Category: Thinkings and poems

If I did not write

If I did not write  I could clean house
Wash the curtains, hang them on the line
Polish my small table and my mouse
Make  a chocolate cat and drink more wine

If I did not write I could go shop
Buy elegance and  amber  with old pearls
Go to  a hairdresser, buy a frock
Write a poem in a cursive swirl

If I did not write then I might read
George Herbert and  the  metaphysicals again
The Guardian Review and that would lead
To  rambling perplexed down a dale in rain

Yes, writing  gives me happiness most times
Despite the loss of metre and slant  rhymes

From despair

When marriage was a sacrament and life was  lived as prayer
We lived inside a structure; we knew  anatomy
The living hands of  God were there to hold us from despair

Each event had its rituals when ritual was pure.
Birth was baptism, death expected, Royal poverty.
Marriage was a sacrament and life was  lived as prayer

Meaning leaked  like ink runs down the page that is no cure
For those who cannot read the word  must live in gravity
Yet feel the living hands of  God  to hold them from despair

When angels dwell in gold serene and stars look far and bare
There may be cruel reckonings  as boats cross the dark sea
Yet marriage was a sacrament and life was  lived as prayer

But now it is the government who hear no poor man’s plea
Thus  hell is made by laziness, ignited  is  the Tree
If marriage were a sacrament and life a piercing prayer
The living hands of  God would  come to hold us from despair

 

 

They said she was too hot to hold

They said she was too hot to hold
She was on fire, all night
But her ashes now have gone so  cold

Her  plastic dress was  a sight to behold
Yeah, she looked so good, so right
They said she was too hot to hold

They were waiting for the  night to unfold
She  wore a coat of imitation gelignite
All their ashes now have gone so  cold

She was big, she was dashing in silver and gold
They said they didn’t expect her to ignite that night
They knew she was too hot to hold

She was poor but she pretended to be bold
She had little self-esteem but the governor thought she might
All their ashes now have gone so  cold

They don’t need the Crem since they burned so bright
It reminded me of Poland and the Jewish night
They said she was too hot to hold.
But her ashes fell  to earth and we all felt so cold

Muslims in Tudor England

BBC magazine

The first Muslims in England

  • 20 March 2016
  • From the sectionMagazine
True Faith and Mahomet (silk), English School, (16th century) / Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire, UKImage copyrightBRIDGEMAN IMAGES
Image caption“True Faith and Mahomet” a needlework hanging at Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire

Sixteenth-century Elizabethan England has always had a special place in the nation’s understanding of itself. But few realise that it was also the first time that Muslims began openly living, working and practising their faith in England, writes Jerry Brotton.

From as far away as North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia, Muslims from various walks of life found themselves in London in the 16th Century working as diplomats, merchants, translators, musicians, servants and even prostitutes.

The reason for the Muslim presence in England stemmed from Queen Elizabeth’s isolation from Catholic Europe. Her official excommunication by Pope Pius V in 1570 allowed her to act outside the papal edicts forbidding Christian trade with Muslims and create commercial and political alliances with various Islamic states, including the Moroccan Sa’adian dynasty, the Ottoman Empire and the Shi’a Persian Empire.

She sent her diplomats and merchants into the Muslim world to exploit this theological loophole, and in return Muslims began arriving in London, variously described as “Moors”, “Indians”, “Negroes” and “Turks”.

Before Elizabeth’s reign, England – like the rest of Christendom – understood a garbled version of Islam mainly through the bloody and polarised experiences of the Crusades.

The hot sun seems like the fire of hell on earth

The hot sun seems like the fire of hell on earth
And London  is a sinful place we know~
What monster will this horror bring to birth?

Well, the government  will pay for what it’s worth
We’ll send them on a ramble down Soho
The hot sun seems like the fire of hell on earth

England is now visited by death
A baby thrown from Towers of Camelot
What rough beast will this horror bring to birth?

The good will die, the evil have them cursed
What will follow on from this horror?
The hot sun seems like the fire of hell on earth

Is life a  generous gift we are not worth?
We  have no ethics, love, we have no courage
What rough beast will this horror bring to birth?

We used to feel that through our life we grow
We’d leave seeds for someone else to sow
The hot sun seems like the fire of hell on earth
What monster will this evil bring to birth?

