Mike and Ros attended the Carol Service recently.I thought the photos he shared were excellent.
Category: poetry
Annie and Mary boil the kettle
When Mary got home,she took off her coat and put the kettle on the fire!She got the tea caddy out and put some tea into the pot.Suddenly the door burst open and Annie her exuberant neighbour fell into the kitchen
Are you ok,Mary asked her gently.Those 4 inch heels are rather dangerous.
Annie was wearing a sky blue track suit,red stilettos and a big green pashmina. Her make up had melted all down her face as she was so warm with running.She had some waterproof make up but had the feeling it might be dangerous to clog the pores.
Where have you been?She asked curiously.You were ages.
I forgot to get off the bus as I fell into a reverie.
That sounds like a black hole!
I was daydreaming so I ended up by the river and a policeman asked me for a date,sort of.
Did you have any dates with you?
No,I only had Stan in my bag,alas.
Where is he?Have you put him into the wardrobe?
It’s already full.He’s still in the bag at the moment.
The two women fell into a sad mutual silence realising Stan would never now teach Emile to swim in the bath nor return his overdue library books.
Am I liable for his fines,Mary wondered.
I can pay if you like,Annie,said generously.She got out some home made biscuits and gave one to Mary who was wearing a long black dress from Lands End which resembled a nun’s habit.
Are you thinking of retiring to the cloister soon ,she continued.
No,I don’t believe in Christianity any more.Christ.yes,Christianity ,no.
What about Xmas?Will you celebrate?
I shall pray and do out the kitchen cupboards.
Are they that bad,asked Annie curiously, twiddling a ringlet with her fingers.
Possibly,Mary giggled!They didn’t teach domestic science at Oxford!And Mother was always busy cooking and cleaning the grate after she got home from work.
Talking about grates,I’d better look at the kettle.She lifted it off the fire and held it up in the air.It was very black on one side,just like the one Mary’s mother had had so many years ago.
Why don’t I make some tea,she asked.
I don’t know,said Annie.Is this the Xmas quiz?
No,you don’t understand.It’s a rhetorical question.
Oh,do stop showing off,Annie told her.I only went to Knittingham Polytechnic and we never did Greek,just Aramaic.I have forgotten it now.
Mary poured out the tea into two pint sized mugs and the women sat silently warming their hands on the mugs and meditating on the wilful backwardness of the local poly which now only taught Latin,Hebrew and chemical engineering.The latter was an error as the professors thought that was what Wittgenstein had studied before finding Bertrand Russell more attractive.
Russell’s paradox had haunted Annie ever since those happy student days.Whereas she being a lady with a very high libido would have preferred Russell to his paradox if she had been given the choice.
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Vision
Wittgenstein mentions St Augustine
Why in the world shouldn’t they have regarded with awe and reverence that act by which the human race is perpetuated. Not every religion has to have St. Augustine‘s attitude to sex. Why even in our culture marriages are celebrated in a church, everyone present knows what is going to happen that night, but that doesn’t prevent it being a religious ceremony
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Quote for the day
My sweet Lord
The Vatican has an aura of power
Did Jesus,our sweet Lord endow her?
He would be truly shocked
To see poverty thus mocked
Conquering Rome took the bees from the Flower.
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Welcome to my viewer in Vietnam
Welcome to my viewer in Vietnam
I will write poems as well as I can.
For it’s a privilege to share
Communion so rare.
I ‘m so moved my eyes seemed to run.
When child’s born ,she usually cries
As the stimulation of birth has its price.
Yet we must leave mother’s womb
Then create a cocoon
Where our psyche a world may devize.
Metaphors spring up like spring flowers.
Similes enchant by the hour.
How rich our own minds may be
When we perceive all we see.
For relaxed eyes don’t enjoy being narrowed.
Focus is sharp when we hunt.
Yet maintained it can too often stunt.
We need a broad view,
As the owls always knew.
If only we saw back and front!
.
[As in,he’s got eyes in the back of his head.. an English folk saying[
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From the Orwell lecture 2015
Doris Lessing
Orwell’s rules for good writing have become familiar: don’t use secondhand metaphors, don’t use long words where short ones will do, abbreviate, use the active not the passive, never use a foreign phrase when you can find an everyday alternative in English. They are rules designed to communicate something other than the fact that the speaker is powerful enough to say what he or she likes. Bad or confused metaphor (Orwell has some choice examples of which my favourite is “The Fascist octopus has sung its swan song”) presents us with something we can’t visualise; good metaphor makes us more aware, in unexpected ways, of what we see or sense. So bad metaphor is about concealing or ignoring; and language that sets out to conceal or ignore and make others ignore is language that wants to shrink the limits of the world to what can be dealt with in the speaker’s terms alone.
