The art of doing nothing

The art of doing nothing’s hard to learn
To sit and daydream till we get new thoughts
It’s immoral, say the Puritans
reformed

Harder to accept the need to mourn
So many ancient losses strip our hearts.
The art of doing nothing’s hard to learn

The feelings  that seemed hardest to be borne
We could have looked for maps or sought out charts
It’s immoral to seek help  so we’ve been told

Here we weep when our skinned hearts are torn
We fear we may have forfeited love’s balm
The art of doing nothing’s hard to learn

We only know our self when love is born
In another’s eyes we find our calm
Reject the harshness of old Luther’s forms

Fear not death, for there are strong wide arms
God is not a monster who wills harm
The art of doing nothing will prepare
For when we meet one day his welcome stare

Ancient hands leave copies in the Cave

Photo by Matheus Viana on Pexels.com

Human hands 7,300 BCE Wikipedia

I can’t get just one photo… technical problem

They knew what we moderns learned this year
When deprived of company and touch
We need to feel, we need the hands that care

As cats will sleep in heaps beside the fire
I would warm,caress you, humans must
Cats knew what we humans learned this year


I remember when you brushed my hair
When you held me close your skin was musk
We need to feel, we need the hands that care

Even touching gently your skin bare
Gave me solace, made my world seem just
Cats knew what we humans learned this year

Crying babies,nursing them’s a prayer
But refugees lie restless in the dust
We need to feel, we need the hearts that care


They knew what we moderns learned this year
When deprived of company and touch
We need to feel, we need the hands that care

Poor in money, yet in loving rich
Glue my broken heart up lest it cracks
Ancients knew what moderns learned this year
We need to feel, we need strong hands that care

Day shall come again

When red sun drops and cooling night rolls in
Darkness masks both danger and our vision
Ancient minds fear day won’t come again
Courage for the delicate seems thin.
We wrestle with our indecision
When low sun drops and a new night rolls in
But now , fresh stricken by the dread of sin
Who protects us from derision?
Our ancient mind fears day won’t come again
As we sleep we’re entertained within
Bold dreams squander all illusion
When sunset comes the darkest night rolls in
In  dreams we see  new life  arising
Then fancy turns to full communion
The ancient mind dreads day won’t come again
Despite such angst, our sacred life began
When sperm leaped up in proud confusion.
When deep sun dropped and a new night rolled in
All human hearts cried,Day shall come again”

A Life of One’s Own: A Penetrating Century-Old Field Guide to Self-Possession, Mindful Perception, and the Art of Knowing What You Really Want – The Marginalian

https://www.themarginalian.org/2017/10/11/a-life-of-ones-own-joanna-field-marion-milner/

Flowers pose.

How softly sweetly,gently flowers pose
Carnation,orchid ,daffodil and rose.
For their intricate petals form a shield
Yet bees with striped force shall make them yield.
Appearances,both natural and contrived,
Mixed with the wiles of human nature thrive.
As knowing not, we pluck the apple rare
And bite its flesh,with teeth we have to bare.
We too deceive the innocent who pass
Not seeing watchers hid behind the glass.
The windows break,the deep earth quakes;
Seized is the maiden ,he her virtue takes.
Beneath the surface,force and fierceness thrive.
What fearsome, burning God enjoys our lives

Like a fallen moon

Old man,bending over,
arched like a fallen moon
in a dark lilac November sky.
joy and pain wrestle my heart across the emptiness
and toss it up like a damp rocket
to fall in a hidden corner where mice live.
Would that not be a good ending,to be dust
to these little creatures nesting
in my chewed green twine and my tartan basket?
They have eyes and shiver in my hand when I rescue them
from the cat…
as any heart might.
Now night falls on the newspaper basket
where the damp Times and the Guardian mix into glue
and tomorrow the sun will rise
and it will just be the garbage
with no poetic undertones nor deathly hushes..
Heather and a silver light
you stand on a hill top like a god
looking over his domain.
Strong and now weak
it’s the humane condition
Everlasting life is too dangerous for humans.
Silent,motionless,home of beetles
bit by bit we fall away
into the mother soil
with cracked jugs and dropped coins
for a future academic to dig into.
Transparent hand touches me.
Whose might it be

The sky in spring

The sky in spring in autumn looks the same

In spring it gives us joy, in fall we’re glum.

And so we play on in our little games.

The inbetween is hard to give a name.

Transitions, changes, fear of what’s to come.

The sky in spring in autumn looks the same

Have the gods deserted, who’s to blame?

If we cannot share our hearts go numb.

So we play on in our little games.

The human heart and mind are often lame.