 

Freud– the shadowy side of life

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https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/jan/07/therapy-wars-revenge-of-freud-cognitive-behavioural-therapy

 

Psychoanalysts contend that things are much more complicated. For one thing, psychological pain needs first not to be eliminated but understood. From this perspective, depression is less like a tumour and more like a stabbing pain in your abdomen: it’s telling you something, and you need to find out what. (No responsible GP would just pump you with painkillers and send you home.) And happiness – if such a thing is even achievable – is a much murkier matter. We don’t really know our own minds, and we often have powerful motives for keeping things that way. We see life through the lens of our earliest relationships, though we usually don’t realise it; we want contradictory things; and change is slow and hard. Our conscious minds are tiny iceberg-tips on the dark ocean of the unconscious – and you can’t truly explore that ocean by means of CBT’s simple, standardised, science-tested steps.

This viewpoint has much romantic appeal. But the analysts’ arguments fell on deaf ears so long as experiment after experiment seemed to confirm the superiority of CBT – which helps explain the shocked response to a study, published last May, that seemed to show CBT getting less and less effective, as a treatment for depression, over time.

Examining scores of earlier experimental trials, two researchers from Norway concluded that its effect size – a technical measure of its usefulness – had fallen by half since 1977. (In the unlikely event that this trend were to persist, it could be entirely useless in a few decades.) Had CBT somehow benefited from a kind of placebo effect all along, effective only so long as people believed it was a miracle cure?

 

 

To tax the wealthy  is extremely cruel

The British state is cracking, I perceive
The government is full of idle fools
The people here are lied to and deceived

You can’t keep hurting the poor and those in need
There is a point where chaos over-rules
The British state is cracking, I perceive

We know that some  economists   believe
To tax the wealthy  is extremely cruel
The people here are lied to and deceived
Thatcher said the wealth would trickle through

The cult of economics is derived
From axioms sent by  sharks who never grieve
The British state is cracking, I perceive

The bias goes against those who can’t plead
But Grenfell Tower broke all the frigging rules~
The people there have died because deceived

The crack will escalate and thunder roll
Theresa May has made her first & last own goal
The British state is cracking, I perceive
The people here once passive , roar displeased

 

 

Tear your garments

7886391-1-washedblack2 Samuel 13:30-31

Now it was while they were on the way that the report came to David, saying, “Absalom has struck down all the king’s sons, and not one of them is left.” Then the king arose, tore his clothes and lay on the ground; and all his servants were standing by with clothes torn.

Let the Queen rule!She is human

As London weeps Theresa May begins the talks about us leaving the EU.
The Tories have given us 7 years of austerity but who has suffered most from this?
The poor, the old, the refugees, the unemployed, the disabled.
A man with terminal cancer was labelled fit for work
All but the rich tremble

Emile talks

_96534999_mediaitem96534997Clipboard-18106-krAD-U11003203970508Ma-1024x576@LaStampa.it33xvMary went into the bathroom and looked into the mirror.She no longer feared to see Satan, as compared to many living and  dead human beings he seemed almost an angel.
Her hair was standing on end and she realised that it was one thing to buy a box of 24 combs from Amazon but quite another to use one.
Ah, well, Stan preferred it wild, she told herself.But that was a long time ago.It was no longer thick and wavy.That stopped men singing,”O Sole Mio”  when she passed them while they were painting the outside of a neighbour’s house.They probably didn’t know what it meant and neither did she.
Why am I looking into the mirror, she wondered? Maybe I am lonesome.But who to visit?Who to invite for tea?
Emile pushed the door open.
Are you alright, mother, he mewed?
I am not your mother, Emile, she said to her little cat, being overly pedantic about every aspect of human life.
Ok,grandma,he continued.I see the Yodel van outside. He probably has something fo you or me.
Now, Emile, I’ve told you before you can call me Mary even if I am your grandmother.
Who was my mother, he asked?Did you adopt me?
Your mother was my mother’s cat “Arabella Stuart”.We called her Bella.Your father was a total mystery.
Presumably a cat, Emile pondered.
Why, did you think it was an animal of another type?
How about Stan.Was he my dad?
In a metaphorical sense, she murmured shyly.He loved you very much.And so do I.
When we watched the dreadful news on TV I was wondering if any animals had been killed by the fire.Nobody has said.I doubt if they would keep dogs up there but cats might have been allowed.
Oh,dear, I admit I have not thought of that.It was so terrible seeing people waving from their windows holding their phones.Saying,  I love you to their parents or children.And now the Chancellor says it is illegal here to use that aluminium cladding.
I bet he is going to try to oust Theresa May, Emile told her.
You men, you only think of one thing! Politics and fighting.And sex and hot sinners.
Do you mean dinners, that cat asked her?\
No , hot sinners are harlots.
But how do we know it is a sin.To cats it is normal.
I don’t know.The word  sin is no longer heard as it is not politically correct/
Whereas letting 58  people burn to death is politically correct as long as we don’t call it sinful.And all the others will be sick for years.
My God, you are getting clever, Emile,maybe you should run  the country!
And so say all of us

