http://www.americanlifeinpoetry.org/?utm_source=American+Life+in+Poetry&utm_campaign=d6f4095c69-ALP_671&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_48be47dc96-d6f4095c69-187922245

The sap is rising in the trees nearby
Till the blossom bursts like mother’s milk
When the baby gives her carnal cry
Wishing for the breast, the feel of silk

Soon the great magnolia will please
And the Tudor walls will warm and dry
In the soil, the worms find wriggled ease
The centipedes and beetles heed blue skies

Fruit trees pruned into archaic forms
Line the pavements bulging with their roots
Old men murmur, feeling struck, forlorn,
With no wife to gentle their pursuits

Nature pregnant,uncontained and wild
Obeys no man’s instruction to be mild

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greek_personal_names#Single_names_and_names_within_families

Extract
Compound names
Demosthenes is compounded from two ordinary Greek roots (a structure at least as old as proto-Indo-European):[8] demos “people” and sthenos “strength”. A vast number of Greek names have this form, being compounded from two clearly recognizable (though sometimes shortened) elements: Nikomachos from nike “victory” and mache “battle”, Sophokles from sophos “wise, skilled” and kleos “glory”, Polykrates from poly “much” and kratos “power”. The elements used in these compounds are typically positive and of good omen, stressing such ideas as beauty, strength, bravery, victory, glory, and horsemanship. The order of the elements was often reversible: aristos and kleos give both Aristokles and Klearistos. Such compounds have a more or less clear meaning. But as was already noted by Aristotle,[9] two elements could be brought together in illogical ways. Thus the immensely productive hippos “horse” yielded, among hundreds of compounds, not only meaningful ones such as Philippos “lover of horses” and Hippodamas “horse-tamer”, but also Xenippos “stranger horse” and Andrippos “man horse”.

Ironing

by Vicki Feaver
I used to iron everything:
My iron flying over sheets and towels
like a sledge chased by wolves over snow;

the flex twisting and crinking
until the sheath frayed, exposing
wires like nerves. I stood like a horse

with a smoking hoof,
inviting anyone who dared
to lie on my silver padded board,

to be pressed to the thinness
of dolls cut from paper.
I’d have commandeered a crane

if I could, got the welders at Jarrow
to heat me an iron the size of a tug
to flatten the house.

Then for years I ironed nothing.
I put the iron in a high cupboard.
I converted to crumpledness.

And now I iron again: shaking
dark spots of water onto wrinkled
silk, nosing into sleeves, round

buttons, breathing the sweet heated smell
hot metal draws from newly-washed
cloth, until my blouse dries

to a shining, creaseless blue,
an airy shape with room to push
my arms, breasts, lungs, heart into.

From The Poetry Pharmacy by William Sieghart (Particular, £12.99). Poem courtesy of Vicki Feaver and Jonathan Cape

When we wonder whether life is good
Disaster, death, misfortune gather near
As if to come inside us if they could

The poisoned thoughts infiltrate our own blood
Makes it difficult for us to steer
When we wonder whether life is good

Who decided most  news must be gloom?
And we’d even pay to have a leer
As if to take it in us if we  could

Tell us  of   more murders and monsoons,
Literacy’s fruit is haunted fear
So we wonder whether life is good

Yet some learn to  hear more joyful tunes
Allow the glad to enter inner ears
So take it in us as we rightly should

Too many thoughts may make gloom  persevere
Empty heads are joyous and sincere
When we wonder whether life is good
Rumination  tortures with its ” should”

In winter we  are angry with less  light
We feel our troubles more when in the dark
The sun will rise  yet too soon sinks in spite

We envy God who does what deeds he likes
He leaves us kin to Job with vision stark
In winter we’d appreciate more light

Angry, claiming we have done what’s right
We   think that God has now become a shark
The sun will rise  yet too soon sinks in spite

Bow to Nature’s  overwhelming might
Be grateful for the fire lit by one spark
In winter we appreciate the light

Oh,send us humour for the human plight
We are never sated by one lark
The sun looms in the sky  like a red heart

As the cats miaow and dogs all bark
At least we are not trapped in Noah’s Ark
In dark winter  bored with the long nights
The sun will rise  again  golden and bright

Oh, cradle my soul in your light
As I am in darkness tonight.
Fill me with your love
On earth,not above.
Your touch is both gentle and bright.

