https://www.momentmag.com/book-review-the-hebrew-bible-a-translation-with-commentary-3-vols-by-robert-alter/

https://www.theguardian.com/books/audio/2013/feb/25/poetry-imtiaz-dharker-bishop-macneice-kolatkar-podcast

Cats delight me,hiding in my bed
Running down the stairs, with backturned head
Jumping up to catch a  butterfly
Tickling me as on my couch I lie.

In my dream I saw them, fifty five
One was in the bath ,I nearly cried
Everywhere I went cats followed me
Pied Piper  of the felines I shall be

Remember Blythburgh church floodlit and  fine
The owners of the cottage drew few lines.
They had seven cats, all  Siamese
How could  even God  compete with these?

The Church, a small Cathedral of the Marsh
Kept cats in their own place which I thought harsh
For cannot cats  join in  to sing the hymns
Christmas Carols even Requiems,?

The cats were leaping on me  in my dream
Wanting  a large ball  and lots of cream
Full of life and humour  they live well
Scratching my new sofa, ringing bells

 

If I dream of happy cats I  wake
The sky is blue and I make no mistakes

https://about-poetry.livejournal.com/146136.html

 

Extract=—-

• • “Mismatched motifs. The form clashes with the topic, the rhythm jangles against the theme, the metaphors are wildly inappropriate, etc.

 

• • Misused techniques. Poorly chosen allusions, mixed metaphors, overused similes, awkward alliteration — these are examples of valid techniques gone wrong.

 

• • Cliched imagery. Avoid it like the plague! Off with its head!

 

• ZOMG-EMO-DRAMA!!! Bad poetry exaggerates, whines, mopes, capers, and generally makes an embarrassing spectacle of itself. Good poetry delivers emotion softly, like snowfall — or slyly, like a stiletto. If you can see it coming, it’s probably not done right.

The more  the patient claimed he was quite sane
The  more they tied him up in lock and chain
But when he said he  was quite mad again
They sent him home with licence to remain

The more the English  rage ,then  Brexit wins
For  it was made to lead us all to sin
No more to be  as tolerant as kin
Stay at home  or you’ll be in the bin

Britain  has now altered past belief
Whatever Brexit does,  we’re past relief
Hatred,racism ,   poverty and grief
Who  supports be the victims of the Beast?

Satan dances lightly on hot coals
Since he’s mindful, he attains his goals

What does a father do
when his children are orphans and he
is still alive? What will a father do
when his children have died and he becomes
a bereaved father for all eternity?

Yehuda Amichai

I made the bed and he lied in it

We must  learn to be alone together

He said I was too good in bed

After sleeping with one man   five thousand times you are a good woman but if you sleep with five thousand men once  they say you must be a tart.The main thing is to avoid five thousand abortions

We are afraid of both loneliness and  intimacy.

Smartphones are mobile but mobile phones are not always smart

 

The lamp’s round base  gives comfort to my soul
I see the potter and her  potter’s wheel
Bowls and jugs emerge as new born wholes
Made from earth and clay like human beings

I meditated on the centre of my watch
I watched the ummoved centre as time passed
Then the door into my dreams unlatched
By my other self I was then clasped

I spent three years in mending this great lamp
When others told me, why not  throw it out?
This base and shade by my tears  often damped
Are   needed to  eliminate  my doubts

Do  what your heart tells you  and refine
These feelings  in the mirrors of your mind

 

https://godblog.org/simone-weil-and-affliction/

EXTRACT

The great mystery of life is not suffering but affliction.”—Simone Weil

Simone Weil (1909-1943), born Jewish, stood on the edge of converting to Christianity for most of her adult life.  Perhaps she was baptized, perhaps not, the evidence is unclear.  She is best known as a Christian mystic, though that ignores her very down to earth work, such as her involvement in the trade union movement, and with the international volunteers in Spain.  Weil starved herself to death in sympathy with the occupied French.  If you think that makes sense, you may stand closer to Weil than you think, closer than you should.