Theresa May affect Ireland badly

 

http://www.lastampa.it/2017/06/12/vaticaninsider/eng/comment/theresa-may-risks-inflaming-irelands-religious-tensions-AF1zL5IwnBhxTiBpmz5B5N/pagina.html

 

CHRISTOPHER LAMB
VATICAN CITY

The British Prime Minister’s plan to govern with support from Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party risks re-opening sectarian divisions in Ireland which diplomatic sources say now puts a question mark over Pope Francis’ planned visit to the country.

 

Following the UK general election last week, which delivered a hung parliament, Theresa May has said she wants to strike a deal with the DUP, a right-wing Protestant party in favour of union between Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

But experts say her move threatens Northern Ireland’s peace agreement that requires the British and Irish governments to act as impartial mediators between unionists and Irish republicans in the north, who are mainly Catholic.

 

Critics point out that if Mrs May requires the DUP’s support to govern in Westminster then she will be compromised in her role as an “honest broker,” with mediation sorely Northern Ireland given its parliamentary assembly is suspended due to disputes between the DUP and Sinn Féin, the republican party.

 

In a sign of rising tensions Enda Kenny, the Irish Prime Minister, phoned Mrs May yesterday to express his concern over her alliance with the DUP and that it could jeopardise the 1998 Good Friday Agreement which brought peace to the north.

 

Known as “The Troubles’, sectarian disputes in Northern Ireland have strong religious undertones with Catholic and Protestant communities set against each other. It saw decades of violence, terrorism and atrocities committed by both sides including by the UK security forces.

 

For its part, the DUP has been the driving political force for Protestant unionists. It was founded by the Reverend Dr Ian Paisley who described the Pope as “the anti-christ” and once interrupted John Paul II’s 1988 speech to the European parliament.

 

Long running tensions between Catholics and Protestants meant that when Pope John Paul II visited Ireland in 1979 he was unable to travel north of the border.

In August of next year, however, Pope Francis plans to be in Dublin for the World Meeting of Families and it is believed he wants to travel to Northern Ireland. This would allow him to highlight has largely been a successful peace process that chimes with the aims of his papacy.

 

But he risks flying into a highly polarised political situation in Ireland which could see two jurisdictions at loggerheads. On the one hand the British government and the DUP in the north, and on the other Irish government which may need Sinn Féin’s to govern in the south.

 

Tensions in the north have already been exacerbated by Brexit, a decision raises the possibility of a hard border between Ireland – part of the European Union – and Northern Ireland which will be leaving the bloc along with the rest of the United Kingdom. A re-imposition of an old border hails back to the highly contested partition of Ireland in 1921 and which was only meant as a temporary measure. For its part, the DUP had campaigned in favour of Brexit while the late Dr. Ian Paisley saw the EU was a plot to allow the Pope to dominate Europe.

 

To make matters worse, Francis will be visiting Ireland during August, the traditional marching season of Protestant groups where victories over Catholics are celebrated.

That, who or which

1800

http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2012/09/that-who-which/

 

Conversely, is it OK to use which or that as a relative pronoun to refer to a person? In the past, which was often used in this way. If you were brought up in the Anglican Church, as I was, you might be familiar with the wording of the Lord’s Prayer as it appears in the 1662 edition of the Book of Common Prayer:

Our Father, which art in heaven…

When I recited the prayer as a child in the 1960s, I often wanted to say ‘who’ rather than ‘which’ – it seemed more natural to use who because we were talking about a person [Father], not a thing. In fact, had our parish priest used the 1928 edition of the Book of Common Prayer, I would have encountered the more recent wording:

Definition of paradigm

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https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/paradigm

 

Definition of paradigm in English

NOUN

  • 1A typical example or pattern of something; a pattern or model.

    ‘society’s paradigm of the ‘ideal woman’’
    More example sentences
    Synonyms
    1. 1.1 A world view underlying the theories and methodology of a particular scientific subject.
      ‘the discovery of universal gravitation became the paradigm of successful science’
      More example sentences

  • 2Linguistics 
    A set of linguistic items that form mutually exclusive choices in particular syntactic roles.

