Category: reflections

In the bitter, dark blue morning hours

Jesus’ body burned in Grenfell Tower
And many others died along with him
In the bitter, dark blue morning hours

The Government and Council, how they cowered
The volunteers made beds up in a gym
Still Jesus’ body burned in Grenfell Tower

With love and kindness, common people  flowered
While  ministers were  too afraid  to come
In the bitter, dark blue morning hours

The  half elected leader with  shame showered
Saw   the drama,  then withdrew shrunken
While Jesus’  hung and burned in Grenfell Tower

Now will  lambs rise,well will  lions roar
As we see our ruined kingdom done
In the bitter, dark blue morning hours,

Human rights to tragedy fearsome
Will show the world what horror we’ve become
Jesus  died with those in Grenfell Tower
In that bitter, dark blue morning hour

 

Hannah Arendt

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http://bostonreview.net/vivian-gornick-hannah-arendt-on-being-jewish

 

The Jewish Writings is a collection of Arendt’s articles and essays written between 1932 and 1966. For this reviewer, they come as a revelation. I had never understood, exactly, the mental road Arendt traveled to get to the pronouncements for which she has been both celebrated (the reality of men trumps the concept of Man), and damned (evil was ordinary; the Jews were to be held accountable). To read the book straight through is to see clearly the origin and steady development of the single critical insight that informed much of Arendt’s subsequent work: namely, that the world is what we ourselves make it. The need to breathe free is a given; the right to do so is not. Among human beings, the will to power is an embodied force that continually challenges the right of those not like ourselves to occupy space. Under no condition is the one-not-like-oneself free to ignore the challenge. What’s more, the challenge must be resisted in the terms in which it is flung down. As Arendt put it, “When one is attacked as a Jew one must respond not as a German or a Frenchman or a world citizen, but as a Jew.“

I miss you, love, so slow the seconds wind.

It seemed to me  my vision and  my mind
A template to project into the world
Brought you into being by my side.

I miss you, love, so slow the seconds wind.
I crept into the space between the words
I  made you in  my vision and  my mind

Is there only chaos, no design?
Are we dust around the spaces whirled?
I bring you into being by these lines

I smell your skin and see your eyes alive
I move my head but you have disappeared
It seems  both from my vision and  my mind

Why did all the pit props fall down blind?
I crept under  black  coal, with darkness smeared
A  person alien to humankind

Where is my death, when it’s no longer feared?
Where is my love when no-one else is here.
I imagined  you in  vision and in mind
I  pulled you into being, now you’ve died

 

 

 

To love well  is an art we can enact

To love well is an art and is an act
Yet we must bear in mind this valued truth
We need a little space in love for hate

We also will not leave outside our tact
Indeed, of love,  that is the final proof
To love well is an art and is an act

A love match is not where we check our mate
Nor do we leave the imprint of a hoof
We need a little space in love for hate

A fight, a quarrel, disagreement, fate
At times we both appear  to be uncouth
To love well is an art we learn to act

When frenzy fades and wonder’s a  mere hint
We long  for that once honeyed sweet ,sweet mouth
We need a little space in love for hate

To love forever we must take an oath
That we will not, of our power, go boast
To love well  is an art we can  enact
Oh, leave a  home there for our wild, wild hate

 

Accepting that you’re gone.

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To look upon your countenance is what I  most desire

To sit with you and hold your hand by this red winter fire

But you are  now so far away,I do not recognise
Those  smiling features dear  to me and your loving eyes.



You had a merry cheerful soul and loved all your friends

You may have loved your enemies,to wit I'll not descend.

I heard your voice one morning late,I heard you clear your throat.

I hastened down the stairs  and found your old brown winter coat.



I pulled the coat nearer than and felt salt tears  slip down

They ran across my face and dripped onto  your coat brown

The memories seem too few,my dear,though we had happy times.

And now I must be going so I'll finish off this  rhyme.



So  many years  a part of me,the hole with sorrow filled.

