https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/jun/18/the-future-of-poetry

Extract:

“The simplest and best answer I got at the event in Oxford was “for paying attention”. Judith Palmer, director of the Poetry Society, echoes that phrase. “One of the things poetry gives all of us is a way of developing an attentiveness to life, a way of observing the world, of noticing things and seeing them differently,” she says. A good poem looks closely at the world; does that Martian thing of trying to see it for the first time. Everything else – the emotional charge, the lyrical delight, the intellectual pleasure – is secondary.

The Hungarian-born poet George Szirtes, who teaches poetry at the University of East Anglia, says poems try to capture a reality that is deeper than language. “You’re trying to say: I know what this thing is called,” he says. “It’s called a chair, and that thing is a table. I’ve got this word ‘chair’ and I’ve got this word ‘table’, but there’s something peculiar about this chair and table which using the words chair and table will not actually convey.” Readers, he says, may race through novels because they want to know what happens, but they should look to inhabit poems. “Nobody reads a poem to find out what happens in the last line. They read the poem for the experience of travelling through it.”

I ask Szirtes whether he thinks “What is poetry for?” is a valid question. To my surprise – because plenty of poets think it’s an absurd question and that no art form should worry about its function – he believes it is far from academic. “It’s a question that does preoccupy you the longer you do it,” he says. “When you first do it, you never ask that question. But as time goes on, you begin to be conscious of it. My sense now is that when people begin to speak, when language develops, there are two essential instincts: one of the instincts says, ‘What is this?’; the other one says, ‘So what happens?’ So what happens is the beginning of syntax, of storytelling. The other feeling, where you are confronted by some aspect of reality for which language is always inadequate, is the instinct that goes into poetry.” Poetry, he suggests, “begins with a cry” – of anguish, fear or frustration. Szirtes quotes Emily Dickinson’s maxim that “a poem is a house that tries to be haunted”

Lemon mousse that tasted  amd looked like rubber but was eaten   by  the guests anyway[Error in recipe]
A joint of spiced beef meant to last for the weekend was  consumed  on Friday by  two visitors
A mock turtle soup made of marmite could have killed  someone on antidepressants
A plum tart caused a guest to have a temper tantrum as she was on a diet [I was 2 stone underweight and never had known about being on diets]
A beef vindaloo meant to feed 3 or 4 people shrank  so much owing to vinegar it was only enough for one person
Banana icecream would not thaw  enough to be edible before the guests left
A man  friend had a row with his wife as  he said  she should make apple  mousse  like I did plus I had knitted my own jumper  and she could not knit [Don’t do this please’]
Someone was very rude when I used  carnation milk in a pudding [ and green jelly from a packet]We never saw her again, thank the Lord.
My hair set of fire when I opened the oven door  to get the meat out to serve{Still have a gas cooker, why?]
I dropped a gammon joint after getting it out of the oven,washed  and dried it and said nothing!
My mother in law complained all the time she was here that I did not take her into the West End, see all the shops and get home to make her a  hot dinner by 1 pm[.If I had stayed up all night maybe I could have]We lived 12 miles from the West End

So always have  enough food and more
Check  gelatine amounts carefully
Never make anything with pastry in it
Have gas cookers serviced
Carnation milk is  a moot point
Don’t attack your partner when eating with friends  as it makes YOU look bad
Remember it’s tough to please your mother in law
Don’t make your own icecream

Keep a sense of humour

Why not meet people out in cafe or pub instead of  cooking all day?

The end of nothing is  where life begins
The good, the mad, the trouble and the sins
The dancing of the particles of night
Makes connections ,brings us our day light
In the end will  creation always win?

Now the world turns on its  wreckers’ din
Armenia, and Rwanda and Katyn
The Holocaust  of  Europe’s Jews, our kin
What kind of God could conjure  with  such plights?
None, in the end.

The malicious  foment  rage, in evil grin.
The Congo  is not  far from Reich Berlin
The holy Jesus  downed in his last flight
The lips of  our observers tense and tight
Eyes, as sharp of  slivers, bite and  thin
The end  is nothing

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/03/the-guardian-view-on-the-pope-and-the-death-penalty-a-welcome-hardening-of-the-line

Extract:

“The Bible was written by believers in capital punishment. As recently as 2001, Avery Dulles, an American Jesuit scholar, noted that “The Mosaic Law specifies no less than thirty-six capital offenses calling for execution by stoning, burning, decapitation, or strangulation. Included in the list are idolatry, magic, blasphemy, violation of the sabbath, murder, adultery, bestiality, pederasty, and incest.” This list is not just of antiquarian interest: Saudi Arabia still beheads women for adultery and “sorcery”; Iran hangs people for blasphemy. But all the historically Christian countries of the west bar the US have turned their backs decisively on the death penalty, and so have most of the churches within them. The most important of these is the Catholic church, which also supplies a majority of the justices on the US supreme court. Pope John Paul II, in other contexts a champion of reaction, taught that the death penalty had no practical application in the modern world, even though it was theoretically permissible. Pope Francis has now hardened this position. He has changed the catechism to say that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person”. This is no longer his personal opinion, but something that Catholics ought to believe; he adds that the church should work for the abolition of the death penalty everywhere.