Seeing and feeling are one.
As senses conjoin yet are none.
I know it is so
The darkness shall glow
You are both god and person.

It seems like the heavens are weeping
Rain and snow fall while we’re sleeping
The clouds are grey black
As Northward they trek.
As for records, are they all we are keeping?

We dwell in a body of flesh
With others we love to enmesh.
Let’s get up and dance now
Love shows us how…
We dance to the tunes that refresh

We humans need meaning to create.
The meaningless often agitate.
But stories abound.
Pick the best you have found.
Get in there and start to narrate.

In nature time goes round and round
Life’s a spiral, the wise one has found.
Each time I pass you
I see you anew
Until gently we are laid in the ground.

The end is the beginning,they say.
So say what’s important today.
For time flows like a stream
What is ,soon has been.
So we are foolish to attempt to delay

Addiction can be learned at any age
There is just  the content  and the choice
Why not do it now,it’s all the rage?

For me,it’s mainly  words on one book page
Ideally spoken by a human voice
Addiction can be learned at any age

Once your will is to your mind engaged
Forget your human eyes were ever moist
Why not scream  right now,it’s all the rage?

Beauty,truth and love can be debased
It’s popular right now to practice  lies
Addiction can be learned at any age

Nothing is true or false or it’s erased
Reality by dream is well advised
Why not kill it now,it’s off the page?

Children grow up and out of toys
Why should the addict be de-voiced?
Addiction can be learned at any age
Does even a baby love their cage?

http://www.poetryinternationalweb.net/pi/site/poem/item/5452/auto/0/A-DEAD-TREE-FULL-OF-LIVE-BIRDS

Why does nobody seem to call their child Plato?
Plato Chips
Plato Bred
Since Adam and Eve are popular why not Euclid?

Euclid May

Who are Eucliding?

Moses  is a famous prophet and indeed is still a popular name
Moses Might

In the UK nobody is called Jesus but Joshua is popular

I was only joshing you

Jewish  names are common and we didn’t know in the UK

Michael Mary Ann Ruth Rebecca
David
Joseph
John

Herod is not common

But Greek names are not

Socrates Spatt
Oedipus Wrecks
Aristotle Lears
Plato Tarts
Electra Ruin
Eros Again O’Lord
What about Roman names?They are popular
Augustine O’Cummin
Julius O’Jokes
Julia McGenerates
Playme O’video
Gemma G’eneralise’d
Brutus B’erates
Crime N’Punishment ; that’s not Latin,editor.Stop!

What I  thought was glowing evening sun
Turns out to be a neon light come on too soon
And what imagination sees a gun
Where there is but a fine toothed hair comb?

The mind is waiting with a bunch of signs
To fit perceptions into  ready truths
Though I’ve not seen  a  gun nor made designs
Nor used a  nit comb since I was a youth

What we see is what will interact
What we desire,we love, or what we hate
From all the memories that are well packed
Into minds with  independent states

And so we quarrel , murder, go to war
With those who  look from different  coloured doors

Grief  and love are linked by  metal chains
Imagination cannot  foresee change
When love’s killed, its ghost will haunt  and blame

In our wanderings in our mind’s domains
The  furniture  appears,is rearranged
Rage and love are linked by a  steel chain

The mind itself can change the human brain
The one most strong may be the one insane
When love dies, its shadow will  remain

The hate of loss  is like the mark of Cain
The rational one can be almost deranged
Grief  and love are linked by a  strong chain

What is lost will  heal in its due time
Murderous love   comes from the most estranged
When love’s killed its  ghost will  cause  much pain

Suffering most acute is now in place
Chronic losses cause a pale strained face
Grief  and love are linked by a  gold chain
When love’s killed, its ghost will haunt  and blame

I have a piece of apple wood
I have my whittling knife.
I want to make a gift for you,
That will commend your life.
Apple wood is sweet and sound
The tree grew here by me.
I chose the best part I could find
From the virtue of the tree.
Apple wood is a rare gift
We must make something whole,
For if you touch my apple wood
You can feel its soul.
The sweetness of the fruit of love
Is there within the wood.
So all who touch the apple here
Will be moved to good.
What knowledge did the tree conceal
That Eden was destroyed?
This is a good metaphor
Yet why was it employed?

