I went as Boadicea, not having been before.
In party hats the hopefuls came
(and most - like me - in fancy dress),
all bearing plans they hoped would claim
the world for sense and hope again
and somehow save it from the mess
that's dumped it on the floor.
For good or ill, for right or wrong,
a polar bear had brought along
a high-tech hot air cooler.
From Lion King, a mini thing:
a plastic bendy ruler --
a sensible,
a flexible,
a universal proxy-King.
Three owls wore hats -
and two had spats -
with mottoes penned in inks
(that many thought were drivel):
viz: see no evil; hear no evil;
evil is as evil thinks.
The first had messages in mind
that get too mixed, as M.Ps. find:
When spin has spun beyond controls,
said he, and digging's dug too many holes,
this Sat-Nav could reset their goals.
The next, with gismo, super-fixed
a broken promise - seamlessly.
The third - grotesquely -
brought to bear
an anti-doctrinaire
device.
Words like"vice"
spurred a baboon
to promise soon
a dirty-tricks hard water washer.
A long-eared bat
was topping that,
with smart-arse fast detosher.
Then from a tiger's sabre tooth
to swell the nation's stock of truth
there came a touch of righteous wit -
a moral spunk resuscer kit.
This year, a lowly lambkin said,
has been a perfect shocker.
Here's my device - a yah-boo-to-your-party blocker.
An ostrich came, who lacking guts,
had brought no plans because of cuts.
To all of you: the very best of all Good new Years.
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Friday, 31 December 2010
Thursday, 30 December 2010
Wednesday, 29 December 2010
Tuesday, 28 December 2010
Celebrations
as suggested by POT LUCK MONDAY at Jingle Poetry
Stick the fairy on the tree,
all the lights are bright to see,
bless the Holy Trinity
God is one and God is three...
(Number three came down for me.)
Light the candles on the cake,
give the tambourines a shake,
let the Earth erupt and quake,
keep the city wide awake,
we have mighty thirsts to slake.
Hang the flags and bunting out,
beat the drums and raise a shout,
out with sadness, out with doubt,
tell the world that we're about,
flood the world with ale and stout.
Sing you choristers, outsing
even songs the angels bring,
let the bells of Heaven swing.
Here on earth the wedding ring
awaits the happy happening.
Loose your rockets to the sky,
lift the heroes shoulder high,
let the sparks from bonfires fly.
If a nobler world draws nigh
let your laughters multiply.
Stick the fairy on the tree,
all the lights are bright to see,
bless the Holy Trinity
God is one and God is three...
(Number three came down for me.)
Light the candles on the cake,
give the tambourines a shake,
let the Earth erupt and quake,
keep the city wide awake,
we have mighty thirsts to slake.
Hang the flags and bunting out,
beat the drums and raise a shout,
out with sadness, out with doubt,
tell the world that we're about,
flood the world with ale and stout.
Sing you choristers, outsing
even songs the angels bring,
let the bells of Heaven swing.
Here on earth the wedding ring
awaits the happy happening.
Loose your rockets to the sky,
lift the heroes shoulder high,
let the sparks from bonfires fly.
If a nobler world draws nigh
let your laughters multiply.
Monday, 27 December 2010
A Christmas Present
Muse Swings set this prompt on behalf of The Poetry Bus this week. The challenge was a poem about our most useless Christmas present. I don't think I've ever had a completely useless one - or I've cast it into my mental limbo - but this one came pretty close.
A cosy for your egg, she said.
A present from my aunt to match
that of the year before -
the famous Fair Isle socks
The cosy, too, was Fair Isle,
and like the stockings, knitted
by her own fair hands -
and just as generous.
She was alive to every
possibility, my aunt,
even that some day we might
start keeping ostriches.
Two thicknesses and lined,
turned inside out - I can't
think why - it made the perfect
blindfold for our party games.
This Haiku almost suggested a new verse for The Twelve Days of Christmas
a lunar surface
frozen snow ice-filled craters
two magpies slipping
Muse Swings set this prompt on behalf of The Poetry Bus this week. The challenge was a poem about our most useless Christmas present. I don't think I've ever had a completely useless one - or I've cast it into my mental limbo - but this one came pretty close.
A cosy for your egg, she said.
A present from my aunt to match
that of the year before -
the famous Fair Isle socks
The cosy, too, was Fair Isle,
and like the stockings, knitted
by her own fair hands -
and just as generous.
She was alive to every
possibility, my aunt,
even that some day we might
start keeping ostriches.
Two thicknesses and lined,
turned inside out - I can't
think why - it made the perfect
blindfold for our party games.
This Haiku almost suggested a new verse for The Twelve Days of Christmas
frozen snow ice-filled craters
two magpies slipping
Sunday, 26 December 2010
A Christmas with Long Arms
Some of you will know from past posts that at the age of five I was whisked into hospital with pneumonia in both lungs and pleurisy. I don't recall anything at all of the illness and nothing of the treatment except that it involved two large bell jars, one filled with a coloured liquid, the other empty and the two connected by rubber tubing. Another length of rubber tubing was equipped with a mouthpiece and using this I had to blow all the liquid into the empty jar.
Apart from that, I remember the deep snow outside and seeing my parents trudging through it to visit me. I remember too, the nurses bringing in large bowls of snow for each child so that we could play snow balls. Still in bed, we threw them across the ward at each other. (Imagine that in the NHS!) I also remember (This being the time of my earliest connected memories.) the Christmas tree in the ward and the presents piled round it - all brought by Santa during the night whilst we all slept, of course. My present was a large Noahs Ark with two each of all the animals - all made from wood. And I remember the photograph, taken by the photographer from the Mitcham News and Mercury, of me being held by my favourite nurse beside my cot in front of the tree. The Noahs Ark was in the cot. I remember the photograph so clearly because my grandparents bought a large copy of the original, and it did the rounds for years afterwards.
I am not sure how long afterwards it was that we were visiting my dad's parents in Wandsworth and had gone to the shops. I had been left outside one particular shop for a moment. There were two women close by who, like me, had been looking in the window, but now one took a newspaper cutting out of her bag and showed it to the other. I cannot remember - or didn't hear - what was said, but they both looked at it for a few minutes before the first one returned it to her purse.
When my parents and grandma returned I asked who the women were. They didn't know - and it seemed quite obvious that the ladies concerned didn't know me. That being so, I always thought it odd that they should be looking at my photograph, for there were no other people in the photograph, apart from the nurse.
Roll on ten years or so and I am in Northern Italy, cycling with some friends. We go into a small wayside church in which some candles are burning. One of my companions lights one for a relation - I think a cousin - who is unwell. All the candles have small cards in front of them, each with a name and a date. Some with a message. One though - are you yet ahead of me? - has no card, just a newspaper cutting. No name, just a date - seven years earlier. It bears the same photograph of me aged five in hospital. Now is that eerie or is that eerie? One last thing: the cutting from the newspaper is printed in Italian. Does that make it more creepy, or less?
Apart from that, I remember the deep snow outside and seeing my parents trudging through it to visit me. I remember too, the nurses bringing in large bowls of snow for each child so that we could play snow balls. Still in bed, we threw them across the ward at each other. (Imagine that in the NHS!) I also remember (This being the time of my earliest connected memories.) the Christmas tree in the ward and the presents piled round it - all brought by Santa during the night whilst we all slept, of course. My present was a large Noahs Ark with two each of all the animals - all made from wood. And I remember the photograph, taken by the photographer from the Mitcham News and Mercury, of me being held by my favourite nurse beside my cot in front of the tree. The Noahs Ark was in the cot. I remember the photograph so clearly because my grandparents bought a large copy of the original, and it did the rounds for years afterwards.
I am not sure how long afterwards it was that we were visiting my dad's parents in Wandsworth and had gone to the shops. I had been left outside one particular shop for a moment. There were two women close by who, like me, had been looking in the window, but now one took a newspaper cutting out of her bag and showed it to the other. I cannot remember - or didn't hear - what was said, but they both looked at it for a few minutes before the first one returned it to her purse.
When my parents and grandma returned I asked who the women were. They didn't know - and it seemed quite obvious that the ladies concerned didn't know me. That being so, I always thought it odd that they should be looking at my photograph, for there were no other people in the photograph, apart from the nurse.
Roll on ten years or so and I am in Northern Italy, cycling with some friends. We go into a small wayside church in which some candles are burning. One of my companions lights one for a relation - I think a cousin - who is unwell. All the candles have small cards in front of them, each with a name and a date. Some with a message. One though - are you yet ahead of me? - has no card, just a newspaper cutting. No name, just a date - seven years earlier. It bears the same photograph of me aged five in hospital. Now is that eerie or is that eerie? One last thing: the cutting from the newspaper is printed in Italian. Does that make it more creepy, or less?
