Category: Thinkings and poems

Little bits and pieces

Wittgenstein
Drank wine.
Liked 1 cat
To pat

Alfred North Whitehead
Was very shortsighted
He worked out with Russell
Their minds used to jostle.
Principia Mathematica?
I’d rather wear a catheter

Iris Murdoch
Drank dandelion and burdock
She wrote of the Good
Right where she stood!
In Oxford she dwelled
And all her thoughts jelled

Alfred relaxes and God steers

Photo0426

King Alfred

Lately I have been loaned by providence a graceful beautiful cat.Early on he was a shrinking, hunched and nervous creature who slept by the back door on the daily newspaper.He ate hungrily and drank water with a drop of milk.

He was reluctant for a couple of weeks to venture further but as the tranquil peaceful time went by he began to sleep on a towel by the hall radiator and eventually on my knee.

The most striking change was in his size.As he ate more and was petted more he relaxed so that when stretched by the fire ,more of his body was in contact with the floor and he looked larger all over.He was loosened up and comfortable.

If he were human I might say he had a good mother.He is affectionate and initially I feared his demands might be excessive.When he came onto my bed I was concerned.But after five minutes of being stroked he went off to his own place again.

Sometimes when he’s been out in the garden he reappears with an air of humorous triumph as if he has worked a miracle to enter through his door.Another time when I was reading in a different room from the usual one he appeared mid morning with a face full of more expression than I can easily put into words.

He was anxious and relieved,puzzled and afraid,happy and a touch angry with me.How can you do this to me? was his query.Suppose you had gone altogether?Oh,the insecurity of being a tame cat.

I wonder why cats do not miss their own species.Or maybe they meet them outsi

books

de.Often though they fight to defend their territory but fortunately they have no WMD as yet.I like to read and stroke him as I muse over my book,

Tenderness

Made from photo

Let your lips meet gently, the top one resting against the lower touching with tenderness your own skin to skin.

Forefinger propped on chin, I let the others dangle, like leaves on a branch; how softly gravity tugs them downwards.

Let heart beat quietly,slowly as the blood circulates carrying its music; a river,following the path of least resistance.

How the blood vessels receive willingly this flow, touching it kindly as with tiny open fingers, helping and being helped.

How the hair on the head floats on the breeze,like tentacles of an octopus waving goodbye.

Top eyelid loves the lower one; as we blink they touch like lovers kissing swiftly behind a tree. and how the light comes in we see a world

Mine may not be yours, but the blink of my eyelid sends waves through the air, so we’re all touching and being touched, lips kissing each other, kiss all living creatures. skin to skin air to air.

And inside us,the rich darkness of creative night transforms in turn these touches into visions and dreams

By the river

Scattered pools of rainwater gleam on the dark paving stones

The road disappears under an arch

A family approach smiling : conversation occurs

The dog jumps with delight

By the river, a cat hides looking for water rats on the bank

The terraced houses by the water look contented and prosperous

The third one has new curtains.

A man walks by seeming nervous, nothing to do on Sunday.

Turning the other way, I see the huge tree by the large end house

Then a sharp turn on to the bridge

Small bridges here remind me of Thames bridges

These are secret hidden and beautiful like little treasures.

Here comes someone on a bicycle, better step back.

Now we walk towards the pub with another bridge in front

But I forgot, you are not here. The last time I drank grapefruit juice.

I have not had any since then.

Last night I dreamed I was in the garden with a big hedge on my right

The shrubs were leafless and as I pressed my ear against them I could hear laughter and I knew that it was you.

The secret garden that we never enter

Then you cried hello, hello. You sounded merry

That was a small heaven

And always the river flows down the contour lines as it was designed.

And the people change but everything is still the same

‘Time for dreaming’: five writers on the slow travel joys that bring them peace

https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2024/feb/17/art-of-slow-travel-five-writers-activity-connect-to-natural-world?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Anne Lamott’s writing tips

rosaalchemyst2019https://writingcooperative.com/anne-lamotts-top-13-writing-tips-7577eb5d5c24

 

8. Writing is fueled by hard work rather than innate talent.

“I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident. Not one of them writes elegant first drafts…For me and most of the other writers I know, writing is not rapturous. In fact, the only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts.” -Anne Lamott

Lamott’s line about “shitty first drafts” has gotten a lot of airtime in the writing community. Many writers seem to use it as a rallying cry.

To me, this quote is a great reminder of the fact that authorship is not a land of “haves” and “have-nots.” The world population has not been divided into capable writers and hopeless wannabes.

If even the best writers in the world struggle to write beautiful prose, we know that writing is a learned craft — one in which we can all improve over time.

We earn the blessing of the Muse by putting in writing time — not by being born with a golden ink pen in our hand.

