Thursday 27 September 2007

Just a thought

The traffic lights near home were not working today. It's a busy & awkward junction. People were carefully crossing, waiting, waving each other on & moving gingerly. The traffic was still moving steadily from all 4 roads, just slotting in, no aggressive pushing. The queues were less that 5 cars long in any direction.
So it made me think, "If there were a few less rules, if we were ordered about a little less in our daily lives, would we become a little more gentle with each other and help each other solve our joint problems with a little more care? Would life flow a little more slowly and a little more smoothly?"
Of course there are always selfish people, but if the rest of us are careful, does it matter? Just let them go on their selfish way. If there were any selfish people on the road today I didn't see them, and I crossed the junction twice at busy times.

Wednesday 26 September 2007

Moon 1

Am I alone?

Staring down,
Seeing my every move,
Watching with a large white eye.

Seeing you,
Wherever you are,
Sleeping, dreaming, staring back?

Are you aware of it?
Does it catch your eye?
Does it haunt you and follow you?

Am I alone,
Or do you share?
Am I the only one in this gaze?

Does it touch you?
Do you feel its white scrutiny?
Does it carry you beyond reality?

Are you like me,
Defeated by the strength,
In the control of the white watcher?

Or am I alone?

Moon 2

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Set Free

Thoughts fly like the clouds
Driven by that unrelenting glare
Flying free beyond the reach of normal
Lost in the open desert of the sky
Where dreams and daily life merge in fantasy.


Thursday 20 September 2007

to Mannix Point

Now is not the time
Nor this the place for sadness,
But a stay and respite
From the torment of our routine madness.


This was in the back of a sketchbook with 2 pages of watercolour sketches.

The finished piece is framed on the wall in Mortimer's campsite. There's another one for the same place if I can find the right sketchbook!

Summer 1987

Water Thoughts 5

Lonely Beach

Left behind by tide
Overlooked by time,
Natures dustbin.
Endless sand,
Littered bits of shells and
Yellowing weed.

Broken wood from worn out ships,
Each piece telling its lonely tale,
After Autumn's final fling,
Clawed by early storms,
Home to hungry gulls
.............................................and me.

Started Jan 1984, continued Dec 1984, finished Oct 1986

Yes I would alter a few words for style, but I still like this one as it is! It brings back surfing memories!

Water Thoughts 4

Water

Washing up the pebbled beach,
Against the rocky cliff,
Through dark and hidden caves,
Each swirl in tree hung pool,
Rushing streams and rivers flow.

1986

The worst of the bunch really. Beth is correct when she says my style has changed. Then I was satisfied with pretty pictures, raw emotions just poured out and satisfying phrases; now I want meaning to accompany them. Reasons, conclusions, purpose, analysis, insight ... But I'm not going to alter them.

Water Thoughts 3

Rivers

Rushes bend and sway,
Icy fingers creep,
Valleys snowbound lie,
Entwined in winters sleep,
Ragged sheets of jagged ice,
Show rivers too caught in the vice of cold.

1986

A bit bland, but I would not alter it even now!

Wednesday 19 September 2007

Water Thoughts 2

Ocean

Over rocks, weed and sand,
Crashing breakers fall
Energy spent it slides away
Again to form, again to break
Never ending, unrelenting.

1986. (Not a bit like anything I would write these days.)

Water thoughts

What do you do when you go surfing and there is no surf? Well in my case I carved bits of wood and made notes to write into poems. There are 5 from 1984 to 86. I taught children to write a variety of forms for poetry. These days I would quickly scan something someone else has written. In those days, pre National Curriculum, I shared the process of converting my notes into poems. This is why these poems ended up as acrostics and a "shape" poem. Let's start with that one.
I can't remember if the spelling mistake was accidental or included to make the shape work, or whether I wanted a bit of hiss in the crash!

Tuesday 18 September 2007

Acrostics for Peace

In October 1986 there was an "event" to raise awareness of the need for both personal & world peace. I think it was called A Million Minutes for Peace. Everything I wrote about world peace seemed so inadequate that I focused on personal peace and chose to write acrostics. They took me exactly 35 minutes. Here they are, unaltered - Peaceful Moments & Peace.