I'll sit and gaze at these bare trees until my heart is stilled

Goodbye,goodbye, goodbye my love, my dearest one.

I'll try to start my life again,accepting that you're gone.

The reading of a fundamental scoop?

The heart in grief feels like an abscessed tooth
Too pained to sleep or chatter with the group
We fear a dark acquaintance with the truth

What savage way shall be our burdened proof;
The reading of a fundamental scoop?
The heart in grief throbs like an abscessed tooth

What innocence was left for us to lose?
Our faces pale, see how the eyes still weep!
We fear a deep acquaintance with the truth

And if we meet it, how shall that be used?
From our  hearts where does sorrow creep?
The heart in grief throbs like an abscessed tooth

We need to lie, to live while still confused
The  algebra  of logic’s sieved unsent
We die from  our acquaintance with the truth

Where the mind and soul who has this dreamt?
Where is God, if that sentence makes sense?
The heart in grief feels like an abscessed tooth
Yet we are on poor terms with the cost

G-d himself was shattered, without skin

And did you see the sparks of light within
The hidden wood where watches the bright dove
The darkness which to human soul’s akin

God himself was shattered, without skin
Each part a  broken light of what was love
But did you see the sparks of light within?

And round the whole world, mystics  then began
To seek the little jewels that once were G-d
The darkness which to human soul’s akin

Each fragment was eternal  in its span
And yet was helpless as on it man trod
Though some might see the sparks of light within

Hidden from the  world of human sin
Afflicted by G-d’s death; now weeps the dove
Why is darkness where we must begin?

Can we bear Reality or Love?
Can we  live, survive the coming flood?
Yet we  see the sparks of light within
The darkness which to human soul’s akin

 

More subtle is the need to do no harm

What love and friendship can at once entail
Are boundaries elastic and yet firm.
Yet even that is but a mere detail
More subtle is the need to do .no harm

For in the flush of youthful spirits strong
We do not like to know that all love fades
nor when it does a lover may do wrong
So to evil, he may find out he has paid
And with the stone-faced demons, he belongs.

Thus friendship love and joy involve the will
To take the other as she comes to be
For all our goodness there may be a bill
Acknowledge this, it follows truth we’ll see.

Accepting that perfection is remote
We play our tunes and suffer every note

We misuse reason, rationalise and blend

Perception by itself is not enough
A psychopath can use it for bad ends
Truth itself may make a conman laugh

When we’re targets of the cold and tough
We must hide our truths, and lies defend
Perception by itself is not enough

To the naive soul, the world seems rough.
We misuse  reason, rationalise and blend
Truth alone may make a conman laugh.

Be sparing with the private and its glut
Boundaries need armour which won’t bend
Perception by itself is not enough

To live we need our common sense and pluck.
We need  our wisdom, learned as we ascend
Truth alone may make a conman laugh.

So with the weather, we can now contend
Our senses vital show us what portends
Perception by itself is not enough
Truth alone may make a conman rough

 

Pieces of my mind

My concentration now exists in many parts.
It’s like  piece of glass dropped on the ground
The mobile phone and laptop make eyes dart

I  long to keep my soul and body calm
Yet pieces of my mind I’ve never  found
My concentration now exists in curious parts.

Like fish who dither when they see a shark
How pitiful they have no way to shout
The mobile phone and laptop make mind dart

What kind of steps will give me a  new start?
I confess to having  more than many doubts
Infinite in its cold is my  lost heart

Net addicts, anonymous and tart,
Have a party inside me or out.
Do you think a cat would do less harm?