Who’s the one you cannot meet on Zoom?

When yet another lover flees my bed

And runs out without breakfast or hot tea

I wonder what it was I should have said

And realize they never did love me.

We fear the loneliness of later life.

Then quickly accept anyone at all

No wonder then our hearts are pierced with knives

Our guts are wracked like ships on a wild sea.

Look for no new saviour in this life.

It’s better to be lonely and be free

When lovers flee our beds we will be pleased

Grateful that machines can wash and beat

Invite no one but God into your room.

He is the one you cannot meet on Zoom

The broken chair

“Your eyes are like deep pools in the Indonesian ocean” Stan murmured into his mistress Annie’s ear.He gently took hold of her and pulled her down onto his thin knee.
Just as he did , his new Habitat chair collapsed and they fell onto the floor.,the chair in many bits around them like a jigsaw puzzle in three dimenstions,
Have you got your smartphone,my sweetheart “he whispered romantically
“I think you’ll have to ring 999.
“OK,my angel” Annie prattled,
” Operator,it’s my lover’s chair .It keeps collapsing;can we bring into A and E to be fixed? Well he can’t get into to bed anymore as he is 107,so we really need this”
Just then a pebble hit the window,it was his wife coming back from Sainsburys” She’s lost her keys in her book bag yet again
Oh,wonderful,just at the right moment” he shouted,”Hello,Mary,here is Annie,she’s a chair surgeon!”
“Oh,that’s good”,Mary muttered enigmatically.
” Do you ever fix beds?”
“Why do you ask?” Annie cried sweetly
“Well, ours is always collapsing’it’s yet another of life’s mysteries.”
“Why,you are so beautiful, Mary.You are mesmerising.Come and show me your bed.We’ll leave Stan here.He’ll soon be in that ambulance”
“Annie,your eyes are like deep salty pools in the Dead Sea .”
“Have you both been on the same creative writing course?” Mary spouted satirically.
“I aim for satisfaction.Here’s my gun.I’m going to shoot you” Annie called
“But we have no guns in the UK” Mary whispered under her breath
“Well you have now.” Annie said logically.
Just then the emergency ambulance arrived with its siren scaring the cats nearby but not Emile as he heard it so many times.
“OK. which chair is it this time” the trisexual paramedic Dave enquired foxily.
“Have you ever thought of making it in the bath?We’re getting really worried about you in Casualty,at your age.”
“Worry no more” Anne screamed emphatically, firing the gun repeatedly into the chair’s remains.
“I’ll make sure he never sits in it again.And now Habitat’s gone bust,he can’t buy another.’”
“Cheers ,mate!”whispered the paramedic dramatically.
“Has anyone ever told you,your eyes are like deep pools in the Sea of Tralee”.
“Oh,no not another one!”Anne moaned tentatively,”You need to raise your whole game,not just change the name of the sea”
“You’re so intelligent too,lady.Can you teach me truly creative writing?” He yelled quietly,by the way I am Trisexual.
” What a funny name.Come upstairs” she murmured in reply, “and we’ll see what sea we can see up there,tonight”.
“Thank you so much and please send me home in a stamped addressed envelope when you are done with me.” he responded quixotically
“Whatever” she sighed spontaneously.”Let’s get on with it or you’ll be here all night”
Does it matter? he called.”I am paid by the flower”
Emile the little black cat who had hidden in the wardrobe was disappointed that the light went out as he hoped to take a photo.
And so did all of us

With dusty shredded leaves.

The gravity of loss brought me to earth
Beneath the rotting leaves, I lay with worms.
I wondered if I were of any worth

No more to be enchanted by love’s mirth,
I  with unnamed particles was turned.
The weight of loss bears down the heart to earth.

The weight of  love has readied us for birth
The fragments moulded with the love that burns.
I learned we need  not wonder  over  worth

My sorrow brought no guilt nor fear of wrath
I am both  sharp eyed eagle ,twisted worm.
In my little grave, I  loved the earth.

Like the adder, shocked into rebirth.
I from silent underworld had learned
Not to judge my soul nor think of worth.

