Instead of going to Confession in future I am going to write my sins on a piece of paper,put in in a bottle addressed to God,and throw it into the sea from Southend Pier as that is very long.But will I get my penance in a bottle or take to the bottle

Instead of having Extreme Unction and then dying I plan to die first and then I won’t have to speak to the priest as he does his duty.

Instead of going to Mass I am going to worship a cat that lives by the river.After all,God made it.He made me too.This is not logic

If all the Vatican was sold, would God be happy?

You know,it’s not so much that God wants us to worship him, it’s more we want to do it,even need to worship something other than possessions and worldly things.Think about it.

When we had Benediction I dared to look up to see what Fr McGrath was holding up.
It was   called a Monstrance.Quite expensive unless it was just painted gold… who would know? I rather liked bowing  down to a sort  of golden wafer,if you see what I mean.Better than to a politician.What  God thought we  don’t know.Even if he has thoughts because language post dates God by a long way.

What  do Christians do when  God is dead?
Are there  rites to  decorate the end?
Or  should we worship  Hitles’s head instead?

Are there Rights to ease the foaming Flood
Shall a storm of mud on us descend?
What  do we do when our God is dead?

The axioms of our Reason   cruelly fled
Shall we tear our  hair, our numb  hearts rend
Worship   Mussolini …… but he’s dead

Who should  replicate the heart, the head?
Who can help us, who  will soon abscond?
What  do we do when the Lord is dead?

Does it matter what  crazed stuff we’ve read
How we waste our time,  our money lend
Shall  we worship   comeliness in bed?

Sometimes lines of latitude  will bend
Sometimes humans  coldly condescend
What  do we do when our God is dead?
Worship Fascist eloquence instead?

I’ve sorted out my cables and I classified my books
Cooking them in olive oil with garlicked lemn juice
I forgot to put my  best frock on and I got dirty looks

I got washed  with all my garments when I fell in yon’ brook
I met the Vicar down the road, we’d not been introduced
I’ve aborted all my   cables and I  burned the  holy books

I went  to see the  doctor but he says I am a crook
I looked at Euclidś geometry , cor, it has been traduced
I forgot to put my  head on, so I  can´t see how you look

I went to church on Saturday,I missed Mass by a fluke
I met a very perfumed man and now  he empties my refuse
I aborted  my   neuroses and I  burned my bleeding  books

I wakened up tomorrow and we’d all been damned and nuked
So all the works of Euclid will never be  re-used
I forgot to put my brassiere on ,crumbs , how bizarre I looked

I saw a worm  crossing the road for it had been abused~
God made  them  all hermaphrodites oh, what a  cunning ruse
I’ve sorted out  the log tables, ‘ declassified my books
I forgot to clean  my   eyeglasses ,  forgive my dirty looks

http://braungardt.trialectics.com/literature/english/auden-september-1/

W H Auden

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.

Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.

Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.

Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism’s face
And the international wrong.

Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.

The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.

From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
“I will be true to the wife,
I’ll concentrate more on my work,”
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the deaf,
Who can speak for the dumb?

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

From the Guardian today

Boris Johnson and Turkey: what he said

“I am very pro-Turkish, but what I certainly can’t imagine is a situation in which 77 million [his estimate] of my fellow Turks and those of Turkish origin can come here without any checks at all. That is really mad” – Daily Express, 18 April 2016

“Frankly, I don’t mind whether Turkey joins the EU, provided the UK leaves the EU” – BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, 5 June 2016

“The public will draw the reasonable conclusion that the only way to avoid having common borders with Turkey is to vote leave and take back control on 23 June” – letter with Michael Gove to David Cameron, 16 June 2016

“It’s government policy to accelerate Turkish accession” – BBC EU referendum debate, 21 June 2016

What Dominic Cummings, Vote Leave’s campaign director, said on 9 January 2017: “If Boris, Gove and Gisela [Stuart, Vote Leave’s chair] had not supported us and picked up the baseball bat marked ‘Turkey/NHS/£350m’ with five weeks to go, then 650,000 votes might have been lost.”