Let us map the intellect by charts.
The mind has slipped and has become a tart.
The focus now, post-modern,  fragments sight.
The mobile sounds and   empty laps wield  fright

T

 

We tolerate what once we could not bear

The pain of loss grows gentler by the year
Less jagged and destructive to the heart
We  tolerate what once we could not bear

We soothe ourselves by satisfying care
We let the dear one’s image separate.
The pain of loss grows gentler by the year

Sometimes grief feels like a panic fear.
We wonder if we chose the best of charts
We  tolerate what once we could not bear

There are folk of whom we must beware.
Gossips and audacious, head-less tarts
The pain of loss grows gentler by the year

Do not let the wolves boast of their lair
Evade the poisonous and their arrowed darts
We  tolerate what once we could not bear

Without will, the healing process starts
Slowly  pain and anguish will depart
The pain of loss grows gentler by the year
We  tolerate what once we could not bear

When you have no partner your opportunities for committing sins are greatly reduced.

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You know, I  think I want to go to church again and I must go to Confession before I go to Mass.But the trouble is that when you have no partner your opportunities for committing sins are greatly reduced.Especially if you don’t go out much
You can’t have a row with them about what TV programme to watch or which side of the bed you sleep on nor about whether they pull the duvet off you in the middle of the night.So you can’t blame them when you feel tired.
You can’t get angry when they ask you to wash their trousers again either or about them wearing a cashmere sweater in bed.Also you see less of their relatives and they were always good for producing sins like envy, rage, jealousy and so on.In fact their relatives change and become saintly so it’s even worse.I suppose that might make me sin.
It’s really hard, though, to commit a sin now so I am wondering   if I should get  a partner purely for the purpose of becoming a sinner who can them be saved by the Sacrament of Confession.I always thought it was odd because if God exists he must know our sins.. in fact  he might know more than we do.He must.
With that in mind, I  wonder about going into therapy as surely that would make  me aware of all the questionable things I have done.Which is better: therapy or getting married? I suppose if I married a rich person they could pay for psychoanalysis for me but it would be a sin to marry purely for that reason.Is that Russell’s Paradox?
Or if I got 2 cats  I could be unkind to them and  not let them sleep on my bed.But I have to admit I cannot be unkind to cats.And I don’t like dogs in the house.Too much work.You might as well get married again as have a dog to care for.Although dogs don’t wear clothes and can’t shout and scream and demand sex at 3 am.Barking is not quite the same
.I suppose I could become a Quaker instead because it might be  tough to find a husband  who is happy for me to study Wittgestein and Sylvia’s  Wrath.My hair is no longer what it was.. my eyes are still blue  but now I have a scar on my face.I thought maybe no-one would notice but the dentist said,
Wow, he’s done a great job hasn’t he? Fantastic, there’s just a little lump here…. what little lump? She’ll have me back in Dermatology as soon as take my teeth out.It was a  little lump that began the whole damn business as it was a bit like a Russian Vine invisibly covering [ part of ] my face.Well I can proudly say I had 23 injections of local anaesthetic  in my face but the surgeon was very handsome.Greek…
Anyway I went out today with no sun cream on and that is really wicked when you’ve had what I had but the hypothalamus gland needs sunlight so my brother tells me.I have three brothers plus my aide P so I have plenty of men to tell me what to do or not to do.Still you can’t marry your brother can you? I wonder what the priest would say about that.I rest my case.By gum, it was heavy.I’ll take to drink

When love is nothing but a word

 

When love is nothing but a word,
When our deep feelings can’t be shared.
When joy and woe unwoven lie
When we can’t speak, except to sigh………

When we are lost behind the glass,
When burdened feelings never pass,
When no-one is a trusted friend
When we are scared but cannot bend.

When love embodied goes away
When we are numbed but cannot say.
When we are rigid with the strain.
When life has little but such pain

We suffer as our will has gone
And we’ve no task to lure us on.
We need to know we’re not alone
That love can penetrate a stone.

That, like the Christ, we rise to life
When we endure with will its strife.
When we accept that all is lost,
But wish to live despite the cost.

Then we are saved as are the flowers
Which decorate the fields and bowers
Though all shall crumble into dust,
While we’re alive we’ll slake our lust.

