To be of will grim
Oh,hell, he will grin
Onward instant soldiers
He who would by talent see
To be a madman
Who is a pagan?
The Lord is deafened
The Lord’s own weapon
Guardian angels, did you see Newsnight?
Underneath your arches,I’ll scream till you see me
Blessed is the word in the clue.
Did you ever get to Devon?
Oh,well. Orwell?
Near lustful daughters he needs me
He imbibed my glass of spirits.
Wraith of our Fathers living will
Good will to all men kind.
God of our blathers
Oh,little wall of Bethlehem.
Jerusalem was built on a hill.They couldn’t afford to move the hill ,you see
[I made that up]
Writing by hand
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/08/laura-van-den-berg-by-heart/567964/
For me, that’s often easier in the morning. In an ideal scenario, I would work every morning up until lunchtime. I also have a full-time teaching job, so during the semesters that isn’t going to be possible every day of the week. But when I can, I try to get up fairly early, when the sun’s still rising, when email is quiet, and when much of the world is still asleep. You’re still a bit closer to the dream space of sleep, and the part of the mind that fiction comes from feels a little more accessible. All the weird jellyfish that floated closer to the surface of thought while I’ve been asleep are more available. When I invite them to show themselves, they do. And I think those jellyfish would be pushed down by the demands of the day if I waited until late afternoon or evening to try to write.”
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Happiness?
If anything happiness is a feeling of being essential”
―
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Pay attention
Pay attention to the feeling heart
Do not crush yourself before you start
What seems mad and stupid may be wise
A new world may live just beyond your eyes
Revealed by pen,constructed as is Art
Be uncertain like Rene Descartes
Live through moments unseen on the chart
Self deception can be caught, surprised
Pay attention
We learn to see what is ,despite the dark
Yet we need our friends when truth’s too stark
From hesitation ,truth at last arrives
Never total, never undisguised
A whale may seem at times a deadly shark
Pay attention
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Family with its own peculiarities and dramas.
One of the most profound and universal realizations of later childhood, a realization that probably is never totally integrated, is the discovery that one’s parents are not necessarily representative of the human species, that one has grown up in an idiosyncratically structured family with its own peculiarities and dramas.
- Stephen Mitchell
- Relational Concepts in Psychoanalysis (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1988), p. 275
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We want someone to talk to
On Quora someone’s asking for advice
Can they wear thigh high boots and few clothes
Their grammar is too insubordinate
As house flies on your cake make icing late
Are there rules for everything we do?
Can I wear tomatoes on my shoe?
Must I wear my dressing gown in bed?
Could I wear the eiderdown instead?
Then morals clutch and ethics give us strain
As we kiss our dearest husband ‘s counterpane
Should I apologise for drinking tea?
Is there still a dyke on Zuiderzee?
Why should we believe what we read there?
Or come to think, not there but anywhere?
We want some one to talk to, it is true
Why not tell a tiger in the Zoo?
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How to format your book for kindle
How to Format Your Book for Kindle Using Microsoft Word in 6 Easy Steps
I find it is not as hard as I thought but it uses up energy.Of course I should have read this article before I began.There are books that tell you more if you look on Amazon/Google or in your bookstore
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Thank goodness
Extract:
After the low start to the week, may this excellent interview with Brooklyn poet and translator Ian Dreiblatt at Brooklyn Poets cheer you up. Quick background: Recent translations include Gogol’s The Nose and Comradely Greetings, a book of prison correspondence between Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Slavoj Žižek. Last year he published two chapbooks: sonnets, from Metambesen, and barishonah, from DoubleCross Press. We’re so lucky to get to know a bit of this wonderful mind–read (and listen to) it all here.
Who were your poetry mentors and how did they influence you?
Oh wow, very hard to list everybody! I’ve learned so much from so many different people. But any list I made would include Robert Kelly, who turned me on to a huge number of the poets that have meant the most to me, and has for all the nearly twenty years I’ve known him been exorbitantly generous with response, encouragement and suggestions.
Ann Lauterbach was another early teacher whose responses to the work she let me share with her, even many years later, continue to bounce around productively in my head.
For a while when I was younger I lived in St. Petersburg, Russia, and had the incredible luck of knowing and working with Arkadii Dragomoshchenko. He was a mentor in a very literal way—he would sit down with translations I had made of his work, and go over them in great detail, explaining what, from his perspective, was working, and what wasn’t.
