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,
His acts being seven ages.
(As You Like It by William Shakespeare
Author: Katherine
Poetry writer and author
What is a rhetorical question?
http://literarydevices.net/rhetorical-question/
This is a really good website for those who want to know more
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We don’t know what other people see
Following my previous post I realised that it implies we all see the world differently and unless we are very open to talk with other people we cannot know how they see it except by analysing their behaviour,perhaps
So if people kill others who seem harmless to us clearly their world view is different.
It is possible and it has happened that some political leaders managed to persuade their countrymen and women that some other human beings were not really human and so could be killed.
I believe the Nazis did this vis- a-vis the Jews describing them as rats or cockroaches.And denying lavatories to people in Concentration Camps so they soiled themselves made it easier for the guards to kill them as their dirtiness reduced their status and made them seem less human.It’s not logical because anyone would soil themselves in such conditions but when has reason ever been used much in politics or ordinary life?
That is a rhetorical question.
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Strange dream
I am sure most people who learn English are familiar with the expression
“Burying your head in the sand” or “Turning a blind eye
which is about a refusal to see.Well I had a dream that my body was buried in sand but my head was not.And my body was suffering pain.
So I think it must mean I am not willing to feel all the pain inside me.A refusal to feel.So if I feel terrible that may be a good thing….And our mind changes reality like I have changed the photograph above.But we don’t usually know about these changes and think the world we see is the real world.
Now some philosophers think there is no real world.However they still go to the lavatory and if they didn’t they’d really feel very uncomfortable.And more!
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How many immigrants?
My older brother kindly sent me some interesting maps etc
Top 10 countries by relative share of the population made up of immigrants
- Vatican City – 100% (800; <0.1% of world total)
- United Arab Emirates (UAE) – 83.7% (7.8 million; 3.4% of world total)
- Qatar – 73.8% (1.6 million; 0.7% of world total)
- Kuwait – 70% (2.9 million; 1.3% of world total)
- Monaco – 64.2% (21,000; <0.1% of world total)
- Sint Maarten – 59.7% (27,000; <0.1% of world total)
- Andorra – 56.9% (42,000; <0.1% of world total)
- Bahrain – 54.7% (729,000; 0.3% of world total)
- Brunei – 49.3% (206,000; 0.1% of world total)
- Luxembourg – 43.3% (249,000; 0.1% of world total)
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Blind belief
If belief is a moral act then what status does the belief of someone raised from infancy in a particular religion have? Is it a kind of blind belief and hence not really a belief at all?
Then again, we may not know what we believe until we observe how we act.And what we believe may be different from what we claim to believe.
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Belief
Quotation by H. A. Hodges
- 1. Belief is a moral act for which the believer is to be held responsible.
– See more at: http://www.special-dictionary.com/quotes/authors/h/h._a._hodges/#sthash.BKlhZLfd.dpuf
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375 Proverbs about Body
– See more at: http://www.special-dictionary.com/proverbs/keywords/body/#sthash.nc9uIaiq.dpuf
1. If you sit by the river long enough, you will see the body of your enemy float by.
2. Everybody has been young before, but not everybody has been old before.
3. A little body doth often harbour a great soul.
4. A man need never revenge himself; the body of his enemy will be brought to his own door.
5. Easier to bend the body than the will.
6. The mind is the emperor of the body.
7. If you get to thinking you’re a person of some influence, try ordering somebody else’s dog around.
8. Everybody is wise after the thing has happened.
9. Everybody must live.
10. He had need rise early who would please everybody.
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Turn a blind eye to
Love’s medium
Like fish dancing we frolic in the sea of love, our bodies turning and turning around an invisible centre skin touches skin gently like rose petals touch your face as they flutter to the ground in the breeze how do we speak except by gestures of the heart? how do we know except by loving touch. Sea,infinite sea trusting the depths giving ourselves away with hands reaching to touch again then floating side by side Our medium is fluid, no boundaries ,no edges, washed here and there we paint our love into being our bodies the brush, our hearts the canvas. Such sweet impressions we make ,such dancing
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It’s a crisis but not a conundrum
I looked in the dictionary thrice
To find out what is a conundrum
Then I used all my computer mice
To turn my hand into a fulcrum.
Language as leverage’s useful
To persuade a consumer to borrow
Say what you like, if you’re truthful.
We all may be dead by tomorrow.
It’s a crisis but not a conundrum
We all have to vote right on Thor’s day
For we have a troubled referendum.
Democracy’s folly in wordplay
Well,give me some brandy,if handy.