This is more than a matter of concern to Catholics. He has touched an issue that is a political live wire in several countries where the church is an important political force. In the US, the pope’s decision has been greeted with rage and anguish on the Catholic right; on the other hand it will give heart to campaigners against the death penalty, and some of the most prominent of these are also Catholics. In Britain it can stand as a rebuke to the efforts of the May government to ship jihadis to the US without seeking assurances that they would not face execution.”

Tarts free.Custard £2,
Ice free.Cream £3
Strawberries £2 Shortbread in the small bread bin
Almonds on tree,sponge in bath
Chocolate £3.Bring your own eggs,
Tea  free .Cup £4
Water free.Ice £2
Soup £6 Bowl £2
Potatoes £2 each. Meat loafs.
Eggs in aspic.Waitrose.Taxi £20
Bring your own eggs.Sperm £800  [if available.]Cups £3

• 

  You are never too old to yearn.
  Who is ever too bold for disdain

• Your watch stops a cold  going   fast
  Hypervigilance is often the worst
• Stop,how real are those holy  poses?
  Drop  it and feel degraded
  He who meditates is bypassed
  She who cogitates  feels wrath
• Strike while the irony   laughs
  Like if the trying is tough
• Book  dreams before you sleep.
  Looks scheme before your very eyes
  Many demands make  eyesight worse
  Many sea sands make eyes curse
• Two heads are better  and fun
  The  beds are wetter if    in a lake
• Too many looks are hard to match
  Ready made glances can’t catch
  Measure vice at once
  Leisure at a price in advance
  You can’t kiss your date and beat him too.
  You can miss a date and have a new crew
  A  sore in the head is worse than two bouts of  thrush
  Brides come inside  the Mall today
  The wide come to the Mall for the plus, they say
  Don’t haunt your children  after you  pass
  Don’t count your sperm before you  dispatch [ Donors]

The weather forecast  is our Bible now
To wise advice, forbidden acts,  we bow
Always wear a hat upon your feet
Keep  mum quiet,make sure to be discreet
Check to see what sun and wind allow

On the summer wind, the  moths may flow
Till pulled to flowers by scent and honey glow
Where they linger in  this Hebraic heat
[Says the weather forecast]

To your pessimistic self ,say No
For this heat makes calculation slow
Let the furrows in  all brows unpleat
Muse upon the News  detached at least
From the Weather Forecast

http://thecreativemind.net/3124/philip-pullman-write-to-please-yourself/

Extract:

“What advice would I give to anyone who wants to write?

Don’t listen to any advice, that’s what I’d say. Write only what you want to write. Please yourself. YOU are the genius, they’re not. Especially don’t listen to people (such as publishers) who think that you need to write what readers say they want.

Readers don’t always know what they want. I don’t know what I want to read until I go into a bookshop and look around at the books other people have written, and the books I enjoy reading most are books I would never in a million years have thought of myself.

So the only thing you need to do is forget about pleasing other people, and aim to please yourself alone. That way, you’ll have a chance of writing something that other people WILL want to read, because it’ll take them by surprise.

It’s also much more fun writing to please yourself.

Quotes from philip-pullman.com”

https://youtu.be/XFX8S9aAgvw

Let Us Eat Eggs

https://www.webmd.com/diet/features/good-eggs-for-nutrition-theyre-hard-to-beat#1

With science on our side, we can once again enjoy the wonderfully nutritious egg. Along with milk, eggs contain the highest biological value (or gold standard) for protein. One egg has only 75 calories but 7 grams of high-quality protein, 5 grams of fat, and 1.6 grams of saturated fat, along with iron, vitamins, minerals, and carotenoids.

The egg is a powerhouse of disease-fighting nutrients like lutein and zeaxanthin. These carotenoids may reduce the risk of age-related macular degeneration, the leading cause of blindness in older adults. And braindevelopment and memory may be enhanced by the choline content of eggs.