Peter Dimock is another friend and mentor, who’s lived in Brooklyn for most of the time I’ve known him, altho he just recently moved upstate. Peter’s a novelist, but in a mode of novel-writing that is very nearly poetry, and his thinking about the relationships between writing and editing, the literary and the social, language and power is incredibly nourishing.
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Menus for the solitary
If stuffed cabbage is too much
Have a sprout, from Brussels lurched
A joint of beef is excess now
Try a calf’s foot not a cow’s
Try a sausage stewed in milk
If it spills I shall not wilt
Roast potatoes make me sad
Grill tinned peaches, they’re not bad
Try a carrot for a lark
Eat it when your mood is dark
Make a salad, apple, nuts
Celery must face the cuts
Walnuts come in bags not shells
Just as oil comes out of wells
Why not ask a guest if blue?
I can’t eat enough for two!
tr
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Cry aloud 2
Frail and sad ,the man is changed
Not beginning in his course
He’s had the best and now the worst
He submits to death arranged
He protects his family
He’s paid his mortgage filled the Bank
As he ponders spirits sink
What of this must they each see?
He has got restricted hours
As doctors all must improvise
None can say what way is wise
The immune system, fearful, cowers
But now he’ll bear the setting sun.
In vocal skies, the eyes of owl
The breath of cats, the throats that growl
Michaelmas and deep autumn
The total darkness earths at last
Midwinter candles, the great feasts
Hannuka, Christmas,blessed yeast
We’ll rise again but not in haste.
Make the body’s rhythmic moods
One more way to hear the tunes
In deep winter’s gathered gloom
Cry, I love you ,cry aloud.
Let the tears of pity come
Gather them to water him
In this place his tree will grow
When with love his seeds we sow
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People and power
https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2017/04/your-favorite-poems-on-people-and-power/524874/
The Fall of Rome
(for Cyril Connolly)
The piers are pummelled by the waves; In a lonely field the rain Lashes an abandoned train; Outlaws fill the mountain caves. Fantastic grow the evening gowns; Agents of the Fisc pursue Absconding tax-defaulters through The sewers of provincial towns. Private rites of magic send The temple prostitutes to sleep; All the literati keep An imaginary friend. Cerebrotonic Cato may Extol the Ancient Disciplines, But the muscle-bound Marines Mutiny for food and pay. Caesar’s double-bed is warm As an unimportant clerk Writes I DO NOT LIKE MY WORK On a pink official form. Unendowed with wealth or pity, Little birds with scarlet legs, Sitting on their speckled eggs, Eye each flu-infected city. Altogether elsewhere, vast Herds of reindeer move across Miles and miles of golden moss, Silently and very fast.
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If we own the God of still small voice
Don’t you think the Christians have been rude
Stealing the Hebrew Bible from the Jews?
Should they sue for plagiarism and more
Changing name and selling in the Store?
Do you think that God has been purloined
The Old and New, the stories all combined?
If we own the God of still small voice
Should those folk who heard him have a choice?
When we stole the stuff from off the Jews
Did unconscious guilt make us confuse
The God who spoke to Prophets from a Fire
With Evil Ones who killed his people dear
Oh,Jesus was a Jew, what news ,what ire!
God mistook his lady in the Byre
?
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Is English being destroyed?
The cobweb by Raymond Carver
“A few minutes ago, I stepped onto the deck
of the house. From there I could see and hear the water,
and everything that’s happened to me all these years.
It was hot and still. The tide was out.
No birds sang. As I leaned against the railing
a cobweb touched my forehead.
It caught in my hair. No one can blame me that I turned
and went inside. There was no wind. The sea
was dead calm. I hung the cobweb from the lampshade.
Where I watch it shudder now and then when my breath
touches it. A fine thread. Intricate.
Before long, before anyone realizes,
I’ll be gone from here.”
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The threat of patriotism
“Harari also took a dim view of Brexit, which he described as “basically a distraction. I don’t think inherently it’s a bad idea … but the timing is terrible… If the EU breaks up into 28 different countries, it’s going to be much more difficult to negotiate climate agreements, to have a common front against the hi-tech giants. Every minute the UK and EU institutes are spending on Brexit is a minute they don’t spend on climate change. And they spend a lot of minutes on it.
“Also it’s all just a fantasy about being independent. But there are no longer any independent countries in the world. It doesn’t matter what’s written on some document.”