Friday, 24 December 2010
Something Nice Happened on the Way to Blogland Recently
The 'phone rang, Doreen answered it and said It's for you! I took it and heard a voice I did not quite recognise singing a song I did not quite recognise. Not at first, anyway. But then, it wasn't a song, as it turned out, but my poem The Eagle and the Child which an old friend of mine from college days had taken the trouble to arrange for guitar and was singing down the 'phone line.
But more than that he had made two videos of it, one of him speaking it and one of him singing it to the guitar, and had put them both on YouTube.
Yet more: he had sent the links to his granddaughter who teaches a year 6 class and she was planning to incorporate them into her teaching.
I promise I am not letting this go to my head, but if anyone out there is interested, here are the links.
(Spoken)
(Sung)
On the other hand, if reading it the first time was more than enough I shall perfectly well understand!
But more than that he had made two videos of it, one of him speaking it and one of him singing it to the guitar, and had put them both on YouTube.
Yet more: he had sent the links to his granddaughter who teaches a year 6 class and she was planning to incorporate them into her teaching.
I promise I am not letting this go to my head, but if anyone out there is interested, here are the links.
(Spoken)
(Sung)
On the other hand, if reading it the first time was more than enough I shall perfectly well understand!
Wednesday, 22 December 2010
A Christmas Carol
Out of darkness into light
flies the Doubting Thomas bird,
what is hid is only might
What is might's a mite absurd.
Out of winter into spring
wing the cries of infant king,
hope and passion both they bring:-
let the bells of heaven ring!
So much hidden, so much light,
so much wrong and so much right,
earth is in a parlous plight:-
sing your carols through the night!
Sing the darkness from the earth,
we who never thought to see
now confront a peerless birth
in the light of mystery.
Need and want go hand in hand -
they did so in the stable -
read the symbols in the sand,
then gather round the table.
Ox and ass and magi there -
nothing by its birth is banned,
creatures both of faith and flair:
nothing outlawed out of hand.
Out of fable, truth to tell,
each man shapes it as he grows,
finds his personal Noel,
his own demons to depose.
Here's to a wonderful Christmas
and all the blessings of the season to you all.
May your God or proxy-god be kind to you.
flies the Doubting Thomas bird,
what is hid is only might
What is might's a mite absurd.
Out of winter into spring
wing the cries of infant king,
hope and passion both they bring:-
let the bells of heaven ring!
So much hidden, so much light,
so much wrong and so much right,
earth is in a parlous plight:-
sing your carols through the night!
Sing the darkness from the earth,
we who never thought to see
now confront a peerless birth
in the light of mystery.
Need and want go hand in hand -
they did so in the stable -
read the symbols in the sand,
then gather round the table.
Ox and ass and magi there -
nothing by its birth is banned,
creatures both of faith and flair:
nothing outlawed out of hand.
Out of fable, truth to tell,
each man shapes it as he grows,
finds his personal Noel,
his own demons to depose.
and all the blessings of the season to you all.
May your God or proxy-god be kind to you.
Monday, 20 December 2010
When Earth became a lesser sun
It was a sign
the first of many
that the world was ending slowly when
we heard the pylon sizzle
like a bacon rasher
just an early surge
of fire from earth's deep belly.
I'd often said to Mary
how the lines would be the death of us.
'Oh my, you do go on!' she'd say,
'yet when the canopy
is fully greened
we cannot even see the blessed things!'
I'd tell her how the lines
are modern man's
late answer to the ancients,
how to think of them
as modern ley lines - of a sort.
"They're lines of force," I'd say,
"or stave lines in the sky -
for music, too's a force
we do not understand."
Then I'd go on: "If this 'ere path
were iron filings 'stead of stones
and leaf mould, Mary,
they'd be rearranging,
jumping in the most amazing patterns
you could see.
So never mind
you cannot see them
I can feel them in my bones!
Instead of iron filings,
what we've got is us:
two people standin' 'ere, who knows
or thinks them knows
what happens in thems brains!" 'O, you
and your iron filings!' she would say,
'you do go on, you do!'
The Kingfisher had made it clear to me:
omen or first symptom, call it as you will.
We'd often seen it skim the lake,
a flash of Royal blue.
That day it was electric blue,
a lightning bolt that hugged the wires -
escape denied - before
it plunged, not into water, but
a web of steel that disassembled it.
I'm talking long before
the earth became another sun,
before it spread soft orange light
across the Solar void -
Aye, soft it was in those days,
just a night light in the nursery...
I got quite angry with her sometimes...
still, bless her that she visits me
between her visits to oncology -
and always, always
when they turn the key
to let her in, she'll ask
how I am doing,
and when will I come home.
Sunday, 19 December 2010
Saturday, 18 December 2010
Seeing Stars on the Poetry Bus
Two Poems (and a "haiku")
1
We must be humble,we
who are so easily confused
by mere appearances, he said.
But he was looking at cold stones,
eulogising them as peers of stars.
So what if he had looked at stars,
would he have likened them
to stones? Or seen instead
the point at which a formless cloud
of dust and gas achieves its destiny,
evolves a structure to become a star?
Might he have seen from where
and how the structure comes?
Would he have shared all that with us -
or can it not be caught in words?
If only that were possible
he would have taught us how to fly
wing tip to wing tip with our god -
whoever that may be.
(whoever he may be, he must
explain the stars and me.)
Might we have: seen the cloud
reach critical, its inner core
expanding, slowly for a while,
then exponentially;
seen how it grew denser; felt
the growing heat;
seen the core explode
in energy releasing
nuclear reactions;
seen it turning luminous, become
the new kid on the block?
I think he would have shown us then
a massive star, its short life over,
decaying to a supernovae,
forming a black hole.
Once, stars were pinpricks in the firmament
(My granddad told me that.)
through which the light of heaven shone
to reassure the earth.
How sad to think the only holes
are made by ex-stars now -
and so are dark and threatening,
potential spanners in
the universal works.
2
When I was very young
a lamplighter came round
to light my star, the lamp
outside our house.
I asked him once
who lit the lamps
in those long lines
across the sky.
That always puzzled me -
although I never wondered
much about the sun
and who lit that.
He said I was too young
to understand such things,
that I should ask my teacher -
in a year or two.
I thought he was a star -
he played with gas and fire -
before I knew
that stars were gas and fire.
So I had two -
one fixed,
one wandering -
both mine!
Haiku
their micro gismo
displays two states at one time -
proving Einstein right
1
We must be humble,we
who are so easily confused
by mere appearances, he said.
But he was looking at cold stones,
eulogising them as peers of stars.
So what if he had looked at stars,
would he have likened them
to stones? Or seen instead
the point at which a formless cloud
of dust and gas achieves its destiny,
evolves a structure to become a star?
Might he have seen from where
and how the structure comes?
Would he have shared all that with us -
or can it not be caught in words?
If only that were possible
he would have taught us how to fly
wing tip to wing tip with our god -
whoever that may be.
(whoever he may be, he must
explain the stars and me.)
Might we have: seen the cloud
reach critical, its inner core
expanding, slowly for a while,
then exponentially;
seen how it grew denser; felt
the growing heat;
seen the core explode
in energy releasing
nuclear reactions;
seen it turning luminous, become
the new kid on the block?
I think he would have shown us then
a massive star, its short life over,
decaying to a supernovae,
forming a black hole.
Once, stars were pinpricks in the firmament
(My granddad told me that.)
through which the light of heaven shone
to reassure the earth.
How sad to think the only holes
are made by ex-stars now -
and so are dark and threatening,
potential spanners in
the universal works.
2
When I was very young
a lamplighter came round
to light my star, the lamp
outside our house.
I asked him once
who lit the lamps
in those long lines
across the sky.
That always puzzled me -
although I never wondered
much about the sun
and who lit that.
He said I was too young
to understand such things,
that I should ask my teacher -
in a year or two.
I thought he was a star -
he played with gas and fire -
before I knew
that stars were gas and fire.
So I had two -
one fixed,
one wandering -
both mine!
displays two states at one time -
proving Einstein right
Friday, 17 December 2010
Wednesday, 15 December 2010
Homage to Munch's The Dance on the Shore
As masterpieces go, this by Edvard Munch - I will stick out my neck - is unbeatable. For me it is perfection. How on earth does one combine such calculated composition with such fluidity and dreaminess? The design of the picture is exactly calculated, but each object in it has been given its own unique colour. Yet nothing competes with anything else. The composition relies for its integrity on the interlocking shapes, the echoing patterns and the strong tonal qualities. As a bonus the lines of the tree and the ripples in the sea are perfect.