Plutarch’s Moralia: “The mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/pieces-mind/201309/revenge-will-you-feel-better

“As with all internal experiences, being mindful of what you are experiencing is the first step. Thoughts of revenge apparently feel good and may be a basic human instinct, perhaps to help us survive. Accept your urges and thoughts of revenge  as a basic human response related to trust.

Trust is important in any relationship and critical for cooperative societies. When you are thinking about revenge, it usually means you believe trust has been broken.  Remember, while the anticipation of revenge may feel pleasurable, the actual carrying out of revenge brings little satisfaction and may create more problems and suffering. Acts of revenge do not repair trust or restablish a sense of justice for both parties.”

Tied up in knots,I could not see the truth
The beauty of the world became uncouth
Which ever way I looked, there was no ease
I could not see the path nor find my keys
I  could not  find my comfort  nor my muse

Why do I  so suffer  when I choose
As either way,I find I mostly lose?
Then  this conscience fierce, I must appease
Untie the knots.

Not for me to judge or to accuse
Even if my being was abused
Let me now be cherished by soft breeze
Let my heart grow softer as I grieve
Let my mind no longer be bemused,
Nor tied in knots

Photo by Susanne Jutzeler on Pexels.com

https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/tie+me+in+knots

Don”t go, he  cried  from out his clean white bed
I wonder what  my presence meant in his last hours
The hands entwined, the living and the dead

They gave him  fish and carrot ,so they said
But on his table there was not a flower
Don”t go, he  cried  from out his clean white bed

On the stairs at night I hear a tread
I can’t  move at all  in those dread hours
The hands entwined, the living and the dead

His skin was pale as if he’d long time bled
Jesus looked  out from his wooden tower
Don”t go, he  cried  from out  that clean warm bed

He smiled the smile of heart well linked with head
At last it came, the final trembling hour
The hands entwined, the living and the dead

Somewhere was an energy, a power
A touching smile, a  need, a deed unsoured
He went, he  died , he left his clean white bed
The hands entwined, the living and the dead

I said write a paragraph, not draw a graph.
It’s a parabola, a conic section
Do stop showing off.You’ll say next you built the pyramids.
How about Solomon’s temple?
Is he a relative?
It’s hard to know after so many years.
Just because you’ve not been invited there doesn’t mean he’s not your cousin
It would be hard to get there from here
Take the car
It’s the Time travel I fear.
Where do they live? On Mars? Come on.Let’s go.
They used pi to great accuracy, so I read
What, like that man who threw custard tarts onto the faces   of everybody he hated?
I guess it was more fun than Facebook
I could just eat a custard tart
We have no custard left.Sorry,dearest

“What is forgiveness? When is it appropriate? Why is it considered to be commendable?  Some claim that forgiveness is merely about ridding oneself of vengeful anger; do that, and you have forgiven.  But if you were able to banish anger from your soul simply by taking a pill, would the result really be forgiveness?  The timing of forgiveness is also disputed. Some say that it should wait for the offender to take responsibility and suffer due punishment, others hold that the victim must first overcome anger altogether, and still others that forgiveness should be unilaterally bestowed at the earliest possible moment.  But what if you have every good reason to be angry and even to take your sweet revenge as well?  Is forgiveness then really to be commended? Some object that it lets the offender off the hook, confesses to one’s own weakness and vulnerability, and papers over the legitimate demands of vengeful anger.  And yet, legions praise forgiveness and think of it as an indispensable virtue.  Recall the title of Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s book on the subject: “No Future Without Forgiveness.”

These questions about the what, when, and why of forgiveness have led to a massive outpouring of books, pamphlets, documentaries, television shows, and radio interviews.  The list grows by the hour. It includes hefty representation of religious and self-help perspectives, historical analysis (much of which was sparked by South Africa’s famed Truth and Reconciliation Commission), and increasingly, philosophical reflection as well.  Yet there is little consensus about the answers.  Indeed, the list of disputed questions is still longer. Consider: may forgiveness be demanded, or must it be a sort of freely bestowed gift?  Does the concept of “the unforgivable” make sense?  And what about the cultural context of forgiveness: does it matter? Has the concept of “forgiveness” evolved, even within religious traditions such as Christianity? Is it a fundamentally religious concept?”

See more using the link

The hills are burning  like the peat below
Turned to steam , the river does not flow
The puzzled sheep meander as they bleat
In beds of heather, they can’t rest or sleep
Such high bright moors , such charring of the rose.

