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Underneath the weight of knowledge learned For a moment, we may often ask That in this world there is an empty space, I feel inert like marble on a beach |
That in this world there is an empty space,
Category: Thinkings and poems
Kindness
“Picking up where Rousseau left off a quarter millennium ago, Phillips and Taylor consider what it takes to nourish our natural benevolence, asserting that it must begin with embracing the very vulnerability from which kindness springs:
Everybody is vulnerable at every stage of their lives; everybody is subject to illness, accident, personal tragedy, political and economic reality. This doesn’t mean that people aren’t also resilient and resourceful. Bearing other people’s vulnerability — which means sharing in it imaginatively and practically without needing to get rid of it, to yank people out of it — entails being able to bear one’s own. Indeed it would be realistic to say that what we have in common is our vulnerability; it is the medium of contact between us, what we most fundamentally recognize in each other.
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Walking or sauntering
A passport to love
While her potato was baking Rosa decided to wash her hair.The first thing she found was Persil Silk and Wool wash.She poured it over her head and rubbed it in.Just then the new doorbell rang.Today it was playing Puppet on a string ,made famous by Sandy Shaw.She opened the door and found her fellow academic Charlie Blogge outside.
What is that strange concoction on your head,he asked?
I am waiting for a thunderstorm to rinse it off, she admitted shyly.
Have you no piped water,he asked furtively.
Yes,but I am on a meter.I save money by bathing in the rain, she said softly.
That explains a lot,Charlie thought
Do you use an antiperspirant?
Why are you asking questions, she said sheepishly.Do I smell?
He approached her gingerly and sniffed loudly.Delightful ,he cried.What is it?
Rose and wisteria water in a bed of lettuce…sorry, that is the menu for my dinner party.
Am I invited ,he asked gently? I can lay the table
It is not a carpet, she said humorously.I am doing mock turtle soup which is a jelly and then lamb chops with mushrooms and garlic.After that ,I have decided to make a Russian cheesecake with almonds.
Why,can’t you buy any Russians in Waitrose ? Why did you decide on that?
I said,Oh Lord, where is the Penguin Jewish Cookery book and immediately it fell onto my head.It is quite small,luckily.
Wow, that’s odd he said curiously Why did God do that yet not kill Hitler?
We don’t understand.Maybe we can’t understand however he would not have dropped the North Korean cookery book onto my head.
What sort of food do they eat? Charlie asked
I imagine it’s rice and veg ,she murmured.
What a lovely voice you have, Rosa.It reminds me of High Force Waterfall in Upper Teesdale in a drought
That is a very unusual compliment,Rosa cried anxiously
He bowed politely.It’s no more than you deserve, he responded.By the way, I have decided to get married.
To whom, she asked curiously?
Can’t you guess, he teased her.
Animal,vegetable or mineral?
He took her in his arms and whispered, will you be mine?
As long as I don’t have to boil your hankies I shall accept on one other condition
What is that?
We buy a very big bed
Don’t you want to snuggle up to me? he asked rashly.
No,I want an electrified fence down the middle!
By gum, she’s gone mad, he told himself
You must stop following Donald Grump. It’s all walls and fences
You are right she said, we’ll build a wall down the middle and then we’ll need passports before we make love.
Well,said Charlie,you certainly have some unusually creative ideas.
And so say all of us.
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Mary reads a manual and admires L.Cohen on youtube
Mary sat by the window ,which she had meant to clean, reading Windows 8.1.The Missing Manual.The one great advantage of this new Windows system was that it seemed one no longer needed to instal anti-virus programmes.So much time is taken up by looking after older versions that Mary was not surprised that Chromebooks were now very popular.Yet even so,she enjoyed learning new skills and it’s not as if they are like the theory of quantum physics or even studying nonlinear algebra and baking cakes.
Stan her husband had taken Emile ,their naughty cat for a spin on his old sports bike which he still used when the feeling came over him and as they were only a mile from the edge of the mysterious town of Knittingham they were soon cycling through a deep green, quiet forest where Kings once hunted deer and no doubt chased women… or was it “hunted chaste women”?
