https://lynettebye.com/blog/2021/1/31/the-10000-hour-rule-is-a-myth

The pebbled beach on which we walked at dawn
The sun was dancing singing stone to stone
The sea was pale as silk and gently ran
The tide was coming in, the day began

Why is my memory so deficient here?
I remember little but you near
I remember Portland Bill at dusk
The sea was wilder then with its fierce thrusts

Happiness was like a golden shawl
A world like Eden, man before the Fall
Today they say, illusion, I say, no
What matters is where this insight makes you go

The fruits of meditation are its test
May we be generous,kind, may souls be blessed

S

Now the black sheep’s back inside the fold.

The lost are found,the gate is open wide

We all eat together,timid bold

We weep for joy,our love is not denied

The years of trudging on . through mud and mire

The wounded heart the tears love wiped away

Consolation came, the saints conspired.

The children learnt in stages what to say.

Before we reach the end of earthly life

Before our minds dissolve, before the fire.

Before the husband’s dragged away from wife

Before the eye of God, beyond desire..

The final act of love is reached at last

We know so clearly now that love is just

I saw, while half asleep,  her face was gone
She faded, like the mist does at the dawn,
From the gallery of my most loved ones

Ungrounded by the loss, fearful, forlorn,
Skinless like a worm  picked off a lawn,
I saw, while half asleep,  her face was gone

Do not leave me, do not my love scorn
Lost and gone are my beloved ones
I  am human in both ghost and form

Heart constricted, lungs  pant out my pain
Haunted and bereft of human warmth
I saw, while half asleep,  her face was gone

I shall have no mother but that one
Now I have become a dried out corm
Lost and gone are  my beloved ones

Like a little leaf from its plant torn
Gnawed by slugs,  fragmented  till unborn
I saw, while half asleep, her face was gone
With the gallery of my lost, loved ones

A  homeless woman crouched in bitter  cold
Her face was clean, her entire body  shook
Trembling  in the wind, so rough and bold

Though she was young quite soon she would look old
Her  heart bereft she gave me a  dark look
A  homeless woman crouched in bitter  cold

Was she the sheep that left the fold
That Jesus would not leave to fate  so bleak?
She trembles  in the wind, so rough and bold

A coat I’ll bring tomorrow,I’m appalled.
With her   childlike hand she touched my cheek
A  homeless woman crouched in bitter  cold

Then a humble  Cross between her fingers showed
A flame glowed in her eye, a golden streak
Trembling  in the wind, so rough and bold

 

For the  mystical we do not seek
We are affected by the lost  we meet
A  homeless woman shone in bitter  cold
Trembling  in the wind, her  love,her gold

 

About the golden light what can I say
Love is near and we don’t need to pray
Enter into darkness without fear
Another hand will guide help us steer

I had lost my faith I was bereft
I could not speak, and sinking was my craft
Then a the soft bright cloud embraced me whole.
I felt a presence and I saw the light

Why should I be helped when many die?
The mystery ,of God the soul destroyed

Sometimes sunshine makes us feel bereft
Rain and shadowed clouds would suit our mood
When we are the warp without the weft

As if we are the pen and no ink’s left
As if we hunger yet there is no food
Sometimes sunshine makes us feel bereft

Our mind slows down and all we do is drift
Evil thoughts into the soul intrude
Like we are the warp without the weft

Let the eye and all its muscles rest
With wider focus we may cease to brood
Sometimes sunshine makes us feel bereft

Do not try with will power nor it test
Relaxation brings back knowledge of the good
We take it in like babies at the breast

We must not test the will but let it go
Trust the ocean and eternal flow
Sometimes sunshine makes us feel bereft
Sometimes sunshine brings its golden gifts

Winter sunshine shows the branches bare

Reveals each shape both elegant and spare

The little birds fly in and out at will

The low sun’s bright, the wind is light as well

What kind of world has human language made?