It is obviously related to The Dance of Life (below) which he painted the year before (1899) he began work on The Dance on the Shore
It is, though, The Dance on the Shore which remains my favourite. I had it in mind when I began doodling my not-so-dreamy digital version. There is no greater connection than that. When I refreshed my memory by going back to look at a reproduction of Munch's I was all but frightened into not posting mine, but it is good to remind oneself how difficult are the things that great masters almost persuade us are easy.
Tuesday, 14 December 2010
Women were of Earth, Men of Somewhere else
This week's Pot Luck challenge from Jingle Poetry (here) specifies Hobbies, Passions, Pastimes, Entertainment. That is our theme for this week. Silly me, when I read it I somehow overlooked passion - not something I'm noted for doing! Whatever, so here is my passionless offering.
What a muddle children make of logic,
shaping worlds from iffy intuition!
Here's a good example (two or three, for I
am nothing if not generous): required
of every man - a hobby. Wisdom of
the ages: man sans hobby withers like
a leaf in Autumn - hence his need of sheds
or stamp collections, not to mention trains,
his golf clubs, painting easels - just to see
him through. A woman, though, has interests.
These may extend into the arts, but should
not be confused with a mere hobby.
Entertainments are for families, whole
groups of people, doing (often watching)
the same thing. Being rather socially
aligned, their special usefulness lies in
their bonding and cohesive powers.
Hobbies are considered slighter. Shallow.
Interests are somehow more profound -
or at the very least, more practical.
When hobbies start to grow more serious
they're labelled as obsessions - not at all
a happy thing. These are the insights that
I garnered through my childhood and my youth.
No one preached them. Like spirits they were there;
they wafted from the pictures on the walls,
the stalking and the sporting images;
we heard them in the knockings of the pipes,
we breathed them in with every breath of air.
They were like smiling faces from a fair.
I do not meet these attitudes so much
in these enlightened times... just now and then...
an aunt not seen since eighteen Christmases
ago, will ask what I've been up to since
that far off time. I write a bit, I'll say...
What? Mostly poetry! Then I confirm
that, no, my third collection is not due,
and no, I am not yet a millionaire...
It's just a hobby then? Would that be true?
I'm relegated to the bottom league.
She does not ask if there is one to read.
Not at all a Haiku
L.V.in her eye...
logo of her contact lens -
The Mona Lisa
What a muddle children make of logic,
shaping worlds from iffy intuition!
Here's a good example (two or three, for I
am nothing if not generous): required
of every man - a hobby. Wisdom of
the ages: man sans hobby withers like
a leaf in Autumn - hence his need of sheds
or stamp collections, not to mention trains,
his golf clubs, painting easels - just to see
him through. A woman, though, has interests.
These may extend into the arts, but should
not be confused with a mere hobby.
Entertainments are for families, whole
groups of people, doing (often watching)
the same thing. Being rather socially
aligned, their special usefulness lies in
their bonding and cohesive powers.
Hobbies are considered slighter. Shallow.
Interests are somehow more profound -
or at the very least, more practical.
When hobbies start to grow more serious
they're labelled as obsessions - not at all
a happy thing. These are the insights that
I garnered through my childhood and my youth.
No one preached them. Like spirits they were there;
they wafted from the pictures on the walls,
the stalking and the sporting images;
we heard them in the knockings of the pipes,
we breathed them in with every breath of air.
They were like smiling faces from a fair.
I do not meet these attitudes so much
in these enlightened times... just now and then...
an aunt not seen since eighteen Christmases
ago, will ask what I've been up to since
that far off time. I write a bit, I'll say...
What? Mostly poetry! Then I confirm
that, no, my third collection is not due,
and no, I am not yet a millionaire...
It's just a hobby then? Would that be true?
I'm relegated to the bottom league.
She does not ask if there is one to read.
logo of her contact lens -
The Mona Lisa
Sunday, 12 December 2010
Saturday, 11 December 2010
The Essence of Me on the Poetry Bus ; and Haiku #325
The image below gives the essence of this week's challenge - or one of them - issued by Titus the Dog. It explains what is an essence vessel and what it means for us as would-be passengers.
The Essence of Me
The essence of me
for those who would look:
bleached wood from the sea,
a worm in a book,
the hues of a tree.
The essence of me
for those who would taste:
a garlicky fish
with horseradish paste,
some hot curry dish.
The essence of me
for those who would smell:
ozone from the sea
faint whiff of bluebell,
black coffee and tea.
The essence of me
for those who would hear:
the silence of graves,
the words of King Lear,
weird echoes in caves.
The essence of me
for those who would touch:
smooth stones from the sea
the sea's angry clutch -
pure joy in a knee.
The essence of me
as a conscious man:
what it means to be,
what it is to plan -
life as mystery.
Haiku #325
In the library
smoking an orchid to death
was a rolling stone
The Essence of Me
The essence of me
for those who would look:
bleached wood from the sea,
a worm in a book,
the hues of a tree.
The essence of me
for those who would taste:
a garlicky fish
with horseradish paste,
some hot curry dish.
The essence of me
for those who would smell:
ozone from the sea
faint whiff of bluebell,
black coffee and tea.
The essence of me
for those who would hear:
the silence of graves,
the words of King Lear,
weird echoes in caves.
The essence of me
for those who would touch:
smooth stones from the sea
the sea's angry clutch -
pure joy in a knee.
The essence of me
as a conscious man:
what it means to be,
what it is to plan -
life as mystery.
smoking an orchid to death
was a rolling stone
Friday, 10 December 2010
Not Your Actual Haiku! #324
we have Confucius Peace Prize -
less bent - Chinese Gov
Wednesday, 8 December 2010
Tuesday, 7 December 2010
Monday, 6 December 2010
Reflections
This image is this week's rather clever prompt at Magpie Tales, the poem below, my response to it.
How right that glass should guard the threshold where
the two domains, inside and out, have drawn,
in silverpoint, self-portraits on its back-
to-back pellucid sheets that now are one.
So shapes we've left behind us ghost before
and those before embrace the ones behind
and worlds we thought were separate are mixed.
Our artefacts and nature interact
and works we see as nature's or as ours
become a montage when we look again .
How right that glass should guard the threshold where
the two domains, inside and out, have drawn,
in silverpoint, self-portraits on its back-
to-back pellucid sheets that now are one.
So shapes we've left behind us ghost before
and those before embrace the ones behind
and worlds we thought were separate are mixed.
Our artefacts and nature interact
and works we see as nature's or as ours
become a montage when we look again .
Sunday, 5 December 2010
The Eagle and the Child
on the Poetry Bus
I can't quite believe that I've written this. It was a brilliant and original prompt (to take a pub name and from it create characters for a story - preferably rhymed) by Poetikat which excited - and finally defeated - me. Not at all my usual sort of endeavour, but that was a large part of its fascination. Hopefully, I will have learned something from it - maybe from the comments?
I tell the tale
of a bird of prey
and a child who met
by a lake one day.
Both were shy
and with nothing to say -
just a child by a lake
and the bird of prey.
The bird was gentle
and far from wild -
or so it seemed
to the trusting child
who saw in feathers
a place to hide,
in powerful wings
a call to ride.
They flew for ever,
flew far and high,
beyond the rainbow,
above the sky,
to a place where life
is light and free
and devoid of weight
or gravity,
a land too wondrous
to be quite true,
where rubbish food
is good for you,
where kids are more
than adult size
and adults think
them 'fab' and wise.
There, as they soared
above a stream
of ice and chillies
and juice and cream,
the eagle at last
had run out of steam
and dropped the child
from its happy dream.
Down he fell,
where they'd been before
to land with a bump
on the bedroom floor.
His parents tucked him
back into bed
deaf to the novel
stashed in his head.
I can't quite believe that I've written this. It was a brilliant and original prompt (to take a pub name and from it create characters for a story - preferably rhymed) by Poetikat which excited - and finally defeated - me. Not at all my usual sort of endeavour, but that was a large part of its fascination. Hopefully, I will have learned something from it - maybe from the comments?
I tell the tale
of a bird of prey
and a child who met
by a lake one day.
Both were shy
and with nothing to say -
just a child by a lake
and the bird of prey.
The bird was gentle
and far from wild -
or so it seemed
to the trusting child
who saw in feathers
a place to hide,
in powerful wings
a call to ride.