Angered by the movements of the sun

The sky in spring in autumn looks the same

Can the spirits of our hearts be tamed?

Obsessive thoughts will linger and rerub

So we play on in our little game’s 

In spring life starts again, then what’s to come

But summer heat the flowers the bees that hum

The sky in spring and autumn looks the same

Round and round we go, for life’s a game

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 dwell 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

Newly found Bible story

And it came to pass that they ate their dinner
and that she did washeth up.
And she did leave the dishes to drain
Whilst she put on the washing machine.
and the man was very pleased.

And it further came to pass
that she gave the man some pudding
and he was more pleased.
And then it came to pass the he fell asleep
By the fire.

And the Lord God,said
Who is this man that sleepeth by his fire?
And He said,I shall waken him up
And the man awoke,
And God spake unto him

How is it that the woman laboureth in ye kitchen.
And that thou sleepeth here in an armchair.
And the man said,
But Thou didst order women to labour.
And the Lord God said unto the man
Why dost thou remember so selectively what I have said?
And the man said,
I knoweth not and therefore I will help this woman.
And the Lord God said,
Why dost thou not think of it thyself?
And the man said in reply,
It was Thou that made me,O God.

And the Lord God was displeased with the man.
so he called down a plague of butterflies
To prevent him from sleeping.
And when the woman came in
she was much pleased to see these butterflies
and so she fell onto the man
And he did make love unto her.
And the cat was very pleased.

For it thrilled a cat to watch humans loving
and gave him hope
That the Lord God would take his rib and make a mate for him.
And indeed it doth seem to have happened
Judging by all the cats staring in ye old window here;
And by their ecstatic yelps
That the Lord God was very generous with them
and made them many mates.
For truly there is no jealousy among them
And they mate freely and happily
and never have rows about the washing up..
as they eat straight from the can.Amen

Here endeth today’s lesson.
Be thou kind to thy mate always

No river flows

I wish we were on Easby Moor again

Or looking down the hill of Hasty Bank

The feel of scented flowers where we had lain

We closed our eyes and into bliss we sank

I wish we were near Saltburn on the sands.

I wish we were near Redcar on the coast.

The butterflies, the seagulls and the Band

Your mother liked the sea and sand the most.

Your father liked the hills and heather moors.

You were torn between them, now you’re gone

Your mother bough some honey for her store

Breathing northern air my loving one

When we got to Stamford you were low

Suburban London where no waters flow

I wish we were in Cleveland on the hills

We have to work in London for the bills.

Where hill and seashore meet

The path on Arnside Knott came to the shore
Where sea and river meet at my heart’s core
Where wild flowers grow, where butterflies float on.
The views of Lakeland Hills ,so ravishing

My heart was only half alive till then
The land surpassed imagination
I was used to mills and dirty air
Despite the heather moors and hilltops bare

Later death came near on Langdale Pike
My fingertips were hurting,feet agape
Then my toe was back on a foothold
The shadow of the mountain huge and cold

Beauty,love and death, the opera calls
Singing as we walk the danger walls

The Art of Lying Fallow: Psychoanalyst Masud Khan on the Existential Salve for the Age of Cultish Productivity  – The Marginalian

https://www.themarginalian.org/2023/04/11/masud-khan-lying-fallow/

I suspect our ability to ask the unanswerable questions that Hannah Arendt knew are the heartbeat of civilization is intimately related to our capacity for dwelling in a particular state of being beyond the realm of our compulsive doing. Bertrand Russell called it “fruitful monotony.” Adam Phillips called it “fertile solitude.” Walt Whitman called it “loafing.” The Buddhist tradition describes it simply as presence. Whatever we may call it, amid a culture of filling the existential void with cultish productivity and an endless stream of dopamine-laced distractions, it is nothing less than a countercultural act of courage and resistance to enact such states of being — states in which our inner voice becomes audible, the voice with which we sing the song of our lives.

The Pakistani-British psychoanalyst Masud Khan (July 21, 1924–June 7, 1989) calls this mode of being “lying fallow” and unfurls its psychological tendrils in a short, brightly penetrating essay included in his 1983 collection Hidden Selves (public library).

00

Don’t segregate the elderly.