Evolution does not always pay

For language can speak love but also hate

And brings to some misfortune and black fate

Words can hurt much deeper than a knife

We may be traumatised by our own life

The bitch the witch , the charlatan, the Jew

These categories old, are ever new

Language wrote both Dante and Mein Kampf,

From ecstasy to Concentration Camp

J

Against sadness:no-one here can weep
Nor lounge about in111 melancholy deep.
Was Van Gogh senseless to permit his muse.
For his masterpieces ,was the price too steep?
We see the yellow chair but not his views
Nor his mind where technique made such leaps.
Nor was his journey broadcast on the news.
Against sadness.

Happiness or joy is hard to find
When we rest, the News preys on our minds
Yet some are cold towards the slaughtered priest
His nose a beak of bone in old face lined
Now Muslims go to Mass and join Christ’s feast
Against sadness.

What rages in the mind make men kill thus?
In Syrian wars the innocents fare worse.
But these are our near neighbours so we weep
And wonder how to end the frightening curse
The sins we once committed hold us deep
We hold our hands out wanting to be nursed
Against sadness

I’m glad that I can put a bra on now. It’s so useful to have somewhere to put my smartphone other than in my knickers.

In the past women wore knickers with long legs with elastic around the bottom and that was where they could keep their handkerchief or if they’d had a phone they could keep their phone there but now most women wear trousers.

So if you’ve got a large bust a bra is a useful storage place. You don’t want to look as if you’ve got a weapon in there so think about it very carefully especially if you own a gun.

Never carry a pair of scissors in your bra. You could carry a rolled up beanie hat or a pocket hanky.

Remember less is better the more. If you carry a ballpoint pen make sure it doesn’t leak.

But don’t keep your smartphone in your bra when you are feefing a baby because you don’t want the baby to start using the phone do you? Wait till the child is at least two years old before you let them have their own phone and wait till they are 15 before you buy them a bra.

It is better for them to leave their phone at home and let them run out to play in the street with any other children who are still allowed to go out of the house.

Because you can use a phone all your life but you can only play in the street until you are adolescent and it was  one of the happiest times of my own life. Of course there wasn’t so much traffic then. People didn’t lock their front doors and the kettle was always on the fire for any  unexpected visitor.

Once you reach adolescence I’m afraid life is completely different and I don’t think any adolescent wants to keep a phone in their bra to be absolutely truthful. A bird in the hand is worth two in a bra.

Postmodern poetry has no formal shape
No sonnet,villanelle or rondeau there
Nor is it true or false that we are apes

A sentence made from curses aggravates
Makes even slight hurts something we can’t bear
Postmodern poetry has no formal shape

This very poem’s ironic , it emotes
Glares with total rage at you who care
If it’s true or false that we are apes

This poem,alas, will offer no escape
If it has no rhymes then I have flair
Postmodern poetry has no formal shape

The forms are hung until we get to break
We shatter and we crack the poet’s lair
I think it’s true and false that we are apes

For a metre I will hang in here
Waiting with no patience for a jeer
Postmodern poetry has no formal shape
Nor is it true that thoughts annihilate

Between the world and how we represent
The nameless by a name and even place
There is a space or void in our intent.

What mother saw, what father really meant
How love and hate might intertwine in space
In our own world, what can we represent?

In writing, there is lack and letters bent
For ancient writing often scholars traced
There is a space or void in our intent.

Today the sun is golden, gods descend.
With love, for moments, we are all embraced
Of the felt, what can we represent?

Our willingness unblinds the heart so rent
And then we see the face within his face
The space or void is in our interest.

I cross my eyes with fingers interlaced:
The crucifix, the love, the death of Christ
Between the world and what we may attempt
There is a space or void where he was sent

I wish I were in Lancashire again

Pendle Hill the pike of Rivington

The mountains of North Wales , the Cheshire plain

I will never climb, my legs are gone,

Dear home, the cobbled Street my skipping rope.

The end wall of the house my mother’s face.

The tree she planted and her helpless hope

The love ,the feeling sad, the lost embrace..