It might confuse the cat in bed.

narcissus2017-2

 

Pray, Father,I give you my blessing
That’s the wrong way round.Never mind,Tell me your original sins.
We don’t have to confess those surely.We are born like that.
I mean I am fed up with boring sins like theft and swearing.
I don’t know if I can think if any sin except I bought my husband some soap called Allure.If it does allure he might be unfaithful and it will be my fault.
Don’t worry about the future.At least he will smell nice in bed.You should get Chanel Number 5
It might confuse the cat in bed.
Why, do  you make  love to the cat?
No, but the cat sits on top when we do it.
So what’s the problem?
If the cat hates Chanel Number 5 he might leave the room and love without the cat is  not what we are used to
But it’s not a sin!
Oh dear.I can’t think of anything else.
You must try harder
Do you mean to remember sins or to commit more?
Whatever,it gets really boring in here.
Would Jesus say that?
He didn’t speak English.
Won’t he have learned in heaven?
I know on earth everyone online must  know English but they have no Internet in heaven.
How  can you prove that?
Heaven was  there before it was invented
So was England!
I see what you mean.But if they had the internet it would make them sad to see us being so cruel to the vulnerable.
But only if they knew English!
Well for your penance write to the Council and ask for unisex lavatories.
I thought they were all the same except some have  differet handles.
I mean that there will be just lots of loos for all races,sexes and genders.You won’t have to prove your are biologically man or woman.
OK,Father and I will keep a diary of my sins online
Will it allow comments
I’ll have to see how I feel.
You feel nice to me.
How do you know?
Because I am your cat.
How did you get in there?
The priest is in love with me!
I DON’T BELIEVE IT!

 

The Humour of the Numinous.

 

 

The sun flew

Yesterday the sun was fearsome gold
The sky of cerulean blue was   summer warm
Yet now I tremble in the dreaded cold

Where are those arms in which I  once was held;
Where the smile and where the loving balm?
Yesterday the sun was fierce with gold

Once, with  love I was made  kind yet bold
I rested on the strength within his arms
Yet now I tremble in the stealthy cold

My heart is crying. for  love now seems withheld.
And no protection shields me from dread harm
Yesterday the sun was warm and gold

With his body I once wished to meld
I gave myself to hold him  then so warm
Yet now I tremble in the stealthy cold

Grief can cause both tears and wild alarm
Yet music or the song of birds  is balm
Yesterday the sun  flew starred with gold
Yet now I clothe myself to live  with cold

No remedy exists for hidden grief

No remedy exists for hidden grief
A blank face and a voice that does not speak
Expression  is the route to our relief

The caterpillar gnaws the new green leaf
And actions are the place where meaning leaks
No remedy exists for hidden grief

Emotions are all clouded and bereft
We look around and all the world seems bleak
Expression  is the pathway to relief

Song or dance or paint or words can leave
A form wherein our agony is Greek
No remedy exists for hidden grief

We trust the dark,continue to believe
Though all we hear at first are our own shrieks
Expression  is the way to  true relief.

The heart and soul   are patient and are meek.
For the unknown God,  they darkness seek
No remedy exists for hidden grief
Expression   gives us comfort and relief

Psychologising problems led to the current political situation

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http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/donald-trump-brexit-neoliberalism-individualism-cognitive-behavioural-therapy-a7413501.html

 

Quote:An example? Encounter groups . These meetings were an attempt to help individuals work together to tackle internalised oppression. However this kind of collective work soon became co-opted by ideas such as self-actualisation. The inner world was to be explored now not for the collective endeavour, but in the pursuit of individual happiness. Mass activism began to wane as the sale of self-help books mushroomed, carrying within their pages the message that responsibility for growth and happiness rested firmly in the individual. Why, after all, go to a feminist encounter group, when the tools for enlightenment lay in a self-help book one could peruse at home?

