Category: reflections

Perception  stolen by the body’s pain

Perception clouded by the body’s pain
The mind dwells in our flesh   as does the heart
Life seems  dark and  all feels  loss not gain

The mind is not a ghost made by the brain
Why is flesh  not equal in its charm?
Perception’s clouded by the body’s pain

So illness and infection  cause us  strain
In the end from flesh we will depart
Life seems  dark and  all seems loss not gain

Where are they who give love warm,unfeigned?
Absence of a lover brings alarm
Perception’s clouded by the body’s pain

Why do people near project disdain?
The illness and the fevers on me swarm
Life seems  dark and  all seems loss not gain

Here is Satan with his  curving horns
He is not deterred by any thorn
Perception  stolen by the body’s pain
To Satan I  submit to  live unchained

 

The clouds must hide

Clouds like herring bones line up to die
Interspersed with clouds of other kinds
Above the Western reaches of the sky

The sun is setting ,troubling tender eyes
Sinking full of pride , impressed on minds
Clouds like herring bones line up to die

In  the West , stand hills where Satan cries
Asking for  submission  to his  binds
Below the Western reaches of the sky

Now all colours gone, the clouds must hide
As in anxious  dreams our teeth may grind
Clouds like herring bones will shiver, die

Across the fields I see a horse go by
His hooves make patterns, but to them he’s blind
He knows  now,  bewitching  is the sky

For the childhood vision we have pined
Dreams mixed with reality make eyes
Clouds like herring bones line up to die
Above the Western reaches  on they fly

 

Language rages

man in knight raising his sword
Photo by Maria Jose Bueso on Pexels.com

 

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jun/17/language-wars-18-greatest-linguistic-spats

Are you really disinterested?

Use this word at your own risk. If what you want to say is “lacking in interest” then brace yourself, because there’s an army of people who will point out that it should be “uninterested”, and that “disinterested” must mean “impartial”. They are sticklers for what they regard as the correct meaning, and have taken up columnist William Safire’s command to “rear up and rage, rage against the dying of an enlightening distinction”. The problem is that if a word is more frequently used to mean one thing than another, then that’s effectively what it means: you can’t fight a linguistic consensus. The news for pedants gets worse, however. The OED tells us that the use of “disinterested” to mean not interested or unconcerned has been around since at least the 17th century, used by no less a stylist than the poet John Donne.

English and Maori versions of the Treaty of Waitangi had important differences.
 English and Maori versions of the Treaty of Waitangi had important differences. Photograph: Ian Paterson/Alamy Stock Photo

The Waitangi swindle

In 1840, the British government and more than 500 local chiefs signed a bilingual agreement that made New Zealand a colony. English missionaries had translated the draft of the Treaty of Waitangi into Maori but the two versions had important differences. The New Zealand Ministry of Culture explains that “in Maori it gave Queen Victoria governance [kawanatanga] over the land, while in English it gave her sovereignty over the land, which is a stronger term”. The English text also assured the Maori that they would have “undisturbed possession” of all their “properties”, whereas the Maori translation merely gave them tino rangatiratanga (full authority) over taonga(treasures) – a more nebulous term.

Where is Oxford,on the Tomes?

Where is Ipswich, what is true
Where is Norwich, deja vuP1000005
Cambridge juggles counterpoise

Here’s the  train, is it full
Will there be a cord to pull
Is it diesel, is it steam?
It’s atomic in its beams

I can sit and Sudoku
I’ll sing and whistle as you coo
Let’s not read  the Gaza  strip
Cartoons make old people sick

Is it real, is it  true
Jesus sat down next to you
He abhors the Holy Land
He prefers the Southport sands.

They’ll steal what you don’t own

Have no possessions,  give  your stuff away
But don’t go outside naked  when in= town
It’s not religion, just simplicity

Happy  are those people  free to play
Who may be sunk in dreams or study brown
Have no possessions,  gave   their stuff away

Sing and  dance and let yourself be gay
Remember that a verb is not a noun
It’s not  high learning, just simplicity

If  you see   evil, do not go astray
Help the neighbours,   give them all your gowns
Have no possessions,  give  your stuff away

In Commerce, there is much duplicity
Be aware they’ll steal what you don’t own
All you lose is mere complicity

The lips of wealthy  men speak  vicious  tones
Corbyn  makes them fearful, do they owe?
Have no pride in   virtue,  rather pray
It’s not an error, God may die today.