If biography were philosophy, we could dismiss Weil as emotionally disturbed.  Disturbed or not, she wrote brilliant essays on a variety of topics.  As she grew older, most were about God.  It is her essay on “The Love of God and Affliction” that I am concerned with.  It’s a brilliant essay, and it’s quite wrong.

Outside the door I fear a great abyss
Or an empty landscape like the Moon
The world seems mad and  men are enemies

No more  do I desire a lover’s kiss
For he I love cannot undo his doom
Outside the door I sense a great abyss

If only life were what we wish
With love and peace in every living room
The world seems mad and  men are enemies

We hollow  folk desire less emptiness
Yet if  it’s filled  with song who knows the tune?
Outside the door I  panic , O abyss.

No public world, no God  encompasses
The leader mimics serpent  and baboon
The world seems mad and  men are enemies

With the rhymes and beat we calm and sooth
We seek to comfort and to you amuse
Outside the door I  sense  God’s great abyss
Whoever dreamed the world was made like this?

 

 

 

 

Pray,Father give me your blessing.It is a month since my last Confusion
Are you in the right place? We deal with sin not madness
Well, you certainly have plenty  of sin to deal with now the secrets are spilled
Don’t come here to tell me of Wickedness
Just about my petty sins?
That’s right.
Well,I envy my wife.She is more intelligent than me
Surely marriage is not a competition!
Well, it’s either lover or power and power seems to be our mode
Can’t you   move into another one
Well, power,love,indifference…
Can’t you have a mixture?
Indifference ain’t much use except towards  those who goad us into spending money
One day you could have power and the next your wife.
It sounds like a Play.
Well, all the world’s a stage….
Did you make that up
Of course I did,Do you think I plagiarise?
I don’t even know what it means.Is it sexual?Some new way to bliss
I doubt it  although copying is the main way we learn
Like that book, the Imitation of Christ
What a silly name.As if we could imitate God!
So we imitate the Evil One
Sometimes I feel he is imitating us.
You must hear strange things,Father
I wonder if they are hallucinations or real people
Oh,dear.Maybe you  think too much
How do we stop?
That’s what we all wonder!

 

And so do all of us

I built a wall to save me from my foes
Now I am imprisoned in my home
Ten locks keep closed the many inner doors
And my anxious spirit   cannot roam

If I fall, nobody can get in
If I die, unburied I will lie
I am kept from  fruitless origin
Behind the mask of boldness I am shy

I may have talent  useful to this  land
I may be loved by  good and merry man~
My life flows down like bitter,bitter sand
Soon my opportunities are gone

Too many doors and walls  make us afraid
Too few may leave us in  sorry state

 

There are no hours and minutes in a day
Whatever Nokia Lumias  might display
Babylonian  clocktowers hover;
Cracked a wall , now stands in Dover,
There are     sixty cuckoos to gainsay.

Day and night, or hey, what black and white
People range in hues of  fruits delight
I like  olive  and    Greenpeacers
Wearing  hats  from crowns off steeples
Day and night,oh  shall we take a  flight?

I see the Berlin Wall is coming back
Mexico   has  ordered   ten sick    plaques
Trump has  promised work forever:
Building walls  from Hell to Dover
Even God has  been electro-shocked

No ,these demons cannot get across
They’re stuck in an inferno; what is worse……….
God  now  can’t  be  omnipresent.
He has  high  walls   around Grace Crescent.
Holy Moses,who  can take this flak?

If you miss yer dinner,don’t it hurt?
Same as if yer finger gets a cut
Refugees with their  feet   bleeding–
Christ,we’re underwhelmed in feelings
Get a barbed wire fence, and kick them back.

The Lord’s THEIR shepherd, so we’re gonna pay.
He  watches  US  like  NEVER  from today
We’re   the British  criminalsky
We have self-esteem so paltry
Hey, the Devil’s comin’ out as grey.