They flew for ever,
flew far and high,
beyond the rainbow,
above the sky,
to a place where life
is light and free
and devoid of weight
or gravity,
a land too wondrous
to be quite true,
where rubbish food
is good for you,
where kids are more
than adult size
and adults think
them 'fab' and wise.
There, as they soared
above a stream
of ice and chillies
and juice and cream,
the eagle at last
had run out of steam
and dropped the child
from its happy dream.
Down he fell,
where they'd been before
to land with a bump
on the bedroom floor.
His parents tucked him
back into bed
deaf to the novel
stashed in his head.
Saturday, 4 December 2010
"Found" Haiku
(lifted - almost verbatim - from a reader's letter in The Guardian.)
smokers get the nudge
tobacco companies the wink -
the health white paper
smokers get the nudge
tobacco companies the wink -
the health white paper
Friday, 3 December 2010
The Way Time Passes.
"He likely won't see six," I overheard
the doctor say, when I was five.
I thought he meant o'clock, and so
resolved to stay awake.
Later, when my mother said: "That's it!
It's seven - past your sleep time!"
I was cock-a-hoop.
Only later - some years later - did I realise
what I'd achieved, how
cheating The Great Reaper,
I'd joined the great immortals.
Later still, I thought
I'd slipped time into over-drive
when time was but an ocean
and hardly moved at all,
except within itself.
Its tides and currents,
like so many secret thoughts,
like those that I enjoyed
that no one outside me
could know about.
Next, I can recall
the day I sat and worked it out
that half my life -- exactly half --
had vanished down the Swanny.
So I subtracted from my age,
sixteen, the theory being
that the years from one into the teens
could hardly count. And so,
I had two thirds
remaining in the bag,
as yet unopened.
And so we seek
to slow the pace of time
and make of it a dwindling stream.
Three interviews I went to, and at each
they said how young I looked.
I grew a beard. It worked: I got the job.
I'd suddenly grown older.
Time was then a flash flood in the sun.
Now time's a stream in tumult,
its speed increasing
exponentially.
I have no strategy for that.
the doctor say, when I was five.
I thought he meant o'clock, and so
resolved to stay awake.
Later, when my mother said: "That's it!
It's seven - past your sleep time!"
I was cock-a-hoop.
Only later - some years later - did I realise
what I'd achieved, how
cheating The Great Reaper,
I'd joined the great immortals.
Later still, I thought
I'd slipped time into over-drive
when time was but an ocean
and hardly moved at all,
except within itself.
Its tides and currents,
like so many secret thoughts,
like those that I enjoyed
that no one outside me
could know about.
Next, I can recall
the day I sat and worked it out
that half my life -- exactly half --
had vanished down the Swanny.
So I subtracted from my age,
sixteen, the theory being
that the years from one into the teens
could hardly count. And so,
I had two thirds
remaining in the bag,
as yet unopened.
And so we seek
to slow the pace of time
and make of it a dwindling stream.
Three interviews I went to, and at each
they said how young I looked.
I grew a beard. It worked: I got the job.
I'd suddenly grown older.
Time was then a flash flood in the sun.
Now time's a stream in tumult,
its speed increasing
exponentially.
I have no strategy for that.
Thursday, 2 December 2010
What's in a Haiku?
it falls short of the surf
this stone I toss.
Soon it will be a year since I began my (almost) daily "Haiku" on current affairs and "newsy" items. From the beginning I had a nagging anxiety: that I might be misleading friends who are not yet au fait with the nature and mysteries of the Haiku. They are not, never have been, were not intended to be, the real thing, to engender in their readers the unique experience which is the Haiku moment. They are no more than its skeleton, its structural form. Many will know better than I what the haiku is about, but for those who do not, I have worried that I might be doing them a mis-service. When I began these Haiku, and on a couple of occasions since, I have gone to some pains to explain the true haiku and to make clear that mine were not of that ilk, but were merely wearing a Haiku dress. However, that was long ago now - or seems it - and many new friends have happened along since then. So time to put the record straight, I think. Here, then, are the essentials of a Haiku as I have come to understand them.
The overriding characteristic of a Haiku is that it should encapsulate the Haiku moment. By this is meant a moment of genuine awareness, perception or enlightenment. A moment of Epiphany, in fact. The moment will be one of intuition and feeling, and the poem will engender these in the reader or listener. It is important to note that what is first felt and then conveyed in the poem is not something amenable to logic and will normally be ambiguous to a degree. Unsurprisingly, therefore, ambiguity is much prized in the Haiku. It is a poem of genuine feeling, not a mere tinkering with ideas - as many of mine have been!
The aspect which may be said to be next in terms of importance - though many there are who (mistakenly) will place it first - is the form. Structure is important, but is secondary to cadence. In English the accepted structure has become three lines of 5 - 7 - 5 syllables. This is a rule of thumb. Nothing more than that. Haiku translated from the Japanese hardly ever conform to this formula. Mostly, 5 - 7 - 5 does what is asked of it, but the important thing is for the poet to find an equivalent that suits the natural cadence. In Japanese the long vowel counts 2, so right away a dogmatic adherence to the strict 5 - 7 - 5 rule becomes untenable.
The poet's secondary job is to come up with an array of words that cuts the Haiku into two opposing sections, rather as the turn does in a sonnet. Usually in the Haiku it is 12 syllables pitched against 5.
Punctuation is most decidedly not prized. The less there is of it, the better. In most cases it will be verbalised or the line breaks will serve in its place. Often the dash (-) is used instead.
The Haiku will give hints of emotion or attitude (again I stress, not logic) which ideally should grab all five senses - though this must be seen as a counsel of perfection.
The third most important characteristic is one I have already mentioned: ambiguity. It is highly prized, and is often obtained by the use of juxtaposition rather than by the use of conjunctions. Along with ambiguity I should mention open-endedness and a very sparing use of adjectives.
That, I hope, gives a broad view of what the Haiku is all about, but now we need to consider the techniques commonly used to bring all these requirements together - no small task, I think you will agree.
The first of these to spring to mind is the concrete image. These, when juxtaposed without syntactical links as mentioned above, create the emotional tension or atmosphere for which the Haiku is rightly prized. Used in this way, they are considered to be stronger than simile.
Most Haiku are written in the present tense and report simple observations or occurrences. They do not deal in generalisations or habitual happenings, and there are no explicit statements of feelings.
The mood is usually light and not ostentatiously poetic - but definitely not flippant.
The haiku deals in all aspects of contemporary life in what has been described as an interesting but disinterested way.
Vocabulary consists of ordinary, everyday words rather than poetic or ornamental ones.
Normal poetic techniques - e.g. alliteration, assonance, rhyme, melody, rhythm, enjambment, etc - may all be used, but they must not glare i.e. they must not draw too much attention to themselves.
Finally, titles are avoided.
Which just leaves us with the small matter of content! You will have gathered from the above that comprehension is of the essence, that only the absolute essentials are included. But there is more: in a traditional form of Haiku it should be possible to tell from the script in which of the five seasons the poem is located. (Five, because for the Japanese the New Year is a separate season.) This is often done with a key word. Mention of the moon for example, will give a Japanese reader to understand that the poet means the harvest moon - i.e. it is Autumn. However, there has been some extension of the Haiku beyond traditional limits, due mainly to the fact that people do not live as close to nature as they once did. Now there is a category for social concerns such as homelessness and illness. Even so, the effort is towards placing it in the now - example: the last haiku given below.
I have mentioned the turn which should occur somewhere in the poem, normally at the end of one of the lines, that also is most often managed by a key word called a kireji. Sometimes this is a meaningless word added to create a pause before the turn. The kireji can create a lacuna or a ligature to the poem's next unequal half.
The haiku at the head of this post and the first one below are the work of the modern master Suzuki Masajo
I must step on the fallen leaves
to take this path
The next is by the eighteenth century poet, Buson
the helpless tremblings
of a lonely heart
Finishing with one by Inahata Teiko and one by Kaneko Tota
running down inside
lightning
where the A bomb burst
a marathon
I may not be around tomorrow, may not be replying to comments until the weekend. I have a family funeral to attend - if I can get out!
Wednesday, 1 December 2010
Bubble and Squeak
their favourite coffin things -
mobile phones and wine
Heard from two small(ish) boys playing soldiers in the snow:-
1st boy : I've bombed your secret camp.
2nd boy : You couldn't 'ave, you don't know where it is.
1st boy : I do so, it was on Wicked Leaks!
has buried the maple leaves
is stained by their blood
Tuesday, 30 November 2010
Evening Shadows
imaginations
mine and his can change a world --
sinister Jack Frost
gift-wrapped to your least loved ones --
on-line gift firms.
