A lively group, then wildness slipping in
The ancient gods have come to life again
Waving phones  make video calls and sin

What is Xmas but eternal din?
Women making cakes and tickling men
A lively group with wildness slipping in

Where we cross the line and tumble in
Here we are in Bedlam  yet again
Waving phones  make video calls and sin

Here are people  who so love their kin
They make music with their sharpened pens
A lively group with wildness slipping in

Where did  this strange pattern  start, begin
Was it God who ground Spinoza’s lens?
Take the phones, the video calls, the sin

Civilising discourse  haunts again
How long  to reinvent  the fountain pen?
A lively group, the wild gods slipping in
Waving  hammers, call us, tempt to sin

I asked my husband to come home for Xmas but he says it’s a  lot warmer where he is now.So shall I buy some more fan heaters or just burn the house down and join him?

For yet another year, Gaza’s Christian minority celebrates Christmas under siege, unable to join family in West Bank.

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/remember-christ-palestinian-refugee-181224101728798.html

Extract:

In the Latin American context, in particular, and through the emancipatory work of liberation theologians, the figure of Christ emerges as the revolutionary leader of the wretched of the earth.

The Peruvian philosopher, theologian and Dominican priest Gustavo Gutierrez has revolutionised our contemporary understanding of Christ. In my own work on Islamic liberation theology, I have been deeply influenced by the work of Father Gutierrez, who next to the eminent Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas have brought the prophetic voices of Biblical exegesis to bear on our contemporary lives.

For years at Columbia, I have been teaching a book called Don’t Be Afraid, Gringo: A Honduran Woman Speaks from The Heart: The Story of Elvia Alvarado (1989) in which there is a splendid a chapter called: Jesus was an Organizer.

The Nazareth-born Palestinian filmmaker Elia Suleiman has a short film called, Cyber Palestine (1999), in which he presents the story of a modern-day Mary and Joseph as they attempt to cross from Gaza into Bethlehem. As a parable of the Palestinian predicament in their own homeland, “Cyber Palestine” captures the quintessence of the story of the birth of Christ under military occupation of the Romans then and the Zionists now.

These two boys were killed by a  banned driver who  had taken drugs.Their father committed suicide later  and the killer killed himself on Xmas Day

?

What about the mother?

Oh, mother, father take me back
I’ve lived the pain, I ‘ve felt the rack
I wanna see Jesus.
Take me to that  wall they  built
Let me see where blood’s been spilt
I wanna see Jesus.
Oh, take me back to where I was
The enemy may well be us,
Not Jesus.
What did all those sermons do?
Did they say he was a Jew?
Oh, Jesus.
Did he want the First Crusade
It is his blood  the priest creates
Lord Jesus.
I don’t like the way things are
I am getting tired of war
Kill Jesus.
What has human wisdom done
From Wittgenstein to Abraham?
Cripes, Jesus!
Does research improve our lives
As for grants, the scholars strive?
Ask Jesus.
We may have  chemotherapy
Radiation, history.
Where’s Jesus?
You’d think that after all the years
We’d have used  up all our tears
Sweet Jesus.
Love your neighbour as yourself
Give 1% of all your wealth
Aye, Jesus.
Do what’s better, not what’s worse
I see another fragrant hearse.
It’s Jesus.
See the plastic Crucifix
See  him  dying with dry lips
Bend your knees, confess your sins
Otherwise,  the Devil wins
Not Jesus.
We destroy the good we hate
Envy writhes and with pride mates.
The progeny will wreck the earth
Eden’s burning as drones pass.
No, Jesus.No Jesus.
Know Jesus.

Cain and Abel fight still for first place
One to slaughter whom he might embrace
Oh,foolish God that ranks our offerings
Thus to the  human world you murder  bring

Brothers are more deadly than  a foe
Hatred builds inside , we let  flow
Oh God so like  the snake in Eden’s flowers
Tempting humans by the highest powers

Little acts may  cause an avalanche
A woman’s eye may ignite a romance
Her beauty cause destruction to whole States
Oh Helen fair were you  inviolate?