The fires inside the earth   escape to show
It is hell that Satan’s demons  draw.
Energy vibrates  like music fleet
The hills are burning

The weather of the world has no fixed law
Like the sons of Adam and their flaws
This conundrum of the world we meet
The centre  is a  fire, oh, nuclear peat
The open earth has space within its maw
The hills are burning

By Mike Flemming 2018

Sentences are weapons:

We writers must write good sentences.
After reading your latest book, I feel I have been sentenced to death

I have been booked again after my  violin concert.
I told you  we were speeding .

The judge summed it all up:You  have gone too far, you are well past Coventry.I’d say 1,000 years in Greenland will keep Britain safe from men like you and the rest of the government.

If I cook the books, can  we ruminate tonight?

My sentence seems interminable
That’s only four words

I have not submitted,my thesis.
Well kneel  down and say,I give in.
But that’s not mathematics!
Neither is your comma.

We submitted all our plans to  the Government.
Don’t worry, their average reading age is 9.

I read the Guardian  nightly
That’s why you don’t understand anything
I do,I do
Look, we are married already
But not to each other.
Does it matter?
I feel odd.
It’s all this adulteration.
Stop, stop!
We’re not on  the bus
Well, in that case, the earth moved

http://www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/phpBB//viewtopic.php?t=7459&start=900#p135110

Visit the link to see more.The photos are all copyright

Extract:
As the month ended, I decided I should see what was happening at Aston Rowant NNR. I prefer the south-western end of the reserve, at Bald Hill near Christmas Common, which is away from the incessant roar of M40 traffic but has similar hillside habitat. After all the hot dry weather, i was surprised to see how tall the grasses had grown and, since there was a stiff breeze blowing, few butterflies were to be seen, at first glance.

Soon, however, I realised that the slope was buzzing with Silver-spotted Skippers, keeping low as they zoomed between Scabious flowers.

There were also plenty of Chalkhill Blues, of both sexes, although these seemed to appear in ‘waves’ : for a while, nothing to be seen and then a group of 5-6 madly chasing around the slope. Their condition was very variable, with several looking very battered, while others were near pristine. Perhaps, this depended on how they had fared on the recent wet days.

I took several ‘regular’ shots but rather liked this one, where the butterfly took off at the end of a short burst of photos.

How to write a good sentence
How to give a good sentence
How to survive a long sentence
Should poets write  in long sentences
What is a sentence?
What is a bad sentence?
What is a lenient sentence?
What is a harsh sentence?
What is a harsh word?
How to write a poor sentence in the best way
How to write transparently  yet with dignity
How to survive writing sentences
How to survive writing
How to survive
How?

The Evening News  no longer is admired
Nor BBC to which the bright aspired
Now all the News is Fake ,there is no Truth
The logic of the heart can be a brute
The Evening News
The loss of  European links leads man to mires
Where sing no hosts of angels nor their choirs
But  only music made and played by liars
The death of civil life  is  loss acute
The nuclear power,the energy, the fire
The blazing torch, the ditch,  the dark quagmire.
The energy of life lost in disputes
The good ,like weeds ,is pulled up by the roots
Who can   kindle hope and new desire?
The Evening News?

We had the crime of our lives again.We killed Democracy.
Wish you were here in sunny  Holy Land …….in prison with Ahed Tamimi?
Come back soon…… will we be able to got abroad ever again?
Having a great time.Just have no idea where we are  or indeed who we are.Wrecked It
Come  to sunny Blackpool and avoid  foreigners while eating curry and chips and Italian Icecream on toast
It was great,kid.What was it?
I can stand on my head but I can’t think.Why?
BTW the British Empire has gone now and so has the Odeon in Tottenhan
I tried  to walk on my hands but I am uncoordinated.So can I walk on yours,please?
I never even did a cartwheel.What do you do to them? Square the circle?
Why do carts have horses?
Why do we lie prone  and upright?

I removed this poem because it was very poor quality

But remember charm is dangerous.Charmers are out to get you

I looked at my blog and saw there are the icons of visitors at the page bottom
So nice to see your faces.Thank you

Coma to Vienna for the summer and get a free deodorant on the subway…. it’s their way of coping with 30 degrees of heat!
I doubt if Britons will follow this path… sweat is a turn on for many of us…. although sex on the subway is not legal while the trains are functioning.In this heat you might die!

I am having some trouble writing.After an excision reopened I have got an infection in it so am  having to visit the hospital every 2 days.All the waiting seems to be exhausting me.I hope I can write better soon

My doctor cut off half my arm
I still have some nails and a palm
Jesus rode on an ass
Then crucified was
Be still, in the eye of his storm.