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Coercion hidden
| Coercive force is like an iron fist | ||
| Disguised with fancy gloves to lead amiss. | ||
| Be wary of those men who too soon kiss | ||
| And of their wooing ,do not believe the bliss. | ||
| Knowledge of others takes its time to grow | ||
| And like a little plant needs tender care | ||
| In courtship it is better to be slow. | ||
| And not to strangers let our hearts be bare. | ||
| The conman earned his title for his charm. | ||
| He’s convincing as he senses what we need. | ||
| But this is for eventual cruel harm | ||
| Neither money nor sweet love let him accede. | ||
| Coercion may be disguised as love most kind | ||
| and our natural instincts often make us blind | r |
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What is coercion?
coercion
See definition in Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary
Line breaks: co|er¦cion
Pronunciation: /kəʊˈəːʃ(ə)n/
Words that rhyme with coercion
animadversion, aspersion, assertion, aversion, bioconversion, Cistercian, conversion, desertion, disconcertion, dispersion, diversion, emersion, excursion, exertion, extroversion, immersion, incursion, insertion, interspersion, introversion, Persian, perversion, submersion, subversion, tertian, version
Definition of coercion in:
- US English dictionary
- English synonyms
- US English synonym
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The cost
My velleity is not enough to call desire.
It summons up no demons with its power.
Yet denying it would make me a true liar.
I have a wish which fills my surprised hour.
If tremulous velleity should fall away
My life would be a sentence to be served.
I cannot judge if I have gone astray.
Did I go straight and miss some hidden gentle curve?
At any instant, we may make a choice
Which sets us on a track we did not see.
Or daydreaming, ignore dear psyche’s voice;
And with will power, demand how life should be.
Attention must be paid ,or lost
Is our vocation and we pay full cost
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The hand upon my tiller
Come back to me,my sweetheart
Don’t leave me all alone.
Come back to me,my darling
I can’t believe you’ve gone.
I’m crying ‘cos I’m feeling blue again.
I’m crying’cos I’m falling like a stone.
Oh, let me tempt you with my beauty
And my voice forever young.
Let me tempt you with my spirit
My laughter and my songs.
I’m crying ‘cos I never did you wrong.
I’m crying ‘cos with you I do belong.
I thought maybe I’d follow,
To see where you have gone
But there’s a hand upon this tiller
That is not mine alone.
I’m crying ‘cos I wrote this old blue song.
I’m crying ‘cos we’ve been apart too long.
The hand upon my tiller
The mystery of the dark
The unknown one who lives in me
And sings like a skylark.
I’m singing ‘cos I wrote you a new song.
I’m singing ‘cos with music we belong.
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Mysterious force
My bus queue admirer died.
He was 90 and was lonely inside.
From Cyprus they’d fled
Without even a bed.
Now he’s been swept out on the tide.
The sea is a symbol of life.
Though unruly, it does have its tides.
Its regular rhythm
Soothes the ache in my bosom.
And on its back I long to ride.
The unknown has mysterious force
And speaks to us in its own voice.
If we attended
Our ills might be mended.
As it often indicates our real choice.
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God in the bush
Menorah is not a girls’ name.
Come here ,Norah, is not quite the same.
Let me light up your candle
And let the cat fondle..
My cheek, as it never feels shame
Candelebrah sounds extremely posh.
The vision makes all our cheeks flush.
The lights in the darkness
Throw out their sparks at us.
Creation ‘s a fiery,red bush.
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Love Bade Me Welcome – from Love (III)George Herbert
Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back.
Guiltie of dust and sinne.
But quick-ey’d Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack’d anything.
A guest, I answer’d, worthy to be here:
Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkinde, ungrateful? Ah, my deare,
I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
Who made the eyes but I?
Truth Lord, but I have marr’d them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, sayes Love, who bore the blame?
My deare, then I will serve.
You must sit down, sayes Love, and taste my meat:
So I did sit and eat.
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Etymolgy in rhyming verse.
I went to the doctor today
With a dull pain in my poor etymology.
When I went in,he said ,sit down and pray.
I am studying spiritualology.
I said,doctor it doesn’t exist
Language is public not private.
He cried,Do not try to resist.
I am hoping to re-socialise it.
–
I said Spirituality’s sufficient
No need for spiritualology.
He told me my brain was deficient.
And it might affect my parapsychology.
