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
“As much as we might admire what is fresh and innovative, we all learn by imitating patterns,” writes Irina Dumitrescu in The Times Literary Supplement. “To be called ‘formulaic’ is no compliment, but whenever people express themselves or take action in the world, they rely on familiar formulas.” It’s true. For her review-essay, Dumitrescu reads 5 books about writing and explores how writing advice is caught in a paradox: to get people to communicate clearly, logically, and find their own voices, instruction must first teach them rules and provide enough room to learn by copying. This is why most of us writers begin by imitating established writers. We find someone whose style or subject reflects our own – someone in whom we hear our ideal selves, someone who sounds like we want to sound one day – and we mimic them. This could start with a parent, move to a cool friend, then end with a famous novelist or memoirst, before we emerge from the pupae of literary infancy. In other words, to facilitate originality, we must teach formula, encourage imitation, and push for eventual independence. She explores the value of craft, structure, exploration, and formula, and the way sticking to rules erodes a writer’s style, their character, even the essence of the art. She contrasts John Warner’s book Why They Can’t Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities with the book Writing to Persuade, by The New York Times‘ previous op-ed editor, Trish Hall.
The places I associate with you,
Durham in the deepest, whitest frost
The places that I dream of what we knew
We walked the Cleveland Hills when love was new
Saw icy windows in your parent’s house.
The places I associate with you
Lincoln floodlit, threw me to my knees….
We crossed the Humber in midwinter lost
The places that I dream of, that we knew
Christmas time your mother felt so blue
We walked the sea edge Redcar,Saltburn first .
The places I associate with you
But where’ve you gone and why is there no clue?
I travel in my dreams ,with you impressed.
The places I associate with you,
The spaces where we travelled ,where are you?
The space between Eternity and loss
Shows in a long wave when someone dies
With inner eye, we see past the abyss
With human hearts we fear whom we shall miss
Tell ourselves strange stories,even lies
Of gaps between Eternity and loss
Our education was a mite remiss
The rules are pressed, the truth may well just fly
With inner eye, we see past the abyss
As the life we had come down to this,
When love rolled like the tide in a great sigh
No gap between eternity and bliss
My imagination you dismiss
For as a golden horse, you leapt so high
The inner eye, will see past the abyss
So now we stumble on without a cry
Yet one day all mankind must say ,Goodbye
What grace between Eternity and loss
Shows us how to cross the great abyss?
In fields of lushest buttercups we ‘d lie
We’d watch the clouds as gently they blew by.
Love was born we thought would never die.
But you are gone, and so I sadly sigh
That love itself remains without your form.
Yet tears of loss enfold me like a storm.
I knew you’d never hurt or do me harm.
I felt your smile’s embrace, so wide, so warm.
How is the world,now emptied of your being?
No sound, no touch, no smell, no sight, no seeing.
How is the world when you have gone ahead
Yet I must linger in this empty bed?
Yet those who’ved loved are grateful for that gift
Our sorrow is that life itself’s too swift
While the priest annointed him with oils I played in the gutter all alone I hoped to find the marbles we had lost Or from the melted tar to pluck a stone
The summer was so hot the cobbles baked Looking like a row of fresh made loaves There were no fishes in the millstream’s rush Nor a place where bread and Saviour rose
I found a florin in the cobbled street I found two marbles lying near a grid I found a daisy squashed in a wide crack I saw a spider hanged in its own web
To summarise ,my father went away The Queen was crowned and we just tried to play
Oh,light bulb foreseen by our God Save us all from darkness’ rod You are our Saviour as foretold In prophecy by ancients bold. We will worship you at night When sunken is the sun so bright. We’ll watch TV and Kindle fire No more to play shall we aspire. We’ll wear ourselves out watching screens, As from a can we eat baked beans We’ll send for pizzas with our phones With which we never feel alone. We might talk to our partner dear Though to text is easier. We see the neon street lights gleam Where once we saw the moon’s cold beams And in bed we read our books With a kindle or a nook We put beneath out pillows fair I phones which we long to hear Can one have too much new light? From technology some take flight For gone are seasons, and their fruit As our computer we reboot. New potatoes all year round Avocados once quite rare Now are seem ‘most everywhere. Melons,grapes and fresh green peas As the birds sing,life’s a breeze. Oh light bulbs,fluorescent tubes Electric candle, light is cubed. We thank you for extended days Maybe we’ll find time for prayers. God is great in mystery No light bulb can help us see. In silence,darkness, meditate Wonder what will be our fate. As retribution for our wrong Satan stabs us with his prongs He needs no more light in hell The fiery furnace cooks as well.
They don’t mention when you study maths Consistency,completeness and their lack For with any set of axioms there are gaps Another world, a place, another map
Discoveries that shocked, past reason’s grasp The man who crossed the hurdles in his path Godel paid for this by going mad Is it worth his pain to know the truth?
I wonder if the politics of fear Will prove completely nothing is a cure The axiomatic system of dark arts Is not enough , brings more pain to endure
For maths is simple when compared to life Where ugly feelings like dark demons writhe
A word that’s spoken by a friend can reach Can touch, can move, can embrace in its sounds The inner soul where its vibrations teach.
When cut off, silent,after sad defeat Such gentle words can break our sullen bonds A word that’s spoken by a friend can reach.
