The boy stood on the burning deck

 

Hello everyone. Well, that was quite the week, wasn't it? When I was a child, I always wanted to be American. What with the film stars and the LA weather and the like, it was obviously the place to be. I'll be honest, I'm not so jealous now. Obviously, you can vote for whoever you want to and you must vote but---really? There are lots of questions to be asked about the quality of the opposition and what they actually stood for apart from"joy" and the"higher ground" which isn't going to be much help to people trying to pay the bills. However, in the last speech that I saw the winner making, he appeared to be miming a sex act on a microphone stand. I don't suppose this is hugely important in the great scheme of things but I have always felt that you can tell a lot about a person by whether or not he chooses to mime a sex act on a microphone stand. Time will tell I suppose. 

I'm changing the subject. Back to Covid. But not mine, for once. Me and a chum were "on the door" at church this morning, sharing symptoms. Well, we thought it was interesting. It turns out that she can no longer smell Cannabis. She can smell everything else but not Cannabis. It wouldn't be a big deal but she works in a university. Part of her job is being able to pick up on the "signals" that students may be straying from the way of rightousness. It's for their own good. As I say (unfortunately for you) every week - it is an odd disease. 

Turning on a sixpence. Poetry. Do you do it? Read it, I mean. I can't say that I have ever really "got" poetry. I know that this makes me shallow and not worth your time but there it is. Poetry always seemed like hard work - saying something that could be said much more efficiently in prose. When we had to choose a poet for A level, I chose John Betjamin. That was so that I could understand it. 

Miss J Hunter Dunn/Miss J Hunter Dunn/Furnished and burnished by Aldershot sun.

That Dum-de-Dum metre was about as much as I could manage.

Then there was the time we had to have a go at blank verse. My friend Hilary and I wrote what we thought was excellent blank versery on the way home from school once. 

There was a young man from Dundee.  

Who was stung on the leg by wasp. 

When asked "Did it hurt?

He said "No, not at all"

"He can do it again, if he likes."

You see? Profound. AND composed walking home at 4pm while eating a Swizzle lolly. We thought we had nailed it. We both got de-merits. Hardly fair.

However, as I have got older and slower I have started to try to forget the hours I have spent staring a pages and pages of Emily Dickinson trying to work out what she is going on about. (I know, I know). Can I recommend to you two modern poets that I have been reading/listening to that I have found really moving. I have no idea how to link to their work on Instagram and am not sure about reproducing anything here so just to recommend and you can chase it at your leisure. They both come up if you Google them. 

Sophie Killingley. She is an artist and I am very keen on her prints but I have come across her poetry - especially a performance called Old Fears New Spaces (maybe this time), which is about church hurt.  

Lucas Jones. In the light of the elections and the fear that women are feeling - can I recommend his poem as a starting point. "I will teach my boys to be dangerous men" 

I'm interested in any poets you are reading as well.

The thing is, as has been pointed out to me - if I read the Bible - I'm reading poetry. Useful, truthful poetry but still poetry. You probably have your own favourites

God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.  

Therefore we will not fear, 

though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, 

though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging. PS 46

or

 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, 

neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, 

nor any powers, neither height nor depth, 

nor anything else in all creation, 

will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

Rom 8

See? I am a deep and artistic, thoughtful person. Have a good week.