I wonder if he’s in his right mind
For I only went there for a flu shot.
But I hate to be very behind.
I do need to go to the loo a lot.
They say that words can kill when we’re hate filled,
And excommunicating folk is an error.
But if life is predetermined we’re fulfilled.
Yet in our contrarian way, we feel terror.
Etymology passes the time well
When you’re on antibiotics for cystitis.
And even if it’s only a chill,
Can the bladder ever get tonsilitis?
I which we had been told the right names
For the parts hid by knickers voluminous
I thought my red tongue was to blame.
Running right through me and out at the terminus.
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The paragon in verse
A paragon may be lonely and sad;
Their virtue has no appeal for the bad.
And on reading the News
Evil is profuse.
Original sin is still to be had.
Exemplary are the best paragons.
Conceit and pride,be you gone.
With patience they continue
To work till they are into
The zone where the best work is done.
We may have no astoundingly great talent
Yet we too can work and be valiant.
Desire linked with will
Can amaze with new skills.
We can , despite age ,remain pliant.
The paragon of virtue is dust
Which little cares where it’s tossed.
Yet it returns to the soil
Saintly worms onward toil.
This image settles me when I’m fussed
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When doubts and drawbacks struggle in the mind
When doubts and drawbacks struggle in the mind
And certainty seems but a demon dream,
When the faith to love is what no-one can find
For even when asleep, the mind still schemes
When darkness and defeat seem close at hand
And lights dim even as we pray for peace
when wrecks and ruins rile the native sands
When in this life we feel we’ve lost our place…
Then at the saddest depth we see the light
Surrounding with such warmth,with love adorned.
The path that seemed so wrong now leads us right
And in our hearts, warm feelings are new born
Within each storm there is a calm still eye
From there we see the fiercest clouds blown by
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To see with love
They lay down in awe and fear,
Of what their love was bringing near.
They gazed into each other’s eyes
And so did rhapsodise.
They lay down to gaze into
the eyes and soul and heart so true.
They gazed until,when overcome,
They were united into one.
Their souls and bodies were conjoined,
And thus their hearts were well entwined;
As honeysuckle on the walls,
In joy’s sweet arbours does grow tall.
Their loving lips and eyes and hands
Gave pause to time’s soft flowing sands;
And while they touched and gazed so long,
The birds sang out in glorious songs.
The eyes are mirrors to the soul,
and love will make us grow more whole.
Gaze lovingly on humankind..
And hold care in your mind.
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Drastic action
The drastic measures of our governments
They say will bring more safety to the world.
But one wonders what is their desired intent?
As we watch the roll of images uncurl.
As Paris is much closer than the Middle East
We fear that we too might be soon attacked.
This shows us humans are yet narcissistic beasts.
We narrow gaze to Europeans’ lacks.
Ironic thoughts of Armistice appear.
How France and Britain punished Ottoman.
No vision of a future hell was feared.
An Empire to be looted;oil rich lands.
Now our world has shrunk and history repeats:
It’s folly to ignore our real defeat.
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Dr Poker
A trillion thought trains
How many posts can any blogger write
Before they go raving mad?
How many posts can a blogger invent
Before they get far too sad?
The answer my friends
We’re all round the bend.
The answer’s we’re all round the bend
How many rhymes can a poet invent
Before they progress to free verse?’
How many rhymes can a poet invent
When the rhymes are getting worse and worse?
The answer is plain,
It’s a million quatrains
The answer’s a trillion thought trains
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Irascible in verse
My father was very irascible…
His desires were often impossible.
So he kicked the poor cat
And tore up its mat.
A small feline scapegoat alas-ible.
Losing one’s patience is commonplace
As the strong hit the weak in their space.
And research now shows
That giving a hard blows
Increases our rage and disgrace
Irascible has Latin roots
Dies irae is of the same suit,
It seems apposite
With the shocking French sights,
Murder spreads to destroy our doubts.
Irascibility is less than enraged
Sometimes our patience is strained
But our dearest ones know
We are not often so.
With a good rest, our patience’s regained.
If rage has taken over our lives
Then virtue will never thrive
Annihilation is our fear
And we feel it is near.
We fear we may not long survive
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Bi or di? Biphthong and Diped?
Human bipeds have two sets of digits.
The hands and the feet can both fidget.
I used to tap on the table
Till a spirit was able
To come to my aid with a widget.
I was going through a hard adolescence…
Am I now approaching my due senescence?
I irritated my Ma
So she shouted,you’re bizarre.
You’ve got OCD built into your essence.