Monday, 29 November 2010
Haiku and "Haiku" #319
scooping handfuls from the car-
boys whiter than white.
Now that he's famous
there's a statue to Nani -
which he has at home
Sunday, 28 November 2010
Saturday, 27 November 2010
Here I would Live! -- and "Haiku" #317
I heard once of a woman who was having a recurring dream in which she would see a house. It was her dream house and it looked so real that she would try to buy it. She came to know it, every detail of it, inside and out. The occupant, however, would not sell.
One day, touring with her husband, they passed the house, the very same house, exactly as it had been, night after night in her dream. She stopped. Could not resist. She knocked. The door was opened by a woman who, taking one look at her, screamed for her to go away. I know you, who you are! she screamed. I've dreamed of you, you are my enemy. You want to take my house from me!
I was reminded of this story when I discovered that our friend Dana at Bug'e Eye View is driving The Poetry Bus and has given a choice of three destinations. Difficult to choose between them, but I have gone for my dream place place in which to live. I trust it will give no one a disturbance like that suffered by the poor ladies in the story above.
The house stands all but hangs
on from above among unpromising
uncompromising rocks. In front,
a wide expanse of water, a
dance floor for the later sunbeams
on a summer's evening or
a playground for them, let us say.
Behind it, hills rise up with pinnacles
and overtones of racks of lamb.
The house itself is low and featureless,
reluctant to intrude above the rocks
with anything more solid than its colours
or strong texture. These it flaunts in sympathy
or contrast, challenging the granite
with its quartz feldspars its serpentine
in friendly rivalry.
Inside, the walls are plain, in neutral colours
as befits the ground on which the works will hang.
Prints mainly, reproductions, some of mine
and others I've acquired. Some flotsam here and there
the sea has spewed upon the beach.
One sculpture stands outside, alone.
A rock now riddled through with holes,
an instrument the sea and tides
and they alone can play.
One other must: an attic or an out house,
a studio-cum-study, one end lined with books,
the other, one unholy mess.
Outside again, perhaps a tiny bunny,
its source high in the hills that back the house.
It runs not far from here.
We all can write scripts
Tim Burton wants our talents -
tweet his next few lines.
One day, touring with her husband, they passed the house, the very same house, exactly as it had been, night after night in her dream. She stopped. Could not resist. She knocked. The door was opened by a woman who, taking one look at her, screamed for her to go away. I know you, who you are! she screamed. I've dreamed of you, you are my enemy. You want to take my house from me!
I was reminded of this story when I discovered that our friend Dana at Bug'e Eye View is driving The Poetry Bus and has given a choice of three destinations. Difficult to choose between them, but I have gone for my dream place place in which to live. I trust it will give no one a disturbance like that suffered by the poor ladies in the story above.
The house stands all but hangs
on from above among unpromising
uncompromising rocks. In front,
a wide expanse of water, a
dance floor for the later sunbeams
on a summer's evening or
a playground for them, let us say.
Behind it, hills rise up with pinnacles
and overtones of racks of lamb.
The house itself is low and featureless,
reluctant to intrude above the rocks
with anything more solid than its colours
or strong texture. These it flaunts in sympathy
or contrast, challenging the granite
with its quartz feldspars its serpentine
in friendly rivalry.
Inside, the walls are plain, in neutral colours
as befits the ground on which the works will hang.
Prints mainly, reproductions, some of mine
and others I've acquired. Some flotsam here and there
the sea has spewed upon the beach.
One sculpture stands outside, alone.
A rock now riddled through with holes,
an instrument the sea and tides
and they alone can play.
One other must: an attic or an out house,
a studio-cum-study, one end lined with books,
the other, one unholy mess.
Outside again, perhaps a tiny bunny,
its source high in the hills that back the house.
It runs not far from here.
Tim Burton wants our talents -
tweet his next few lines.
Thursday, 25 November 2010
Wednesday, 24 November 2010
Tuesday, 23 November 2010
Fire on Earth
Fire on Earth
Peerless they are among the fire sticks of the sky
and totally without peers on the earth, where fire
does not exist - and never has - as they well know.
Too young though and too playful for their roles
both as ambassadors on earth
and members of the sky's haut monde.
The younger firestick kicks his brother on the shins
and skips away, his brother in pursuit,
both calling names, their laughter like the water in the brook.
Flip-flopping high above a thorn bush
they disappear in hummock grass, to reappear
their roles reversed, the younger giving chase,
becoming though, more breathless with each step.
Azoombo turns and makes to cross a ridge,
but finds the lighter and more nimble Zimber
gaining, so he hides among the branches of a tall
Acacia tree and waits to see Azoombo go below.
He drops upon him like a fall of stones.
They roll together on the ridge, and ever closer to the edge -
then over it, and sliding down the steep slope on the scree
creating sparks and shooting flames that when they reach the grass
become a conflagration such as earth has never seen.
In no time it engulfs the flat, the hollows and the hills beyond.
The owners of the firesticks, brothers also,
hunters from the famished world of sky,
have come to earth in search of food. They see the fire
from far beyond the hills and know that earth
does not possess the gift and threat of it. They hurry back
to where they'd left their firesticks in their kit
and scoop them up, returning post haste to the sky.
Tribes people wandering the flats beyond the hills
now see the flames and even from that distance feel their heat
and realize that here is something they can use.
They pull brands from the burning and return with them
to light small fires in every village home.
And so it is that earth is now a place of fire.
This week's prompt from Writers' Island is the one word peerless. For me it clicked with my poem Aspects of Creation after which I mentioned that I might try to write a series of poems on The myths of the Aborigines. This may - or may not - be the first in that series.
Peerless they are among the fire sticks of the sky
and totally without peers on the earth, where fire
does not exist - and never has - as they well know.
Too young though and too playful for their roles
both as ambassadors on earth
and members of the sky's haut monde.
The younger firestick kicks his brother on the shins
and skips away, his brother in pursuit,
both calling names, their laughter like the water in the brook.
Flip-flopping high above a thorn bush
they disappear in hummock grass, to reappear
their roles reversed, the younger giving chase,
becoming though, more breathless with each step.
Azoombo turns and makes to cross a ridge,
but finds the lighter and more nimble Zimber
gaining, so he hides among the branches of a tall
Acacia tree and waits to see Azoombo go below.
He drops upon him like a fall of stones.
They roll together on the ridge, and ever closer to the edge -
then over it, and sliding down the steep slope on the scree
creating sparks and shooting flames that when they reach the grass
become a conflagration such as earth has never seen.
In no time it engulfs the flat, the hollows and the hills beyond.
The owners of the firesticks, brothers also,
hunters from the famished world of sky,
have come to earth in search of food. They see the fire
from far beyond the hills and know that earth
does not possess the gift and threat of it. They hurry back
to where they'd left their firesticks in their kit
and scoop them up, returning post haste to the sky.
Tribes people wandering the flats beyond the hills
now see the flames and even from that distance feel their heat
and realize that here is something they can use.
They pull brands from the burning and return with them
to light small fires in every village home.
And so it is that earth is now a place of fire.
This week's prompt from Writers' Island is the one word peerless. For me it clicked with my poem Aspects of Creation after which I mentioned that I might try to write a series of poems on The myths of the Aborigines. This may - or may not - be the first in that series.
Monday, 22 November 2010
A Magpie Tale of Emasculation
As a kid
I neutered things
would doctor wasps
or draw the stings
of scorpions.
I'm talking
metaphor of course.
Not living things -
the livingest
were dreams
nightmares most of all.
I had such beasts
the beasts had beasts
that followed me
out of the night
into the living day.
I neutered them
in self-defence --
once I'd discovered
how the human mind
has tools to tackle them
by docking vital parts
In my mind's eye
dissecting images
I'd cut and paste
give twigs for claws
replace
hard spines and scales
with Grandma's flannel vests.
Against
the nightmare that returned
night after night
I'd work the image
as I fell asleep.
This picture
might be one of mine
a clock face of
eleven noughts
through which dark spirits poured
and weird eleven
or truncated twelve
pared to that single hour.
The clock
deprived of clockness
the wayward geni
safely bottled for
my peace of mind
which had been free
to run amok.
Still waiting to be corked.
keeping healthy bones and heart --
the up-side of moles
Saturday, 20 November 2010
Christmas 1938 on The Poetry Bus
This week our good friend at Enchanted Oak is driving The Poetry Bus and has asked us to address our own existence in the world. Fine, couldn't be better, except for the fact that it is ground I have worked over repeatedly. However, there existed an early poem which left a great deal to be desired. And so it was that Enchanted Oak's challenge was for me the spur to another attempt, another version. I felt I was far enogh away from the first not to be influenced by it - a triumph of optimism over experience, if ever there was one. Here though, the results of my second dig.