We try  to be alive, despite the pain

Underneath the shallow pools lies sand
Where shells are  fractured by the ocean’s blows
We  soon  learn what  being alive demands

To bare feet on sunny days beckoned
The warm wet trickles in between the toes
Underneath the shallow pools lies sand

In whose sums is our living reckoned?
Calculation, not so bleak it shows
We learn by pain, true living makes demands

God allows the  abacus unchained
To sum us up as if we are unknown
Underneath the pools,  are these his hands?

Who will be allowed and who detained?
Like refugees, we come to love alone
We try  to be alive, despite the pain

Our hearts are fragile shells, not heavy stones
We, soft flesh enraptured by framed bones.
Darkly on the  beach we humans stand
The fretting waves cry out with love’s demands

God is a  fragile voice, still as a bone

God is a place we rarely  find alone
His spirit  guides us  past the demons wild
God is a  fragile voice, still as a bone

God gave his prophets  sweet  dark honeycombs
By his word they were struck, beguiled
God is a place we rarely  find alone

The Reed Sea parted  should she risk its foam,
The woman heavy with an unborn child?
God is a  fragile voice, still as a bone

The spirit called a dove  by Leonard Cohen
Caught, entrapped  endangered and   then sold
God is a place   where we  kneel, atone

Shall he  leave us bread or  graven stone?
When we feel afraid, his  love enfolds
God is a place we rarely  find alone

On we wander,  hear  the whisper frail
If we listen well we  will not fail
God is a place we rarely  find alone
God is a  fragile voice, still as a bone

Candles

Candle light at Christmas or great Feasts
Softens  all our troubles in its peace
Reminds us of the soothing  kindly light
Protecting us from darkness in the night

Yet candles may fall over over and ignite
Burn down our homes and fill our souls with spite
Nothing is entirely good or bad
This  is true yet it has made me sad

As I lie in reverie in  my bed
I see the long loved faces of souls dead
I smile as these sweet images pass by
Then sleep and dream on with a grateful sigh

Will I one day be passing through your mind?
May all your dreams and reveries be kind

And BTW why are you using Tide?

Would you be more gentle,dear,I cried
She pushed my head as if  it were a stone
I only want my hair washed not to die

And BTW why are you using Tide
Shampoo is much kinder,on I moaned~
Could you be more gentle,dear,I cried

I ‘m glad you don’t  use Ariel,  suicide
She wrote about the Moon, her  love and home
Did she want her hair washed not to die?

In Spain she  bought sardines so she could fry
In the wilds of Devon left alone
Ted was  getting famous, not his wife

I re-enter time ,I let  her dye
My hair is purple when  rinsed  from  the foam
Did Plath want her hair  dyed not to die?

Marriage holds a  breeze but not a storm
The  rose had pricked her finger with its thorn
Could we be more gentle if we tried?
We all need human love or we will die

 

 

 

Where is the world?

The boundary of my self is my own skin
Fragile, and so sensitive,  yet home
Most of what I call me dwells within

Some may have it thicker, some too thin
Some are cautious, some  have heavier bones
The boundary of my self is  my own skin

We  lose the  most beloved of our kin,
We who lose  a lover, still feel torn
Is what I call my self all   held within?

Unconscious feelings lead us  into sin
For  these malicious feelings  let’s atone
The boundary of my self is merely skin

Losing love’s  akin   to losing   limbs
No more around the wild woods may  we roam
Is what I call my self  just held within?

Unwilling, from our mother’s womb we’re thrown
She suffers as  we  leave our  perfect home
If the boundary of my self is my own skin
Where is the world when we call it within?

