Metaphysics aint for Kids!

For the inspiration for this poem I am indebted to dVerse ~ Poets' Pub. The prompt contained a poem by Billy Collins entitled "Lanyard", which reminded me of this incident from my childhood:-

A conch shell
found on the Cliftonville sands.
How did it get there?
Not brought by the tide...
too exotic for that!

Beautiful markings
in six shades of brown
plus ginger and cream.
More lovely by far -
I was sure beyond doubt -
than ornaments,
jewels or knick knacks at home.

So I had this idea -
a brilliant wheeze:
converting my treasure
to something of USE.
A practical thing,
of magnified worth.
But try as I would,
nothing came of my thought.

Could beauty,
I pondered,
be useless as that?
I'd have to rethink
my whole metaphysics.

Post Cards from Camp

Wednesday

This to say we're in.
The camp Napoleonic;
a fort - dining room of brick,
ablutions cut into the chalk,
ridge tents on concrete bases.
(We're sharing with school leavers.)


Thursday

High spirits last night - too high!
"Commander" John went outside,
raincoat folded on his arm.
"That boy there!" he yelled,
paused, whacked the coat like murder.
Silence from then on.


Friday

Explored the chalk escarpment.
The boys' route being waymarked,
we sent them down the valley,
watched them from the ridge,
called out to them a few times.
Our voices did not carry -
though we heard them, every word!


Saturday

It's a long walk to the loos.
Heavy rain last night.
Eerie sounds from dripping trees,
so the big lads stayed at home -
until they were mob-handed.
(Our youngsters thought it funny.)


Sunday

The camp fire sing-song
and a ghostly figure comes
draped in long white sheets,
beneath which strong lights flicker.
Great excitement - then he falls:
Our "commander" John.


Monday

A day-long ramble.
Jim badgers Frank the whole way.
Frank's turn to serve the supper.
First up: mugs of ox-tail soup.
Jim's mug is full - of oxtail.


Tuesday

Last night: traumatic.
A stranger opens tent flaps
inviting boys to join him.
Police in non-attendance -
say they know the man:
"harmless", "miles away by now"!
Coming home to-day.

Two Poems

live2write2day's suggestion for this week was that we should write a "contrast" poem, expressing a sharp contrast in its content. Not easy, I thought, but here gores:~

The pool like silk
until the wind came,
ruffling the surface,
adding hooks to knife-
edged waves -
like shaken milk.
And leap of fish
and bubbles tore
the fragile silk apart,
'till all was cream again.

---

Cedars with their hands outstretched
black and weighted
spreading horizontal darkness,
echoing the nimbus clouds.

Bright shafts of sunlight
pierce the clouds,
and dancing motes
now commandeer the lawn.

Backdrop to the trees,
Belly Hill absorbs then all
into its darkness.

Light-hearted, silver-
white, the birches float
above the lying mist.

Love Song to London

How do I think of you, London, my lovely?
Last time I saw you, alas, you were dirty:
Oxford Street cluttered with boxes and beer cans,
litter and dust clouds there, blown by the wind.
I'll forgive you the way all lovers forgive
their beloveds their failings and each fleeting
lapse, for these are not thoughts I wish to retain;
they cannot erase the warmth that I feel
for galleries tucked out of sight in your back
ways; dealers inviting the populace in.
Colourful, small, like the stalls in a kasbah -
not that they'd thank me for putting it so! -
with paintings and prints to delight jaded souls.

In one such a gallery, columns of smoke
signalled the end of my favourite coat -
one extra tale for another occasion,
one extra lapse, already forgiven - how
could I drop you, your House of Commons?
(The best entertainment for free you can get!
Dead meats and their prices debated for hours.)
How not to forgive who showed me the ballet,
Berisova, Fonteyn, and then Drury Lane,
not least, The Royal Court, Pinter, Osborne and co.
Oh London, my Lovely, I'll pardon your faults,
though the riots, I grant, will take a wee while.

Oh London, my lovely, your charms are sublime,
brighter by far than a bright starry sky,
more abundant than stars. But these are the charms
that remind me I love you - and why that is so.

The suggestion to write about a city was made by dVerse ~ Poets Pub

Rust Bucket

We thought, perhaps eight hundred yards,
the Russian tanker
anchored in the pool of deepest azure, just off shore.
We paddled out.
'Let's circle round it' someone said.
Our three canoes,
all kayak singles, slalom kind
in V-formation.