According to Harari, technological disruption – through the rise of artificial intelligence, biotechnology and surveillance programmes – is a threat to freedom, due to the use of personal data by corporations and governments.
“That’s a very big danger,” said Harari, who does not own a smartphone and was meeting press in London to promote his new book about the dangers of accelerating technological development, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. “If we reach a point when governments have the ability to press people’s emotional buttons in a very efficient way, then elections don’t mean anything anymore. And we are quite close to that point.””
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Stan and Satan on the coast road
After nearly being arrested for accidentally sending out messages with the mirror. Stan got back into the car and drove around King’s Lynn and up past Sandringham.
I’ve been there,said Satan eagerly
Don’t tell me, Stan begged.Let me keep a few illusions.Or delusions
Satan fell quiet as they stopped in Hunstanton to see the striped cliffs before tottering along the coast towards Sheringham.
I’d like to go to Brancaster Beach again,Stan thought, that really is a beach.In fact he and Mary had once been trapped by the tide.North Norfolk is a dangerous place even without Satan travelling through
Holkham Hall and beach were a beloved place.Maybe Satan would like to go in a boat on the lake and visit the shop where paintings are on sale
Wells next the Sea was the old man’s love.The narrow street where Mary bought a wicker bike basket.The bread shop and the butcher and the big green on the top with lovely houses round it in a square [ squaring the circle!]
Many happy memories and the rich smell of gorse in the hot sun
When I get home,I shall see if gorse will grow in Knittingham he told Emile.Maybe the soil is wrong though
He took out his Vodafone Smart 7 or 8 and rang an old friend in Sheringham
Is the cottage free,Fred, he asked?
Yeah, how many people?
Er, it’s just me and the cat . this time,Stan muttered idiotically.Well Satan was in the powder compact so he didn’t need a bed!
OK.I’ll leave the key at the chip shop then.See you soon.Stan.I’m just finishing my book on the Gnostic Imagination.I’ve learned a great deal but I’ll happy to finish it.Maybe we could meet for a drink one night
And do you know… they did!
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Satan has a cup of tea
Stan managed to drive from the Wash to Knittingham without accident.Satan was asleep in the bottom of the mirror only wakening when they stopped for a cup of tea in a Restaurant.
But how can Satan drink his tea?
Stan persuaded Satan that if he wore Stan’s hat and coat nobody would know he was not human.After all, many real humans don’t look human.So Satan went into the Little Chef for his first experience of human life.They all sat down and ordered tea and pancakes with jam and golden syrup.
Woww,said Satan.I might consider apologising to the Lord if I can eat this every day
Emile looked puzzled:
An apology is not genuine if it is done for gain, he mewed.
Gosh,where did you get such a clever cat, Satan asked Stan?
He just turned up looking wet and hungry a few years ago.Then I taught him at home how to speak properly and the basics of ethics but he seemed to know more than I could explain
Both the men stared at Emile as he lapped up the tea from a white china saucer.I wonder who he really is, they both murmured in a hushed tone.
I have taught him to swim in our bath and sometimes he comes for a ride in my bike basket.Once he fell out yet managed to lure a beautiful lady to bring him home as he is tired of my mistress Annie and fancied someone who didn’t wear crimson and magenta together nor such extraordinary makeup from Lemmings of Wigan and Warrington.
I’ve never heard of them said Satan wonderingly.I didn’t know women actually bought “makeup.”I thought when girls matured their faces went like that naturally/
That’s a bit stupid, said Stan bluntly.But never mind.Let’s carry on or Mary will worry
Satan decided he would sit with Emile and stay out of the mirror.He was beginning to look like a human being albeit a rather ugly one
And so say all of us
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“If a painting could talk”
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2004/sep/20/art.poetry
Beginning
” we brought most of our books but left all our paintings behind. These were distributed among my brother, sisters and friends for safe-keeping or as gifts. Years later I lamented this, sorely missing these images. One painting in particular haunted me. It had been given to us by a young Guyanese artist, Keith Khan. I remembered its mysterious serenity, its warm background colours, the figure rising like a sphinx from the blue ruins of a wall. Although on visits home I looked for it several times, it wasn’t until seven years ago that I finally found it, behind a bedstead in our old family home. I brought it back with me to England, where it attests to the power of art to haunt us, to stick in the memory and nourish the spirit.