Mary had decided to stay at home as she was expecting a new vacuum cleaner to arrive.She kept one eye on her book and the other on her neighbour Rick who was very handsome despite being 113 years old.He was hanging his washing on his large front hedge which was unusual in winter.Most of the people in the road had tumble dryers or heated rails.Some even hung their washing outside on lines to let the blustery winter air dry it and kill the germs which might survive in a low temperature machine wash
Maybe I should do some washing ,Mary thought.How about I do my annual sheet changing.I made a big mistake deciding it was to be in the winter,but,alas it is hard to change a routine.Am I a cyborg,she thought nervously,licking her lips till they were damp and red.
Maybe I should clean the kitchen floor too,she thought as she drew an elongated ellipse with some mud that had fallen of Stan’s shoes as he passed by.She looked down pensively at the pattern the mud had made on the lino.I wonder if I can predict our fortune by studying this pattern deeply,she wondered.Some people do it from the tea leaves at the bottom of the cup,so why not from mud.There seemed no logical reason why mud splatters should be worse than tea leaves.It is simply a pattern through which the Unconscious can send a message to us.
Why it could not speak in ordinary language nobody knew and nobody ever will.Not all questions have answers.How strangely dull life would be if that were so.Don’t you agree?I don’t.Not always
.Mary had just seen a short story relating a dream a woman had that she had fallen in love with a strong healthy hippopotamus and taken it home.Unfortunately when they went to bed the weight of the animal had made the solid oak bed collapse onto the purple and orange carpet.Unable to give up her love,she had spent the rest of her life trying to build a new bed out of sawdust.It seemed not unlike the labours of Hercules in a new form
Mary was sceptical.I can’t believe a woman could love a hippopotamus,even in a dream,she murmured.But even if it was not a dream but a conscious invention,what did that say about the person writing it?That she always fell in love with men who were too heavy for her and who pulled her down onto the carpet to make love whenever they felt the urge regardless of whether she was as flat as a pancake or even dead
A lion,yes, Mary mused,but never a hippopotamus.I mean,they have no expressions on their faces and could they drink tea in bed and chat?Unlikely.Still, other people’s dreams are a mystery.Even our own are but we can sometimes take the hint.
Suddenly she heard the doorbell ring.Who could it be now?
Alas it was only a Mormon trying to convert her which was no good as Catholics can’t be Mormons as well.They are what one might call mutually exclusive groups.As I have no wish to teach algebra I shall stop here.However if that disappoints you,why not read
“A survey of modern algebra ” by Birkhoff and MacLane.I did and see what has happened to me!
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Occasionally, some of your visitors may see a monster here
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How else explain that man in Cohen’s suit
I eat my egg and chips whilst wise men frown
They give advice and rush to bring me down
An Oxbridge educated woman can’t eat fries
So in McDonalds ,they have placed their spies
How else explain that man in Cohen’s suit
And on his feet, black polished Chelsea boots?
Such men would eat in foreign Restaurants
Not linger in Mc Donald’s penitent
Yes, all these people here must be sent as spies
From Oxford,Cambridge, even MI 5.
Yet I do not abandon my fried bread
Despite the Quantum Theory wandering in my head
It’s probable that they are eying me
Come ,thou loon , Len wants a cup of tea
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With strange dejection, people stare dismayed
What strange selection have the parties made
That Trump and Clinton are the chosen two.
In disbelief ,we stumble, thinking frayed.
Such strange selection have the people made
Their Presidential choice ,discussed, displayed
The Reign of Night,Oh Hell, what can we do?
With strange dejection, people stare dismayed
That Trump and Clinton seem the chosen two.
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The triolet
https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/triolet-poetic-form
“Though some employed the triolet as a vehicle for light or humorous themes,Thomas Hardy recognized the possibilities for melancholy and seriousness, if the repetition could be skillfully employed to mark a shift in the meaning of repeated lines.
In “How Great My Grief,” Hardy displays both his mastery of the triolet and the potency of the form:
How great my grief, my joys how few,
Since first it was my fate to know thee!
—Have the slow years not brought to view
How great my grief, my joys how few,
Not memory shaped old times anew,
Nor loving-kindness helped to show thee
How great my grief, my joys how few,
Since first it was my fate to know thee?