I do not think it’s a good idea for people to tmbe segregated by age. To my surprise I have discovered that it is a very modern development beginning with the industrial Revolution says that ultimately would lead to older people being put into homes so the the younger adults could work in factories and mills and coal mines. and now it’s gone even further to use women in the workforce it’s become almost normal for even the mothers of young babies to go back to work in a few weeks. you might you could explain that by the price of houses but it isn’t just that. they want to get all the adults between let’s say 16 and 70 into work so the children and the babies are with childminders or schools and the old people are in homes like leopards on the edge of the community cared for by lowly paid women sometimey show a great deal of love. personally I found it very difficult being in a place with several demented people because they do not have enough staff to give them the care they need and it serves a nasty message to the to the ones who haven’t got dementia look what happens to people like you. on the positive side or I can say is please visit your old relatives because I have observed that being a visited by a family member makes it very bigt difference to them. the symptoms of dementia are not static and anything that makes them relaxed or happy will reduce the symptoms. Don’t just throw us away like an old glove

age flowers identities loss love old people Poem self

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Now my bones

Now my bones are worn away

I disappear like Moths at day

My eyes hate sun, my ears are blocked

My senses dim,my mind half cocked.

Yet with the eye inside my mind

I see quite clearly what is fine.

I see the evil in men’s eyes

As to the poor and old they lie

A man who has to praise himself,

Is quite devoid of inner Wealth

A man who says that he’s the best

Will burn in hell instead of rest.

And we might twist our eyes and lie

And call this man your majesty.

The old have nothing left to lose

Except give up their power to choose.

My day is almost done, goodbye

Satan screams as Jesus dies

,

Dead why ?

1 Fell off writers’ block into a pit of tigers.Bad layout.
2.Strangled by over-loving cat.

Verdict: guilty


3.Large bottle of ink bounced back off wall . thus broke skull.Suicide denied by dead man or wife as appropriate [Delete one]


4 Forgot to eat while writing long novel.Was not worth it


5 Forgot to sleep owing to inspiration.Stupid despite possessing unique genius


6.Killed by malfunction of new laptop.[Can be returned to Amazon free when body is removed]


7.Tried to meditate and fell out of the window. Oriental death
8 Tried to clean outside of the window with a microfibre cloth.A pane broke and cut his throat.Incidental death
9 Got depressed by lack of air.Jumped and lost balance killing two cats on the patio.Verdict Unfair
10.Thought he was sleepwalking and walked off roof of extension [only just completed].Insurance will be paid.
11.Fainted in church and was used as a human sacrifice.Jesus wept
12 Hit head on bannister while falling down the stairs.Euthanasia while dizzy.Resurrection imminent
13.Fought off wife but bitten by the dog .Both dead.Verdict, pointless end.
14 Wrote a best seller, got drunk and died of shock!
15 His website was declared a threat to humanity.Died of shame.

Genuine mistakes by the voice to text

My husband was in the hospital and he tested positive for  TV

That’s all right you can turn him on whenever you like

The surgeon drained my knee with a lozenge. Or was it a Syrian?   I wish I’d learnt to read when I was blunder

Did they put a primula in the back of your hand first?

She said your knee is twice the normal size, are you in any discomfort?

I knew my stockings were too tight, so I said, no.

She said, you don’t seem to realize the toll this is taking on me.

So I suggested she should change her job.

I was having a problem  distinguishing between myself and other people.

She said, all this pain is bad for you. Would you like a morphine patch on your shoulder?

I said, what about putting it on my bladder I would really like that better

She said I’ve never been so consulted in my satired life. You have to put the patch on your skin on top of some blood vessels

So I said, what about putting it over my heart?

Maybe you could inject it right into my heart directly.

That will be assisted dying and it’s not even legal yet so I will be committing murder.

I didn’t realise morphine was so dangerous. And it can make you feel depressed as well as killing you

Have you noticed now that nearly all the doctors are women and they work part-time and they tell you at 8:00 p.m. in A&E,

stop talking because I’ve got children working for me at home.

Is it my fault if they employ foreigners as  underage slaves?

Anyway I think I might be going deaf when I recover from all my ailments I  have to go to the doctor and say

I can’t hear you

And she will shout

What?

Modern slavery in Britain a serious things l

By the way there are people here we brought from Africa tempted by the offer of money and they are working as carers being paid the minimum wage and their own money to the company that brought them over claiming they needed it for their visas.

It’s a form of modern slavery in my opinion and it’s disgusting I have met some of them and they are lovely people some are qualified teachers and other professionals

The poverty in their home country is great and the life expectation is not very long but this is no reason to exploit them.

Waxy flowers in the snow

Waxy flowers poking through
Snow so white
Flowers so bright.
Made me think of you.

I see once more your just washed hair,
Soft as snow,
On pillow.
Now my bed is bleak and bare

,
Face alight,flower to sun,
I loved you.
Love so true.
Fear by love,overcome.

Cyclamen in the snow,
Pink and red,
Now frozen,dead.
Love was,oh,so long ago.

