way of not admitting her grief… and she got worn out and decided death was better.
Some of us who are quite cerebral are not in touch with  our bodies.We don’t feel that knife in the heart,the tears unshed,the anger that threatens… and eventually this cam lead to problems.,sometimes flu sometimes a breakdown,sometimes a broken marriage.and also the thinking can take on a life of its own so  it keeps us awake at night… and the feelings can come out in nightmares.So thinking can  be a curse.We all need defences at times but too much cuts us of from our own lives.And brooding and ruminating are very damaging to the mind and soul.Thinking is not wisdom

 

abstract war on terror.

A lovely poem that i am fond of

O sweet spontaneous

by: e.e. cummings (1894-1962)

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)

Many things cannot be proved or disproved.Most things actually

 

 

You can’t prove by logic  God exists neither can you prove he doesn’t.You might have experiences which prove it to you but you can’t get anyone else to have the same experiences.
You can’t prove logically that Beethoven is greater than Haydn nor vice versa.
We can only use language but if there is a God he was there prior to language being invented by humans.He might sing like a bird but better!
You can say the religious experiences of St Teresa were merely molecules in her brain moving about.You cannot either prove it or disprove it.You choose as you wish.
I can’t prove my husband loves me but I deduce it from how he acts and speaks.

 

Something will crack.

 

With a smack
However we pack the bags and  how we gab
The nonsuburban, sick to death electorate will decide
the ultimate end of humanity
that the system has failed and failed,repress the button
and start looking around for a strongman to
vote for like Stalin.Trostky, Hitler,
– someone willing to assure them that they are ok and are to be raptured
once he is elected,
the smug bureaucrats, will have a new habitat, a hot air pad
tricky lawyers, overpaid bond salesmen, even whalesmen at sea
and postmodernist professors  with post-truth dialectic
will no longer be calling hey,where are  the shots?
Is that a gun in your sprocket?

What a super Ego!

  • A bad Ego,
    What a super Ego!
    What an Idiot
    What a split rationality!
    What a  complex boundary personality
    An unconscious Messiah came by
  • A bag of noses
    A rage of poses
  • I’ll flee in your boots
    I’ll see about Coutts.
  • A word in the ear is wise to the fears
  • A bigot, at least
  • Oh,not in my mindscape
  • A cult  of  post-truth
    A cult of bulls’ flies
  • A bull in a whining shop,
  • Such fun  in the coven.
    Joan of Larks is near
  • A bunch of  hard drives in his hand
    It’s all backed up  onto the Crowd
    A chain is only as long as its length
  • A cheap book  coughed
    I whip off  my bold  frock
  • I’ve got Christmas foxed this year.

Inside my heart, this sacred place

dscn0042 

Inside my heart, this sacred place,
Where freely mingle truth and grace;
Where friends and enemies alike
Are viewed as equals for love’s sake

Inhabited by deeper self
In touch with all that in me dwells;
I leave  my failures  gladly here
I will not live in morbid fear.

I don’t insult the force divine
By pride in any good that’s mine.
For willpower cannot birth virtue
But  can  attend to the eye’s  view

By trusting in   the vast unknown
We turn  attention from the known.
Our eyes relax and  gaze without,
To  bring proportion  to our doubts

Trust, itself. will widen gaze;
Enable us to find our ways.
With terror,fear or loss of pride,
Constriction comes to human eyes.

Perception is the highest good
By what we see,we choose our road.
The blind rush like the swine to hell
In patient,watchfulness   we’ll  dwell.

Virtue and will

 

Just knowing what virtue is ,does not make us good.
We deceive ourselves withouthitlerknowing.
Can we be good by willpower: to some extent by avoiding places or people where we know we can’t control ourselves.That’s a  negative  way of being good.
Knowing what vice is might tempt us but innocence is dangerous too.