But it was more. More like a mile or more.
The sea was warm
and somehow velvety and smooth.
It gently lapped
against the tanker's rusty sides and us.

Small waves in runs
were like a lioness who plays with cubs.
I'd never been
a lion cub, did not expect
the freak wave
like an angry paw that struck from nowhere
without reason -
and underlined the metaphor.

Two poems: Riot - the original - and Caro

After posting the ghazal yesterday I mentioned - on the dVerse blog - that I had first written it in less exotic form. I had a couple of requests to post the original for comparison. So here, for anyone who might be interested, it is. (To be honest, reading it again now, I can't see much comparison!)


Best day of my life that was!
I only went to watch,
but watching brought on such a rush -
adrenalin, you've no idea!
We set the town alight, we did,
stuck it to 'em good and proper, man
(Know what I mean?)
them as likes to lord it over us,
as says we's all in gangs...
I'm in no gang, and never was.
Them better find out who them's dealing with -
or next time, not so lucky, pigs!
Them's not our mums and dads, but finks them is,
That's them as knows fuck nuffink about us -
and furver more, cares less,
or if they did, they'd learn a bit more, no?
Them's all so yesterday.
Spying on us, so they thought -
on Twitter, if you please,
and all us using Blackberries
and Twittering false clues
to throw 'em off the scent.
And yeah, we robbed 'em rotten - serve 'em right!
Them's doing us a great injustice see?
Says we's all poor, that's why we scum.
So how's we poor? We got the gear. Top stuff.
We got our Blackberries, so how we poor?
Ask them, they'll say we robbed for 'em.
So don't forget, yous better find
out who you's dealing with -
or next time, not so lucky, pigs!

---

Early One Morning - Anthony Caro


He took a job assisting Henry Moore
and walked Moore's English hills in search of clues,
a magic sign, perhaps, to open doors;
an inner route to all that's bred in stone.
Instead he found, snagged on a barb of wire,
a very English length of woolen thread,
and there beneath the flesh, the inner forms
of skeletons that shape surrounding stone.
In cave and crevice: steel of painted limbs;
stick insects; welded ribs and bolted wings -
and vertebrae that underlie a world.

Henry Moore

Riot : a ghazal

We all had a ball on that day of all days,
such feelings of power, that day of all days!

Best day of my life, was that day of all days -
so magic each hour, that day of all days.

I'd just gone to eye-ball their day of all days,
see the pigs cower, that day of all days.

But adrenalin ran on my day of all days
and nuffink was dour, that day of all days.

We robbed people blind on that day of all days,
were out on the scour, that day of all days.

The town was on fire for our day of all days,
but then it turned sour, the day of all days.

Some scum neighbours shopped us that day of all days,
turned our flames into flowers, killed our day of all days.

---

This challenging prompt was set by dVerse ~ Poets' Pub. Do visit them for info about the ghazal - and for much else.

I am aware that I've cheated a bit with the last line, but would appreciate any comments about a form that I have always found very difficult. This is the first attempt to get anywhere near completion.

---

Two days ago our local radio asked for listeners' suggestions for a three word phrase to sum up the events of last week.

Their contribution: "fear for future"

I think mine would be: "Knee-jerk reactions"

Neither do I find very satisfactory: any others?

an out-of-the-body experience

Knowing exactly
where in my world I am              in which room
                                    in which chair
                                    in the corner away from the light

and seeing myself                   as a tree
a rowan full grown                  shorn of all boughs
                                    
blown in from                       my infant school play.

                                    I stand at the window 
                                    furthest from me

                                    hands full of green boughs -
                                    Green Giant...  that me?
Leaves, berries and flowers
and twigs fill the space            where my features should be.

Standing my ground
as if planted
unaware
                                    for awhile
                                    that it's me.

                                    All else in flux
what you see
is not what you get.

People pass by
people I know
                                    soft shadows fly
                                    over the ground
                                    rotating like blades 
                                    on a slow ceiling fan
                                    or headlights of cars
                                    turning the corner
(When shadows caress
I regain human form
my features appear                  then are gone
                                    in the next flash of light.)