First joined-up memories of the real world,
of me a part of it, not understanding it,
of me in bed, my dad not making sense:
We have to go... he says,
a kindly place with special air...
where wizard folk charm children well
with just a puff of it.
Your Doctor Shellswell will be there.
I see it straight away in my mind's eye,
a towering wonderland of glass,
a shop of barley sugar minarets
all shimmering like sunlight on the sea.
Shelves bright with wands, Aladdin's lamps
and magic cloaks, tall hats and rabbits
out of them, and birds of paradise --
and elephants that disappear when told.
And there, behind the counter,
tall in wizard's cap, my doctor
taking from his bag the magic props
he always brings when visiting:
pills, stethoscope - and best of all,
his books of British Empire stamps,
two books of swops whose very names
are incantations, powers to cure all ills.
There's Montserrat, Somaliland, The Camaroons,
Hong Kong... My Brunei Grey
for his Seychelles, my Grandma says,
once cured my mild pneumonia.
Carried on a flying carpet in through Casualty,
where fairy sterilizers whistle steam
like kettles on a hob -- Just tell them mum,
two armies poised for war, I've left,
men bunkered in my bed, I say,
I haven't time to stay for tea!
Next up, real lemonade and buns with cream.
(No mention yet of oxygen.) It might be fun -
and this from mum! - to stay the night.
All things conspire against me now
to put my private war on hold:
the Christmas tree, a nurse who fans
a latent spark in me, so easily she pulls
my strings, who tells me Santa knows
where I will be, will leave my things beneath the tree.
And so he does: a large Noah's Ark
with all the beasts, an army ambulance
with working parts and camourflage -
and - envy of the ward - Snow White.
But fairylands can harbour evil things.
Across from me, a terrorist,
a sleeper 'till the time was right.
Now with the confidence that heavy armour brings,
he'll send his Christmas tanks, he says,
to snuff out my Snow White.
First joined-up memories of the real world,
of me a part of it, not understanding it,
of me in bed, my dad not making sense:
We have to go... he says,
a kindly place with special air...
where wizard folk charm children well
with just a puff of it.
Your Doctor Shellswell will be there.
I see it straight away in my mind's eye,
a towering wonderland of glass,
a shop of barley sugar minarets
all shimmering like sunlight on the sea.
Shelves bright with wands, Aladdin's lamps
and magic cloaks, tall hats and rabbits
out of them, and birds of paradise --
and elephants that disappear when told.
And there, behind the counter,
tall in wizard's cap, my doctor
taking from his bag the magic props
he always brings when visiting:
pills, stethoscope - and best of all,
his books of British Empire stamps,
two books of swops whose very names
are incantations, powers to cure all ills.
There's Montserrat, Somaliland, The Camaroons,
Hong Kong... My Brunei Grey
for his Seychelles, my Grandma says,
once cured my mild pneumonia.
Carried on a flying carpet in through Casualty,
where fairy sterilizers whistle steam
like kettles on a hob -- Just tell them mum,
two armies poised for war, I've left,
men bunkered in my bed, I say,
I haven't time to stay for tea!
Next up, real lemonade and buns with cream.
(No mention yet of oxygen.) It might be fun -
and this from mum! - to stay the night.
All things conspire against me now
to put my private war on hold:
the Christmas tree, a nurse who fans
a latent spark in me, so easily she pulls
my strings, who tells me Santa knows
where I will be, will leave my things beneath the tree.
And so he does: a large Noah's Ark
with all the beasts, an army ambulance
with working parts and camourflage -
and - envy of the ward - Snow White.
But fairylands can harbour evil things.
Across from me, a terrorist,
a sleeper 'till the time was right.
Now with the confidence that heavy armour brings,
he'll send his Christmas tanks, he says,
to snuff out my Snow White.
Friday, 19 November 2010
Wednesday, 17 November 2010
Immortal Lines
Soon after rousing me from my previously comatose state to a merely partial one, Radio 2, to which our clock radio alarm is tuned (do not ask why) regales me with a spot called Immortal Lines in which listeners 'phone, text or (presumably) email in their favourite immortal song lines. You may have spotted that I have purloined their title for mine own.
It has struck me a couple of times (being still in the semi-comatose condition mentioned above) that it might be interesting, entertaining - or even a giggle - if folk could be persuaded to part with their chosen immortal lines of verse. If so, the comment facility is there for your use. If not, well I have a very broad back and shall perfectly well understand that you did not feel you could indulge, yourselves not being in any sort of comatose condition.
To give you a feel of what I am on about, here are a few examples from recent broadcasts:
Someone left the cake out in the rain.
I'm celebrating my love for you
with a pint of beer and a new tattoo.
Hello lamp-post, what's your name?
Hopefully, they will have given you something of the flavour of what goes on on Radio 2. There are a couple of things to point out about these lines:
They do not have to be lines. They can be phrases, couplets, whatever.
I have not heard any source being given for them and have not recognised one as yet, so I am not willing to swear they are all genuine. Therefore, if you want to make them up or quote an immortal line from your own poetry, that will be fine. Immortal, of course, means immortal to you.
Most importantly, you should not feel it incumbent upon yourself to rise to the heights illustrated above. Something more normal will do very well, as long as it is immortal normality.
For me, the immortality of a line consists in its ability to summon up, and maybe in some sense to sum up, the poem itself.
A couple of examples:
First, from Wordsworth's Ode from his Intimations of Immortality:
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither,
and one more, this maybe a better example, for it summons up for me, not just the poem, but a whole collection. It is from George Szirtes's The Budapest File
and from a poem entitled: Undersong
I love the city, the way it eats you up
And melts you into walls along with stone
It sends a shiver down my spine now as it did, as the whole book did, when I first read it over a decade ago. He writes hauntingly of the changes that took place both above and below ground in his native Budapest, and this quotation brings it all back for me.
Another "Haiku form"
Fast-track growing up
that is why they disappeared -
the neanderthals
It has struck me a couple of times (being still in the semi-comatose condition mentioned above) that it might be interesting, entertaining - or even a giggle - if folk could be persuaded to part with their chosen immortal lines of verse. If so, the comment facility is there for your use. If not, well I have a very broad back and shall perfectly well understand that you did not feel you could indulge, yourselves not being in any sort of comatose condition.
To give you a feel of what I am on about, here are a few examples from recent broadcasts:
Someone left the cake out in the rain.
I'm celebrating my love for you
with a pint of beer and a new tattoo.
Hello lamp-post, what's your name?
Hopefully, they will have given you something of the flavour of what goes on on Radio 2. There are a couple of things to point out about these lines:
They do not have to be lines. They can be phrases, couplets, whatever.
I have not heard any source being given for them and have not recognised one as yet, so I am not willing to swear they are all genuine. Therefore, if you want to make them up or quote an immortal line from your own poetry, that will be fine. Immortal, of course, means immortal to you.
Most importantly, you should not feel it incumbent upon yourself to rise to the heights illustrated above. Something more normal will do very well, as long as it is immortal normality.
For me, the immortality of a line consists in its ability to summon up, and maybe in some sense to sum up, the poem itself.
A couple of examples:
First, from Wordsworth's Ode from his Intimations of Immortality:
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither,
and one more, this maybe a better example, for it summons up for me, not just the poem, but a whole collection. It is from George Szirtes's The Budapest File
and from a poem entitled: Undersong
I love the city, the way it eats you up
And melts you into walls along with stone
It sends a shiver down my spine now as it did, as the whole book did, when I first read it over a decade ago. He writes hauntingly of the changes that took place both above and below ground in his native Budapest, and this quotation brings it all back for me.
that is why they disappeared -
the neanderthals
Monday, 15 November 2010
Aspects of Creation : according to the Aborigines - and me.
being a response to Jingle Poetry's prompt of Moods, Feelings and Emotions.
In the beginning Earth was flat and featureless,
devoid of interest, of life or consequence.
And then there came the Dreamtime,
a great age of change, when giants rose
up from the soil to roam the land.
Half human and half animal, they wore
the natures of the beasts and birds, but acted
in a wholly human way, and set out for all time
the way the Aborigines would live their lives.
They camped, lit fires, they dug for water,
fought each other, hunted, killed to eat.
When finally the Dreamtime reached its end
a moment shrouded in great mystery,
the great, half-human heroes had to go,
their time was up, but as they went,
wherever one had left his mark, a feature
rose up from the land to say he had been there.
