“Take it from me: If you hear the past speaking to you, feel it tugging up your back and running its fingers up your spine, the best thing to do-the only thing-is run.”
― Lauren Oliver, Delirium
Author: Katherine
Poetry writer and author
De mortuis nil nisi bene
Philosophic [from wikipedia]
- The psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud mentions the phrase in Thoughts for the Times on War and Death (1915), in the second part of the essay, “Our Attitude Towards Death”, wherein he said:
We assume a special attitude towards the dead, something almost like admiration for one who has accomplished a very difficult feat. We suspend criticism of him, overlooking whatever wrongs he may have done, and issue the command, De mortuis nil nisi bene: we act as if we were justified in singing his praises at the funeral oration, and inscribe only what is to his advantage on the tombstone. This consideration for the dead, which he really no longer needs, is more important to us than the truth, and, to most of us, certainly, it is more important than consideration for the living.[3]
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Oh,Hugh
I could have glanced all night.
Don’t leave me for never today
we had the last schmaltz ,it’s true.
A thousand hisses keep..
Prance me with your rubber dove.
Time to say,let’s die.
He’s so negative I am having him developed and hanged on the wall.I never was very good at sandwiches.
Wraiths of our fathers,living well
Fear Jesu
This is the best line of the way
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Wordgames
She wears an undeterred bra and dark snakeswear
His underpants are very seen.
He has very penetrating why’s.
Please zip up your eyes before leaving the bathroom
Please wash the sands before meals.
He had sinister grammar. at school
He could see flight blew me.
He looked up directionessly.
She has a new rat this year.
When you have seen one, you have been appalled.
I believe in sexual dragnetism.
He was embalmed by erudition
His gaze threw me a line.
They had sex before the carriage and inside too
i think culture is a mulcher
He will never let me grow.
I said,No plank you.
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Compliments
I love you so nearly.
I horse whipped idols for years
You’re almost defined.
Your tart is mine;I love Cox’s nipples
I keep him by a raider’s well
He put her on a pedal-less ball
He hated wax without gloves.
I’ll never leave you in the church
I’ll devour ’em in the porch
I promise to love, out say and fol de rol you until death has no heart
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Signing off
Lots off love
Oh,devour.
Ode to annoy
See your dilator
See your tune.
See your moons.
See your plater
Yours wincerely… ouch
Yours fadingly
Forever lined.
Buy,buy!
How’s your shoe?
How’s your heartless murmur?
He loved my sins and tumour.
I write my own ruins.
God be with you
With blots on love.
Sans theorie,alors.
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My foot on the table: Bad Manners for all
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The music of you
The music of your voice I shall never hear. I shall never play a duo with you. Would we harmonize? Or find some compromise? Does one need to hear the sound of someone's heart, transposed into verbal music.. Or can we manage without it? Ideolect Sociolect. Circumspect? Words reveal the lost soul. But not the whole story. Play it again But this time Speak it. I want to hear the music Of you.
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As smart as they come
- I feel so sorry for the bookworms that lived in the caves alongside the first humans.They must have gnawed on bones for thousands of years until someone opened a library.
When you say someone opened a library it makes it sound like a tin of soup.
Yes,think of the waste of tinned food till somebody invented the electric tin opener.
It makes me think.
What about?
The tragedies all around us.
Like the worms tha live in the soil underneath the London Eye.
How about the bats that lived in Stratford until that gigantic shopping centre was opened.
Still I must admit it’s been very good news for all the shoplifters in East London where there were no shops worth lifting.
And all the thieves who had no rich people to steal from.
What about all those writers who lived before alphabets were invented and so they had to become artists instead
It’s enough to make a woman weep.
Oh,I wouldn’t go as far as that.
No,you always were faint hearted…
Well,heart transplants may have been invented but I don’t want one,
Do you want two?
I am indecisive.
I’m under sized
Lucky sized!
Give over.
Why?