“What do you want meaning for? Life is desire, not meaning.”

Charlie Chaplin

http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/discussion/the-case-for-children%E2%80%99s-poetry

Who has never felt grief
When a small gesture would have helped
but it has ,unknowingly, been with held?
How many people have the imagination
to guess what’s in your mind,
And to embrace you rather than push you away?
No-one,No-one.No-one knows.
No-one knows these numbers.
No-one knows these names.
No-one knows how many feel diffident,
Nor how many feel shame.
Being alive is joyful!
Being alive is pain!
Being alive is all we have,
We’ll never be alive again.
I look into your eyes today
I sense your shame and woe.
I look into your eyes just now
And tell you that I know.
Being alive is lonely.
Being alive is good.
Being alive is pain indeed
For flesh is not like wood.

Some days are sad and blue
And then we feel lonely too;
Or we cause rifts.
Some days are doldrum days.
Some days are like bad plays.
Not such a gift.
Most days have joyful parts.
Most days we can lift our hearts.
They pass all too swift.
Some days love speaks to me.
Some days I feel so free.
I love my craft.
Life is a patterned weave.
Love helps us when we grieve.
Love is a raft.

See how the sun comes back.
See how light fills the gaps..
Some days we laugh.
Weep now and I’ll weep with you.
I have known sorrow too.
Yet sorrow does pass.

Sorrow does pass

With my felt tipped pen as painting brush
I see the context holds the written words
And in the speckled brownness of a thrush
See the paint pot Nature wished to share

I move my hand in  rhythm to letters make
The hours of practice come to seamless ease
Yet I miss the  crimson  in  the  lake
As cerulean blues  my  eyes  appease.

Can a name  or word be colour true?
Can a hint evoke the feel of  you?
Can my words tease out the edges new?
Can   we tell when we are feeling blue?

What ever medium we  humans  may  use
We  can merely hint at  points  of view

I used to write when  he was fast asleep
I could concentrate enough and keep my words
Now he sleeps forever in the deep

Will the Resurrection make our bodies leap
Bring back flowers and little ladybirds?
I used to write when  he was fast asleep

He is  vivid presence in my dreams
There his honeyed voice  will still be heard
He’s gone  to dwell where life is dark and deep

In a ray of light, a black sunbeam
Shows the hidden value  of the Word
I used to write when  he was fast asleep

The voice of Place itself  makes widows keen
In the woods, the trees all shake and stir
Yet he sleeps forever in the deep

“God will  give no more than we  can bear”
Must we believe the  traumatized  should learn?
I used to write when  he was fast asleep
Then I’d give him tea and  would not weep

The geese that once flew by at  dawn and dusk
Have vanished since the swans came back to nest
Swans  show beauty   in their curving  necks
Yet  their wings can kill unwanted guests

I miss the geese as in a mass they fly
A  sacramental moment in my day
They circle as if one when  coming  down
A god of form and force is here at play

The birds are one with Nature and  her rhythms
We,  having minds,  are separate and are sad
For we don’t just adapt but we  have changed
We make war and all the world is mad

Can we love and dwell in harmony?
For hatred hung   the good on Calvary

You have to be brave to write because all you have ever felt,experienced or studied can be drawn up into your consciousness whilst you write.A friend of mine who is a writer put it like this.”It has taken me to places I’d rather not have gone to.” However she said she manage to live through it.At the time I had only written mathematical works so I didn’t understand what she meant.But I have now had some experiences which give me a hint of what she was trying to say.
If you’ve had many fearsome experiences then these feelings may come up when you loosen the grip of consciousness.However I have also found a spirit of laughter in me which is new.Step into the darkness without knowing.It’s only by going there that help may come.But the fear is that it won’t.You can’t get an insurance policy beforehand.
Are you stepping into a void or will there be something there?
Also in drawing or painting it can take courage to draw what you perceive.I found that especially when drawing buildings and studying perspective.I have the feeling,”No,No.It can’t be this steep a gradient.It’s too much”
And in being inside a building like Westminster Abbey or Durham Cathedral trying to assimilate the vision,the huge spaces and the power and size of the shapes can create awe or even terror.One can lose one’s sense of self entirely.But it can also be revivifying when one has returned.The fear is that one will not return.
Maybe it’s the same with relating to people as well?