Tears of mirth

IMG_0047He told me he loved me before the tide over-took us
His hands seem to twitch all over me and I trembled with tears of mirth
He was the most underrated blogger of his entire degeneration
His words felt like raindrops on toast.
He could mimic anyone and was often mistaken for a Lord.
His talent was unmarketable his genius a sorrow in the dark
His eyes gleamed like traffic signals stuck on ”  go”
His writing was hard to put down and even harder to read.
He never told me his time frame but I watched him covertly on my swatch
He told me I was named in his bills.I had overspent his money.He divorced me and I over responded by shooting him with my bow and arrow.All things may go round  and rend us.
He died by a  whim.God wanted him upstairs
He said he never forgave me for beating him at Chess.Is it my fault I am so quick?
He admired my coat as we left A and E.He asked me where I stole it from.A and E of course.To be honest I bought it online in a gale in 2005 and it still  fits me more or rather less!
He was so funny I wakened up laughing.I was  in an inverted coma.
Still, you get used to them and just when you get comfortable they die.

love is more thicker than forget by e e cummings

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
love is more thicker than forget
more thinner than recall
more seldom than a wave is wet
more frequent than to fail
it is most mad and moonly
and less it shall unbe
than all the sea which only
is deeper than the sea
love is less always than to win
less never than alive
less bigger than the least begin
less littler than forgive
it is most sane and sunly
and more it cannot die
than all the sky which only
is higher than the sky

For grief has struck me

The darkness and the greyness of the day
Pulls down my heart to places deep in earth
Where there are no tall trees nor wind to sway.

 

As little children, we went out to play
Did not   think this sunless time a curse
Just darker and  more cloudy than  some days.

My heart is touched by memories  and by prayer
But still resides in darkness of love’s dearth
Where there are no tall trees nor wind to sway.

I do not know my path and do not care
For grief has struck me  and stolen all  my worth
Oh, the darkness and the grayness of that day

I only wish that I could swiftly lay
My burdens down and  run from  this dread  curse
Where  live the trees of blackness  and dismay.

 

Oh,God why have I had no love, no  birth?
Interior darkness hides away my worth
I  dread  the outer  darkness  of these  days
And   these old   trees  which frighteningly  sway

My muse has gone to Hades, is it hell!

My muse has gone to Hades, is that hell?
I   sing for her  while my heart palpitates
Lord, I’ll be  in  demonic  space as well

I think my little cat has  lost her bell.
On my plight, I sit and meditate
My muse has gone to Hades, is it hell?

The cat can’t phone, if only she could  yell.
I  hear my thoughts  and manic,  agitate.
Soon I’ll be  in  demonic  space as well

I wish that animals could use a cell.
All they can do is eat and procreate
My muse has gone to Hades, Villa Knell

I hear that poets should show but never tell
All I can do  with wit is cogitate.
Will  I   fly   to inner  space as well?

I earn enough,more than the going rate
I use black pens and you should see my state
My muse has gone to Hades,  give her hell
Damn,  I  am   lured to  ink dark  space as well!

Elemental as a storm

A force far deeper than our anger
Elemental as a storm
Annihilating all before it
Terror makes man’s rage perform.
 
This force fearing self is threatened
Runs to rise and to protect,
Most murderous when we’re most alarmed
Rage the enemy detects.
 
Over-riding other feelings
Deprives us of the power to think
Like a nuclear tsunami
Disconnecting human links
 
Reddened vision,focused,narrow;
Eyes locked onto enemy’s
All the wider context losing,
Wipes out our good memories
 
Like a mother tiger fighting,
And the cornered eagle’s force;
We will destroy what we think other
Without bitter,pained remorse.
 
Nature made such to protect us;
Yet our perception can be wrong.
Once the flood of feeling takes us
All reflections seems too long
 
Later, if we see our victims,
Will we know that we have erred?
For hate deceives ourselves and others
When our inmost terror’s bared.
 
How can we step back and ponder,
See life from a wider view?
How can we become less blinded,
So we see our world anew?
 
Succumb not to final despond
Succumb not black despair.
Always there are those who see.
Always there are those that care.
 
Tempered by reflective wisdom
Rage can change when understood.
When we find another being
Who contains our frightful flood

The recent political surprises in the West

From  the latest issue of the LRB

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n24/jonathan-lethem/diary?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=3824&utm_content=ukrw_subsact

 

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We were warned by Richard Rorty in 1998:

Something will crack. The nonsuburban electorate will decide that the system has failed and start looking around for a strongman to vote for – someone willing to assure them that, once he is elected, the smug bureaucrats, tricky lawyers, overpaid bond salesmen, and postmodernist professors will no longer be calling the shots.