Humans kill and others weep in woe
Thus on our  nuclear path we ,stupid, go

What we can’t say in words ,when we turn mute
The feelings blocked  may injure our own selves
When we cannot change the hateful truth

That Xmas dinner ignites  old disputes
Rage in our own breast may grow and swell
We can’t  express in  peace ,so we turn mute

The stronger brethren dominate and loot
While on the tower there rings the ancient bell
We see but cannot change that hateful truth

If  trauma were a plant we could uproot
To grow  red cyclamen and  leave this hell
Ah,stopped from speech , we turn  dead,  pale and mute

The long procession of the souls and ghouls
Wanders round the tower of lost Babel
We see but cannot change, who do we fool?

The  mind in pain will never be quite still
Breathing out the fear can make us well
What we can’t say in words ,when we turn mute
The artist’s brush may  best convey the truth

The path rises like an escalator on the Northern Line
Too steep especially for going down
Suppose my head was heavy and I leaned forward?
Better to die here in West Bay struggling up the cliff
With the gulls whirling and the waves dashing
And  the broad immensity of  this blue sky
He had a talent for mud and cliffs
Of coming down mountains at the wrong spot
So we had to jump down an eight foot wall
Not to mention paths that led through farmyards
Where vicious geese were waiting
It was cold then but we lay on our backs on the grass over the cliff
Freedom,space, immensity of vision
We slept with coats over the blankets and realised why the windows were small.
When we came back we could hardly bear the newspapers
But we got used to it
Sin seens normal if everyone does it.
That’s why Jesus came and went.
He was abnormal, not one for  the everyday
But he seens to be everywhere like the mist on a summer’s day
I like fog and we could lose ourselves in Jesus anywhere at all
Especially in a sea mist, silent and alone
The path is narrow and high
Like a needle laid  against the earth
With that eye

https://www.momentmag.com/book-review-the-hebrew-bible-a-translation-with-commentary-3-vols-by-robert-alter/

https://www.theguardian.com/books/audio/2013/feb/25/poetry-imtiaz-dharker-bishop-macneice-kolatkar-podcast

Cats delight me,hiding in my bed
Running down the stairs, with backturned head
Jumping up to catch a  butterfly
Tickling me as on my couch I lie.

In my dream I saw them, fifty five
One was in the bath ,I nearly cried
Everywhere I went cats followed me
Pied Piper  of the felines I shall be

Remember Blythburgh church floodlit and  fine
The owners of the cottage drew few lines.
They had seven cats, all  Siamese
How could  even God  compete with these?

The Church, a small Cathedral of the Marsh
Kept cats in their own place which I thought harsh
For cannot cats  join in  to sing the hymns
Christmas Carols even Requiems,?

The cats were leaping on me  in my dream
Wanting  a large ball  and lots of cream
Full of life and humour  they live well
Scratching my new sofa, ringing bells

If I dream of happy cats I  wake
The sky is blue and I make no mistakes

https://about-poetry.livejournal.com/146136.html

Extract=—-

• • “Mismatched motifs. The form clashes with the topic, the rhythm jangles against the theme, the metaphors are wildly inappropriate, etc.

• • Misused techniques. Poorly chosen allusions, mixed metaphors, overused similes, awkward alliteration — these are examples of valid techniques gone wrong.

• • Cliched imagery. Avoid it like the plague! Off with its head!

• ZOMG-EMO-DRAMA!!! Bad poetry exaggerates, whines, mopes, capers, and generally makes an embarrassing spectacle of itself. Good poetry delivers emotion softly, like snowfall — or slyly, like a stiletto. If you can see it coming, it’s probably not done right.

The more  the patient claimed he was quite sane
The  more they tied him up in lock and chain
But when he said he  was quite mad again
They sent him home with licence to remain

The more the English  rage ,then  Brexit wins
For  it was made to lead us all to sin
No more to be  as tolerant as kin
Stay at home  or you’ll be in the bin

Britain  has now altered past belief
Whatever Brexit does,  we’re past relief
Hatred,racism ,   poverty and grief
Who  supports be the victims of the Beast?

Satan dances lightly on hot coals
Since he’s mindful, he attains his goals

What does a father do
when his children are orphans and he
is still alive? What will a father do
when his children have died and he becomes
a bereaved father for all eternity?