On a  frosty day you need your gloves
The hand that feeds is not one Jack should bite
So in a gesture  of self care and love
Put  gloves on in bed and have a fight

Marriage asks for loving in the night
On a  frosty day you need your gloves
Even with a down duvet so light
Will it make a nice nest for the dove?

My house is cold.I’d undress  if I could
The public library’s fearsome,it’s so  hot
On a  frosty day you need your gloves
On  your head wear a le Creuset pot

Cast iron  may be a la mode today
Yet it was a danger in the  Flood
As it  floated over hills  in antic play
On a  rainy day, sail in a glove.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jan/24/ursula-k-le-guin-margaret-atwood-tribute

“I am very sad that Ursula K Le Guin has died. Not only was she one of the literary greats of the 20th century – her books are many and widely read and beloved, her awards are many and deserved – but her sane, committed, annoyed, humorous, wise and always intelligent voice is much needed now.

Right before she died, I was reading her new book, No Time to Spare, a collection of trenchant, funny, lyrical essays about everything from cats to the nature of belief, to the overuse of the word “fuck”, to the fact that old age is indeed for sissies – and talking to her in my head. What if, I was saying – what if I write a piece about The Left Hand of Darkness, published by you in 1969? What if I say it’s a book to which time has now caught up?

Consider: the planet of Gethen is divided. In one of its societies, the king is crazy. Cabals and personal feuds abound. You’re in the powerful inner circle one day, an outcast the next. In the other society, an oppressive bureaucracy prevails and a secret committee knows what’s best. If judged a danger to the general good you’re deemed persona non grata and exiled to a prison enclave, with no trial or right of reply.

What do you think, Ursula? I asked her in my head. Were you predicting anything? Not exactly, she answered. It’s a thought experiment. ”

I am a very proud soul,
In my centre I have a large hole.
I have behaved very badly I know.
I once trod on the cat’s  only toe.
I did bite a goldfish in two.
There was nothing else there for my tea.
I scratched my own sister’s leg
And hit her with a  woodenclothes peg.
I know she could be irritating…
An expert at big sister baiting.
But that was no excuse
For binning her with the refuse.
I had so many scruples and doubts,
My confessions went on in long bouts.
The priest gave me more absolutions,
And lessons in elocution.
But you need no lessons from me
In how to brew pots of tea.
My penance has been prolonged
By a serpent with a double forked tongue.
I don’t remember the original sin,
So I’m not sure quite where to begin.
My whole life is a Passion,
And I’m always keen on high fashion.
I even saw Jesus one day.
He was so loving,what else can I say?
He came into my dark cavern
And invited me to ascend into heaven.
I know he was partial to sinners.
And was not so keen on life’s winners.
I am happy to be up here at last,
In fact it’s all happened too fast!
Now I wake up from my dream;
What extraordinary visions I’ve seen.
I liked my trip up above,
But the Earth is the place that I love.

In the morning,I’m
opening slowly, a bud,
a flower,
breathing softly,
In the summer sweetened air.
Cat stretches
Lazily,hot stones
a bed.
Don’t let the day
begin too soon.
Relaxed.
I feel your presence
In the azure sky.
Now midday,I bloom.
And take in all there is

When seven years come round again
My self is liquified,
My skin becomes a holding shell
For my old self has died.
As I dissolve I feel great fear
And yet I trust my soul.
So in the sea I lose my form,
And with the waves I roll.
I am at one with all the world,
And yet I am no-thing.
My inner waters rise and fall
What will the high tide bring?
After my drowning I shall rise
And I shall be renewed.
I must submit to that strange Life
With which I am imbued.
I am not mistress of myself,
I am this moment’s flower.
In the deep waters I must trust
To take me to the shore.
O hang my arms with grasses green
And dissolve me in your sea.
Thus when the time comes  round again
Regenerated I shall be