Today's poet

[Mossdog]

Thanks for the link Mossdog. That is the sort of article that I know I will never ever have the ability to write, even though I agree with its content.

Even though the two paradigms of thought are incommensurable, it doesn't make them both true.

I have perhaps the opposite interest in the "science of belief" and it is fascinating that we are only just discovering our true irrationality and why it is such an evolutionary advantage, which of course everything must be referred to.

The "truth" remains the truth, no matter what spin is placed upon it. Science aims to fill the gaps in our knowledge with further science, whereas the religous, (sweeping statement I know) are often happy to fill the gaps with god's work.

In order to retain some poetry equilibrium, I refer the honorable lady to the response I gave some moments ago.

There was a young man from Kendal,
Who studied both Darwin and Mendel.
He thought evolution
A neater solution
Than Creationist texts which are mental.

Eh lad! It's a Saturday night when all sane people should be down t'pub (unless they've got kiddies to look after or are girding their loins for a fell race tomorrow) and you've got me on to me pet topic on which I can bore for England. But look, just listen to me ol'mad mate Nietzsche (he even managed to squeeze the word 'poerty' in there):

"What then is truth? A mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms -- in short, a sum of human relations, which have been enhanced, transposed, and embellished poetically and rhetorically, and which after long use seem firm, canonical, and obligatory to a people: truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that is what they are; metaphors which are worn out and without sensuous power; coins which have lost their pictures and now matter only as metal, no longer as coins.
We still do not know where the urge for truth comes from; for as yet we have heard only of the obligation imposed by society that it should exist: to be truthful means using the customary metaphors - in moral terms, the obligation to lie according to fixed convention, to lie herd-like in a style obligatory for all..."


'On truth and lie in an extra-moral sense,' The Viking Portable Nietzsche, p.46-7, Walter Kaufmann transl.

Enough said? (I doubt it )

[Mossdog]

Or, to put it another way...

TRUTH?

by Gerald England

There are 16 million shades of grey
There is no black
There is no white
You have to draw your own line
It may or may not be straight
There are always mitigating circumstances
Judgement can only be based
On passed-down wisdom and self-experience
Stopping to take stock
Is not an option
You can never find yourself
You can only conform or differ
From each perceived image
The cataracts of common sense
Can never be removed
Focusing on reality’s a fallacy

[Hes]

High Cup Nick, Aniversary Waltz,
Allendale Challenge, Windy Gyle, Cheviot Summit,
Chevy Chase or Wasdale Horseshoe, Borrowdale, Ben Nevis (if i can get in)
Langdale, Simonside and what ever the club decides for the championships.

Not a poem, but this poets provisional intentions for next year.....any of you poetic scamperers drinking beer before or after (not during - even I have some standards) these races???

Hi there OW, I'm fancying Anniversary Walktz, Borrowdale and Langdale and will do as many as I can next year. I have lots of good intentions for upping my fell running a gear or two. Will keep you posted as drinking beer afterwards would be great.

[Old Whippet]

Hi there OW, I'm fancying Anniversary Walktz, Borrowdale and Langdale and will do as many as I can next year. I have lots of good intentions for upping my fell running a gear or two. Will keep you posted as drinking beer afterwards would be great.

Hurray! a drinking partner. Anyone else want to come along and make us a gang? So you'll be back from your Indian adventure Hes?

[Hes]

Letters from Yorkshire - Maura Dooley

In February, digging her garden, planting potatoes
she saw the first Lapwings return, and came
indoors to write to me, her knuckles singing
as they reddened in the warmth.

It's not romance, simply how things are
you out there in the cold, seeing the seasons
turning, me with my heartful of headlines
feeding words onto a blank screen.
Is your life more real because you dig and sow?

You wouldn't say so, breaking ice on a waterbutt,
clearing a path through snow. Still it's you
who sends me word of that other world,
pouring air and light into an envelope so that
at night, watching the same news in different houses
our souls tap out messages across the icy miles.

HHH, this is wonderful. I'll print it out and stick it up in my allotment shed and hope the mice don't eat it! I have icy days of digging and preparing to look forward to on my return from India and hopefully many cosy evenings with a poetry book and all of you for company on the forum.

[Hes]

Hurray! a drinking partner. Anyone else want to come along and make us a gang? So you'll be back from your Indian adventure Hes?

I'm off on Monday and back 8th January. One of the reasons why my posts have been scant of late. I'm supposed to be working now but had to call in and catch up on all tonight's wonderful reading.

[Old Whippet]

"If in doubt - Limerick" is my favourite quote of the day.

Cheers triple H.
Have over indulged.

blah blah blah, blah blah blah, blah beer
blah blah blah, blah blah blah, blah queer
blah di di blah blah drunk
blah di di blah blah skunk
blah blah blah, blah blah Germain Greer

See - even after a night out.........

[Hes]

Just want to say that I'm really sorry to have missed this evening's poetry but I'm glad to see that a few of you held the fort and even had in depth discussion about theology, philosophy and science.

[Hes]

Cheers triple H.
Have over indulged.

blah blah blah, blah blah blah, blah beer
blah blah blah, blah blah blah, blah queer
blah di di blah blah drunk
blah di di blah blah skunk
blah blah blah, blah blah Germain Greer

See - even after a night out.........

brilliant!

[Old Whippet]

I'm off on Monday and back 8th January. One of the reasons why my posts have been scant of late. I'm supposed to be working now but had to call in and catch up on all tonight's wonderful reading.

you'll be a miss. And all the more reason to keep this thread alive pending your return. Derby Tub has set the bar very high for travelogue poetry. The challenge is yours!