The first line, “How great my grief, my joys how few,” is, in its two subsequent appearances, modified by the movement of time in the poem. Initially, the line assumes a declarative position, indicating the subject and tone of the poem, one of grief and love lost. By its third iteration, after several queries to the person being addressed, the line takes on the added weight of the speaker’s astonished grief that the addressee has not, despite the years, recognized the speaker’s profound sense of loss.”
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I miss the self
I miss the self that I became with you
I miss your gaze as broad as any hawk’s
I miss your words that were with love imbued
I miss your heart and all our loving new
I miss your humor and your potent thought
I miss the self that I became with you
I miss the words we fashioned from our view
The new ideas by which truths were taught
I miss your words that were with love imbued
I miss the imitations you could do.
Politicians were with laughter caught
I miss the self that I became with you
So much more, the more our knowing grew
As the depths new understanding brought
I miss your words that were with love imbued
Context,frame,perspective all made new
From the flesh a tenderness was lit.
I miss the self that I became with you
I miss your words that made our love anew
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Music for Strings Samuel Barber
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In the heart of the man, there’s a gap
In the heart of a violin, there’s a flame
It was lit by the ache of desire.
Electric those gold stricken wires
Who plays loud the sound of your name?
In the heart of the love, there’s a space
Where music’s condemned by the moon
Where dancers will dance to their doom
In our timelesss and freezing embrace.
In the heart of the man there’s a gap
Where the love cannot reach ,though he try,
Near untouchable bliss he might die
As photographers beam in their snaps
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What we don’t know
Fro
m reading the previous post and reflecting,it seems that we see people as separate and uniquely responsible for their state of being.Hence getting to be more aware of our unconscious mind is good for us
But what about all the facts we don’t know about the external world?How people can be destroyed by war,riot,earthquake,flood and wild animals.How we are injured by economic theories and practices we do not understand or even know of.Politics,wars,loss of confidence in the economy
I accept that in some ways we can be our own worst enemy but even the most aware loving good person can be injured by fact ors quite beyond their control
I once asked two friends who are psychoanalysts whether they took people’s economic situation into account and was told it was not relevant.I realise now that unless you are quite well to do you can’t afford psychoanalysis.I read lately of a woman writer who was badly blocked.After 4 sessions a week for 8-9 years she was much better.I can’t understand how most people could afford that.And it’s a long time to spend before getting very far.Admittedly she did publish a book after 2 years but unless it was a best seller would that giver her a viable lifestyle
Or is it just that only rich people attend in such a full manner?The time factor too, if you had children or another job would be tough.Unless you live next door to the analyst!
Could it be that many people have emotional problems but the wealthy or highly educated have more access to this kind of support.Poorer people may have good support from family and friends emotionally but sometimes it’s the family which is the problem.
Are there no methods of improvement which are available to the average person?
I suppose learning relaxation techniques,eating well,exercise,music ,poetry can help
I was very moved by an article which said that having even just one trustworthy friend is enough to keep us sane.
Sometimes keeping quiet about your problem except to a very close friend is best if it is potentially very distressing to others..lady admitted to hospital in the USA said she kept telling folk about the dead bodies she saw in the street.Her treatment was to stop telling people.It worked, she was able to live independently again.I suppose it is unfashionable now but maintaining your own privacy might be a very good thing.The same psychiatrist used to ask new patients,Whom have you annoyed to get sent in here?
In other words, you might be seriously disturbed but have lots of support and loads of money and then recover.But with no support, a mild disturbance might lead to being sent into a hospital.And it is not very good in England where little money is spent on such things.You might lose your job and in the current economic climate that would be a major blow.So one might get the revolving door scenario.You might end up living rough as well.And if you live in certain parts of the world your horrible life might be totally out of your own control.Many children in Gaza have lost the will to live.That mustbe so in many other places too.
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Clinical wisdom
Would you like to write humor?
FIND WORDS WITH MULTIPLE MEANINGS
The double entendre is a comedy staple, one that’s all about word choice. Country music song titles often use this device. Consider the songs “If I Said You Had a Beautiful Body, Would You Hold It Against Me?” and “Crystal, I Can See Through You.”
In the first example, “hold it against me” can refer to either “beautiful body” or the statement “you have a beautiful body.” The second example is more of a pun
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Life is a film and love’s the bond.