I shall not  fear the flames of hell that burn.
When blackness is accepted, may one learn?
The weight of loss breaks down the soul to earth
With dusty shredded leaves, we then converse

God was absent then or in some other place

When he went away
He said,”Lehitraot,mama.”
Do vstrechi.
He died, but I’m still here
Yes,in my heart I feel his love.
But why did I live,
And he did not?
Auf wiedersehen
Lehitraot.
Yes,darling,I’ll see you later
,When the sky turns black and all the stars blaze bright
I’ll see you shining in the night.
I’ll see you in my dreams alas.
Do vstrechi.
But why you and not me too?
Araka
I can’t understand
.Lehitraot,beloved.
A plus tard
Some where in this world,you fell
But no-one,not even God, can tell.
God was absent then or in some other place
He’s gone again
.They said He’s died too
,But He didn’t have a mother like you.
Do vstrechi.
My breasts ache and my heart and soul,
My breasts were made to make you whole.
To feed, give love and to console.
A plus tard
And now they ache with grief as my tears fall
.A bientot
My body trembles in the night
As dreams may bring my lost ones to my sight.
A plus
I’d walk across the roughest bleak terrain
If l I could find my loves and hold your hands again.
Do vstrechi
.The bell rings on the ancient clock
As time goes on as normal,  never stops.
Araka
I wish the hands of time could be reversed,
And I was not living with this curse.
People forget that I once had a son.
They think my grieving has been done.
Araka.But grief and loss and pain will never end
Until the curtain of my death descends
Auf wiedersehen.
Meantime I look at flowers and birds and trees
,But it’s really you my deepening insight sees.
Lehitraot.
The inscape of my heart is shown to few.
An artist of the lost would know this view.
I know I want to see just you.
Do vstrechi.
But for me there is noAuf wiedersehen
Never again will you say
What you said that day
Lehitraot,Mama.Papa
A plus tard
Tot ziens.
See you later
See you ,darling
See you soon

Timeless, beautiful the living mind

There is no time in our unconscious minds

Like god it’s always present, undefined

The wisdom that’s inside us lives down there

As we move through life, it helps us steer.

Larger than the sun,as small as tears.

The mystery of the universe dwells here

Every day our souls are being refined

We cannot love the world if we are blind

The inner sea will comfort me

Inside my shell, I dream of pearls,
Caterpillars, snails with whorls.
I dream contented, all enwrapped
With reverie and dream, I’m lapped.
The inner seas will comfort me,
While gods allow my eyes to see

Oh, sweeter than confectionery
Is my worn old dictionary.
The words whirl round and fall to shape
The sentences, which my world drape.
This furnishing is rich and strange
Yet magically self-arranged.

Oh, sweeter than the love of man
Is reading works of poets long gone;
And feeling deeply their dark tides,
Upon which our boats may glide.
The sea infinite we float on
Is the same warm sea that ancients swam.

Sweeter still is this spring air
And the blossom spreading fair.
We’ll drown ourselves in deep green fields
To the gods of poetry yield.
We’ll rise again and spring up tall
To grow more rich until we fall.

Sweet it is to live and die
And to write my poetry
Touch me with your ardent souls
My mind and yours shall all be whole

The world’s hollow like a shell

I’m in deep now,never been this deep before
The world’s hollow like a shell and I’m out its door.
In so deep, the ocean has its own startled floor.
I’m down,down.down.never been so dark , so more

I can’t rightly tell how I got where I am
I think I had an accident,fell over, then I swam.
Sometimes it’s a loss, be times it’s my man.
I guess I only do it cos I know some folk can.

I don’t know if the joy is worth the pain
Would I choose to relive if, I was born again?
The deep joy is the amazing gain.
But the sorrow is damn sad, let’s admit it plain.

I’m in deep and it’s over my head
What was I thinking of,when I fell out of that bed?
I look up and the sea’s so turquoise like that mist is red
When we get good and mad and wish some loon was dead.

At first, it was all just black,black pain
But from the bottom of the well, I looked up with awed love again.
That’s when I recalled,feelings are deep and sane
Joy is much greater when we’re in the deep,deep zone.

I dunno if I’m ever comin’ out.
We can’t control it,ain’t that what life’s all about?
I’ll never love with innocence again,nor not feel doubt.
But I’m no teapot and the devil ain’t got my spout.

I’m swimming and the ocean’s so mysteriously bright
Down here we don’t have no day nor no night
Fish nudge me with big grins and teeth white
Sea flowers fondle me and whisper,turn off that light

The sky’s a shark

The black cat’s run, the birds unfold all day

I sit down here and with my totty pray

Ye cast o’ foolish thoughts, you raped my will

. We’ve each enraged the bureaucratic mill.

Oh frigid purse, I never meant to pay!

The sky ‘s a-spark, the air is warm and shrill

The saturnine demoted knelled their way

With this feathered pounce, my sample quill,

I cite the cheque and date it for next May.

Oh, tit for cat, the tiger’s bed ‘s astray.

Yer life is settled by a harlot’s will

The sky ‘s a shark, the air is sharper still

Love gives the soul her appetite.

Love gives the soul her appetite.

Though the night is black and starless,

The inner guide is never careless.

The notes are struck,the tune is played,

Plain melodies are overlaid.