I’m ancient and foreign and cheerless
No-one can live well on candy
I’m weeping inside but I’m tearless
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Definition of conundrum in English:
- Oxford Dictionary
- home
- British & World English
- conundrum
conundrum
Pronunciation: /kəˈnʌndrəm/
Origin
Late 16th century: of unknown origin, but first recorded in a work by Thomas Nashe, as a term of abuse for a crank or pedant, later coming to denote a whim or fancy, also a pun. Current senses date from the late 17th century.
For editors and proofreaders
Line breaks: con¦un|drum
Definition of conundrum in:
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Penguin modern poets
A space to be unseen
Small rain in summer
Pools on large green leaves,
Makes all birds dumber
Silently they weave.
Wrens fly to and fro
Nesting near the house.
They know where to go
With nestlings and spouse.
Simple life of green
Hiding in lush leaves.
A space to be unseen
Humans only grieve.
Where is our safe space,
Where can we live well?
As anguish veils the face
In green thoughts I dwell.
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bCL Photography — Discover
Barcelona-based Cosme is a photoblogger and an active member in the WordPress.com community. At bCL Photography, he shares beautifully composed images of the street scenes, landscapes, and people he comes across in his travels.
via bCL Photography — Discover
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I pretend
He was with me then As I searched for a new place In which I could live But he does not speak He is my companion He wants to help me I don’t believe yet That he won’t come home ever. But I just pretend When I am with folk They tell me I am stronger. Oh,comparisons! Yeah,I need no-one No words of comfort or love I must be a stone. My stoicism A wonder to the heavens My dead face fakes peace.
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Subtle is a word I love
subtle
ˈsʌt(ə)l/
adjective
adjective: subtle; comparative adjective: subtler; superlative adjective: subtlest
-
1.(especially of a change or distinction) so delicate or precise as to be difficult to analyse or describe.“his language expresses rich and subtle meanings”
synonyms: fine, fine-drawn, ultra-fine, nice, overnice, minute, precise, narrow, tenuous; More antonyms: crude -
capable of making fine distinctions.“a subtle mind”
synonyms: astute, keen, quick, fine, acute, sharp, razor-like, razor-sharp, rapier-like, canny, shrewd,aware, perceptive, discerning, sensitive, discriminating, penetrating, sagacious, wise,clever, intelligent, skilful, artful; More antonyms: slow-witted -
arranged in an ingenious and elaborate way.“the German plan was simple yet subtle”
-
2.making use of clever and indirect methods to achieve something.“he tried a more subtle approach”
Origin
Middle English (also in the sense ‘not easily understood’): from Old French sotil, from Latin subtilis .
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What I really like
I like the word ” subtle” I don’t know why
I like Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata as each time I hear it it affects me just as much
I like the fact that 0 is a symbol for nothing.
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Look before you weep
Brittle wings tease subtle angels
Give in turn
Look before you weep
Love of honey is the fruit of swarms
Love is undefined
Love makes my life swirl around
Love thy neighbour as herself
Love will find a play
Fake love makes war
Man does not live by bread and bones
Many a true word is spoken by pests
Many are called but few are rising
Many hands make lights work
Marriages are made in Devon [ or maybe Cornwall]
Marry chaste, repent with pleasure
Might is trite
Misery loves to dump on you
Moderation in all flings
Money doesn’t flow with ease
Money isn’t ever bling
Money makes the world unsound
Money balks
More beer, less cocaine
Music has charms to soothe the ravaged beast
Nature adores a vacuum
Necessity is the mother of intention
Needs must when the devil arrives
Ne’er cast a clout till May is about
Never go to bed on an argument unless it has springs
Never judge a book by its lover
Never book a gift horse with the truth
Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today
Never speak if unwell or dead
Never sell whales out of school
Nine tailors take a scan
No man can serve two mistresses,a wife and a concubine
No woman is an island
The news is wood mews
No one can make you other
No pain, no explain
No pests in the knickers
Nothing flew under the sun
Nothing is certain but death and waxes
Nothing succeeds like access
Oil and water don’t make pics
Once a brief, always a brief
Once bitten, twice awry
One good burn deserves some butter
One half of the world is unbalanced
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Other people actually exist
“There is nothing we could know about ourselves or another that can solve the problem that other people actually exist, and we are utterly dependent on them. . . . There is nothing to know apart from this, and everything else we know, or claim to know, or are supposed to know, or not know, follows on from this.”
Adam Phillips
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This partly describes how I am feeling today
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Gosh,not far from London
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In the Peak District
Land of cruel rock and harsh descents
Into river valleys with stone houses.
On the West side struck by chilly rain
Blown by the West wind.
Land of wildness and birds,eagles even;
How it calls to me.