I saw you look,I saw you stare
You liked the colour of my hair.
I heard you speak,I felt less bleak
Now I sit near where you were.
I held your hand, on Southwold sands
Your hand was warm,who understands?
Your time was up,you won the lot.
I gave your grace to those forgot.
I rode my bike,St Giles was dark
A car hit me and I saw sparks.
You knew my name, we were the same
I saw real stars, when shot by car.
I saw a hand turn in the sand
Life is a film and love’s the bond.
Your trust complete,I was your sweet
The end is here; it’s no defeat.
For life’s a tale we won’t bewail
You write along the hidden trail.
Your narrative can no more live
You were yourself.,no more to give.
We knit the fabric for the young
And with this gift our song is sung
The melody, sonorous be
For life is good and love is free
And yet I weep whilst I’m asleep
I wish to be with you so deep
Come back again,we’ll live the pain
We’ll weep till we become the rain.
For fire burns and stomachs churn
We may not get what we have earned
Who is the judge,who keeps the ledge
Who will be when love’s alleged?
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There’s never a seed to mythologise.
It’s coarse for the loose to give a source for the slander.
There’s many a slip fixed up by some lip.
One bore is a bitch and one is a whore.
Many a man saves sites to lurk.
He was struck in the balls,grim.
There’s never a seed to mythologise.
When women creak, men should falter.
What a pity our arms and legs don’t unscrew when unneeded.
There is never a need for a double negative,not ever.
Many cliches are useful when life becomes a cliche.
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Wild as a scream
It’s so hard being a real lady,I feel I have tried my best
I bought myself new makeup, lipstick and a thermal vest
But I feel there’s something lacking, my deodorant does not work
I used to love that pink Innoxa, now it’s Dove which I can’t shirk
First, we have to do our faces,with abrasive wash to clean those pores
When I took another Selfie,I knew that it would take ten hours
Then we have to soak our bodies in a bath of perfumed silk
As we drowse in lovely reverie, someone shouts, drat where’s the milk?
Surely that can’t be my husband for he never shouts at all
If he does he will regret it, God knows I shall not play ball
When I’m really clean and perfumed,I put on a brand new dress
When he sees me in the doorway, he calls, what a bloody mess.
What do you mean my darling angel, to whom are you shouting that
He said,it’s your nylon wig,my sweetheart,it is just like Trump’s doormat.
Well,I never did my hair yet,I took so long getting clean
He said,I prefer you dirty, and your hair wild as a scream.
Well,I should have asked him,before I spent 500 pounds
I bought all that Boots can offer, and some more around the town.
So I’ll never be a lady and he’ll never be a lord
I’ll wear makeup in the kitchen and grime for love in bed.
I can’t waste my money ,I’ll wear Dove during the day
Then I’ll sweat with dark emotion when my husband wants to play
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How to be a writer
“Find a vocation. Talent is overrated, and it is usually conflated with nice style. Passion, vocation, vision, and dedication are rarer, and they will get you through the rough spots in your style when your style won’t give you a reason to get up in the morning and stare at the manuscript for the hundredth day in a row or even give you a compelling subject to write about. If you’re not passionate about writing and about the world and the things in it you’re writing about, then why are you writing? It starts with passion even before it starts with words. You want to read people who are wise, deep, wild, kind, committed, insightful, attentive; you want to be those people. I am all for style, but only in service of vision.”
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My foundation’s cool vanilla
My foundation’s cool vanilla
And my lipstick is pink willow
I’ve been shopping autumn makeup in the store
I cannot wear mascara
In case it says,how are ye’ ?
In any case, I can’t see much any more.
So I have to get assistance
Despite my strong resistance
The assistant is examining all my pores.
Is your skin quite oily?
She questions me adroitly
Till my knees sag and I fall down on the floor.
They shout,are you ok,dear?
I gather that the Lord’s here.
He has come to take me up to Heaven’s door.
I won’t need Cool Vanilla
I’ll never look like Queen Camilla
But my face will wear a smile from ear to ear.
I shall die here in Cosmetics
I know I’m no ascetic
But with Sweet Jesus, I shall know no fear
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Love/hate
“Love as if you would one day hate,
and hate as if you would one day love.” – Bias (6th Century B.C.)