 

 

Poetry and painting

 

blue and red illustration
Photo by João Jesus on Pexels.com

https://hazlitt.net/feature/why-we-should-treat-poetry-painting

 

Extract:

“Perhaps because poetry is art made of words rather than pictures, readers expect it to communicate more directly. And certainly, some poems are fairly straightforward, in the same way that some paintings are clearly of horses, so that even the title “Horses” is unnecessary. But some poems would certainly gain aesthetically if they were freed from the burden of explanation. Poets themselves, I find, can be resistant to the idea of including notes or epigraphs, feeling that a poem should be self-contained and include all the necessary information. There are plenty of poets who neither provide notes nor contort their poems into self-explanatory shapes—these are some of my favourites, but I have to read them with one eye on the poem and one eye on Google. Who’s Count Westwest? What’s nanofluff? Who’s Joe Sakic? Curatorial text that takes care of some of these immediate questions, and that also provides some interpretative remarks about the poem and how it fits into the poetic tradition, might help new readers appreciate what they’re looking at.”

Play with our doubts

Fear of chaos stopped me looking  out
I could not see its value   nor its  gifts
To see new sights we need to live in doubt

So I  travelled on established routes
I got to places happily and swift
Fear of chaos stopped me looking  out

We often wonder what life’s all  about
Then we hurt our kin, oh love, oh rifts
New wisdom   comes from  fine creative doubt

Forgetting  this we find life full of threats
We swallow drugs and wallow as we drift
Fear of chaos stopped me looking  out

We suffer all  to find what will enchant
Then we are raised high by all we’ve missed
To see new sights we need to  feel our wants

Alert yet indolent   the  wild flowers wish
To  entice honey bees with honeyed flesh
From the Void, God’s word made mountains shout
To see new sights we must play with our doubts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I could see the Pennines

I’m looking for a pavement cracked and worn
But now the council put some tarmac down
I make my images from  objects scorned

Artweaver and Pixlr have been warned
I  use  their tools, their feathers,  and their down
I’m looking for a pavement cracked and worn

My hands are full of lines,my nails are torn
My eyes are narrowed,I  intend to frown
I seek my images in objects scorned

I want  the dead, I want our old brick home
I want to dwell  on  moors near Darwen Town
I’m sure their   features  will be cracked and worn

I remember bilberries  and limestone
I  remember larks,  birds free from   bounds
I make my images from  what love scorned

If I  could see  the Pennine Hills  I ‘d drown
To Anglezarke the water’s rippling down
I’m  looking for the place where I was born
The  cobblestones,the kerb ,the  marbled halls

 

 

 

The fragile voice

 
bonfire surrounded with green grass field
Photo by Vlad Bagacian on Pexels.com






The still, small voice no longer can be heard.
The  sacred, silent space  unoccupied
No burning bush nor tempest speak The Word.

We centre our   whole self on the absurd
For iPads cannot pass through any eye
The still, small voice no longer can be heard.

God no longer feels inclined to share.
The golden cloud  of angels  cannot fly
No burning bush nor tempest speak The Word.

The altar’s stripped,  the rituals are nightmares.
The ancient priest says Mass and wonders why
The still, small voice no longer can be heard.

A  virtual wall stops grace from being shared.
Jesus is made flesh and  silent dies
No burning bush nor tempest speak The Word.

No one is an island, John Donne cried
But now there is no truth to satisfy
The still ,small voice no longer can be heard
.No burning bush nor tempest speak The Word

Dialogue

Most conversations are simply monologues delivered in the presence of a witness.

Margaret Miller [ att]

 

A monologue needs friends  attuned and named
If  alone, the endless thoughts would wind
Like cotton wraps the reel,like life begins

 

Self obsession  leads us into sin
To treat with bare contempt the human mind
A monologue needs friends to  find our aims

Do we know to whom we speak so plain?
Why ignore the facts of  life that bind
Like cotton wraps the reel till none remains?

Our thoughtless words may leave an inkless stain
And later we  mysterious sadness find
A monologue needs friends  or it brings pain

If Freud were  here we wouldn’t say the same
Would you unfold your past. all thought aligned
Like cotton wraps the reel  and order makes?

There is no static past  in  this life’s game
What we choose to utter  breaks our mind
The monologue  turns dialogue , yet lame

I prefer my paper with no lines
Then I draw, my metaphors  design
A monologue needs friends to make, bargain.
Though  they be  mute , a dialogue begins

What is the Overton Window?

crowd of people
Photo by Asad Photo Maldives on Pexels.com

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/04/what-overton-window

 

Extract

The Overton window is a political theory that refers to the range (or window) of policies that the public will accept.