In this chant and benediction,

Healing comes for desolation.

Though the passage way is narrow,

This road is the one to follow.

Struggling through the mud and mire,

We see,in darkness, tongues of fire.

The sacred centre of our life

Is never found without some strife.

Just then, the dark and light combine.

To create a symbol for the mind

Wittgenstein’s biography by Ray Monk reviewed

 

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I find this book very beautiful and significant.
i did not like his life of  Russell..So it must be that wittgenstein is a more important figure in our culture.Russell  had wives and children but altogether I found his life depressing

Give Him Genius or Give Him Death [New York Times]

By Anthony Kenny; Anthony Kenny, the author of “Wittgenstein” and “The Legacy of Wittgenstein,” is the president of the British Academy.

LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN The Duty of Genius. By Ray Monk. Illustrated. 654 pp. New York: The Free Press. $29.95.

Ludwig Wittgenstein was the greatest philosopher of the 20th century. Many books have been written about his philosophy. Ray Monk’s “Ludwig Wittgenstein” is the first substantial biography of his whole life. It is not a book to which one would turn to learn about Wittgenstein’s thought, but enough is said about the philosophical writings to make intelligible the story of the philosopher’s life. And the story is well told; the narrative is vivid, clear, sympathetic and credible.

Wittgenstein’s great-grandfather was a land agent named Moses Maier, who in 1808 took the name of his princely employers, the Wittgensteins. His father, Karl, a friend of Johannes Brahms, was the most acute industrialist in the Austrian steel industry; he made the family the Austrian equivalent of the Carnegies or Rothschilds. He had five sons and three daughters by a Roman Catholic wife, and baptized all of them into the Catholic faith. He set out to educate the sons in a very severe regime which would turn them into captains of industry. He did not succeed. Three of the sons committed suicide; the fourth, Paul, became (despite the loss of an arm in World War I) a concert pianist; the fifth, the youngest child, born in Vienna in 1889, was the philosopher.

Ludwig Wittgenstein attended the Realschule in Linz, where he was a contemporary of Adolf Hitler. He was a poor scholar, teased by his peers. At school he also lost his faith. The major intellectual influences on him in his youth, apart from the philosophical works of Schopenhauer, were the physicist Ludwig Boltzmann (suicide 1906) and the psychologist Otto Weininger (suicide 1903).

Mr. Monk believes that Weininger’s bizarre book “Sex and Character” was of fundamental importance in shaping Wittgenstein’s career. According to Weininger — a homosexual — all human beings are bisexual, a mixture of male and female. Woman is nothing but sexuality: every woman is a mixture of prostitute and mother. Men must choose between the masculine and feminine elements within themselves; the ideal for a man is to free himself from sex. “The choice that Weininger’s theory offers is a bleak and terrible one indeed: genius or death,” says Mr. Monk. “If . . . one cannot free oneself from sensuality and earthly desires — then one has no right to live at all.”

For Wittgenstein, to acquire genius became a categorical imperative. He once described Beethoven greeting a friend on completion of a new fugue: he “came to the door, looking as if he had been fighting the devil, and having eaten nothing for 36 hours because his cook and parlour-maid had been away from his rage. That’s the sort of man to be.”

It was in Cambridge in 1911 that Wittgenstein first gave evidence of genius in philosophy, and it was Bertrand Russell who first recognized it. Wittgenstein was, Russell wrote, “perhaps the most perfect example I have ever known of genius as traditionally conceived, passionate, profound, intense, and dominating.” Russell was already well known as the author of powerful, original work in logic and mathematics; he soon realized that Wittgenstein’s gifts were greater than his own, and he devoted himself with great generosity to their development. In 1912 he told Wittgenstein’s sister, “We expect the next big step in philosophy to be taken by your brother.”

The expectation was fulfilled, but Wittgenstein’s philosophical message was not given to the world until after World War I. During that war he served in the Austrian Army on the Eastern and Italian fronts, and much of the material that later appeared in his masterpiece, “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus,” was written while on active service. At the front Wittgenstein showed conspicuous courage and was commended and decorated; he was also converted, by the reading of Tolstoy, to an intense though idiosyncratic Christianity. “Perhaps the nearness of death,” he wrote in his diary, “will bring me the light of life. May God enlighten me. I am a worm, but through God I become a man. God be with me. Amen.”

After the war, having inherited a share of his father’s fortune, he found himself one of the wealthiest men in Europe. Within a month of returning from the army he gave all his money away. For some years he supported himself as a gardener or as a schoolmaster in rural Austrian schools. He believed, for a while, that he had already solved all the problems of philosophy in his “Tractatus,” which appeared (after great difficulty in finding a publisher) in German in 1921 and in English in 1922. The book quickly became famous; though it was itself metaphysical and almost mystical, as well as austerely logical, it was most admired by the anti-metaphysical positivists of the Vienna Circle.