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What God endowed the owl with such excess
The owl can see with wide and narrow view
Focuses both poets and artists knew.
The broad sweep on the canvas makes a place
Where details and designs can have their space.
What God endowed the owl with such excess;
When all her progeny enjoy such bliss?
I think, where is the snake with frightening hiss?
What startling accident created this?
Eagles,hawks and owls must kill to eat.
No blandishments nor kindness make them sweet.
What God could make an Eden this deceit;
Where lambs are snatched up while their mothers bleat
So God himself destroys to fill his leisure;
Such fearsome revelations show his measure.
…
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Interculturism?
Musing
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Who can say the heart’s a refugee?
Wholly here in trust of the unknown
A trust wholly impossible to man
So Jesus cried out in his state forlorn
Unknowing and uncertain, he began.
Who can tell us what the cost may be?
Our open eyes may let in bleak despair
Who can say that love’s a refugee?
Our open eyes may see the Light shine where?
How we draw our lifelines sharp and black
When watercolor may be nearer truth.
A puzzle, steel, mechanical, might crack
And leave us helpless , buried in our ruth.
Who has got the courage when alone?
Which of us will roll away the stone?
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Love and forgive:Sunday reading!
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Wholly here
This is interesting because Meister Eckhart used this phrase in discussing mysticism a long time before Bion used it.
http://www.iep.utm.edu/eckhart/
I like it because we are often so caught up in our desires we hardly notice the Other even when listening to them.
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Needs we hate
I’ll love you, by the way
'Twas but a reptile passing by. It flew across the deep blue sky Why do reptiles fly so high? I'll love you till I die. "Twas but a cat under the moon. Did you have a silver spoon? Why can't cats all waul in tune? I'll love you very soon 'Twas but a wooden legged man, Carrying a large brass saucepan. Why can't men do what women can? I'll love you better than. Why are adverbs? What are nouns? why do circuses have clowns? I'll love you lying down. Where do dreams go in the day? What game can we adults play? Can you or can you not say? I'll love you,in my way. 'Twas but a verse that seemed so free. It floated over my oak tree. I have eyes but cannot see. I'll love you when I be
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What Is Poetry by John Ashbery
What Is Poetry
John Ashbery
The medieval town, with frieze
Of boy scouts from Nagoya? The snow
That came when we wanted it to snow?
Beautiful images? Trying to avoid
Ideas, as in this poem? But we
Go back to them as to a wife, leaving
The mistress we desire? Now they
Will have to believe it
As we believed it. In school
All the thought got combed out:
What was left was like a field.
Shut your eyes, and you can feel it for miles around.
Now open them on a thin vertical path.
It might give us–what?–some flowers soon?
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In time to the music of the words
http://www.poetryarchive.org/glossary/metre
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iamb_(poetry)
“Like the rhythm in a piece of music, the metre is an underlying structure. Poets often slip in extra feet, or remove them, or change stress patterns around to prevent monotony, like playing rubato. (Sometimes a poem seems to be exploring how far a line can be pushed without losing all connection with the underlying metre.) This means that the discovery of a foot other than an iamb in the middle of what is otherwise iambic, say, does not stop the poem from being iambic; rather the attention ends up lingering at that point, so the word on the different foot ends up more powerful as it has the attention longer. An example of this can be found in Peter Dale’s ‘Half-Light’; he writes “I’m trying not to give another glance. / Lit window thirty years back up that path.” The first line is a perfectly regular iambic pentameter, but the second introduces an extra stress on “Lit”, so that what the speaker’s trying not to be drawn to seems more powerful, perhaps helping us empathise with him when he does look back and “catch her eye an instant””
Note on the word:iamb
An iamb /ˈaɪæm/ or iambus is a metrical foot used in various types of poetry. Originally the term referred to one of the feet of the quantitative meter of classical Greek prosody: a short syllable followed by a long syllable (as in “delay”).
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To measure out right feelings in due size
A triolet can act as a device
That stops the flood of feeling drowning all
If it embeds a phrase for wiser eyes.
A triolet can act when well contrived
To measure out right feelings in due size
Then we are sheltered from apocalyptic falls
A triolet’s a poem , a rhymed device
To contain the flood of feelings which appalls.