A watercourse, a tree, a mountain. Every
artefact the Aborigines enjoy was left to them
by those of old. And more: their laws and customs,
memories, all given. Each one absolute.
As in the Dreamtime, so it still must be, they say.
It happened, though, that in the early days
there came two skyfolk from above to hunt.
They moved in silence, setting traps and tracking prey.
In doing so, they came upon a man
and woman making love - or trying to.
A passionless performance doomed to fail.
This so disturbed them that they took to studying
the Aborigines at work and play, and came to see
that these earth folk had two emotions only: rage and fear -
the two that babies still exhibit in the cot.
Enough, no doubt, for their survival, but insufficient
to guarantee their race into the future.
And so the skyfolk donned their fearful aspects,
striking terror like a flame into the hearts
of men and women. Two beside a lake
they took, rigid in their arms, and flew,
first high above a mountain range,
then on, beyond the desert, to Woomoombo,
a volcano, very large and fiery, then in full eruption.
They flew into the crater, down amongst the spewing
cinders, very near the flames, until their captives
could not breathe. In mortal fear of their two captors,
they faced an even greater fear, that of nature
at its angriest. Unknown to them, within their souls
a tiny portion of that early fear had broken off
and from it awe had grown. Next thing, the sky folk
carried them away to a deserted island.
There they showed them passions greater
than they'd ever known - and in their new-found
awe they were both thrilled and terrified,
a state in which they saw for the first time this thing
called beauty manifest itself in beach
and tree, in sea and distant mountain.
And so it came to pass that a full range
of human feelings and emotions came to earth.
The last act of the skyfolk was to give
them music, art and poetry, a soil in which
to nurture their new feelings.
Haiku #310
To be in the mode
think about your third wardrobe -
a choice of night attire
In the beginning Earth was flat and featureless,
devoid of interest, of life or consequence.
And then there came the Dreamtime,
a great age of change, when giants rose
up from the soil to roam the land.
Half human and half animal, they wore
the natures of the beasts and birds, but acted
in a wholly human way, and set out for all time
the way the Aborigines would live their lives.
They camped, lit fires, they dug for water,
fought each other, hunted, killed to eat.
When finally the Dreamtime reached its end
a moment shrouded in great mystery,
the great, half-human heroes had to go,
their time was up, but as they went,
wherever one had left his mark, a feature
rose up from the land to say he had been there.
A watercourse, a tree, a mountain. Every
artefact the Aborigines enjoy was left to them
by those of old. And more: their laws and customs,
memories, all given. Each one absolute.
As in the Dreamtime, so it still must be, they say.
It happened, though, that in the early days
there came two skyfolk from above to hunt.
They moved in silence, setting traps and tracking prey.
In doing so, they came upon a man
and woman making love - or trying to.
A passionless performance doomed to fail.
This so disturbed them that they took to studying
the Aborigines at work and play, and came to see
that these earth folk had two emotions only: rage and fear -
the two that babies still exhibit in the cot.
Enough, no doubt, for their survival, but insufficient
to guarantee their race into the future.
And so the skyfolk donned their fearful aspects,
striking terror like a flame into the hearts
of men and women. Two beside a lake
they took, rigid in their arms, and flew,
first high above a mountain range,
then on, beyond the desert, to Woomoombo,
a volcano, very large and fiery, then in full eruption.
They flew into the crater, down amongst the spewing
cinders, very near the flames, until their captives
could not breathe. In mortal fear of their two captors,
they faced an even greater fear, that of nature
at its angriest. Unknown to them, within their souls
a tiny portion of that early fear had broken off
and from it awe had grown. Next thing, the sky folk
carried them away to a deserted island.
There they showed them passions greater
than they'd ever known - and in their new-found
awe they were both thrilled and terrified,
a state in which they saw for the first time this thing
called beauty manifest itself in beach
and tree, in sea and distant mountain.
And so it came to pass that a full range
of human feelings and emotions came to earth.
The last act of the skyfolk was to give
them music, art and poetry, a soil in which
to nurture their new feelings.
think about your third wardrobe -
a choice of night attire
Saturday, 13 November 2010
The Poetry Bus meets a Diversion
This, my response to this week's Poetry Bus challenge, is a reworking of one I posted way back, before becoming very dissatisfied with it. The challenge has given me the opportunity for a thorough-going rewrite.
I am much indebted to Karen at "Keeping Secrets" for the prompt. We were asked to choose between the following: A time when we had to choose between two divergent paths; a time when we were called to take a path we did not choose; and a time when we refused to take such a path.
Diversion
Science has gone well.
Continuous Creation, not
the Big Bang of the future -
C.C.'s the theory for this age.
We file into the hall,
the head to lead the prayers.
His homily from Genesis.
Creation done again .
Josh, back in class, is fidgety
distressed, is asking might he paint?
Four sheets of sugar paper,
tape together - and he's off.
Creation number three.
Hills, valleys, trees, the sun, stars,
distant mountains, rivers, flowers...
and then, unmissably, two moons.
I suss the second moon:
it's Sputnik, Russia's first, just launched.
Beneath it are two men,
one huge and one diminutive.
The huge man, haloed,
has one hand reaching out, looms
above small man
who points up to the moons.
Now Josh can't wait to tell me:
Big man, God. Small man
Adam, Adam says to God,
Look there then, I put that one up!
And what's God say to that? I ask.
He's showing him a spider, see.
I jist made him, he say -
You go, beat that, my man!
Not this one moment by itself,
but many like it
have deflected me
from one path to another.
The master plan, teach art and paint
is binned, the children
more appealing somehow,
the focus is on them, not art.
I am much indebted to Karen at "Keeping Secrets" for the prompt. We were asked to choose between the following: A time when we had to choose between two divergent paths; a time when we were called to take a path we did not choose; and a time when we refused to take such a path.
Diversion
Science has gone well.
Continuous Creation, not
the Big Bang of the future -
C.C.'s the theory for this age.
We file into the hall,
the head to lead the prayers.
His homily from Genesis.
Creation done again .
Josh, back in class, is fidgety
distressed, is asking might he paint?
Four sheets of sugar paper,
tape together - and he's off.
Creation number three.
Hills, valleys, trees, the sun, stars,
distant mountains, rivers, flowers...
and then, unmissably, two moons.
I suss the second moon:
it's Sputnik, Russia's first, just launched.
Beneath it are two men,
one huge and one diminutive.
The huge man, haloed,
has one hand reaching out, looms
above small man
who points up to the moons.
Now Josh can't wait to tell me:
Big man, God. Small man
Adam, Adam says to God,
Look there then, I put that one up!
And what's God say to that? I ask.
He's showing him a spider, see.
I jist made him, he say -
You go, beat that, my man!
Not this one moment by itself,
but many like it
have deflected me
from one path to another.
The master plan, teach art and paint
is binned, the children
more appealing somehow,
the focus is on them, not art.
Friday, 12 November 2010
Thursday, 11 November 2010
Two Haiku
they have embraced each other
people stand apart.
shape and embrace our feelings -
pity lonely moods
Wednesday, 10 November 2010
Tuesday, 9 November 2010
The Standing Stones
I've got to watch that I don't become a prompt junky. I've picked up three of them these last few days and run with them all, which was not intended initially. This one really gripped me, probably because I had had this rather empty idea floating round in my mind for some time that I might write about some standing stones. Various locations came and went and still the idea did noting for me. Then came Jingle Poetry's suggestion that we might like to try writing on "Buildings Landmarks or Monuments" etc. That seemed to do it. Why or how, I have no idea. Maybe the phrase gave me a new perspective on the stones. Anyway, this is the result.
The thorn hedge ran it through
divided it
as neatly as a butcher's cleaver
severs meat
strips meat from bone
they were the bones
the bones of some old megalith-
ic structure
eight all told
and six still standing
three in either field
and one in each laid flat
symmetrical design
but nature had begun to fence it in
commandeer the mound on which it stood
tough brambles scrawling over it
their nonsense verse
a mockery of what was on the stones
not that any soul
from heaven earth or hell
came near it
save a stranger with a guide book
now and then
until the day the rings appeared
crop circles people said
before they'd realised
the standing stones were central to the thought
the same thought that the megaliths displayed
the megaliths were thinking out aloud
concentric thoughts
around the circle of the stones
soon brought the people in
the clip-boards and the instruments
the cameras and the microphones
Tom Shanks was one
for all I know the only one
to hack and bleed his
way into the stones
what radiated from him
only he will know
and for the rest of us
we left the brambles undisturbed
whose scrawl had turned to script
our duty to preserve
from rune and bramble
as we turned
to eye the distant hills
the land reshaped itself.