I asked if I had inherited it from her.
She gave me a furious stare.
She said,we all have our scruples
But yours have quadrupled.
I loved you but now I don’t care.
That seemed very immoral to me.
She gave me no warm sympathy.
So I scratched my own skin
Which was in any case too thin…
But it helped to scare off a stray flea.
If we’re neurotic it is not a crime.
We may learn how to use it in time.
Though tapping on wood
Does one no good.
I have found my salvation in rhyme.
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We need to see slantwise
A lawyer must be very pragmatic
And yet it is never sufficient
They need to make visual
Images original
To persuade us our thinking’s deficient
If they are too oratorical
The jury may turn away stunned
They must walk the fine line
Between rhetorical and mundane
To satisfy the plain folk’s demand.
We want to be made to see other
Than what at first springs to our minds.
So just like the painters
They are visual creators
Depicting too ,above and behind..
The lawyer wants the jury more mobile
To question what they first believed.
Some do it by shouting loud,
As if to cow a crowd.
Others by changing their creed.
Events,even murder ,are complex
And we hope that the money’s not all
For if lawyers corrupt the court
When by rich men they’ re too often bought
The artist inside all’s appalled..
Facts are not simple and plain.
That depends where the onlooker stands
We need to see slantwise
And even through another’s eyes.
No perspective,no angle is banned.
How we judge other people
Is not just a trivial concern.
We are all disaffected
If the good ‘s not protected.
And the commonest of all; can’t discern
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Eclectic in limericks
Eclectic’s a very fine word
I love it and even feel care.
It might rhyme with dialectic
Or maybe forensic
So here are two more we must air. .
Eclectical students are rare
Because the tutors are rude and unfair
They say, concentrate!
And I hesitate
Because my interests are wider than theirs.
If you just want to get your degree
Then focus on what tutors agree.
But leaving out other topics
Can make one myopic
And most of the world we won’t see.
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How my heart breaks
Heart of darkness,
Shadowed, unknown.
Heart of wildness,
Destruction zone,
Heart, once sacred,
Not more a home.
Heart of loving
Now over thrown.
Pity humans,
Not our own.
No society
We’re lost,alone.
Children’s wonder
Christmas blown.
Like the leaves,
El nino’s own.
Heart’s compassion
Make us one.
Lord have mercy
Eleison.
Kyrie
Eleison.
Kyrie
Communion.
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Gambit:the rhymes
How can I find rhymes for gambit?
How can pentameters be iambic?
I am sure to discover
One way or another
But alas the Government has banned it.
Iambic is as Greek to me,
As to the English is drinking hot tea.
We boil the kettle on the fire.
As we empathise with a liar.
Iambic is schizophrenic you see
In my case I’m not Bic I am Shaeffer
I believe pens drink ink on a wafer.
For ink is their Saviour
And improves their behaviour
If no plates passed,what the hell is that tray for?
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Mimesis:the verses
A wonderful new word is mimetic
Unsuitable for the mental diabetic
It makes one seem scholastic
Without being monastic
In the right voice it may sound charismatic.
Mimesis is imitation of a kind
Which Plato and Aristotle defined.
My nieces are fans
They writes theses when they can
So new words swim around in their minds.
Do you promise to say mimesis tomorrow?
Or does the idea fill your head up with horror?
I agree it is hard
Write it down on a card
Mimesis,mimesis,no worries.
Well,mimesis has had it’s own day
Tomorrow I go out to play.
I will buy myself fruit
And through the paper I’ll root.
As I roast in a single sun ray
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Abstract:The limericks
Her manner is rather abstract
It does not help her to show tact.
She’s in love with ideas
Yet her rents in arrears.
Let’s hope that her ship is not wrecked.
i saw the abstract for your book.
I’d love a much closer look.
I’ll invite you to tea
Then I can see
Just how discerning you look.
I suppose even Monet is abstract,
For his images with bright dots are packed.
I love them so well
As they both show and tell
Precisely what realism lacked
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For then ,on earth, our life will long endure
We think we own our bodies and our minds
Not knowing when we have the gift of health
We use them without thought ,.with vision blind
Yet nature creeps up with her sylvan stealth.
When to work or when to take our ease,
The signals sent may never reach our brains.
But later, they will turn to constant pleas
For help to stop imposing far more strain.
Days we work and never take a rest
Except to slump by TV, tablet,screen.
It takes much time to learn what is the best
If not, what is will soon be ” what has been”
Let us learn our body’s signals clear
For then on earth our life will long endure
How my heart speaks 