The idea is that any policy falling outside the Overton window is out of step with public opinion and the current political climate, and formulated to try and shift the Overton window in a different direction, or to expand it to be wider.

You may dream the meaning  in the lines

Do not read  a poem   anytime
Do not suffer anguish and despair
Looking for the meaning  in the rhymes

Think  about it as you see its lines
Recite it to  the mirror,do your hair
Do not read  a poem   anytime

If you can’t resist then do be kind
As you  are with jeans  that never flare
Is there subtle meaning  in the rhymes?

Every  tongue is different in its binds
Translation  is a guesstimate deferred
Do not read  a poem  in clock time

If you cannot act, you’ll have to mime
To show the public you are no nightmare
Especially  on  the meaning  in the rhymes?

 

Be a proper reader if you dare
This is not the end of the affair
Do not read  a poem   at night time
You may dream the meaning  in the lines

When the mute begin to feel their wrath

When the mute give lectures to the  rest
When gross torturers run the world’s affairs
Ambiguous states of mind are put to death

Then the blind can navigate the best
The bones, the  human parings, the cut hair
Indict the mute and torment all the  rest

No more does spirit send  us holy breath
The foxes and the wolves wait in dark lairs
Indict the mute and torment all the  rest

Send the poisoner out to kill the pests
Do not be concerned if it’s unfair
Hear the mute and silence all the  rest

Who decided loving was unblessed?
Cover up the Gorgon and her stare
Unbind the mute and  let them each confess

 

Do not any fuehrer war declare
Do not listen to the voice that blares
When the mute begin to feel their wrath
Uneasy states of mind are put to death

Of crypto-theological  progress

Of crypto-theological  progress
Of humans rising from the humble worm
Where is Evolution’s  grand success?

Those who are imperfect cause distress
Soon we want to murder the deformed
Oh! crypto-theological  progress

Evolution’s natural life works best
Eugenics led to genocide in turn
Who is Evolution’s  grand success?

Soon  arose the measurements and tests
As if no human being could discern.
Oh! crypto-theological  progress

 

Is your IQ less than all the rest?
Does testing impede  children’s wish to learn?
Where  is Europe’s  male  evolved  success?

See the Nazis and the books they burned
Did any  of the living feel concern
Re  crypto-theological  progress
Has Europe evolved yet  into success?

 

 

A little town

A man passed by the cottage with a horse
Leading it around  on a  short rope
The horse was  happy  though its coat was coarse
A man passed by the cottage with a horse
He said  it  will resist  and must be forced
To  go back  home for freedom is its hope
A man passed by the cottage with a horse
Leading it around  on a  short rope

Castleacre built from ruined  choir
The monumental Abbey  wild men  broke
The people built their houses, lit their fires
Castleacre built from ruined  choir
Thomas Cromwell fell into the mire
He was executed not by fire
Beheaded and uncovered without smoke
Castleacre built from ruined  choir
The Abbey  and its beauty strong men  broke

Now the town is peaceful  and remote
A piper played  as  round the ruin we walked
In a  little postcard love I wrote
As the town is peaceful  and remote
In a   river in the valley  float
Bits of paper,billets doux or jokes
The remnants of the castle have no moat
We stood to gether with no need to talk
Now the town is peaceful  and remote
A piper played  as  round the ruin we walked

 

 

Thus with this spirit,I my spirit wed

epimedium-domino

 
As on this foreign shore I stand and stare
Across the green and foaming tidal sea.
I do not wonder whether life is fair
Nor whether what’s to come is what should be
.
The hinterland is not a wishful dream
Whatever I meet there is all itself
So useless are past thoughts and present schemes
My courage,heart and spirit are my wealth.
Although alone,I sense some being close
Whom I accept as guide and friend to me.
To walk with otherness is not my boast.

It’s he who guides and shows me how to see.