The side effect of the rise of therapy culture was a de-politicised understanding of embodied distress, and a certain navel gazing. The causes of anger and anxiety were located solely in individual’s childhoods or, as the 21st century beckoned, genes. Consideration of power relations and the structural causes of inequalities became a lefty side project, getting in the way of developing “brand me”, or a side note at the end of academic articles. Alternative ideas of the self received a special kind of ridicule – a phenomenon we see in the reaction to Corbynism today. Alternative ideas within psychology got sidelined.

He has no self at all, if all’s his wish.

No mirror for reflection in his mind
He says whatever suits  that moment’s wish
Thus he is to truth  disabled,  blind

Pride and power  make human beings  unkind.
But  reflecting   can  point to what’s amiss.
There’s no mirror for reflection in his mind

In phantasy, we obtain what we  design.
But  fancied love won’t give  a fleshly kiss
We are  to truth  and  justice surreal,blind

To  find  the  truth  we  cannot be malign
Must view  again the  images  dismissed
Who can use the mirrors  in   their minds?

Judging of our leaders is no crime;
For we judge our selves and that is less than bliss
When  leaders lie, the world is undermined

He has no self at all,  if  all’s his wish.
Inevitable  the fall to  the abyss
He has no space for mirrors in his mind
Thus he is to danger doubly blind.

Donald Winnicott and Harold Pinter

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“In a remembrance of the writer Harold Pinter that appeared in the Los Angeles Times (and posted on Slow Painting), Charles McNulty included a memorable quote by D. W. Winnicott:

But for all his vehemence and posturing, Pinter was too gifted with words
and too astute a critic to be dismissed as an ideological crank.
He was also too deft a psychologist,
understanding what the British psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott meant
when he wrote that
“being weak is as aggressive as the attack of the strong on the weak”
and that the repressive denial
of personal aggressiveness is perhaps even more dangerous
than ranting and raving.
(All that stiff-upper-lip business can be murderous.)”

I just came across that quote by accident
and thought it was worth posting here

Related articles

What is truth, anyway?

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Where I knit so I can see birds in the trees outside the window opposite

 

“I knit quite slowly,saying no to haste.
I worship with my truth and am not cowed.”

In this poem  which is the  previous post, my truth means that I learned while knitting Shetland lace that  going backwards to fix mistakes is just as valuable as going forward all the time.I had a vision of the world being made by this backward and forward movement.That if we cannot permit ourselves to make mistakes and then correct them we will never get anywhere in living with others or in creating.
When I was teaching I used to do tough problems without preparing them so  students could see me thinking.They liked that

Self help is a disaster says professor

 

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http://sciencenordic.com/get-better-life-say-no

 

Professor mimics self-help books

Brinkmann has chosen a rather unconventional way of presenting his points. He has written a book that resembles the self-help books he is criticising.

“It’s a self-help book with a humorous twist — you might call it a self-help book against self-help books. I wrote it like that to generate debate.”

In the best self-help book writing style Brinkmanns book has a seven step structure:

The Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius was one source of inspiration for Brinkmann’s criticism of the self-help and coaching wave. He was a Stoic and made a virtue of standing firmly as to who he was as a person (Photo: Jean-Pol GRANDMONT).

1. Stop soul-searching: From medical science we know that the more we try to feel, the worse we feel. The more we focus on our own health, the less well we feel. This is known as the ‘paradox of health’.

2. Focus on the negative aspects of your life: You have to acknowledge that you will gradually feel worse and worse and finally one day die.  If you bear that in mind every day you will value life more highly than if you spend your time constantly searching for something positive to focus on.

3. Say no: As an adult you have to be able to say no in order to maintain personal integrity.

4. Repress your emotions: It is a common psychological assumption that you become neurotic if you do not express your emotions. However, research is unable to confirm this. Physical illness cannot generally be provoked by repressing one’s emotions. There is, however, evidence that men face a slightly smaller risk of getting cancer if they do express their emotions. The reverse is true for women, but this is trifle

Like music or the menace of Al-gebra.

The art of  loving’s likely going to cost you;
Like  music or the menace of al-gebra.
Will you pay the price,I  need to ask you?