Bless  the continuous stutter
Of the Word being made into flesh

Leonard Cohen from  The Window

Low sun  shines
Glistening  holly leaves,ah
A wood pigeon passes

All the trees shiver
And the ends of shrubs waving
Makes me think,goodbye

Leaves like littls stars
Bare wood like burnt sienna
With its glowing orange tinge

Why are shadows long?
The sun blinds me in winter
Then it creates a  moving image

Indifferent sun
Knows not of Syrian hell
But God remembers, suffers

Criminal Jesu
God descended to this world
He dies with victims

Why the torture
Fighting inevitable~But why such sadism/

Weep as the trees  lean
Sparrows  nests shudder, remain
Life is here again

ach

The doctor was in error
Deep down the crab  was  growing
The hogweed  fertile

Yes, he was forty
Is that old  or young these days?
Yes, he has gone now

His boy is  at school
He screamed for  forty minutes
After,”Dad is dead”

Total loss, a pool
Grows larger with each tear
Stars and rainbow meet

Try to catch a tear
They are not like mercury
They can disappear.

All the tears to shed
Like an old coat we grow out of
Who will they become?

Oh,God, the birthing
A fatherless child  is near
Thanks to the deep freeze

No Sylvia Plath writes.
The spaces will not lean on
Their  new solitude.

See night descending
Tear sacs burst while new stars sing:
And all shall be well

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fragmentation_of_memory

Fragmentation of memory is a memory disorder in when an individual is unable to associate the context of the memories to their autobiographical (episodic) memory. The explicit facts and details of the events may be known to the person (semantic memory). However, the facts of the events retrieve none of the effective and somatic elements of the experience. Therefore, the emotional and personal content of the memories can’t be associated with the rest of the memory.^[1] Fragmentation of memory can occur for relatively recent events as well.

The impaired person usually suffers from physical damage to or underdevelopment of the hippocampus. This may be due to a genetic disorder or be the result of trauma, such as post-traumatic stress disorder.^[2] Brain dysfunction often has other related consequences, such as oversensitivity to some stimuli, impulsiveness, lack of direction in life, occasional aggressiveness, a distorted perception of oneself, and impaired ability to empathize with others, which is usually masked.

I saw  the sun rise over the North Sea
Accentuating coloured fishing boats.
The beauty of the dawn gave hope to me
A restful pleasure made my soft eyes dote.
The peace of this small town has caught my heart.
Scenes from ancient times  come close again
The gulls swoop down and  sketch their flying charts
Remote as ever from the realm of man.
The shingle beach, the  Church  where Britten lies
The in and out of tides  of salty sea;
An exact match of houses, hill and skies;
The amber shop, the chip shop, the oak tree.
In my mind I walk in love again;
Though of the two, a single one remains

Black against light sky
Bright flowers blown ; bare branches now
Reach  beseechingly.

Reluctant sun hangs
Sending thin light  and pinkness
To clouds sleek as  cats

Now paling, blue grey,
I see mauve dying into dark
Night sky edges in

The  blackness awaits;
Dreams dangle  like stringed balloons
A new born gurgles

How full the holly!
Forsythia large and darker,
Birds shelter  wisely

Neither hot nor cold the day came by
I admired  bright  jasmine at its  peak
Grey  the air  and darker still the sky

As warm as spring but not the time to lie
Brexit hangs above , yet who can speak?
Neither hot nor cold the day passed by

Polititicians, paranoid  or fey,
Noone trusts them , will we even look?
Grey  the air  and darker still the sky

No great man  or woman waits nearby
If Hitler came again, we´d sell his book
Neither hot nor cold,  a life passed by

At this moment there  may be tense spies
Hoping to write Putin´s alibi
Grey  the air  and darker still the sky

Is there any sense in babies’cries?
We must believe or all infants will die
Neither hot nor cold the day went by
Grey  the air  and darker  the  night sky

I am a kettle made of stainless steel
I am a saint,  for tea  is brewed to heal
And , unlike kettles on an old  coal fire,
I am not dirty nor do I perspire.

My mirrored sides reflect you as you cook.
Look at me and read me like a book
I’m  full of love and hotter than a man
Oh, dear lady, love me while you can. 