The ability of the artist to transmute paints into forms, shapes and feelings has always been a source of wonder to me. Equally fascinating is the interplay between art-forms – the way poetry, sculpture, music and painting relate to each other. I feel the relationship between painting and poetry is a particularly close one. Both come out of a desire to make something new of the familiar, to capture an experience in a living, concentrated way. Both share a harmony, structure, colour and rhythm; in the compositional balance of a painting, one can almost speak of one colour “rhyming” with another.”
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The Wash
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Satan in the Wash
Satan had been, for an hour or two ,inside a solid gold powder compact which a delightful old lady called Dora had been given by her husband Alf.Alas when Dora saw Satan in her mirror she was not amused.Luckily for Satan the mirror broke and he was able to escape into the North Sea.
Since Stan and Emile were going home he decided to swim to the Wash and see if he could catch up with them.He is well up in geography unlike the author
Being in the sea was very different from being in the Fires of Hell.Both have their downsides.Still we all have to conpromise now and then.But why did God let Satan get out of the mirror?
Alf and Dora stuffed with hot tea and buttery muffins were paddling back to the car park in Cromer where their silver car was waiting
Why is there so much water on the road,Dora asked her amiable husband.
It’s not been raining, has it?
Well. I saw some canoes sailing down the promenade.What has happened?
Cromer is a very strange place at the extreme east end of the Norfolk coast.One moment you are facing North, the next East.This is where houses fall into the sea.Officially it is subsidence but the truth is, it’s the place where demons come onto the Earth and cause devastation with their fiery clothes and weapons.
And here they come, looking for Satan, their master whom God has taken away from his hot home with no running water.
As Dora got out of the car, she saw her shoes were full of water.Why even the car was flooded despite being in a high level car park
Don’t buy anything from a stranger on the beach again, she begged Alf.
We don’t know what we are unleashing.I wish we had gone on the cliffs to Weybourne rather than that old pier
Well,I had no idea such a delightful old man might be in league with the Devil.Though when we see what is happening in the world it seems evil is much more sophisticated than it was when Fire and Brimstone were the punishment for murdering your wife with wilful intent.Maybe Satan was not so evil, just too proud to apologise.
The Mayor of Cromer was on the pier looking at the cracks in the concrete,
Has a bomb gone off, she cried?
Well, not exactly…… there’s a funny story about that Satan has been calling on us and someone tried to drown him,
Who could drown Satan? He is not human.He has no lungs.
My goodness, how intelligent the people of Cromer seem to be.Maybe we should get them to run the whole country!
Stan and Emile were standing by the Ouse Crossing watching the swans and sea birds when suddenly Satan emerged from the swollen water
How did you get here,Stan enquired tactlessly? I thought we had seen the last of you.
Satan looked very upset.
Help me, let me get into the mirror.My servants are looking for me but I don’t want to go with them.I am fed up with Hell and sin and evil
Emile had a bright idea,
Look there are mirrors on the car.
Stan was not eager to let Satan hide there but the wicked creature leapt in and cried with relief after taking a nice white hanky out of his hat
I never thought Satan would weep,Stan murmured unkindly.
God has almost gone and the order of the Western world is collapsing.Everything is upside down.
Emile ran into the car and nuzzled against Stan’s old tweed jacket.
I’m frightened,dad, he muttered sheepishly.
So am I said Stan as he looked into the mirror before backing out and hitting an invisible stone wall which had not been there moments ago.
Now,Satan, step to one side or we will never get home to Knittingham if the mirror is not freed
Satan obeyed,He has fallen in love with Stan and Emile.He wants to live in this quiet city forever.But what will Mary say if Stan tells her Satan is on her dressing table in the mirror?
Will Stan be sent to see a psychiatrist? Will he be diagnosed with paranoid dementia and double pneumonia of the mind?
Or will he manage to get Mary to see things his way? Will she see Satan when Stan is out?
We will wait and see.
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Her silent face
Paler than a thousand lips disgraced
Whiter than a whiter shade of pale
I saw by my glass door her silent face.