Remember all the lovers who have tossed you!
They say for stress ,to imitate the zebra
The art of  loving’s surely going to cost you

Will you let me , now I need to grasp you?
I remember your first  girl,that minx called Debra
Will you eat my food,I   have to ask you?

I wonder how I’d  feel if I had lost you.
Can I  save your image  on my camera?
The art of  loving, what’s it going to cost you?

I recognise,I know your shape and posture.
I want to steal your kisses;may I rob you?
Will you pay  full  price,I   have  to ask you?

I’ve  loved a million men but not a cobra.
Do I need a permit if I love you?
The tact of  living’s likely to  bypass you;.
Will you pay the piper, when I frisk you?

Focus

night-scribbles
I used to wonder why desire was regarded as a bad thing in Buddhism.After all to be without any desire might be a symptom of deep depression..
But later I came to realise that if we are too focussed on our desire for one person or one object or one feeling that this sharp focus would prevent one from perceiving many other things.So perhaps it’s a change of focus that is intended.I can imagine that if you desire one person who may not be interested then you miss seeing all the other people near you.
Sometimes we have to use a narrow focus to do a task.In mathematics you’d expect a narrow focus but the reason why stopping and going for a walk works is that it widens your focus.

It’s not quite infidelity

My husband had never looked less livid

As he died down in old A and E.

His colour was vivid

His hair was  all withered

He cried,Where the hell do  I be?

 

I said,you’re in bed with a lady

So I’ll arrange for a speedy divorce.

You’ll have to hurry,

If you wish to re-marry.

If needs be, I shall use  polite force.

 

He winked at me solemn as Moses

After wandering the Sinai for years.

He said,Dear I love you

There’ no lady above you

Don’t spend too much on my hearse.

 

 

 

Would you like me to marry my lover?

He’s gone cold waiting out in the shed!

He said,don’t ask me yet  for

My  mood’s on a see -saw

Take whom you like when you wed.

 

But first  give me a nice service

Sing Pie Jesu for me!

Your voice is so sweet

It shall be my last treat.

Oh,Lord,how I  deeply love thee.

 

I said that is  very ambiguous

Do you love me  best or Jesu?

He said I love both

Yet I love God the most.

So there’s not very much I can do.

 

 

He imitated a dying   philanderer.

.But alas it was only too real.

My hand on his nose

Almost gave up the ghost.

It froze  and it stuck like a seal.

 

 

Oh,doctor can you separate us

For I am not yet quite dead?

My only concern

Is to take a short turn

As my boyfriend is  alone in the shed.

 

You sinner,the doctor said to me

You committed adultery twice.

Well,I had to be kind

My boyfriend’s half blind.

Is that an excuse for my vice?

 

I didn’t want love in the garden

As we might have frightened a snail.

It’s not quite  infidelity

To love a man gently

When your husband’s as dead as a nail.

 

Anyway,my heart is no  longer alive,doc

In the shadow of death ,life is weak

I pretended to be  wicked

As my husband often  bickered

Diabetics  make their carers feel bleak.

 

I see you were lost in fantasia,

While singing the psalms to your spouse.

I shall forgive you

No-one else lives like you.

You have often kept your wedding vows.

 

What do you mean saying often?

He’s the only man  I’ve ever loved.

For his sense of humour

Cleared out all my  gloomour

I called him my chicken,my dove.

 

The force of procreation is violent

And drives lonely women to bed.

God made us like this

As he made  grass snakes hiss.

Upon hearing this the doc fled!

Let’s celebrate with kisses sweet.

 

Words float like water in a stream,
Reflected gently by sunbeams.
This stream flows swiftly to my heart
Through these words your love is caught.

The space inside my heart is clear,
Your love will find  a good home here.
Your words are treasures in my night,
And in the dark, they glow with light.

Oh,let me read your notes of bliss,
And seal them with a loving kiss.
I hope this stream will always go
Where living waters softly flow.