Thus with this spirit,I my spirit wed
As close to me as in a marriage be

Not a clerihew

I went to university to study mathematics
The performance of my teachers was  boring not ecstatic
So then I   went to London to earn a little money
While living with my husband who as usual smelled of honey
Then we went to Portland Bill to study rocks and seaside forms
I took to writing poetry because I love the sound of rhymes
I would have preferred lyrics  of  the Leonard Cohen Anthem type
But  when he died  I grieved and wept, too late for us to meet on Skype
What a sad old life it is  when Donald Trump  builds up more walls
So sound the trumpet and ram’s horn, like Jericho  the walls will fall.
Oh,Lord.

Attention must be paid to each small thing

The air feel still and cool and nothing moves
The birds  have disappeared and do not sing.
Life  feels distant, love’s in interlude

As we age  when health  and wit we lose
What new  learning may our own life  bring?
The air feel still and cool and nothing moves

Are we present to  the life we choose?
Attention must be paid to each small thing
Life  feels distant,  heart feels un-renewed

Like the dough we must be left to rise
The hidden power of yeast the flour shall wring
Minute yet powerful,  how the grains collide

Hidden in the dark ,what myriad eyes
Insects scurry, wasps to nettles cling
Life  feels distant, lovers lost are rued

Now  we feel the breath of a small wind
A whispering voice, the holy dove descends
The air feel still and cool and nothing moves
Consoled by  darkness, we await its clues.

Seeing visions,hearing  that small voice

Were we created for the Shopping Malls
Or to ponder over weight and belly bold?
If  God approached would humans hear his call
As prophets did  in mystic days of old?

Seeing visions,hearing  that small voice
May be possible no longer while we spend.
 We look for  good advice on  what is choice
Not rosaries but money  fills the hand?

Instead of tenderness, below, above
We hope to find love handcuffed on the rug.
And  promises are lost as well as vows.
Vibrating dildos  surround us  like black  bugs.

The sacred has been hidden, we are  half disgraced.
We ignore our lowness and ignore the holy face

A man waits, sleepless, anxious and unsure

In the Garden of  Gethsemane
A man waits, sleepless, anxious and unsure
Wanting to escape his destiny
From the Garden of  Gethsemane
Oh,Lord,oh God, have mercy upon me
Save me from the world’s barbarity.
Make my heart and motives clean and pure
In that Garden of  Gethsemane
Jesus sleepless, anxious, has endured

His human Cross

If God was murdered why should he help me?
He hung, an abject figure ,on the Cross
Some have labelled it a holy tree
If God was murdered why should he help me?
No-one can deny what all can see
From the Romans he could not be free
Thus the world endured his final loss
If God was murdered why should he help me?
He died forsaken on his  human Cross

Love in a mist

Western Scotland ‘s covered in sea mists
While Southern England dreams in  fragrant  heat
Today some Scottish  sweethearts kissed and kissed
In Western Scotland enjoying deep mist
While lovers touch their lips to inner wrists
Promoting in their hearts enlivening zest
Making love both holy and complete
Western Scotland bears the sea’s unrest
While Southern England’s racked by  Brexit’s heat

What is hatred?

 

img_20190529_180835https://www.definitions.net/definition/hatred

 

Extract

  1. Hatred

    Hatred is a deep and emotional extreme dislike that can be directed against individuals, entities, objects, or ideas. Hatred is often associated with feelings of anger and a disposition towards hostility. Commonly held moral rules, such as the Golden Rule, oppose universal hatred towards another.

Be still my heart

On the day. forlorn, we  had to part
I helped you go  as birds rise from the nest
Oh, hidden anniversary of the heart

 

I do not need to keep a special chart
I remember  every glance and kiss
Before the day on which we had to part

 

  People order me  to make a start
Create a life  of pleasure, should I wish
Oh pain, oh anniversary ,oh my heart

 

 This  bleeding of my heart, my joy  thwarts
Yet  still I  live in spirit and in  flesh
Since the  sad day  we were made  to part

 

 I fear those dreams that criticise  and harm
The words of others  pierce my tenderness
Oh, recurring anniversary in my  heart

 

Comfort me, surround me with your arms
Protect me from the Visions and the storms
This  the day we knew we  had to part
Oh,  love,  oh memory,   oh, be still my heart