We were warned by Sheldon Wolin in 2003:

The elements are in place … a weak legislative body, a legal system that is both compliant and repressive, a party system in which one party, whether in opposition or in the majority, is bent on reconstituting the existing system so as to permanently favour a ruling class of the wealthy, the well-connected and the corporate, while leaving the poorer citizens with a sense of helplessness and political despair, and, at the same time, keeping the middle classes dangling between fear of unemployment and expectations of fantastic rewards once the new economy recovers. That scheme is abetted by a sycophantic and increasingly concentrated media; by the integration of universities with their corporate benefactors.

We were warned by Carl Jung in 1938:

He is like a man who listens intently to a stream of suggestions in a whispered voice from a mysterious source and then acts on them … The true leader is always led. We can see it work in him. He himself has referred to his Voice … That is why he makes political judgments which turn out to be right against the opinions of all his advisers … When this happens, it means only that the information gathered by his unconscious, and reaching his consciousness by means of his exceptional talent, has been more nearly correct than that of all the others, German or foreign, who attempted to judge the situation and who reached conclusions different from his. And of course, it also means that, having this information at hand, he is willing to act upon it.blythburgh_church_-_roof_angel

Yet tigers spring and care not when we scream

Was this Earth designed for life or death,

When wired up cheetahs surf the desert sands

Seeking prey to stave off hunger’s wrath?

This hunt’s repeated over all our lands.

And in deep seas of green we find the curse

Of being pursuer or of becoming prey.

Blood in water looks to me much worse

Yet God requires that we should kneel and pray

Rare flowers can snatch and eat the striped bee

Programmed by genes to fertilize and feed.

I grieve a violent  God exacts a fee.

Loves to see his creatures as they bleed.

Nature soothes our souls when life’s all green.

Yet tigers spring and care not when we scream

Liberation psychology

Click to access PSLarticle.pdf

 

Some of the material in this article was previously presented at:- Community and Critical Psychology conference – Birmingham Sept. 2003 British Psychological Society – History and Philosophy section conference, March 2002. Community and Organisational Psychology Research group, Manchester Metropolitan University, January 2002. This is part of a longer project with aims of understanding the development of Latin American Social Psychology of Liberation, and reviewing its potential contribution to theory and practice of applied psychology in the British (and related) context. The article is based on a) reading the literature in Spanish (and where available) in English, but not the Brazilian literature in Portuguese; b) attendance at the International Congresses of Social Psychology for Liberation in 2001 and 2002; c) discussions with Latin American and other colleagues working within this framework; d) visits to Venezuelan community social psychology projects in 1996 and 2002, and e) the resp

Therapising people’s problems led to the current political situation

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/donald-trump-brexit-neoliberalism-individualism-cognitive-behavioural-therapy-a7413501.html

 

Quote:An example? Encounter groups . These meetings were an attempt to help individuals work together to tackle internalised oppression. However this kind of collective work soon became co-opted by ideas such as self-actualisation. The inner world was to be explored now not for the collective endeavour, but in the pursuit of individual happiness. Mass activism began to wane as the sale of self-help books mushroomed, carrying within their pages the message that responsibility for growth and happiness rested firmly in the individual. Why, after all, go to a feminist encounter group, when the tools for enlightenment lay in a self-help book one could peruse at home?

The side effect of the rise of therapy culture was a de-politicised understanding of embodied distress, and a certain navel gazing. The causes of anger and anxiety were located solely in individual’s childhoods or, as the 21st century beckoned, genes. Consideration of power relations and the structural causes of inequalities became a lefty side project, getting in the way of developing “brand me”, or a side note at the end of academic articles. Alternative ideas of the self received a special kind of ridicule – a phenomenon we see in the reaction to Corbynism today. Alternative ideas within psychology got sidelined.

What happened to all the refugee children in Calais?

rumoursofwar2

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2016/dec/08/child-migrants-after-calais-video

Six weeks after the Calais migrant camp was demolished, unaccompanied minors scattered around France are still waiting to hear of their fate from the Home Office. Lisa O’Carroll, Mat Heywood and John Domokos meet one young refugee who fled death in Darfur desperate to be reunited with his radiographer brother in Liverpool

Give children imaginative space

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http://celebritybabies.people.com/2009/02/06/teri-hatcher-creates-imaginative-space-for-emerson/

“I’ve created a space for my daughter to have a very imaginative life by removing television and video games,” the 44-year-old actress says. “It’s not like I banned them, we just never watched television when she was growing up.” As a result, Emerson has benefited greatly. Explains Teri,

“It left a space to fill with running around the yard pretending to be Peter Pan and making poison soup that you feed to the witch, just whatever crazy idea you want to come up with that ultimately, I think, lets children work out issues of their own growth and their own timely experience. I think that’s what dreams are about. That’s what imagination is about.”