You might make me laugh and comedy may not have been invented yet.
what a tragedy.
Let’s cry…if it’s been invented!
I’ll weep if not.
- How lucky we are that reading had been invented as what would we do with our writing otherwise
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The Ideal!
A little beauty
Aspiration!
Not for a lack of gnawing want,
Nor for a feeble will;
Fearful another’s need to blunt,
Their hunger pangs to still!
Not in pursuit of transient gain,
Or still-born accolade;
Such selfish aims treat with disdain,
Fairness for all crusade;
A winsome serenade!
©
(From: Mindful Musings.)
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An unusual and beautiful blog
Like shadows we dance
in and out of corners
and the places where no one has been
or ever will be
listening to silver sound;
notes that fall like raindrops from an empty sky
as beautiful as liquid diamonds
shimmering in the air
and on the ground
where they become oceans
deep blue, and full of haunting melody
wrapping around us, pushing us underneath the surface
until we too become part of the oceans
until we too drown in songs
becoming endless and ending all at once
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A map’s a guide to find a world
A map's a guide to find the world Knitted by angels,plain or pearled. Yet though you need a map as guide, Keep your own eyes open wide. I spent a year caught in a map Until I found a big enough gap I crawled out through this exit slit, So here I am,like some half wit. Words can act like heroin, You live so high,where I have been. But onto earth I gladly fall. The air, the sun, the rain, is all. My senses are my lovers long- My ears,my eyes,my skin my tongue. The winds caress my naked flesh, To dwell on earth is all I wish. I'll live with mice and birds and plants, I'll share my food with miscreants I'll keep my words inside a tin, And only,now and then,go in. I'll live with cats and spiders three. And like a wild flower grow quite free. I' ll give my words to those who hear, And eventually I'll disappear Earth to earth then ash to ash When soaked with rain I shall disperse. My atoms wing like butterflies, And to the Flower I'll fly,disguised
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Yet sometimes love turns out to be unwise.
No depth is like the deepness of your eyes No warmth is like the comfort of your smile Yet sometimes love turns out to be unwise. And joy can change to feelings dark and vile Yet like blue glass your eyes compel my gaze. Your lips invite us to to conjoin with mine. Have I learned so little wisdom in my days? Am I a fool top pass this warning sign? Yet hope is ever rising in the heart. Despair is not to be embraced too soon; and if God wills that our two ways must part I'll face the error and receive my doom. For humans must all give and take of love. So tender like the flutterings of a dove
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Medicine will make me die
Oh,doctor I am in a flap I cannot turn this childproof cap I cannot take my medicine So I shall chuck it in the bin The beta blockers make me down So I am in a study brown. The mini aspirins make me bruise And my mind is quite confused. The ibuprofen hurt my heart Yet without one I cannot start. The thyroxine has no effect So what act may I select? The codeine fails to make me high I'm not addicted, though I try. I'll have to take a shot of gin And alcohol will make me sin. I'll go to parties in a dress That makes men's hormones more or less. I'll take a big one home with me, And give him poison in his tea. And when I am in jail, at last, I'll feel remorse for all my past. For as I suffer dreadful pain God has hit me yet again. It's not enough that I'm half blind And suffer terrors in my mind Not enough that lovers cruel Give me stick instead of jewels. Or maybe life does not make sense Especially when one feels so tense. Maybe random are my days and my life has gone astray. I think that I shall buy a cat And love it tenderly and chat. But if my cat gives me a scratch... I'll light its tail up with a match. All the world must me obey Else I'll be enraged all day. I want my own way all the time. Other people must conform. I am here and full of ills What do you think of those blue pills? If they take away my heart That at least will be a start. Then they can remove my brain To help me with this dreadful pain. Why not kill me straight away Then I'll be from pain astray?