Oh,someone jumped the Central Line today
Could not take this life so  full  of play
Oxford Street was blocked by walls
Of vehicles  sent to the Call.
What is my vocation,what my Play?

Dandruff, menstruation ,acne , scent
Deodorants,shampoo  and strange new thoughts
The anxious adolescent  in torment

Tampons,towels. skin care and defence
Confession, absolution, count for naught
Dandruff, menstruation ,acne , scent

Wet and dry the dreams are wryly bent
We wake confused from what we never sought
The anxious adolescent  in torment

The virtues and the vices must be learnt
The will and the desire cannot be bought
Dandruff, menstruation ,acne , scent

Parents’ words our own strength can augment
But for the nervous, it is much too late
The anxious adolescent,  the torment

“Civilised”. we  might just kiss a date
Until we lose our heads and challenge fate
Dandruff, menstruation ,acne , scent
Poor  adolescent in   this  mad torment

Basically. all you need to succeed is to do things differently.
So, with your clothes, you wear your underwear on top  of your outerwear.Like Madonna’s corset
There is a problem.. your outwear will get dirty next  to your naked  body.So you wear antiperspirant all over and after 2 days you die.Also it’s hard to walk in a skirt when you have underpants on top and even harder to use a bathroom.Still you will get noticed
And it’s not yoiur old white cotton underwear.You need bright satin and silk

Still when the undertaker lays you  out, they will know who you are because the media tracked you and put your photo on the front page
You’ll be famous but dead.What more can anyone desire?

Nobody wil chase you like they did Princess Diana.

 

Part 2
Write a novel from the end backwards.Write a poem upside down

So begin a crime novel  with the criminal being executed
That will show it’s not in the UK although when we leave the EU some reputations may be  killed off
Then have the Trial but starting from the Sentence and ending with the  police arresting a man,
Then we see him murder his wife

Then their Wedding

Then  his parents

Then his birth

Then his conception

Then their wedding and so on.An infinite   novel that never ends.

Then we have  Sabbath and after that God creating the Universe

Then Chaos   and  more.Sounds quite apposite

 

 

T

Take your cardigan, cut the sleeves off and wear them on your lower legs unless you are thin.In that case wear them on your head
Wear  the cardigan as a waistcoat over a woollen man’s vest
Wear a skirt of a differnt colour to  show off your leg warmers

Wear 2 lots of underwear  but if fat like me,wear  less.
Remember dark plum and burgundy are very sad colours.Why not wear pale  pink?
If yoiu get a down coat you can use it as an eiderdown too.
Make a few holes on your coat with a knife.It’s the new slashed jeans effect unless you are homeless.
Get chest pain and go to A and E.They will keep you in till Monday unless you die.Hospitals are very hot I find.They provide open back nighties free in case they need to see you naked

Wear a hat or a wig Become a Jew like Jesus was.

Scrub the  floor if you are cold.Ditto the ceiling.

Buy a doll.It’s never to late to play mummies and daddies.If you have a a partner

 

 

 

The sun is far away  and we feel low~
Like ducks that dive into the watery depths
Freezing rain has not the feel of snow

No more do ilving waters seem to flow
And when we kiss there’s frost upon  our lips
If sun is far away , what’s our bed for?

Despair can get us in its undertow
And from our happy time we’re  may be ripped
Freezing rain has not the charm of snow

Best to  feed wild birds and  live snail- slow
Sorrow is the parent of joy’s crypts
The sun is far away , oh deep, oh low~

But yet beneath  the soil new life will grow
As the parents quarrel  souls still wait
Freezing rain has not the charm of snow

Unthought babies wait for signals glow
Swiftly to the womb the souls migrate
The sun is far away and we are low

Like a tide with hidden under rips
The sea oflife will take us where  love’s  trapped
The sun is far away ,but why feel low~?
Freezing rain  will cease and  life will flow