We must not torture nor torment in speech Our heart, the centre of our morbid wounds The inner soul with its vibrations speaks..
From our eye, a tear springs with relief From imprisoned sulking, jump with a great bound! A word that’s spoken by a friend can reach.
Muscles weaken,but the mind stays fleet Humour and its cousins are our clowns The inner soul by its athletics speaks.
I smile and smile yet rarely do I frown For I will rise up, even when low down A word that by a friend can reach,provoke In our souls ,deep memories will evo
They took the pot from these innocuous plants Nature is not kind in such display The powerful plants can do just what they want. However, I admire their flowers of red
I learned the maps of all the counties here
The contour lines, the rivers and the meres
Then I learned the street maps and train lines
New golf courses built on old coal mines
I traced all of the A roads with my thumb
So I would know the way to kingdom come
I marvelled at cross -Pennine Motorways
And thought that our Lord God must be amazed
Then I followed coastline paths and cliffs
I gazed until my eyes became quite stiff.
Finally the weather maps and clouds
And restaurants where cats are not allowed
At last I knew enough to start to walk.
If only I had known I am a hawk.
Among the many reasons poets choose to write formal poetry in the 21st century is an intuitive distaste for the imitative fallacy. To write about chaos, one need not write chaotically. It’s only a minor paradox to say that discipline and constraint unlock freedom. Steele goes on to say that form-minded poets are assumed to believe that “the universe is a nice, neat, orderly place.” On the contrary, he says:
I suspect that most people who write in forms feel that the obvious disorder and chaos of the world afflict us intensely, coming
We’re all going on the night train journey Full of strange and lovely sights We’re all going on the night train journey So we have the brightest lights
We’re all going on the night train journey We don’t pay for our own seats We’re all going on the night train journey We’re companions discreet
We’re all going on the night train journey When we die, is this the route? We’re all going on the night train journey Wear pyjamas not a suit
We’re all going on the night train journey Might we find our mom and dad? We’re all going on the night train journey All the living, and the dead
We’re all going on the night train journey Circulating like our blood We’re all going on the night train journey Joan of Arc needs Noah’s Flood
We’re all going on the night train journey Who creates us, makes our form? We’re all going on the night train journey Heal us ,we are people,torn
We fell into a rhythm as we walked Arm in arm we wandered as we talked We looked into folks’ windows as dusk came Tried to guess their furnishings and names
Some had nothing but the ironing stacked Others had the furniture we lacked I bought a chest of drawers for three pounds We had a double bed where our cat lounged
I bought a little table made of oak Fifty pence at auction, go for broke! A few old armchairs covered in green cloth Too severe to be a home for moths
Now I look at pictures on the walls I see the sun turn mauve as down dusk falls Images both simple and robust One a choice the other nature’s lust
I see my sofa like a treasure ship I lie upon it dreaming humorous quips I dream of journeys on the little train That signifies what sleep means to my brain
The rocking chair is empty of the cat I see one in my garden, not my lap. I try to tame this immigrant I like I shall give him food and call him Mike.
Oh,dear that is my brother, will he mind? I know he loves the birds, and cats do bite He is not living here in my old road Otherwise he’ll hear me shouting “Claude”
Perhaps I’ll call the cat Tamara Jane In case they’re very sensitive to names For I know not the gender of the beast They may be quite fluid at the least
Now my husband cannot calm me down I’d like his verdict on my new nightgown But all I can remember is that rhythm I fell into walking out with him
Mary’s cousin John had come to stay for a few days. He had a view of life very different from hers.
People here are too lazy to work
he said.
You’ve been reading the Times again,she teased him.
He blushed with rage,People with colds or headaches can work.Women have to look after babies regardless of how they feel.
And look how Jews worked in concentration camps even when they were dying
That’s the most horrible thing anyone has ever said in front of me. How can you even say those words?
I just meant to say that if the Jews could work when they were dying in concentration camps, people here could work with minor illnesses.
What happened to you John what happened? I’ve never heard you say things like this before.
Actually I’ve been made redundant and the manager is Jewish.
But he’s not making people redundant because he’s Jewish it is because his business is making much less money. It’s probably because of the pandemic.
If you are unemployed why are you not ⁰ sympathetic to others at the same position?
I don’t want people to know I’m unemployed.. so if I criticise them I don’t need to look at my own feelings.
Well do not say anything like that about Jewish people ever again.
It was an immeasurable unthinkable merciless crime and you seem to condone it. You don’t want our government however terrible it is to imprison because they have lost their jobs. How would you like it. You know quite well that prison is not the soft option that some people believe it is.
Mary was very worried by what John said and she realized that people were lookng for a scapegoat to blame for the state of the country.
Many of us know the truth.
The meek do not inherit the earth literally. They are given the lowest wages that the firm can get away with.
Sayings of Jesus are sometimes paradoxical and v hard to understand.
It’s a way of making us think by turning everything upside down.
Mary had several books about art including
On not being able to paint, by Marion Milner. And this is where Mary got some of her ideas from
But only the receptive will receive creative ideas. If you think you’re the best thing since fried bread you are not likelyto receive spiritual guidance from the Holy One
I wish I had some fried bread right now because I’m hungry
How my heart speaks 