It was at Vienna that Wittgenstein returned to the study of philosophy, when his career as a schoolmaster came to an unhappy end after allegations of cruelty to his pupils. Eventually he returned to Cambridge and during his years there in the 1930’s he became the most influential teacher of philosophy in Britain. The philosophy he taught in this period differed from that published in the “Tractatus”; it was not presented in print until “Philosophical Investigations” was published posthumously in 1953.

After the Anschluss, Hitler’s forced unification of Austria and Germany in 1938, Wittgenstein became a British citizen. During World War II he worked as a paramedic, and in 1947 he resigned his Cambridge chair. He continued to write philosophy and to communicate philosophical thoughts to close friends and disciples. After a period of solitary life in Ireland, he stayed in the houses of various friends in Oxford and Cambridge until his death in 1951 at the age of 62. He left a mass of philosophical papers, many of them still awaiting publication.

Wittgenstein’s genius is patent to any philosopher who will take the time and trouble to come to grips with his profound but difficult writings. His life, as described by Mr. Monk, seems to have been a lonely and tragic one. He was often tormented by temptations to suicide, and was sometimes on the verge of mental illness. He regarded his life as a professor as “a living death,” and held many of his colleagues, in the various callings he pursued, in loathing and contempt. His only philosophical peer was Russell, and the relationship between the two soured after Wittgenstein’s return to Cambridge. Many of his philosophical disciples loved him, but it was a love mixed strongly with fear.

Four times in his life, according to Mr. Monk, Wittgenstein fell deeply in love. Three of his loves were male and one female. (Sensational stories have been told of Wittgenstein’s passion for rough homosexuals picked up in Vienna parks; Mr. Monk examines the evidence patiently and convincingly and concludes that any such encounters took place only in Wittgenstein’s own fantasy.) David Pinsent, to whose memory the “Tractatus” was dedicated, accompanied Wittgenstein to Norway and Iceland in the prewar period; he was killed in 1918. Francis Skinner, who came up to Cambridge as a student in 1930, had an all-absorbing relationship with Wittgenstein in the 30’s; and in 1946 Wittgenstein fell in love with a Cambridge medical student, Ben Richards, 40 years his junior.

MANY readers will be surprised to learn from Mr. Monk’s book that there was a time when Wittgenstein had plans to marry. From 1926 to 1931 he had a friendship with a Swiss woman, Marguerite Respinger. For a period he wrote to her almost daily, and he sculpted a bust of her. An entry in his diary for 1930 reads: “Arrived back in Cambridge after the Easter vacation. In Vienna often with Marguerite. Easter Sunday with her in Neuwaldegg. For three hours we kissed each other a great deal and it was very nice.”

Once it became clear that Wittgenstein wanted to marry her, Marguerite drew back — especially as it transpired that what the philosopher had in mind was a Platonic, childless union.

Faith in God was important to Wittgenstein; but his faith seems to have been a somber one. God was perhaps no more than Fate. If He was to be thought of as a person, it was solely as a severe judge. Yet Wittgenstein’s last words were, “Tell [ my friends ] I’ve had a wonderful life.” Ray Monk’s book has succeeded remarkably in portraying some of its wonders.

HE WELCOMED THE BOMB

Wittgenstein’s hostility towards professional philosophy and his dislike of Cambridge remained constant throughout his academic career, but in the years . . . that followed the Second World War, they seemed to become fused with a kind of apocalyptic vision. . . .

What links this apocalyptic anxiety with his hostility to academic philosophy is his detestation of the power of science in our age, which on the one hand encouraged the philosopher’s “craving for generality,” and on the other produced the atomic bomb. . . . He even welcomed the bomb, if only the fear of it could do something to diminish the reverence with which society regarded scientific progress. . . . The most pessimistic view, for him, was one which foresaw the triumph of science and technology: “Science and industry, and their progress, might turn out to be the most enduring thing in the modern world. Perhaps any speculation about a coming collapse of science and industry is . . . nothing but a dream; perhaps science and industry, having caused infinite misery in the process, will unite the world — I mean condense it into a single unit, though one in which peace is the last thing that will find a home. Because science and industry do decide wars, or so it seems.”

Sins for the single?