    ‘English determiners form a paradigm: we can say ‘a book’ or ‘his book’ but not ‘a his book’’
    Often contrasted with syntagm
    More example sentences

  • 3(in the traditional grammar of Latin, Greek, and other inflected languages) a table of all the inflected forms of a particular verb, noun, or adjective, serving as a model for other words of the same conjugation or declension.

    Example sentences

Origin

Late 15th century: via late Latin from Greek paradeigma, from paradeiknunai ‘show side by side’, from para- ‘beside’ + deiknunai ‘to show’.

To dwell on earth is all I wish.

A map’s a guide to find a world

Knitted by angels, plain or pearled,

And though you need a map as guide,

Keep your own eyes open wide.

 

I spent a year caught in a map

Until I found a big enough gap

I crawled out through this exit slit,

So here I am, like some half wit

 

Words can act like heroin,

You live so high, where I have been.

But onto earth, I gladly fall.

The air the sun the rain is all.

 

My senses are my lovers long-

My ears, my eyes, my skin, my tongue.

The winds caress my naked flesh,

To dwell on earth is all I wish.

 

I’ll live with mice and birds and plants,

I’ll share my food with miscreants

I’ll keep my words inside a tin,

And only, now and then, go in.

 

I’ll live with cats and spiders three.

And like a wildflower grow quite free.

I’ ll give my words to those who hear,

And eventually, I’ll disappear

 

Earth to earth then ash to ash

When soaked with rain, I shall disperse.

My atoms wing like butterflies,

And to the Flower, I’ll fly, disguised

Let’s live again until we die

When first I saw your soulful face,
I wished to feel your sweet embrace.
I wished as well to clothe you in
The sacred images within.
To find a home for love without;
To fold my dreams all round about;
Your loving body and your face
Were covered in such joy and grace.
I find my dreams were cast aside;
The world of meaning denied life.
What seemed most precious now is fled…
And I lie sleepless in my bed.
What is the world when unadorned
With all, that in my heart, I’ve formed?
There is no meaning I can trace.
As in a mother’s empty face.
On these grey rocks , my path is hard.
From paradise, my self is barred.
To struggle or to grief succumb,
When this dark day of mourning’s done?
Into His dazzling darkness dart
My dreams and love like dying sparks.
Into His Mystery so fair.
I’ll cast both hope and my despair.
Thus my dreams will be transformed
To show themselves in other forms.
What feels a loss may foretell growth.
On my hope ,I’ll take an oath.
That nothing in my life is waste;
That I have not for phantasms chased.
And you are human,as am I.
Let’s live again until we die

Where once we enjoyed many songs all gay

“The end is nigh” those preachers used to say
To scare us into being born again
I have a hunch they may be right today

We’re coming to the Final Act , there’s no  replay
This Play is ending, ladies, gentlemen
“The end is nigh” those preachers used to say

Where once we enjoyed many songs all gay
Now we listen fearful for Big Ben
I have a hunch the end may be today

Someone may be made to pay
But it’s too late to put the lid back on.
“The end is nigh” those preachers used to say

Let our politicians stay or die
They churned us up like food processors make scones
I have a hunch the end may be today

This neo-liberal  fantasy made claims
That free markets would make the biggest gains
“The end is nigh” those preachers used to say
I have a hunch they may be right today

 

For willed control  spoils what it hopes to find

I want to live and feel I am alive
The carelessness of  politicians  fills my mind
In  a better state, my  writing  thrives

What actions I can take, I shall decide
When all the thoughts inside my head unwind
I want to live and feel I am alive

Like little fish, my thoughts should slowly  glide
But they have stuck and   wound me in their bind
In  a better state, my  writing thrives

My focus  tightened up, I need it wide
Else my thinking will  be dim and  blind
I want to live and feel I am alive

Relaxation  is a better guide
For willed control  spoils what it hopes to find
In  a better state, my writing  thrives

Can the poor relax and trust in God?
[A metaphor  for what we can’t speak of]
I want to live and feel I am alive
In  a better state, my  writing thrives

 

 

Theresa May would kneel  before our yells.

We’re always short of money,  deja vu
All we need is a sin tax paid by you
The hospital is crowded out by flu
The flaming government, how d’ya do?