I wish I were in junior school once

more

The powdered ink,, the brass the desks of oak

Children’s laughter to the sky can soar,

Skipping fast and how our arms would a àche

I wish I were a child and has no cares

I miss the. Freedom, bonfire night the War

The wordless feelings of the soul catch light
Like fire,like diamonds, like the dust of stars
With their fire they penetrate the night

To expression, they the mind incite
To where the words may open and be clear
The wordless feelings of the soul catch light

Expression by its methods brings delight
We see the molten universe desire
With great fires , with wonder, what work’s wrought?

Like a flock of geese in happy flight
The heart of unknown worlds is not a liar
The sense of feeling souls will bring us light

Of the thunder and the lion we note
The natural world with its own might conspires
With its being it permeates the night

So our hearts and souls does love devour
Never cornered never shall love cower
The wordless feelings of the soul catch light
With such brilliance, can we feel the night?

https://davidjrogersftw.com/

David’s latest post is of his poetry and this is well worth visiting this. He is very accomplished and full of feeling.

A President’s Death

Poor Professor Johnson,
I pitied him–his deep feelings.
A dignified man, a scholar,
Teacher of eighteenth
Century British poetry,
Couldn’t speak but to
Say go home, there would
Be no class today.
On the subway someone
Had a portable radio.
No passenger speaking,
Everyone listening in shock,
The tinny, crackling
Radio voice telling us over
And over as though we
Wouldn’t believe him, that
The President I felt I knew
Though he was rich and I
A student struggling with
Illness and poverty,
Had been shot.  Professor
Johnson went home and read
Alexander Pope’s masterful
Couplets through tears.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01681-2

Gerard Manley Hopkins poetry

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44398/no-worst-there-is-none-pitched-past-pitch-of-grief

But metaphors are not merely things to be seen beyond. In fact, one can see beyond them only by using other metaphors. It is as though the ability to comprehend experience through metaphor were a sense, like seeing or touching or hearing, with metaphors providing the only ways to perceive and experience much of the world. Metaphor is as much a part of our functioning as our sense of touch, and as precious.

.Metaphors we live by

George Lakoff and Mark Johnson

Painting by Katherine.Copyright

Two whole worlds.
One small cut.
One little chink.
Hard to find.
Very,very hard.
One small place
Where a very little cat
Could slip right through
The geometrician ‘s cut.
Cat could slip right through.
Just,slip straight through.
Joining it’s own reflection
On the opposite side.
The mirror’s other side.

And if I caught that tail,
If I caught her little tail,
She could pull me through,
She could pull me through,
So she and I too
We’d be on the other side,
The wrong way round,
On the opposite side.

So when you looked in,
If you looked in,
You would see me there,
Looking out at you,
From the opposite side.
From the opposite side.
And the cat beside
Looking very small,
Very,very small;
But very,very real.
How do you think you’d feel,
If I was looking out,
Staring at you
From the opposite side?

I can’t get back.
I can’t find Riemann’s cat
and without that pussy cat
I can’t find Riemann’s cut.
I think I’m in a trap.
I cannot find that cat.
So she can’t find the cut
To get me back,
She can’t bring me back
To where I was before.

Oh,how queer,
To have two of me in here.
I hope I’ll get on well
With my other self,
Behind the looking glass.
No one looking in,
But two are staring out.
From that other world.

I am looking out,
I’m looking out
To see if you are there.
One of you’s with me
That makes the total three.
Oh,dear me,
I should not have grabbed
Little pussy’s tail.
I didn’t really know
Where she meant to go.

“Where have you been?
Where do you think you’ve been
To get so filthy black,
And where’s your pussy cat?”
She never came back.
Never came back
From the opposite side.
Mammy thought I’d lied.
I don’t tell lies,
But I can see my cat
Staring out at me.
Staring out at me
From the other side.
From the opposite side
Of my looking glass.
My lovely looking glass
Has trapped my tiny cat
On the opposite side.
On the opposite side
On the other side

Homer’s tales were laced with important lessons for his contemporaries on the “proper” ways to think and behave. He taught (or reminded) them how to properly treat a stranger or a relative, face danger and hardship, worship, and so on. Similarly, the fables of Aesop and Da Vinci ranged in subject matter from comments upon the quirks of human nature to considering the meaning of existence.