 

T

Imaginative space

photo0112

 

How do I find imaginative space between what I know of the facts?

Quote@

What you’re trying to find is the “anarchic, gift-conjuring, un-knowing part” of the writer’s mind, as Rose Tremain puts it, and it’s not easy. Presumably, you’ve decided your policy – your personal ‘rules’ for this project – about what you can change or invent, and what you must stick to. But that leaves a lot of stuff which you don’t dare let your free brain conjure with.

I suggest that you make a firm decision to grant your researched facts no more special status than you would the facts about your home town, say, or where you grew up. Then try all the ways you already know of growing a scene or a story out of those materials. Or try some of these. For all of them, forget there’s any such thing as “allowed” or “not allowed”; you can always tidy things up later, but for now let anarchy rule

Mary sees the doctor and the dentist

img_0092

Mary wore her new garnet  red winter coat to go to the dentist and doctor who were in the same building.Unfortunately, it was shorter than  her  wool skirt which had a  quite few moth holes .
First ,she had to see the doctor.
Hello dear,how are you getting on without your husband?
He calls now and then.He told me he has bought me a house in Ealing.
Did he give you the address?
No,but if I am  living in Ealing I shall have to change doctors.
You can change here if you want to !
But I like and respect you,doctor
Thank you so much.Very few people ever praise me.And unlike you many people come here in dirty old clothes.
I just got this new coat.I may not have needed it, but ,to me, it is a symbol of wishing to return to life again.
That’s a good one.I’d better not tell my wife!
Is she  quite extravagant?
Not really.I suppose there is no absolute level of spending which  defines extravagance.What is normal for Princess Kate  would not be for my wife.It is I suppose a way of dressing so you look ok for the life you lead and does not get you into debt.
Surely you like your wife to look good?
As long as she feels good I don’t mind.
Anyway, why did you wish to see me?
Well, you don’t come very much so I wanted to see how you were getting on
I had a panic attack in the waiting room just now.I got vertigo
Are you frightened of me,my dear?
No,I really  love you, doctor.
Shush, that is not allowed
I just meant in a Christian sense although you are a Hindu.But when it comes down to it all religions are about compassion and love if we look carefully.
That is hard to believe nowadays.
I know.I suppose it’s an ideal to aim for.
All I can do is do my job well and look after my family and my patients.
Find God in the little things.See how small an acorn is and wonder.If I swallowed one would an oak tree grow inside me?
No.it would have to grow by the sewer
Imagine under the ground may be thousands of oak tree growing
Only if silly idiots swallow acorns!
I’m sorry.I have this vivid imagination.Can I have it removed and put a plastic one in?
Not yet but no doubt it will happen.Go outside and walk about alot
Why?
Because I have decided you are ok and we’ve talked enough.
Thank you so much,doctor.
And so say all of us
Then Mary picked  up her red coat which the doctor had not seen and she  went into the dentist waiting room.The kind receptionist got her some water as Mary did not understand the machine.Uncountable infinity,yes.Water machines,no.
This dentist was a most beautiful  young woman darting about  like a  colored fish in the  deep ocean.
The filling is still here!The tooth broke.I shall repair it for you.
Thank you,Mary told her.It is almost a pleasure to come here.
Almost? the dentist replied.
It’s a day out for me,Mary told her.I don’t meet young women like you so much.
Oh,my.I forgot to feed Emile.Hi , can you send a cab, please? I must go home or my cat will never forgive me.
A handsome young man appeared with a silver car.It almost seemed like a dream
He was a  Muslim and his wife a Christian.
And  both are good to us.

And I feel soaked to the skin.

 

 

 

Leonard Cohen (1970's)
Leonard Cohen (1970’s)

I don’t consider myself a pessimist. I think of a pessimist as someone who is waiting for it to rain. And I feel soaked to the skin. Leonard Cohen
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/search_results.html?q=lleonard+cohen