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Stan and the standard deviation
Stan was teaching social statistics to a group of elderly neighbors.Since he was 101 it gave much hope to them to see him demonstrating his prowess with various techniques on the overhead projector,.He was planning to do some logic and some philosophy too.Annie was sitting by the door so she could answer the bell if any paramedics turned up for tea or supper…etc
I’m not going to calculate ” the standard deviations” he murmured.”I just want you to grasp the general purpose.”
“Deviations,they’re not normal are they?” enquired his neighbour “Henry,an ex-English teacher.”So how can they be standard.It’s utterly confusing..”
“Are you thinking of deviants?” Stan enquired calmly yet nervously
”Certainly not,at my age I’m long 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 neighboru 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 prosaic..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! word. 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.So Lacan appeared to think.As I am unable to understand his writing myself,I cannot be sure if he was right
“Time for tea.” called Annie,hoping to divert their attention to the everyday realm of food and drink..She carried in a platter of mouse [mice?] sandwiches kindly donated by the local ambulance service and some iced Victoria sponge she and Stan had made the day before in her oven.
“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 kindly answered.And it;s impossible truly.
“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!”As we all know….
“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..i…
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Evil ?
“Evil usually enters the world unrecognised by the people who open the door and let it in…………………..If victimisation is the essence of evil,then the question of evil is a victim’s question”
Roy Baumeister
From his book, Evil : inside human cruelty and guilt
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Empty space
My hands reached out to touch you but there was nothing there
Except the empty air.
Let’s hope seven devils don’t rush in
where angels dear once trod
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Genius and mental health:you don’t need to go mad
Romantic love
August night :On the patio late evening in August
Alfred wants to mop the floor
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Sundown
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Missing
I ‘m missing him like we miss that lost tooth till the gum heals.
I ‘ve been in the dentist’s chair
Had the anaesthetic but still felt the tug and force.
And the dentist yelled,look at this,
I got it all out in one
You see,the root was very twisted and tangled
I told him,take it away.
I’m missing my other because his absence makes a hole
like that bloody hollow in your jaw but in the soul.
Came home alone from the clinic
Felt that soul hole.The first time
when he wasn’t here.
God doesn’t do anaesthesia, just burns the bush
I’m missing him because he needed me so much
Now nobody needs me nor notices if I am here except Alfred
Or if I fall over in the garden,will I die and rot down to the earth before
my neighbour recalls he’s not seen me for three weeks.Or maybe five.
I miss J the way you’d miss your flesh
if someone shot you with a rifle and made a tunnel through your body;
took out a lump which would hurtle away and fall to earth.
I’m missing his honey smell.
the knowledge,the feeling he had of me.
The hole in my space is almost tangible
in this room.
I wake up and wonder what he’d like to eat today.
But the dead don’t eat at our tables do they?
I remember I am alone at the table and I can eat whatever I like.
Oh,love,why did you down so fast?When you were the one,solid I leaned on.You were my man and you are gone
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August is a month to re group and relax…..
So lovely
We have only now, only this single eternal moment opening and unfolding before us, day and night. Buddhist Offerings.
And hang loose…..
watercolour/gouache
A Bientôt
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My new garden
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Lonely hearts
A friend of mine who lost her husband a few years ago was stunned when a cousin asked her how she found on line dating.Anyone less likely to do that would be hard to find.Anyway how do we describe ourselves? Too intelligent…no thanks.Bad eyesight… can be an advantage.Crippled with arthriitis… enjoy a creative adventurer/ in your bed…
Frightened of dentists.. date a doctor.. and vice versa or just vice.Actually one really important thing is smell.My husband smielled like honey.. that was nice.Scientists believe it may be the most important sense and I can understand why… tough sleeping next to a bad smelling man.An ugly man..ok shut your eyes.. you get my point?Too large………………buy a bigger bed…But kindness and a nice smell will take a man a long way though maybe with somebody else , not you or me and in some ways it’s nice to be in joyful solitude just a cat and a few novels and a bottle full of old buttons.