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1.Go to bed with married people of either sex. Mortal Sin and immoral probably.Recreational for the hardened sinner.
2.Envy people with partners until you are ill. Probably mortal and killing your spirit.Then die of grief and torment.
3 Tell everyone your late partner’s misdeeds.They will soon drop you.
4.Never pay for coffee when out as you are living on less money.The effect depends on how nice your friends are.If you still have any!
5.Complain about G-d.Say G-d is a woman.They don’t care.
6.Tell the phone company you are sick with grief.Not much of a lie.Who needs a phone?
7.Cancel all the charity donations that your late one paid by DD and spend it on Icecream.Get fat and get diabetes.. then go to Purgatory.
8.Lie in bed dreaming all day.This is not really a sin but it may be a mistake.Since I can’t do this I shall envy anyone who can.Because to be is to do.
9.Connect to your neighbour’s Wi-Fi instead of their wife.Status undecided.
10 Feed all the cats in your street and take them to bed.Is this a sin?
11 Check out if you may be gay.It’s not a sin to wonder.
12.Wonder what you would be doing if you were not alone.Not a great sin but not good for ruminators
13.Start disbelieving in Fate.Then keep going

To my brother

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

No blood to circulate,no thoughts,no will

No help,no joyousjokes 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.

The future without you I did not see.

Imagination fails beneath the tree.

Civilization is a war

Writing poetry is it like a diary?

It’s not written by my conscious self yet when I read my writing I recognize myself.

Sometimes I amuse myself

It makes me happy or angry or sad

When I can’t do it I feel deprived but sometimes I can’t tune in

Maybe I don’t have the energy for it.

Sometimes I’m very surprised by what I’ve written it hardly believe that I wrote it.

The something about the present world that’s not good for writing

Where there a wars in other countries that I was here between fellow countrymen between friends

130,000 people were killed when in the bombing of Dresden but  how many people think about that now

That can be a joy in destruction if you feel you have an excuse for it but those were all people human beings children trying to find some shelter from the war

How many died in the Bosnian war in 1995? It’s not just the numbers it’s the way in which it was done.

It’s the Us and Them that’s so dangerous

Pray father give me your blessing

Through my fault through my fault through my most grievous fault.

The words we heard when we  learned how to swear

The pleated skirts that teachers  used to wear
The tight permed hair, the handbag and the pearls
The words we heard when we  learned how to swear

With words we threw out what we could not bear
Then simpered by the window lips uncoiled
The fleeing minds that we dare not declare

The worst came out and everybody stared
My head was turned, inside my mind  still whirled
The  muck we heard when we first  had to swear

Now we wear   our jeggings, pleats are rare
Yet there’s elegance in skirts that   swirl
Depleted teens  with beauty gone awry

We did some Hardy and into Shakespeare tore
Now we read  Ted Hughes and  Sylvia’s pearls
The  midden  reeks,hate makes the goldfish swear.

The gold rimmed glasses in the mist and murk
The  hairnets, the control, the constrained smirk
The worn out books, the  turning   of the years
The words of joy  and woe, we learn our  prayer

 

 

 

 

And make the duvet stand up like a throne

If I were a cat I’d  be quite sure
That every living creature walks on feet
The  goldfish I that I capture when allured
Are not alive although their eyes look sweet

If I were   a cat I’d  sleep all day
Not waste my time with humans  and their talk
I cannot see a god so I won’t pray
But every night I’ll go out on a stalk

If I were a cat I’d  sniff their beds
When my owners left me all alone
I’d bite and scratch if there were a loose thread
And make the duvet stand up like a throne

I would not ever ask for what I want
Nor give a hint of pleasure nor of joy
If they cannot guess,I shall them taunt
I’ll sulk until  they  get me a new toy

I do not care to  sit on  human laps
Nor  for  them call me sweetie pie
Sometimes I have let my  temper rip
Sometimes I mioaw, I tell a lie

I’m beautiful ,I’m handsome,I’m divine
And as I look I see the whole world’s  mine

Deep in the mind

What is interesting about water, is not the rubbish floating on the surface

Is not the rose petals being washed away

What’s interesting about water is the fish that swim deep down

Lead lives, live and procreate

Sometimes surfaces are important, are all that we can see

But see the goldfish darting away

In the deep parts of the mind we have fish that swim

More interesting than the news about an MP deciding he is a woman

More interesting than what the Queen was wearing at the Chelsea flower show.

Deep down the fishes swim and they are youm

This is your mind deep down and creative

Full of vigorous life.

But when you go to the hospital to see the doctor

Do dress well because the surface is all that they can see unless they use a scanner

Scanners don’t show the depths of your mind and heart

What can show that?

Many little gestures words feelings expressions your friends can see your true nature

They said cultivate your garden but I wonder if they should say,cultivate your pond?

He has sold his brain to the company but I’m not sure about his mind

I must be out of my mind

I’ve lost my mind.

I’m in two minds about your invitation.

Have you made up your mind?

I was in the wrong frame of mind yesterday to write an article about statistics. I don’t know whether I will ever get into that frame of mind again.