I had too fiercely put her in her place
By my kitchen fire which glowed with taste
Like a headless nun once newly veiled
Yet heaven is not reached in any race
One knows there is no surer way to fail
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Not a whiter shade of pale
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Poetry and social justice
http://www.sojust.net/poetry.html
Color, Cast, Denomination
by Emily Dickinson
1864
Color — Caste — Denomination —
These — are Time’s Affair —
Death’s diviner Classifying
Does not know they are —
As in sleep — All Hue forgotten —
Tenets — put behind —
Death’s large — Democratic fingers
Rub away the Brand —
If Circassian — He is careless —
If He put away
Chrysalis of Blonde — or Umber —
Equal Butterfly —
They emerge from His Obscuring —
What Death — knows so well —
Our minuter intuitions —
Deem unplausible —
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Satan and Cromer Pier
Alfred and Dora Smith, who had just taken possession of a solid gold powder compact, bought from dear old Stan ,went down to Cromer so Dora could shop t in Boots, She wanted a new and more suitable shade of pressed powder to put into the compact.
Satan was getting cheesed off as Dora had the compact shut away in her handbag of purple and red leather with a yellow strap.Since she otherwise dressed entirely in black the vivid colours did not seem quite so dreadful.
You may disagree, but I believe a coloured leather handbag is a definite must for any woman nowadays.Where else can one hid one’s log tables,kindle reader,tampons, set squares,kleenex,rulers,pens,LSD.morphine and Chanel Nr 5?
Satan ,not being divine.did not know where Alf and Dora were off to but he was hoping that he might get a peep somewhere.Maybe in the ladies loo in some pub or other,hopefully one full of women of an intriguing type with French underwear worn as outerwear in the late style of Madonna.
Inside Boots,Dora found the Boots Number 7 beauty counter and selected some compressed powder in a color called vanilla rose beige.Since everything was 3 for 2 she bought some lavender mascara and some pink coral moisturised lipstick.After paying the bill,she and Alf ran outside..
My,it’s as hot as hell in there,Dora cried.Satan was pleased to hear that but he had no idea where they were but felt he was near home.
Alf suggested a walk down the pier to get some fresh air.
Facing directly North, Cromer pier is wide open to the pure winds from Siberia… but today a SW wind was blowing and despite a black cloud looming the day was bright and warm for winter in England
As the game, old but vital couple reached the end of the pier and turned to look at the North Norfolk coast line they regretted not wearing their Harris tweed coats.. a strange chill came over England that afternoon…. a hint of evil darkened the air with menace.David Cameron must have been up there in Burnham Market where the rich have holiday homes.
Shall we sit down for a minute, said Alf to his stunningly made up wife.
You sit down,I am going to look at the sea.Dora said sweetly
Dora stood at the edge of the pier looking,at the waves crashing below… and above too!She wondered how her new short hair style was standing up to the weather and on an impulse she opened her bag and took out the gold compact so she could use the mirror to check.
Holding it n her left hand she flicked it open expertly at an angle of precisely 60 degrees.
Who was more surprised…Satan,who rarely saw faithfully married,virtuous British women, or Dora who had never before seen a demons,let alone Satan,I leave to your imagination.
Dora gave a loud shriek and threw the compact overarm high above and over the metal railings.Being solid gold it sank gently to the sea bed amongst the pearls and coral and a few suicidal fishermen’s remains.
Alf,Alf,she called..raucuously
What is it, my pet?
There was some fiend in that mirror.What a sight! I am afraid I have accidentally bowled it overarm it into the sea.Like you showed me to when playing cricket
You stupid twit.I paid £500 for that.I broke the bank
Did you really?You are so sweet.I wonder if we should call 999? Dora called
I doubt if they could dive into the cold sea…for a powder compact.Alf replied
How about for the poor devil inside it? she continued.
Suddenly a heavy storm,one might say a hurricane blew up and the game couple were almost washed away by rain and giant waves which ran into the air on either side of the pier.Clinging to each other they stumbled towards the promenade some distance back.
Let’s go and have some tea and muffins,suggested Alf thoughtfully.
Suddenly the sea swept onto the promenade and for a moment it seemed as if the two old folk would be washed away but luckily they were both very obese and their weight anchored them to the ground.
Well,it’s not quite what we expected,but somehow I am relieved.Dora said
I was nervous about owning such a luxury item.I feel I am addicted to Max Factor Pancake makeup in plastic compacts she prattled merrily
Alf was dozing and in his mind he saw a host of pancakes with little faces each wearing full makeup
How can I eat these,he muttered.They seem like human beings… they look quite charming.His head fell back and he began to snore.
Dora was happy enough watching canoes go by carrying people along the promenade and into the old town.What a dear place Cromer is,she thought,as the lifeboat passed the cafe window full of terrified people..What a dear old place to live in.