A man with a horse
a friend on his bike
my aunt - or great aunt             (the features are blurred)
                                    having taken the veil
                                    Sister of Mercy
                                    she mumbles the prayer
                                    Jo said in the play

and Mary, my friend                 who sang in the play.

Febrile the mist                    (one hundred and five - 
                                    I'll be told)
that descends on my eyes.

I look over at me.                  The distant,"new" me
                                    and the me that I am
                                    are locked in embrace
We're leaning
unstable
the room sways and spins.

Mini-beasts.                        Each larger than life.
From the bark.
Crawl over me.
Centipedes.
Beetles.
Spiders with hairs.                 Spinning their silks, 
                                    not making their webs.
It goes dark.
Then brightens again.
Then back to dark.

Leaves.                             Falling around me.
                                    Blowing away.
Are luminous faces
lighting the day. 

And mother's (with Lucozade) 
"Welcome back darling!"  

I have sung through it all of The Runaway Train running over the 
tracks. Remarkably, though, I've no recall of that.
                                      

Time Was Away

I read a novel
in which the end of the world
came long before
the end of the book.

Similarly,
a dream I had
pre-dated
the Big Bang

A colleague told me
he had memories
of being in the womb -
but not of leaving it
or getting there!

The same colleague
has deja vu moments
all the time. He claims
his whole life
is one long reprise -
played backwards.

Our infant son
would move
the clock's hands on
to bring his mum
home sooner.
(It seemed to work!)

The Creation of Man : William Blake

And after Michelangelo
what other hand, what other eye
could bring the scene to life again,
add something to the turning point
of God creating man? Only the mystic
inner eye, the eye of Blake envisioning
how Energy brought Adam from the dust.

Winged Energy, a spent force - almost - here
beneath a golden setting sun as Earth
returns to darkness from its glory days,
scrabbles on bare hands and knees
to fashion man as best He can.
He has no instant button at his beck and call,
no key to press marked "Add Life Now!",
man does not sizzle into being at his finger's touch.

Five days God's laboured on His master plan,
framed time, eternity, earth, universe and life,
framed all that is, except for this, now on the sixth,
from what is left - the last dregs of an earthly dust -
he's making man. The evidence is clear:
God struggles, fully stretched, with this his final
task, most draining of them all. Man, still not
fully formed, still part of earth - and worse,
already in the serpent's coils, the battle all but lost.

The spirit Energy has found the clay
he needs to form the brain. Retrieving it
while opening the skull, He seems distracted,
looks elsewhere - perhaps for inspiration, or perhaps
from sheer exhaustion. Here Blake's strange Elohim creates -
I'd say, almost against the grain - in torment and in pain.

Blake was implacably opposed
to science, all its forms and revelations,
and this was way before "The Origin of Species" -
but Blake is almost there, and that despite himself.

A painted print, but paint obliterates the print.
Blake, too, has toiled to bring The First Man
from his earthly womb to life: man made,
not simply in God's image, but by God Himself
who crafted him by hand - no short cuts taken here!

Land Art - en plein air and indoors : Two Poems

1

Three conifers
stand in isolation
on a sandy inland beach.

I take a curving path
towards them. As I walk
they also move.
Change places
glide around each other,
always within touching distances.

Between their three trunks -
initially -
a lake,
a glistening stretch
beckoning
invitingly.

Most entrances are taped
denying access
(toxic algae?)
though boats sail peacefully.

2

Covering a panel -
thick viridian green -
I blend in ochre, umber, several greys,
then deeply score from left to right.
A sharp tool
digging down
exposing the bare board -
a furrow through a tract of land
where centuries of feet have worn
a path, a highway, movements of a man
or men. I scrape
and scratch - the paint
is hardening -
the first score's perpendicular,
then drag in white
for chalk and black
for coal. I see it
as a sort of land art
grown at home
diminutive in scale.

Two Sites of Special Scientific Interest

Water
falls into a lake,
backdrop
seen through alders
heard through rustle of leaves,
leaves
haloed in white.

My approach
expands the whiteness
in circles
towards me,
crossing the lake.

Sad that the distance
and instinct  combine
to conjure the fancy:
soap suds  pollutants
only  nearer  to find
a  mix nearly perfect
of   water  unsullied
with lightness of air
support for  two rare
mini-beasts  and  one
water weed.