 Superior mother,  yet inhuman  I;
Even electric kettles sometimes lie.
I shall never punish you, my dear
For perfect love like mine shall wield no fear.

All I ask is that you polish me.
For  in between your handsI  yearn to be.

It is too often forgotten that the gift of speech, so centrally employed, has been elaborated as much for the purpose of concealing thought by dissimulation and lying as for the purpose of elucidating and communicating thought.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/waystationinthewilderness/2019/01/904/#comment-4284483348

Mary went upstairs to the bathroom to wash her dirty hands after she had been repotting two spider plants. When she looked  at the pale blue sink, she could see a bar of soap but she could not see the nail brush.
Mary felt   cross because Stan did not like nail brushes and he would hide the nail brush in different places so that Mary could not find it
In fact they now had 13 nail  brushes but despite that, Stan had  managed to hide all of them.. Stan himself did not care if his nails were clean or dirty, although Mary  cared a great deal .He could not seem to understand the connection between using a brush and having clean nails
Of course there are other ways of getting clean nails; for example handwashing your underwear in detergent or shampoo would also get the  nails clean at the same time. however Stan did not wash clothes by hand very frequently. In fact the whole subject of washing and cleaning seems alien to his mind
He said to Mary one day, “my jumpers smell funny”
That is why we have a washing machine, she told him kindly
All clothes get dirty either from sweat and bodily fluids or from dropping tomato sauce onto one’s lap while dining.
She could have said “if your jumpers smell funny, why don’t you laugh ?”  but she was no longer a school girl unfortunately.
We may not like being school girls,  but when we look back we realise that playing with balls and mercury in the physics lab was  better than cleaning the kitchen floor or even one’s nails. If you are a school girl you’ll probably have someone at home who will make your dinner for you and maybe wash your blouse  while you concentrate on writing an essay on the uses of the past irrational tense in Hamlet ,that great play by William Shakespeare.
Mary looked round the bathroom, where is the nail brush she cried to Emile her cat
Why, Mother, it’s on the window sill next to your deodorant
My deodorant ; how do you know that’s what it is, can you read?
Not yet   purred Emile  but I saw you putting it underneath your arms I mean in your armpit mother
I don’t think that you should come into the bathroom when I am getting  washed, Mary told Emile in a kindly tone of voice. Why I never even knew you would have heard of deodorant
Actually I have also heard of antiperspirants, Emile  told heer graciously but I would not like to use an antiperspirant because the sweat or the odour from our bodies is what attracts other cats to us for mating ;well actually, it’s using a female smells lovely and then the male cat is attracted by this beautiful scent and with a bit of luck they might mate and a produce a family of kittens
So see what you are missing ,mother
I don’t want to smell beautiful and then have 6  kittens to look after.
No you would have human babies to look after
But would I have to have 6  said Mary I don’t think my body is big enough to carry 6 innocent  babies.
Well you seem we cats are superior because we can have 6 or even 8 kittens  at once and we can soon build up a large colony of cats in any neighbourhood and it’s all down to  sweat, really
That is fascinating  muttered Mary as she took the nail brush and put it under the hot tap before getting the soap and applying it to her fingernails
Do cats have nail brushes? the cat asked her
What, you don’t have nails!
Could we have claw brushes?
I suggest that when Stan comes home you ask him to give you a bath and put some fairy snow into the bath and then your talons or claws will be cleaned as you soak without you exerting any effort
I want to make an effort,  cried the cat ,I want to look very good tonight
Why asked Mary ,it will be dark when you go out so the female cats will not be able to see your claws
I’s a bit like you cleaning your teeth before you go out in the evening I know it’s not just for hygiene it’s in case you want to kiss somebody and you don’t want them to taste your Weetabix from your teeth
Good heavens, are you into French kissing, Emile?
I’ve never heard of it ,he said. I didn’t know there more than one way of  kissing. You see cats don’t kiss very much so we don’t know a lot about it
You should consider yourself lucky said Mary as there are very unpleasant men who will offer me a lift home in their car after a meeting and then before I can get out they plump their large and ugly lips on my lips   and seem to think I will enjoy it
Yes it must be very difficult so then especially as you can’t scratch them because they will probably call the police
I doubt it now ,muttered Mary they will be afraid of being accused of sexual harassment
My goodness that’s another thing that cats don’t have, we don’t have much choice really  our Feelings come over us and if there’s a willing lady cat nearby then we will enjoy ourselves no wonder there are so many cats in Knittingham  how many of them are you the father of?
I have no idea
Just think that if I walk down the street and see 6 cats they could all be your children Mary told him
And on the other hand, they could be the children of any  tom cat within 5 miles
Yes you are right said Mary it’s a pity that you can’t write and keep a diary so that you would know roughly how many female cats you may have impregnated in the last 6 months
Why, is that what you put in your diary, the cat asked her with a naughty expression in his eyes
You know perfectly well what I put in my diary