Does your wife mind that you have three girlfriends

No but they all mind about it themselves.

You can sell your soul but can you sell your mind?

I don’t mind if he goes to the pictures tonight or not.

She’s got a very rapid mind ;it’s it’s the fastest one in the university but sometimes it runs away with her.

Well my husband was very broad-minded which is more than I can say for that narrow minded woman my mother.

His mind was like a rapier and he killed anybody he wanted to

You have to exercise your mind sometimes. You could try learning algebra or taking at watercolour painting.

She has got a very deep mind but is it worthwhile to develop it?

His mind is as shallow as a goldfish bowl alright but they get on fine.

He has got the best mind in Oxford.

Can you find out where he got it from?.

Keep your mind still and do not let it wander.

Do I have the right to imprison my mind?

The mind has mountains sheer cliffs of fall.

She made up her face while waiting for him to make up his mind.

If you are not in your right mind where can you find your wrong minds? Maybe the wrong one is the right one for this occasion

Don’t let it get on your mind let it float away on the current.

I will go for a walk to clear my mind.

My mind was stuffed with trigonometric formulas

You’re too greedy by half. I don’t care for your behaviour

I don’t really mind either way

I will keep you in mind while you are sitting examinations.

Are you going to pray for me?

You will do well in my mind forever.

She wants a designer mind.

Who is going to replace God?

Will Vidal Sassoon change the size of woman’s hair forever.

Did God mind?

Can a mind be wounded?

The king was very weak minded

I thought you were going to say very meek. winded

Shouldn’t It be wound?

I don’t see why I should always use the language everybody else uses.

Would you mind it or would it bother you if they used words they invented?

I don’t know my own mind on that matter.

Well it doesn’t matter to me if you don’t mind. I won’t know whether I mind or not till my heart feels something

I wonder how minds can feel when thry5 have no hands

Well if your heart is touched by someone’s kindness you will start to understand but I hope you don’t mind me telling you this

Odd road signs

1 Do not stop your car to read this sign.

  1. If you can’t read this sign get your eyes tested~unless you are illiterate
    3 This sign is not here till further notice
    4.This sign is here but don’t look at it
    5.This sign was paid for with your council tax
    6 This sign is not an omen.Evil is already here
    7 Criminals reading this sign, please call the police
    8 There are no signs till the other side if Hardnott Pass.Good luck
    9 Please do not touch this sign unless it is in braille
    10.If you can’t read this sign, phone 999.
    11 Don’t read this unless there is a traffic jam
    12 Signs washed daily by hand.Do not report as garbage
    13 Thank you for respecting our signs.
    14 Please do not fall off the pavement

Lust again

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Beware of getting into hot water in your bikini
A few weeks after Annie moved into the  lovely house next door to Stan,he met her when he was seeing his wife off to work.
Why does Mary not have a car? Annie enquired suspiciously.
She is trying to keep slim,Stan told her.
Well,she’s not been very successful,Annie said scientifically.
She might be much fatter than she is now if she drove a car,he stated ponderously
That’s true,muttered Annie loudly.I am your new next door neighbor.
Yes,said Stan,I have seen you sunbathing in the garden in your bikinis.
How come? she asked merrily yet sternly
There’s a big hole in the fence.He said
Is it legal to look at women through a hole in the fence?asked Annie.I know it’s illegal to look into their bedroom windows.
Is it really,asked Stan nervously,I had no idea.How about women looking at men through a round hole in a fence or square one?
Oh,they are not  very keen to do that,she lied charmingly.
Well,said Stan,clearing his throat,I think I owe it to myself to tell you that I love you.
Wow,you’re quick off the mark,the lady said saucily.What do you mean,you owe it to yourself? she continued in a puzzled tone.
Nothing,said Stan,I could not think how to word it.I mean I wish to unselfishly love you and admire your ripe body and your cute sense of color.I love your teal trouser suit.And you sing so well in the bath.I can hear you.
You didn’t mean you owe it to yourself to take advantage of me?
Not unless you want me to take advantage of you,the gallant old man informed her kindly
And you can take advantage of me, he said I make cakes and biscuits,wholemeal bread and I am training my cat Emile to do statistics on an i pad.
How extraordinary,Annie whispered.I didn’t know cats had an “I.” let alone pads.
Well,they have pads on their paws,he informed her intelligently.
True,she said,but where are their I’s?
Where are our I’s ? he responded in a manner to rejoice the heart of Mary Midgley or Susanne Langer two of Stan’s favourite writers on philosophy,logic,symbols and ethics.
Not that he practised the Ethics but he liked to know what he was doing wrong.It’s more fun that way.If you sin,sin big!
A man who seduces women merrily one after the other may have no idea it might be wrong.Neither might the women.Why is it wrong? Surely it’s better than killing people,making war  or leaving the lid off the jam all night so the wasps get into the jar?
Still,not many men get the chances that Stan got.No-one suspected this kindly,handsome practising Catholic was a womaniser despite his blue beard,green eyes,white skin and red hair.And his slim yet strong figure clad in navy trousers and white shirts all the year round.Maybe his wife did but she preferred to read Aristotle in bed and dream about mercury… those little silver balls,so cute!
Well,as we know,Stan is about to make Annie his mistress but in such a cold wet summer,where can he take her to do the deed?The shed?The public library? Cafe Nero?
I owe it to you not to tell you yet.That will give you time to think of a solution for this sweet old man and his naughty but nice neighbor. Like,how about the confessional in the local Church?
Whatever next?