                  *

All
genetic programs ticking
satisfactorily,
they cover themselves in glory -
and metal oxides -
changing
from benign virus
into living wire,
predestined to arrange themselves
in patterns laid by man
called batteries.
They pack a punch,
sparks bright enough
to replace petrol on all 
roads of this town reborn
tomorrow - when all our cities
will be lit (maybe) by living things
like Vibrio phosphorium -
or cum grano salis, as you might say -
sparkling bacteria
clinging to the outside walls
of buildings 
growing there - and every roof as white
as that pure water in the lake.

Love Song

dVerse ~ Poets Pub set several prompts for this week, all of them relating to the work of Giorgio de Chirico. I chose this painting of his: "Love Song".

Anxiety is here that builds to war.
It's in the dark and melancholy streets,
it's in the very atmosphere that sinks
into the gut, the bones, the spleen, the spunk.
No one is here, it's not for humans, this.

But wait, we see the signs of man writ large,
though muddled and confused, as in a dream:
Apollo - plaster likeness, not himself -
a rubber glove, a ball, a puffing train.
What are these things to us - and what to him?

de Chirico is out to change the world.
These are the implements he'll use, laid out
as if a surgeon is about to cut
the cord that ties the world to evil thoughts -
He's working in the deepest shafts of mind.

Apollo, god of music, song and verse
is giving birth to man's creative urge.
A midwife's glove tacked to a wall to dry,
a ball awaits the long-expected child.
Art answers to the world's anxieties.

But no, I did not quite forget the train...
the artist's father worked the railway line.
A tiny train, it's going nowhere fast -
for this is not escapist art; it's here
in every now that ever was or is.

There Should be a Bird Called a Poet

There should be a bird called a poet.
What would its plumage be?
Would it twitter away in ducktyls?
Would both sexes sing, he and she?

I ask, having read in the news
how poets have twittered on twitter
demanding an airing for views
that are growing increasingly bitter

re The Poetry Soc's upper twigs.
On Facebook, forsaking their crumbs,
they're coming together in gigs -
their harmony baffles and numbs.

They're demanding that birds that have flown
the nest in frustration and pique
should be reinstated and shown
that the board, not the poets, are weak.

So what of my bird called a poet?
It should have some teeth in its beak,
teeth it reserves for the nest -
to use them outside is not chic.

Its feathers would end disarrayed,
it would stagger around on mixed feet,
any rondo or sonnet it made
would nose dive into the street.

So you'll not find it out where it matters,
doing battle with giants or a troll,
a world grown hungry, in tatters;
but twittering tunes that lull.

(For background: see here)

Two Poems

1
Newly opened,
coral pink
and beautifully formed,
its face turned up
as if to scan the sky,
a listening ear perhaps.

Within the rose
around its tiny fins
pearl coloured beads of rain
follow one another
like insects in a maze.

2
Twelve saplings in a circle,
twelve swan necks
echoing each other
seem to have invented
the world's first ever
static dance

Theatre in the round:
the circle is enclosed
by watching shrub and scrub.

Africa

The moon inflating was a taupe balloon
she'd thought in dream,
forgetting she'd not slept.

Hallucination.

And not the moon, but
daughter Marza's, stomach.
She'd watched the dry earth swallow it, seen,
how as it slowly sank beneath a mimicry of waves,
it gently rolled as if a small boat had capsized.

No ripples broke the surface,
no bubbles from those trapped beneath.
And nothing grew,
no green shoots marked the grave.

Only the dust remembered it
where scratches in the dust were epitaph.

And then the belly reappeared,
surfaced like a corpse at sea,
as if the waves had spurned her final gift.
One corpse too many for its store.

But not the whole corpse. As before,
that empty part of her , that part
wherein her body's emptiness
had been most keenly felt, the still inflating,
slightly bouncing belly.

Emblazoned on it, clear as day:
half her daughter's face.
Deflating rapidly,
the belly
in its shrunkenness,
its creases and its crevises,
took on images
only to scrunch and then discard them.
Fleetingly she saw, but did not recognise,
a map of Africa.

Each image was to her
another stunted bush, more scrub,
more shrivelled leaves
from gum and galool tree.