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Sonnets for all
- A sonnet is a poetic form which originated in Italy; Giacomo Da Lentini is credited with its invention. The term sonnet is derived from the Italian word sonetto (from Old Provençal sonet a little poem, from son song, from Latin sonus a sound).Wikipedia
You must read
When you are writing you will be using whatever you have stocked your mind with.So reading poetry and fiction and other writing is crucial.and of course your life and what has happened to you or your society will be present in your writing..I find keeping a l journal of things which make an emotional impact on me is helpful.Read what you like but not rubbish.Please.
Starting with the sonnet form
The first line of Gray’s Elegy has the right meter.for a sonnet.
“The curfew tolls the knell of parting day.”
So you must write a line to that music:
The clouds rise up and race across the sky
for example; then you need a second line.I find these two lines must be interesting.emotional ,deep or symbolic .After that the structure determines to some extent how you can develop your poem…Fourteen lines according to the pattern below.
ABAB CDCD EFEF GG
Sonnets are usually serious but it is possible to write a humorous one.Historically it was the metaphysical poets who wrote this way about love and death…John Donne is one of them..He wrote the famous poem
No man is an island
Brightness
Sonnet on writing a poem
Poetry is the art of shaping words
The structure contributes to make the whole.
And writing sonnets is not just for us nerds.
Creating structures helps to create our souls.
Yet many folk are frightened by the risk
Of imperfection,criticism and pain.
But for myself, I love this frightening task.
so gaily I sit down to write again.
Though what I write may not be alpha plus.
The chance to share my feelings lures me on.
And when I travel on a London bus
I write a note before my thoughts are gone
We each can be creative in some way
And find our happiness. from being gay
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Religious folk are morally worse? Says who ? LRB review of two books by Mark Johnston
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n11/galen-strawson/religion-is-a-sin
[
A bit of extra reading below]
The second article is a fascinating interview with Strawson in which he compares Hitler to an earthquake]
“If we take the term ‘morally worse’ as purely descriptive, denoting people whose characters generally appear to be morally worse than average, and if we restrict our attention to those who have had some non-negligible degree of education, we find that people who have religious convictions are on the whole morally worse than people who lack the
Galen Strawson …his life and work with some radio discussions
St Paul and St Augustine are monstrous egoists..quote
You may find this letter interesting
Letters
‘We find that people who have religious convictions are on the whole morally worse than people who lack them,’ Galen Strawson writes in the LRB of 2 June. I thought this was fairly startling and looked forward to seeing letters in the next issue challenging Strawson and asking for some evidence. But no: for readers of the LRB, Professor Strawson’s view must be fairly uncontroversial, because there were no letters on the subject in the following issue. By a happy coincidence, I have been sent a complimentary copy of the New Statesman in which Jonathan Sacks, the chief rabbi, quotes some American research which seems to show that religious people – defined as those who regularly attend a place of worship – are more likely to behave in virtuous ways than non-religious people. What, I wonder, would constitute evidence one way or the other? Some parts of Galen Strawson’s review seem to suggest that religious belief on the part of educated people is in itself evidence of moral deficiency. That looks suspiciously like rigging the scales.
Anthony Buckley
City College Coventry
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The killer instinct
Sometimes we get struck by lightning and sometimes we are attacked by a human being.But beware.I have a good friend, a woman,who looks quite slight.A man attempted to assault her some years back.What did she do?She nearly strangled him… and he begged for mercy.Sp beware of slight frail women.. with adrenalin high they might kill you should you attack them.It’s a natural phenomenon,like a storm
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Lighting and the eye of the storm
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I prefer the free flow
I don’t want to write any sonnets;
Nor to hear any Wagner Teutonic.
I prefer the free flow
of poetry to go
around the world of the essence Platonic.
Of course some folk like odd mnenomics
Others prefer to read comics
Do you draw cartooons
Or to writing presume?
I would were it more economic.
If only women could wear flowered bonnets
Bad hair days would disappear,innit?
The bhurka is dandy.
and veils come in handy.
This head gear looks almost up to the minute.