The vast space and the peaceful green
The heather and the sheep.
The lark in the morning
And the joy of vision
Up high and higher into the void of the sky
We climbed with strange lack of fear
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My grandparents
Grandad looks mixed European possibly a little Jewish with that nose, while poor granny who died after her son was born was 100 % Irish [ with a bit of Spanish perhaps from the Armada.
Grandad worked for 50 years in a coal mine and raised 6 children alone.He took part in the Miner’s Strike and they had to go to soup kitchens for food.I suspect we were all very thin because my mother probably was not given very much to eat and she thought that was normal.When I was 22,I weighed 7.5 stone and I am quite tall.When I lay down my hip bones were sticking out.]
I can see my sister and one of her sons in granny’s face but noone looks like grandad…
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War in my genes [ not jeans]
My therapist says I’m neurotic because the Viking genes in me are warring with the Celts.But what about the Anglo-Saxons,Ancient Britons,Romans,Jews,Huguenots?
When you recall I was created from just an ovum and a sperm it is pretty amazing that all these genes have replicated themselves and enjoying more struggle and strife.
I have Celtic feet which is very bad because they are very bony and the toes are too long so they get bent.Meanwhile my skull is Scandinavian. Now that’s two different races in my skeleton already.I am pretty sure if I should vote Remain as I am already European. like most “English” people here.
What is odd is 2 people I know, who are from countries outside of Europe,are against “foreigners” but their husbands were British and now they have British passports.But strictly speaking,to Nigel Farage and his supporters they are not British.So their position is odd.I must tell the therapist unless she’s been sent to Yarl’s Wood.
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My picnic is ruined
From twitter
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Ben Tallon, the artist who learned to use mistakes
I wrote a post last week about how when he spilled a bottle of ink he used the result to make an image.
https://wordscat.wordpress.com/2016/06/16/made-by-accident/
Here is a fuller account of his art.
http://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/ben-tallon-freelancing-champagne-wax-crayons
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Diving into the Wreck by Adrienne Rich
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/adrienne-rich
First having read the book of myths,
and loaded the camera,
and checked the edge of the knife-blade,
I put on
the body-armor of black rubber
the absurd flippers
the grave and awkward mask.
I am having to do this
not like Cousteau with his
assiduous team
aboard the sun-flooded schooner
but here alone.
There is a ladder.
The ladder is always there
hanging innocently
close to the side of the schooner.
We know what it is for,
we who have used it.
Otherwise
it is a piece of maritime floss
some sundry equipment.
I go down.
Rung after rung and still
the oxygen immerses me
the blue light
the clear atoms
of our human air.
I go down.
My flippers cripple me,
I crawl like an insect down the ladder
and there is no one
to tell me when the ocean
will begin.
First the air is blue and then
it is bluer and then green and then
black I am blacking out and yet
my mask is powerful
it pumps my blood with power
the sea is another story
the sea is not a question of power
I have to learn alone
to turn my body without force
in the deep element.
And now: it is easy to forget
what I came for
among so many who have always
lived here
swaying their crenellated fans
between the reefs
and besides
you breathe differently down here.
I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.
I stroke the beam of my lamp
slowly along the flank
of something more permanent
than fish or weed
the thing I came for:
the wreck and not the story of the wreck
the thing itself and not the myth
the drowned face always staring
toward the sun
the evidence of damage
worn by salt and away into this threadbare beauty
the ribs of the disaster
curving their assertion
among the tentative haunters.
This is the place.
And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair
streams black, the merman in his armored body.
We circle silently
about the wreck
we dive into the hold.
I am she: I am he
whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes
whose breasts still bear the stress
whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies
obscurely inside barrels
half-wedged and left to rot
we are the half-destroyed instruments
that once held to a course
the water-eaten log
the fouled compass
We are, I am, you are
by cowardice or courage
the one who find our way
back to this scene
carrying a knife, a camera
a book of myths
in which
our names do not appear.
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A tale of married life
By Katherine
Stan and Mary went in town
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The unfamiliar
We’ve already seen that life is about living the questions, that the unknown is what drives science, and that the most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. John Keats wrote of this art of remaining in doubt “without any irritable reaching after fact & reason” and famously termed it “negative capability.” But count on Anaïs Nin to articulate familiar truths in the most exquisitely poetic way possible, peeling away at the most profound and aspirational aspects of what it means to be human.
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Writing poetry about civil rights
http://www.powerpoetry.org/actions/7-tips-writing-poetry-civil-rights
Cats do not need civil rights
If need be, they give us a bite
But love’s not enough
For folk who live rough
Houses and rights fill their sight