Still, something stilled inside her,
clearly said it was an omen.
Good or bad, she did not know, but she was glad.
It made her daughter more significant, somehow.

Summer Reading

On Tuesday, on my first visit to the World Examining Works blog (which I arrived at via that of The Weaver of Grass I found the suggestion that we might like to post on our blogs the following from our Summer reading:-
2 non-fiction books that we have enjoyed
2 new fiction reads ditto
and 2 old favourites re-read.

Well, why not?
The two new non-fiction that I have most enjoyed (actually, am most enjoying: but there we go, veracity to fact is not the deepest truth) are:

"The Stranger's Child" by Alan Hollinghurst
and
"The Hare with Amber Eyes" by Edmund de Waal

The latter is probably the most unusual book I have read in a long while. The hare in question is a netsuke, one of those tiny Japanese wood and ivory carvings, which was left the narrator in a legacy. It is a treasure hunt-cum-family saga.

My two non-fiction choices are both technical books:-

"Language Technology and Society" by Richard Sproat, an overview from ancient hieroglyphs to the computerising of Chinese script and machine translation,
and
"The Sound of Poetry; the Poetry of Sound" co-edited by Perloff and Dworkin. It is a collection of papers from scholars, poets and translators - some of whom are all three.

Finally my two old favourites taken down and dusted are:-

"Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow" by Peter Hoeg
and
"Marabou Stork Nightmares" by Irvine Welsh

Questions on Self-Crucifixion

How did he manage it,
Graham Sutherland,
his crucifixion?

Imagine it:
a landscape artist, simply that,
resolved to paint a crucifixion -
and not just a, the most impressive,
most authentic yet.

He had a wooden cross made -
made to measure, so to speak -
and placed himself, roped, hanging there.

And thus completely incommoded,
drew himself seen in a mirror.
And there's the bit I fail to understand.
How did he manage that?

Had I been Sutherland
I think I would have had no mirror,
but with the brush held in my teeth
and wearing an effective blindfold
would have set out to mark on canvas

areas of pain.

I'll not pretend it would have looked like crucifixion:
it might have, but I doubt it. Any way,
what visual art portrays
need not be visual.
I think it would have worked for me,
but would it have been art?
Ah, there's the rub,
for that's the thing about a claim to making art...
it must communicate outside oneself.

The hope that Sutherland held dear
was perfect truth, history's
most pure and its most unadorned
view of its most significant event.

For perfect truth the self will always need
a crucifixion. Did you know
you can down-load self crucifixion ring tones
from the Internet? *

---

* by Virgin Steele

a pool and its environs

By the pool
I am the
shadow of water
thrown over grass
like a net.

Among trees
I stumble
bramble tangled -
a young boy
reborn.

Walking
the rocks
I am a stone
fashioned from stone
complete as a stone.

Crossing
an open field
I am smudged
like water paints
by dark clouds.

Someone felled
and perched
a silver birch
on a branch of
a silver birch.

Like bonsai trees
the fungi cluster
vying for size
and colour.
Each one bitten.

Sand rises
around my feet
like water.
Only the marram
grass holds me.

Flowering sedge
water-mirrored
on marshy fingers
pointing me back
to the pool.

Visit The Poetry Pantry

Interview

I'm looking for a janitor today.
The school unfinished,
unusable at present,
will soon be ready "right on cue".
A bungalow goes with the post.
No shortage then of candidates.

The clerk-of-works has volunteered
his porta-cabin for the interview.
We've all squeezed in: the governors,
the County representative,
a man from maintenance, a clerk.
The clerk reads out apologies.

First in: a youngish man from Kent.
He speaks of his experience:
both of the job and children too -
particularly "kids like these".
A school he knows in Kent,
he mentions it by name...

No, not employed, he helps out there -
his nephew's school, in fact.
(I know the boy, Jack Jones.)
The candidate is gaining confidence;
he's helped with woodwork lessons,
motor maintenance and groups on visits.

The recent deputy relied on him,
spoke of him in glowing colours.
The two of them became great friends.
He'd take a full part in school life
if he should get the job.
I don't let on: the deputy was me.

I learn much more about myself
before I break my vow of silence:
for instance how I recommended he
receive a gong. At last I speak: tell all.
He smiles. No word of explanation:
he withdraws his application.