From … Therapeutic metaphors :

Helping others through the looking glass”‘ by David Gordon

https://www.thoughtco.com/poetry-writing-apps-2725648#:~:text=Writing%20poetry%20goes%20all%2Din,A%2Dgame%20to%20your%20writing.

• I saw you on the pavement
  with your old brown dog
  You were shabby,poor,ragged,
  Sat on your tartan rug.
  You had water for the dog,
  You hugged him and you sang,
  But the people walked on by,
  And no-one looked at you.
  No-one looked at you.
  
  But you still sang your song.
  And you sent me so much love
  It crossed from eye to eye.
  I felt it coming in.
• 
  I heard that you had died,
  Though you were only thirty three.
  Only thirty three.
  I wonder,where’s your dog?
  I felt our souls had touched,
  You gave to me so much
  As I wandered in my grief
  Through the roads and round the streets.
  In your glance, you touched my heart.
  I felt love swimming through,
  From you right into me.
  
  Will you come again?
  I see all these dim, grey men
  Who cut your benefits
  To give more wealth to few;
  So that the needle’s eye,
  which is waiting when we die,
  is forgotten, for they want
  protection for their wealth.
  
  I wish that beggar man
  would come back here again.
  I liked to hear his songs
  But I can’t recall the tunes;
  Maybe I’ll write songs myself,
  That’s the highest sort of wealth
  Our creativity
  Is a path to dignity.
  Come back.beggar man
  Wherever have you gone?
  Wherever have you gone?

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2014/07/25/the-vale-of-soul-making/

“I will call the world a School instituted for the purpose of teaching little children to read—I will call the human heart the horn Book used in that School—and I will call the Child able to read, the Soul made from that school and its hornbook. Do you not see how necessary a World of Pains and troubles is to school an Intelligence and make it a soul? A Place where the heart must feel and suffer in a thousand diverse ways!” Keats

https://dalspace.library.dal.ca/bitstream/handle/10222/63097/dalrev_vol61_iss1_pp39_51.pdf?sequence=1

“When we look into Keats’s expressions of conflict between
imagination and reality we can see the roots of this conflict in the
problem of identity. Keats wrote about the sunset, the sparrow, the
mythological figure as if he had lost his identity in the object. He
experienced these identifications sometimes with a sense of discovery
and sometimes with fear or irritability. Eventually, Keats began to see
that his identity would not be maddened by his imagination and could
be strengthened by it. He realized, in other words, “that a not inconsiderable increase in psychical efficiency” can result “from a disposition
which in itself is perilous.” In-the four years we know Keats as a letter
writer and a poet, we can see the development of his capacity for
retaining a sense of identity even when seized by powerful or seductive
visions. This is the development–the turning of a weakness into a
strength, both as artist and as man-that accounts for many apparent
contradictions in Keats’s thought. The language of negative capability
has been difficult because it suggests a puzzling oxymoron- a negative
and a positive. The figure presents two aspects of a dual process, the
first part of which, in its partial renunciation of control, can be felt as a
negative, while the second, or alternating, state recreates and is felt as a
capability. The creative process in some of its operations posed
dangers for Keats’!; identity. But by the spring of 1819, the period of the
great odes, there appears a new strength in the second aspect of
negative capabilily imagination”

Ah,brother I don’t want you to lie still

No blood to circulate,no thoughts,no will

No help,no humour.jokes no

sharp true eye

From our old shared pram,to live, to die.

I used to do your homework

late at night

Abstract thought to you was no delight.

You wondered over X and y and z

Preferred the shapes of Nature in your head.

I shall retain the memories of the good

You who taught me speech and hate and love

I’d love to write a sonnet but I  daren’t
For in this steamy heat it’s much too hard
So please don’t send me messages that taunt
Nor with disdain compare me to our bard.

.For  not all people have poetic skill
And  what I have will sometimes fall to dust
Like virtue  writing’s not made by the will
Await the grace ,as saints and mystics must

In  the mind an empty bowl of space
We keep to catch the offerings of the gods.
It’s more like contemplation than a race;
For freely, quietly we receive the good.

The lady’s not for   turning words to gold
But with a  chosen few she loves to mould