A tax on sin would work out extra well
And make us humble for we’d  have to tell…………..
Then A & E would with new doctors swell
Theresa May would kneel  before our yells.

For she’s a jolly bad leader
She’s  cold ,is our Theresa
She’s an out of date leader
And so weep all of us

But would we admit in public that we sin
Be humble like that gentle publican?
And would the admin costs be damned?
The main point now is that we have to win.

I know the Catholic church has done much wrong
I  know that  they put Jesus on my tongue
But it’s still here if you  inside you long
To confess that you have sinned with Milly Glong.

I don’t see what’s wrong with  sex and love
The  recreational hobby watched above
God like porn, it seems  a deal whereof
She  can knit while you moan  on the rug.

She sounds like Grandma Moses in disguise
I wonder of what colour are her eyes?
Unless God sees in ways unanalysed
Triumphant as a duck which has four wives.

 

Who torched their boats and loved to see them burn

58 people died in Grenfell Tower fire, more are in intensive care

How shall we be judges of this land
When cheapness, profit are the main concerns?
The poor die and the rich don’t understand

To judge we merely have to look around
When health and safety laugh as towers burn
How can we NOT be judges of tbis land?

We know we will all come to the same end
For some justice, many people yearn
The poor die and the rich won’t understand

Descended from the Vikings, cruel of hand
Who torched their boats and loved to see them burn
How can we not judge this savage land?

By the media, our souls are undermined
And through the windows of the screen, we learn
The poor die young, the rich won’t countermand

Why do we view the unemployed with scorn?
The steel works and the boatyards won’t return
We must rise up to speak about our land
Where the poor will die and the rich won’t understand

Immer krankier than thou

ggrey
John Major’s éffect on TM by Martin Bell.Guardian UK

Cor blimey.Are tower blocks a sign of lack of confidence in highly trained men about all their erections? A form of uncertainty masquerading as boastfulness.Recall Donald Trump/s hands [not for  very long]
Why is our skyline tormented by these gherkins, pickles, onions and garden gnomes?
Where are the Cathedrals of yesteryear? It is a sign of our lack of confidence in Eros and the Sacred.
We need a new paradigm which may be a revolution
.A cathedral has both male and female aspects.Does the Gherkin?
A gherkin is not real food.Like HP sauce it is an addition men demand for slapping onto their well-cooked meals.Do you think the French use HP sauce on their croissants?On their steak au Poivre?
Je m’appelle Catherine.Je desire l’ineffable  toujours tristesse.Or in Britain,mistress.
Je n’aime pas  un homme qui demands  HP GP TCP Tea TT TV. Pourquoi?
Un desire pour son amour  immediatement.Je suis un femme non-asexual BBB.
Et je ne suis pas deus ex machina.
Mein mutter ist immer Zank
I  don’t only speak Afrikaans myself but  also I  can find a translator  soon
Quelle Therese May est un  Carmelite manque.St Therese et un Hebrew.
You could have knocked me down with a father!
Carmelites use Judaic spiritual  exercises  except it’s a secret.So don’t pass it on.

Escalate  your glances peeved and sour

Is this a democracy which careless kills
By war or by ignoring its own poor
The undervalued, refugees, the ill?

I know it’s easy  just to ask for pills
Or of the mind unconscious make a tour
Is this a democracy which careless kills?

Get  the Prozac, get more  truly chilled
Escalate  your glances peeved and sour
Upon the undervalued and the ill

Virtue comes  to those who’re of good will
Yet evil is a swamp much easier
And from there cutting corners leads to kill

If God exists then she no longer tells
Satan is more innocent than we are
Go tell the undervalued and the ill

Wealth  and gold has had a great allure
Embedded in our screens it’s easier
Is it  democratic  to  build such towers
For the poor  who have no strength no power?

What was written once

Splash 2

The Bible is like a horror story in free verse.
The erection in the garden was too much for me.Still, I can’t complain.It protected me from the sun for an hour
Please give the boys their balls back
Well, you could have knocked me up if you were desperate.
You are telling me you bought him some nuts? He has enough already.
English is a very rude tongue.You won’t believe what’s in the dictionary.
The Bible is like a horror story in free verse.
He looks a funny shape today.
He got out of the bottom of the bed.He sleeps in the drawer.Yes, it is a very big bed.
Watch your words? I can’s even see them.
Asa matter of tactlessness, the government seem very dense, foolish and greedy.Or they are all good actors
She is touchy,he is touchy feely.So it’s hell on wheels.