Yehuda Amichai

I made the bed and he lied in it

We must  learn to be alone together

He said I was too good in bed

After sleeping with one man   five thousand times you are a good woman but if you sleep with five thousand men once  they say you must be a tart.The main thing is to avoid five thousand abortions

We are afraid of both loneliness and  intimacy.

Smartphones are mobile but mobile phones are not always smart

The lamp’s round base  gives comfort to my soul
I see the potter and her  potter’s wheel
Bowls and jugs emerge as new born wholes
Made from earth and clay like human beings

I meditated on the centre of my watch
I watched the ummoved centre as time passed
Then the door into my dreams unlatched
By my other self I was then clasped

I spent three years in mending this great lamp
When others told me, why not  throw it out?
This base and shade by my tears  often damped
Are   needed to  eliminate  my doubts

Do  what your heart tells you  and refine
These feelings  in the mirrors of your mind

https://godblog.org/simone-weil-and-affliction/

EXTRACT

The great mystery of life is not suffering but affliction.”—Simone Weil

Simone Weil (1909-1943), born Jewish, stood on the edge of converting to Christianity for most of her adult life.  Perhaps she was baptized, perhaps not, the evidence is unclear.  She is best known as a Christian mystic, though that ignores her very down to earth work, such as her involvement in the trade union movement, and with the international volunteers in Spain.  Weil starved herself to death in sympathy with the occupied French.  If you think that makes sense, you may stand closer to Weil than you think, closer than you should.

If biography were philosophy, we could dismiss Weil as emotionally disturbed.  Disturbed or not, she wrote brilliant essays on a variety of topics.  As she grew older, most were about God.  It is her essay on “The Love of God and Affliction” that I am concerned with.  It’s a brilliant essay, and it’s quite wrong.

Outside the door I fear a great abyss
Or an empty landscape like the Moon
The world seems mad and  men are enemies

No more  do I desire a lover’s kiss
For he I love cannot undo his doom
Outside the door I sense a great abyss

If only life were what we wish
With love and peace in every living room
The world seems mad and  men are enemies

We hollow  folk desire less emptiness
Yet if  it’s filled  with song who knows the tune?
Outside the door I  panic , O abyss.

No public world, no God  encompasses
The leader mimics serpent  and baboon
The world seems mad and  men are enemies

With the rhymes and beat we calm and sooth
We seek to comfort and to you amuse
Outside the door I  sense  God’s great abyss
Whoever dreamed the world was made like this?

Pray,Father give me your blessing.It is a month since my last Confusion
Are you in the right place? We deal with sin not madness
Well, you certainly have plenty  of sin to deal with now the secrets are spilled
Don’t come here to tell me of Wickedness
Just about my petty sins?
That’s right.
Well,I envy my wife.She is more intelligent than me
Surely marriage is not a competition!
Well, it’s either lover or power and power seems to be our mode
Can’t you   move into another one
Well, power,love,indifference…
Can’t you have a mixture?
Indifference ain’t much use except towards  those who goad us into spending money
One day you could have power and the next your wife.
It sounds like a Play.
Well, all the world’s a stage….
Did you make that up
Of course I did,Do you think I plagiarise?
I don’t even know what it means.Is it sexual?Some new way to bliss
I doubt it  although copying is the main way we learn
Like that book, the Imitation of Christ
What a silly name.As if we could imitate God!
So we imitate the Evil One
Sometimes I feel he is imitating us.
You must hear strange things,Father
I wonder if they are hallucinations or real people
Oh,dear.Maybe you  think too much
How do we stop?
That’s what we all wonder!

And so do all of us

I built a wall to save me from my foes
Now I am imprisoned in my home
Ten locks keep closed the many inner doors
And my anxious spirit   cannot roam

If I fall, nobody can get in
If I die, unburied I will lie
I am kept from  fruitless origin
Behind the mask of boldness I am shy

I may have talent  useful to this  land
I may be loved by  good and merry man~
My life flows down like bitter,bitter sand
Soon my opportunities are gone

Too many doors and walls  make us afraid
Too few may leave us in  sorry state