For love is kind, and love is true.
Connections form from me to you.
And love creates an open heart,
From which all other feelings start.

Yet love is free, and does not bind.
Love is glad,and not unkind.
Lf my love displeases you,
You must find a lover new.

I have life inside my heart
Which will sustain me if we part.
I shall wish you happiness
I know my grief will one day pass.

But for today,let’s laugh and play.
Let’s make love inside the hay.
It’s summer and we like the heat.
Let’s celebrate with kisses sweet.

Learning from our interactions with others

Tea pot
Tea pot

 

I have a friend who is still an active mathematician.I don’t whether he did it on purpose but he replied to  some  emails
That figures
I reckon so.
Then I realised these are words  originally relating to arithmetical calculations became part of ordinary speech in a metaphorical way.
Again, the phrase,
There is no accounting for taste
uses a word accounting still used by people who deal with money but also used in a metaphorical way.
So this proves we can learn not just from books or lectures but from everyday speech if we are on the lookout.

Now the sun has set, the sky is mauve

The sun looked angry when the dawn was due;
Its red more fiery,deepening scarlet hue.
The birds were singing though my heart loved Hugh.
All in all, I don’t know what to do.

The clouds betrayed the sun by turning grey.
Well, in  winter, who on earth makes hay?
The sun shone brighter as the earth it flayed
I can sell  my soul for money on Ebay.

The sun then disappeared to plot
How it can give us acne  like a shot.
And make our skin peel  like potatoes hot
All in all, I think I’ll tee a pot.

Now the sun has set, the sky is mauve
Tall trees stand  gravely in their gentle grove.
Where lovers meet and discuss when to rove
As for me, what woman is betrothed?

The sun looked calmer as  the day faded
It is now more  deep sea green than it is red
The birds are singing , seems they’re  feeling glad.
As for me,well better wed than dead!

That’s why I said three.

I remember that wool coat she wore even in summer;
Blue with ridges of black running horizontally.
We walked  along the  bright beach at Rhyl
It was Sunday morning;I has a new missal
I think I lost it with its gold edged pages that morning
I was happy to be alone with her
Just left primary school.
Hardly ever was alone with her to talk.
She seemed almost happy ;three years  of widow-hood
Had almost knocked her down.
She seemed for a few minutes
The woman she used to be.
When you lose one parent, you lose three.
The one left is not the one she used to be
And their conjunction had another being
That’s why I said three.

Why is free verse so popular?

 

narcissus2017-2

https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/free-verse-poets-glossary

 

“Free verse is a form of nonmetrical writing that takes pleasure in a various and emergent verbal music. “As regarding rhythm,” Ezra Pound writes in “A Retrospect” (1918): “to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of a metronome.” Free verse is often inspired by the cadence—the natural rhythm, the inner tune—of spoken language. It pos­sesses visual form and uses the graphic line to differentiate itself from prose. “The words are more poised than in prose,” Louis MacNeice states in Modern Poetry (1938); “they are not only, like the words in typical prose, contributory to the total effect, but are to be attended to, in passing, for their own sake.” The dream of free verse: an originary verbal music for every poem. Jorge Luis Borges explains: “Beyond its rhythm, the typographical appearance of free verse informs the reader that what lies in store for him is not informa­tion or reasoning but emotion.””

Mystical experience


 
Red rose
  • A beam of light passed through my eyes
  • And showed to me a world disguised
  •  So near, yet far, we do not see,
    Unless by gift of grace redeemed.

    That world is full of peace and calm
    Its colours mingle like a balm
    In such a moment all thought dies
    Revealing Love which underlies.

    Colours  brush my naked eye
    Sunlight offers new designs.
    I stand enthralled, and do not wish
    For one delight, other than this.

    My breath slows down, and filled with joy,
    I  rove my eyes with bliss to toy.
    Everything is all itself.
    This is now our living wealth.

    Beneath the noise of city traffic,
    This mellow joy, love soporific,
    Such depth and peace is always near
    When we choose Love and turn from fear