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Cromer is not wicked enough
After Stan left the police behind, he drove Satan to Sheringham,There they rented a fisherman’s cottage and enjoyed walking to Weybourne along the cliffs where they saw some butterflies .Satan seemed surprised by the cheery residents.He usually dwelt in cities and dens of iniquity.
Stan’s pocket bulged with the golden powder compact standing up. soSatan could see out from its tiny mirror
He liked Sheringham but usually had Mary with him for company rather than Satan.
One afternoon on the beach a man of riper years stopped and spoke to him
I see you always carry face powder in a compact with you.Are you a transvestite by ny chance?
I am sorry to say,I am not.Is that bad news? Stan asked him
Well,not really.I never expected to meet one down here.But my wife has lost her powder compact and it’s hard to get gold ones now.I’ll give you at least £500 for that.It’s lovely.
Stan pondered.He had got fond of Satan but was unsure what to do with him next and he could not remain on holiday for ever as Emile his cat didn”t like it
He thought perhaps leaving Satan here in Sheringham might benefit humanity in the long run.
OK then.he cried and in a flash he had handed over the gold compact to the gentleman who seemed thrilled.He produced £500 pounds in notes and the deal was done.
Stan went back and informed Emile the holiday was over.We can go home now,Emile.I have got rid of Satan,at least for now.
Thank God,miaowed Emile.I miss Annie and her perfume..
That makes two of us,thought Stan as he drove towards King’s Lynn and the Ouse crossing…
But how will poor Satan feel? Will he be converted to life in a seaside home or will he soon be heading back to Knittingham?Time will tell. Sheringham may be too small for him and probably has very few dens of iniquity.And even Cromer is probably not wicked enough for this old devil….
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Stan meets Satan in the mirror
Stan was standing on the patio behind his bijou home when a sudden heavy downpour of water drenched him all over.
This is like a monsoon,he murmured to Emile who was also wet and drowned looking
A head and neck appeared over the dark wooden fence.
I’m awfully sorry,old boy.A pipe has burst in Annie’s loft.I tried to fix it myself.
I don’t believe it.You are Stan Brown.It must be 50 years since I saw you.
Stan was hiding his surprise at seeing Rudolf Hairnet,his former logic tutor at an ancient foundation, in the garden of Annie,Stan’s beloved colourful mistress.
Why not pop in Rudolf,he said.I’ll leave the door open and go upstairs to change my clothes.Be with you in a moment.
Stan went upstairs and removed his clothes.His body was now as thin as when he reached his full height of 6 ft 6 inches but alas it had less muscle and more fat. nowadays.He gazed into his wife’s full length mirror.
To his surprise, he saw Satan looking out.Although he knew this was possible for Catholics he had never met Satan before.Not that he was keen to,exciting as it might be.
How do you get behind the mirror,he asked Satan gently.
God only knows,said Satan morosely.
Why not ask him?
I’m too proud,the poor devil replied in a bleak voice.
Well,we all have our pride,Stan told him,though no doubt yours is the biggest in the universe.
Yes,indeed,Satan answered.It’s bigger than Everest
Are you here for any purpose,Stan enquired.
Yes,your home seems more intriguing than most and I like to watch you in bed with that flame haired woman… is she your paramour?
I see,said Stan,You are a voyeur par excellence
That’s one way of describing me,Satan said,No woman will come to bed with me so I am trapped here behind every mirror in the world.I can see it all but never take part.
You must be very lonely,said Stan
Yes,the dark spirit muttered painfully
Are there no she-devils about who might oblige you?Stan asked him thoughtfully.
I don’t seem to fancy them so much.They are all as bad a me,I want kindness and tenderness not just lust.After all,one might satisfy that with a vibrator… we have them in hell you know!We have many things but love and humility are not there.
Why,you are beginning to sound almost human,Stan told him.We want love too.If only you would apologise to God I am sure he would forgive you and let you come into the real world of others instead of being trapped in there
Stan heard a noise.He turned round displaying his bony frame and his drooping organs to Rudolf.
Are you ok? I was worried that the drenching had knocked you off balance.I have out your kettle on the fire to make you a hot drink and phoned 999 for aid.
But we don’t have a fire,Stan responded. loudly
Well,you do now said Rudolf ,so let’s enjoy the flames while we can.