I owe it to myself to keep it secret as you may come along and spoil the fun.
Stan went indoors and washed up in the boiling hot water he kept by him constantly as he owed it to himself to be ready to make a hot drink at any moment he fancied and by gum,he did fancy like no man has ever fancied before.So his daemon tells me.

Sc

 

Against the junior doctor strikes

Digital art by Katherine

Why I am not in favour of the juní doctors strikes.

In 1994 British doctors were working to rule that is they were just working their contracts to the letter so they claimed.

Did the contracts entitled them to a 2 hour lunch break

I went to an emergency eye clinic in a hospital in North London I arrived at 12 noon and I was told that the doctors were taking a lunch break which they would normally have covered.

It was 2 hours and 20 minutes before a doctor came into the clinic and in that time I had gone blind in my right eye. I was sent to moorfields hospital and I did have surgery but it was very limited in its effects and subsequently th eye deteriorated and has been a very little use to me in fact it makes the other one worse.

I am grateful for the fact that my left eye was saved but it’s been a constant strain and source of fatigue to me.

If I have been sent to moorfields two hours earlier they could have operated on my eye that afternoon and consequently it would have been saved.

By the time I arrived they had started operating on someone else with a similar condition and they decided to leave me to the next day. Sadly this was too long to wait.

I’m sure that many of us support the strikes that have occurred in Britain for example the miner’s strikea etc

While my sister was suffering from lung cancer for 18 months before she died she was also called suffering by various strikes including ambulance drivers

The dangerous drug she was taking at one time made her fall and she dislocated her hit which is an emergency and very painful and she was left waiting 10 hours before an ambulance cam e

So you may be puzzled why I don’t support workers and their rights but I know now many many people of my age or younger are frightened. Even if you have a stroke it can take a long time now even when there’s no strikes happening

The argument the doctors are using is that they want their salaries restored to the 2008 level but there’s no law in economics politics in morality or nature to say at what level salaries should be.

Asking for a 29% rise is laughable when you see what ordinary people are earning I mean manual work Peter working in calls centers carers who get £10 an hour or so. There are lucky if they get 5% rise and if you understand percentages you know that the biggest salary is the more percentage vs pay risers will give you

I can still see with one eye but there are people who’ve had other things worse than I had or even died as a consequence of doctors taking action as I have described.

What use is an emergency eye clinic if it’s not staffed all day?

I know that doctors training now have to pay very high fees but even so compared to most workers they do get good pay.

One of the problems is that people who earn a lot of money like bankers lawyers doctors do not know how low the wages are for most people I think the median was now is about £33,000 per annum. If you want to send your child to a very good public school just outside north London it will cost you ,£31,000 a year. I think doctors can probably afford to pay that but most of us couldn’t however much we scrimped and saved

Maybe I’m just being egocentric but I lost my job partly because of this incident.

Will I change my mind? I don’t think so

I woke up the next day and I thought someone who put barbed wire under my eyelids but it was the stitches in my eyeball.

Don’t worry about cataract surgery because the lens of the eye is at the front and so it’s easier to do things there but the retina is at the back of the eye so it’s difficult to get access to it.

That’s why I had this stitches in my eyeball

Many people have had worse things happened to them but this was pretty bad and I still have a lot of struggles to see things and our devised some imaginative ways to cope but now I’m having problems using a computer

The BMA is giving ammunition to political parties like Reform and generally to most people on the right

In my opinion doctors are not workers in the way that coal miners, care workers, are.

Pre war and post war?

We’re in a pre-war now with Russia.

What are we meant to do?

Will someone declare, from some place somewhere

That China has got Asian flu.

Russia inspires our emnity

At least that’s how we see it now

When will they say

Today is the day

We’ll start an almighty row.

I wonder will it be sensible

To ask someone what we should do

I don’t like to tell you

For it might impel you

To blue what you don’t have to blue.