went to the dentist with a broken tooth

went to the chemist to buy a nail brush

Went in  coffee shop and had a cup of tea

struggle to the bus stop and onto the bus

crossed on the zebra crossing

came home and  burst into tears

Yes I do understand this,mewed Emile,lt is very difficult for you now with all the pain you suffer but you are very brave and you don’t complain a lot but when Stan comes home I shall tell him and ask him to buy you a beautiful silk scarf and a necklace from the Royal Academy gift shop like he used to do in Times Gone By.He must have forgotten lately

So he must , murmured Mary

What a very  lovely man Stanley is.

Yes but we haven’t seen him for a while ;has he gone on holiday?

Well that’s one way of describing at st. Mary . We never know whether he might be on his way home or  if there’s someone else  who has a prior claim on him

It puzzles all of us!

Soon the bulbs will burst out into flower
Whether I am living  or am dead
The sun will shine before and after showers

Life may be a minute or an hour
Remember what the  prophets ancient said
Still  the bulbs will burst out into flower

The cruel Assad in Syria has his power
No doubt he delights himself in bed
The sun will shine and then will come the showers

Donald Trump’s  bright face does not allure
Destroying truth so even Satan’s mad
Regardless bulbs will burst out into flower

Bibi builds his walls, says that’s the cure
Yet hang gliders from hills  might  hit his shed
The sun can shine   precisely as rain pours

Walls and wars with guns and gas ahead
Bombs will  break the boredom of the dead
Soon the bulbs will burst out into flower
The sun will shine  regardlesss , it’s not ours.

He lived to see his little boy start school
Even to beget another child
But child unborn, he’s snatched by  relapse cruel

The  lows and highs , the  treatment by new tools
Drive even saints  to  desperate states of mind
Yet he lived to see his little boy start school

Do we think our losses make us fools?
That we should keep ourselves in temper mild
When child unborn, he’s snatched by  relapse cruel?

In our minds emotions can fight duels
Till we ‘re caught between  our love and bile
How did his little boy  get on at school?

Give his widow  strength to   bear their child~
Her life is  hard   and her complexion pale
Her child unborn, her man lost,  panic rules.

We women cover up with long dark veils
To hide the hardships of our life’s travails
Toby’s   little boy has  started school
Another child is coming ,  love is cruel

From Counterpunch:

Hannah Arendt, an émigré from Nazi Germany.
“The result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth,” Arendt wrote in her classic volume The Origins of Totalitarianism, “is not that the lie will now be accepted as truth and truth be defamed as a lie, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world—and the category of truth versus falsehood is among the mental means to this end—is being destroyed.”

Once she was alive and seemed quite real
She  lived on earth as we do every day
But accidental death came from the spinning wheels

The secrets of that marriage long revealed
Men  write stories when they ought to pray
Once she was alive and seemed quite real

Vital virgin, starving,on the heel
She bore children, smiling as they played
But savage death came from too rapid wheels

Nibbling only  at her Royal meals
We  began to feel a grey dismay
Once she was alive and seemed quite real

As the layers of  her story peel
We only hope that someone, somewhere prayed
When  chased  and smashed up , death was  but a deal

Lord save teenage girls from  market place
Where they are captured  without love  or grace
Once she was alive and she was real
Till silent death came from the  spinning wheel