But never gone from in my mind.
Thoughts so deep,
Upwards seep.
Love was gentle,love was kind,

Always in my mind

Why walk on the water? Is there a choice?

Why did Jesus walk on the water?

He never learned to swim

Why did Jesus feed the 5,000?

That was the biggest number they could think of when writing the New Testament

Why did Jesus cross the road?

Because the other side was flatter.

Why do we learn arithmetic in school?

To escape from the quicksands

Why do we have to learn to read in school?

Because it would be boring in school with nothing to do

So you can go on the internet on your phone and get into trouble arguing on political forums.

Who could have been the first person who learned to read?

It must have been the first person who invented writing because until there was writing there couldn’t be any reading

Did Adam and Eve have a library?

Nobody could read what God had written.

Did Cain and Abel go to a comprehensive school?

Well it didn’t teach comprehensive morals did it?

What would God think of  VAT on private school fees?

Jesus didn’t need to go to school.

Why are rich people averse to paying more tax?

Because they don’t want to get through the eye of the needle.

If you are forced to give money to the poor it’s not an act of virtue.

Well it still helps the poor though.

The vital line-Picasso

The vital line was drawn with one brush stroke
The way the back leant curving into space
The dance and danger are thus well evoked

Like a play, a drama, fire and smoke
A dance performed so swiftly and with grace
The vital line was drawn with one brush stroke

The heavy bull is pounding,is provoked.
A threat, a man, intrudes into his space
The dance and danger both are still evoked

See, the matador throws out his cloak
A dash of black, and here we see his face
The vital line was drawn with one brush stroke

The mind needs just a hint to see the whole
We fill the present with our past distaste
The dance and danger, mirroring dark smoke

Acting both dramatic and displaced
The artist may still love what he forsakes
The vital line was drawn with one brush stroke
The dance and danger , life and death evoked

Trial and horror

In Finchley there was an old man

Who kept all his eggs in a pan

He said, don’t use a basket

The hens will not trust it

And then all will not go to a plan

Oh dear hen will you lay in a basket?

No sir I will lie in a casket.

Please do not die.

I shall tell you no lies.

You may go to hell, so don’t risk il

2

Children don’t know hens lay eggs

And sausages are made out of pigs.

If folk know too much

Sharp anxiety will clutch

Especially when served with ducks’ legs.

Drowning in the sea of words and lonely

Technically this may not be very good but it’s certainly me.

There’s an epidemic of loneliness in western society.

All of our messages emails WhatsApp messages etc etc all verbal all words but  in the end it’s the presence of others that we miss. Someone to be silent with?

When we are alone and lonely we feel that the presence of others will help sometimes however when not fit to be alone with ourselves we are not fit to be in the company of other people either.

This is a dreadful form of loneliness.

Ironically when we’re fit to be with others we are also happy to be alone

But the strange thing is if we talk to someone on the phone it doesn’t help totally because what is missing is the company the presence The silence from words but the presence to the whole person.

This is why I don’t believe that phone counseling will help you as much as being in the presence of the counsellor and the evenim if you don’t talk in your session you still experiencing the company of another person who might be more patient than your family and friends.

Too much talking too many words written or spoken all of these can be damaging.

I don’t agree with banning books but I can see the damage that some books and other forms of writing have done

My sister

My sister’s eyes were sea green and deep

Like pools in the Irish sea off the coast off Anglesey.

Moelfre where she swam ,despite the cold,

Like a small seal.Night times I told her stories,

She lay and dreamed them till schooltime

But we grew beyond my storytelling

When adolescence drew us apart.

Years later

As I sat with her child

At my knee,

Weaving stories for her

Around the Russian horse

From the antique shop in Aldeburgh,

I saw my sister leaning towards us,

Her green eyes full of long-lost yearning.

I realised she was still my loving little sister,

From long, so long ago, her green eyes,

In the deep caves of her inner sea ,filled with longing.

I felt she wanted to get back

Into the magic circle

Of the arms of the mother we

No longer had to hold us.

So, I took her inside my heart,

And hold her  there always

How I miss your eyes

Dearest sister how I miss your eyes

Grey green as the sea as up it rides

In the sadness of the water as it sighs

In the squelching of the sand beneath the tide

Sister dearest sister I’m alone

I miss your quiet voice I miss your face

I cannot reach you now by telephone

But loving memories are not erased

Last year you came to visit me at home

You  filled my fridge with food you were so kind

Now I feel the sadness in my bones

I only see you here within my mind.

The inner seas are wild they moan with grief

Time goes slow, we weep, we are bereaved