To whom were you talking in there? he enquired grammatically.
I was on my mobile,said Stan defensively.
But where is it?You had nothing on ? On second thoughts,please don’t tell me .I’ve heard some strange stories but arsing about with a y phone is not one I wish to dwell on.
That’s logicians for you.No interest in the wilder shores of life.Stan told himself as he went downstairs and joined Rudolf for a good cup of tea.
And that is what I need to recover from writing down this very odd tale…
And so does Dave the poor innocent young paramedic from heaven who is just arriving as we leave these two dear old men sitting by the mysterious burning shrub….
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Mirrors
What I never thought I’d have
Revealed by wearing M.S tops
A cleavage
Now modest dressing is in vogue
I’ll fear no more exposure now
In dotage
I never try on clothes I buy
But usually I just get by
Unravaged
As I was thin as a birch tree
I never learned to watch my self
In mirrors
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The Fall
About the fall, I never knew the cost
Nor where the people went when they were lost
The group survived by building their own God
With his words, they worshipped as they left
He was given to serving them with texts
Written into rocks and sand they trod
About the Fall.
In early days God was a Father proud
Given to punishment,even death allowed
A goat was killed and they each saw the blood
Reminding them ,the mortal, how we’re pruned
Like bonsai trees, the size and shape are wound
God could do such things,it seems he did
It was in Fall
Supernatural, fierce and finely tuned
Yet the sins of human beings ever loomed
Until his own son hung from unblessed wood
The curse of Cain.Bathsheba understood
In her mind she saw how evil’s good
The devil riding bareback was her groom
Teaching her the spells of whip and womb
It was the Fall
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Cartesian theatre!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartesian_theater
The beginning:
“Cartesian theater” is a derisive term coined by philosopher and cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett to refer pointedly to a defining aspect of what he calls Cartesian materialism, which he considers to be the often unacknowledged remnants of Cartesian dualism in modern materialist theories of the mind.
Overview
Descartes originally claimed that consciousness requires an immaterial soul, which interacts with the body via the pineal gland of the brain. Dennett says that, when the dualism is removed, what remains of Descartes’ original model amounts to imagining a tiny theater in the brain where a homunculus (small person), now physical, performs the task of observing all the sensory data projected on a screen at a particular instant, making the decisions and sending out commands (cf. the homunculus argument).
The term “Cartesian theater” was brought up in the context of the multiple drafts model that Dennett posits in Consciousness Explained (1991):
Cartesian materialism is the view that there is a crucial finish line or boundary somewhere in the brain, marking a place where the order of arrival equals the order of “presentation” in experience because what happens there is what you are conscious of. … Many theorists would insist that they have explicitly rejected such an obviously bad idea. But … the persuasive imagery of the Cartesian Theater keeps coming back to haunt us—laypeople and scientists alike—even after its ghostly dualism has been denounced and exorcized.
— Daniel Dennett, Consciousness Explained [p.107, original emphasis.][1]
See also
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Umvelt?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umwelt
- umwelt (plural: umwelten; from the German Umwelt meaning “environment” or “surroundings”) is the “biological foundations that lie at the very epicenter of the study of both communication and signification in the human [and non-human] animal”.[1] The term is usually translated as “self-centered world”.[2] Uexküll theorised that organisms can have different umwelten, even though they share the same environment. The subject of umwelt and Uexküll’s work is described by Dorion Sagan in an introduction to a collection of translations.[3] The term umwelt, together with companion terms Umgebung(an Umwelt as seen by another observer) and Innenwelt (the mapping of the self to the world of objects)[4], have special relevance for cognitive philosophers, roboticists and cyberneticians, since they offer a solution to the conundrum of the infinite regress of the Cartesian Theater.
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Fire
The wordless feelings of the soul catch light
Like fire,like diamonds, like the dust of stars
With their fire they penetrate the night
To expression, they the mind incite
To where the words may open and be clear
The wordless feelings of the soul catch light
Expression by its method brings delight
We see the molten universe desire
With great fires , with wonder, what is wrought?
Like a flock of geese in happy flight
The heart of unknown worlds is not a liar
The sense and feeling souls will bring us light
Of the thunder and the lion we note
The natural world with its own might conspires
With its being it permeates the night
So our hearts and souls does love devour
Never cornered never shall it cower
The wordless feelings of the soul catch light
With such brilliance can we feel the night?
How my heart speaks 