The colours first.
Intense. On fire.
As if a van Gogh or a Paul Gauguin
had set them down
for real. To hell with paint
other changes
caught our eyes
each one switched on
in its own time
the way a foetus grows
unhurried
progressing at its given rate
but turning time around
backtracking through the years
unravelling the decades
centuries
antiquity
Tom was a changed man after that
changed more than we
his mind had changed
its architecture like our land
more permanent than ours.
Back in the normal fields
our normal hills returned
the trees put on once more
their workday leaves
and grass turned green again.
His mind had gone for ever.
Its malls and manor houses
brick and concrete turned to dust
replaced by mud and wattle
thatch and ditch and stone
immersed in ancient wisdoms
it was he said like poring over lilies
watching as they opened
studying their passions
hidden structures
processes
procedures
how they made it to themselves
like a poem on a snowflake
melting on your tongue
for the taste buds to take in
a lover's serenade
as in the instant that you know
it's being sung for you
like a form of sexual rapture
or sex for the first time
say fifty different kinds of love
a moment out of time
speaking a new meaning
not a word of explanation
speaking straight to you
without explaining how
He who had been shallow
a shadow of a person
placing hands on stricken man
on his animals and institutions
feeling hidden structures
feeling his way clear to put them right
He could have found a flying horse
old man, mandala, lotus, wheel,
the hanging man or voodoo doll -
all myths to do the job.
It just so happens that he found
scratches on some standing stones,
a scribble of brambles and their leaves.
The thorn hedge ran it through
divided it
as neatly as a butcher's cleaver
severs meat
strips meat from bone
they were the bones
the bones of some old megalith-
ic structure
eight all told
and six still standing
three in either field
and one in each laid flat
symmetrical design
but nature had begun to fence it in
commandeer the mound on which it stood
tough brambles scrawling over it
their nonsense verse
a mockery of what was on the stones
not that any soul
from heaven earth or hell
came near it
save a stranger with a guide book
now and then
until the day the rings appeared
crop circles people said
before they'd realised
the standing stones were central to the thought
the same thought that the megaliths displayed
the megaliths were thinking out aloud
concentric thoughts
around the circle of the stones
soon brought the people in
the clip-boards and the instruments
the cameras and the microphones
Tom Shanks was one
for all I know the only one
to hack and bleed his
way into the stones
what radiated from him
only he will know
and for the rest of us
we left the brambles undisturbed
whose scrawl had turned to script
our duty to preserve
from rune and bramble
as we turned
to eye the distant hills
the land reshaped itself.
The colours first.
Intense. On fire.
As if a van Gogh or a Paul Gauguin
had set them down
for real. To hell with paint
other changes
caught our eyes
each one switched on
in its own time
the way a foetus grows
unhurried
progressing at its given rate
but turning time around
backtracking through the years
unravelling the decades
centuries
antiquity
Tom was a changed man after that
changed more than we
his mind had changed
its architecture like our land
more permanent than ours.
Back in the normal fields
our normal hills returned
the trees put on once more
their workday leaves
and grass turned green again.
His mind had gone for ever.
Its malls and manor houses
brick and concrete turned to dust
replaced by mud and wattle
thatch and ditch and stone
immersed in ancient wisdoms
it was he said like poring over lilies
watching as they opened
studying their passions
hidden structures
processes
procedures
how they made it to themselves
like a poem on a snowflake
melting on your tongue
for the taste buds to take in
a lover's serenade
as in the instant that you know
it's being sung for you
like a form of sexual rapture
or sex for the first time
say fifty different kinds of love
a moment out of time
speaking a new meaning
not a word of explanation
speaking straight to you
without explaining how
He who had been shallow
a shadow of a person
placing hands on stricken man
on his animals and institutions
feeling hidden structures
feeling his way clear to put them right
He could have found a flying horse
old man, mandala, lotus, wheel,
the hanging man or voodoo doll -
all myths to do the job.
It just so happens that he found
scratches on some standing stones,
a scribble of brambles and their leaves.
Monday, 8 November 2010
Magpie Tales
This week's prompt at Magpie Tales was a splendid image of a cock's head which Blogger has steadfastly refused to reproduce!! You can of course see it if you click on the above link.
The Cock
Aristocratic
other-worldly
owning his wee bit of it -
far as eye can see -
and having taken it
for granted -
or from God.
He has called the morning
to account,
has challenged it and knows
there'll be no takers -
save the echoes of his crows.
No need to show
the rest of him -
it's there in that proud
twist of neck,
red comb
and silhouette.
The Cock
Aristocratic
other-worldly
owning his wee bit of it -
far as eye can see -
and having taken it
for granted -
or from God.
He has called the morning
to account,
has challenged it and knows
there'll be no takers -
save the echoes of his crows.
No need to show
the rest of him -
it's there in that proud
twist of neck,
red comb
and silhouette.
Saturday, 6 November 2010
Surfing on the Poetry Bus
We were asked this week for poems to do with sea, swimming or bathing. But do take a look and read the challenge for yourself at: http://networkedblogs.com/9ZSOY
The Surfer
The wave is sexual
is all excitement, power.
You'd wait a lifetime for the one I mean,
as a poet for his masterwork
a lover for the idolized.
The wave is my beloved.
Treading water
like pacing a street corner,
scanning the horizon...
how to spot her in the crowd
to pick her from the endless stream
of waves identical?
If there's a visual sign
I have no word for it.
Not height, weight, speed nor light,
not colour beam nor breadth...
Somehow I'll know.
Far off, I've chosen her.
Move forward. Gain
as much momentum as I can
until I feel her slide beneath me,
speeds synchronized,
her belly lifting mine,
mine perched on hers.
Our tipping points meld into one -
the perfect union.
Adjust my body angle
then feel her surge, stop, sway, dissemble -
or the perturbations come from me,
from my uncertainties.
Does she feel me as I feel her?
The question's not so strange,
she feels the ocean floor,
becomes pure mathematics,
as she always was -
the ratio of length of wave
to depth of sea will break her yet.
Storm-crafted and storm-driven
across a millpond undersea,
she planes its grain towards the shore
and curls up in a perfect circle
one huge shaving from the sea -
the crest on which we ride.
Inshore, the sea bed,
rises through the Zen-like calm,
replaces it. She feels
the drag of sand
and gravel on her underside,
but then again,
the crest is hampered not a jot, flies on.
And thus she leans,
spills forward,
as a runner when he stumbles might,
all balance lost.
The perfect circle is deformed,
stretched out into a long elipse.
There is a magic number to the lean:
at one in seven she holds on;
a fraction more, the wave explodes.
A million shards, and every one
and every molecule, to weave
its fractal from the sun.
For half a second - hardly more -
Eternity's begun.
Guests invited for
"Intimate Shooting Party"
Balmoral - this weekend.
The Surfer
The wave is sexual
is all excitement, power.
You'd wait a lifetime for the one I mean,
as a poet for his masterwork
a lover for the idolized.
The wave is my beloved.
Treading water
like pacing a street corner,
scanning the horizon...
how to spot her in the crowd
to pick her from the endless stream
of waves identical?
If there's a visual sign
I have no word for it.
Not height, weight, speed nor light,
not colour beam nor breadth...
Somehow I'll know.
Far off, I've chosen her.
Move forward. Gain
as much momentum as I can
until I feel her slide beneath me,
speeds synchronized,
her belly lifting mine,
mine perched on hers.
Our tipping points meld into one -
the perfect union.
Adjust my body angle
then feel her surge, stop, sway, dissemble -
or the perturbations come from me,
from my uncertainties.
Does she feel me as I feel her?
The question's not so strange,
she feels the ocean floor,
becomes pure mathematics,
as she always was -
the ratio of length of wave
to depth of sea will break her yet.
Storm-crafted and storm-driven
across a millpond undersea,
she planes its grain towards the shore
and curls up in a perfect circle
one huge shaving from the sea -
the crest on which we ride.
Inshore, the sea bed,
rises through the Zen-like calm,
replaces it. She feels
the drag of sand
and gravel on her underside,
but then again,
the crest is hampered not a jot, flies on.
And thus she leans,
spills forward,
as a runner when he stumbles might,
all balance lost.
The perfect circle is deformed,
stretched out into a long elipse.
There is a magic number to the lean:
at one in seven she holds on;
a fraction more, the wave explodes.
A million shards, and every one
and every molecule, to weave
its fractal from the sun.
For half a second - hardly more -
Eternity's begun.
"Intimate Shooting Party"
Balmoral - this weekend.
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