Peacerful Moments

People walk quite close, but do not speak,
Each one trapped by the spell of early morning,
Awake, but
Caught in a web of thought that
Even noisy trains cannot break,
Following the daily path to work,
Underground,
Leaving me to dream my silent daydreams.

Morning, sitting underneath the trees,
On back to back seats in a haze of rain,
Motionless, silent,
Entering the world of "maybe, if, perhaps."
Nearness and sharing,
Treasured frienship
Speech unnecessary.

Peaceful came from when I was 19 and lived at Grandma's in Gant's Hill for a bit. I travelled by tube across London to Stanmore. The Moments was a very specific occasion sitting in the new abboretum at Rufford Park.
Finally Peace - written about the moments after a climb called Toreador in North Wales.

Peace

Perhaps the struggle of the climb,
Energy draining, full of danger,
Afraid of falls, of death,
Causes me to pause and refelect on
Everything I value.

Museum

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I’m surrounded by the exhibits of my tiny life
The things that make me, me.
They reassure, comfort and offer strength,
Their loss a cutting knife.

To you they may be useless, dusty old and frayed,
Things from pointless pasts,
Fragments of unimportant lives, unnecessary,
Debris of my life’s twisting road.

They tell of all I’ve known and thought and done.
Important people yesterday,
Places where life was strong, excitement, fear,
Or brief success that’s gone.

I can taste salt on that rock & feel the cutting wind.
Each time I touch the little jug,
I can see the friend who gave and hear their voice,
And feel the touching hand.

Our house was built in a fleeting span of time.
But the museum where I stay,
Has taken all my life to craft, yet still I add more flotsam,
To keep alive the flame .

(Revised 31/12/2010)

Lost Love

Originally written between 1969 and 1972, this poem nearly went in the recycling.













I reworked it (a few times) to be a little less raw and more consistent with what I currently do. So ...

Lost Love 3
The things I remember are hazy and dim,
Like faint scattered sunlight on a tree limb,
Or the echoes of thunder away in the hills,
Cobwebs with dew and grey morning chills,
Cowslips, mown grass and freshly baked bread,
And people and places in books that we read.

I go through villages, places we went,
Remembering old men tired and bent,
The places look changed and the taste of them sour,
Not as they seemed then; yet for an hour
I can still see the faces of those that we knew,
But they whither and die, lost without you.

I go to the town, those same dusty roads,
The same old grey buildings crouching like toads
On the meadows of concrete, kerb stones and tar,
Grazed by the people, chewed down by cars.
Signs in shop windows, the names of the streets,
The rustle of voices, the shuffle of feet,
Remind me of laughter and when you were here,
Now the streets seem deserted, empty and drear.

Original written between 1969 and 72
Revised Sept 2007

Tuesday 11 September 2007

Of stars and sand and clouds

Of stars and sand and clouds.

The sand has trickled through the glass,
The time run out, the journey done.
Speckled with stars and gold-dust,
Tangled with skeins of fleeing clouds,
It now lies still, energy used up,
Memories buried beneath the drifts.

Was it only yesterday the glass was full
Of clean fresh sand; each grain a promise?
There seemed so much, so many hours to spend,
No cares, no urgency, no demands
To hold on to life and grasp it tight,
Or decide, or take responsibility.

Why did it run so fast? What has passed?
I hardly noticed the steady flow until
With a final flurry in settled still, all spent.
With only the stars and flecks of gold
And clouds to remind me of the places,
The times, the faces, the fears, the expectations.

Sunday 2 September 2007

Stone People

Stone People

Stone People, frozen to the sky,
Remote from reality and wondering why,
Struck by the blaze from the light on high
Statues. Unmoving, however hard they try.

Stone People, left here for always,
Held in static pose by a mindless daze,
Standing rigid, stuck in unending stance,
Passing their existence locked in a trance.

Stone People, caught somehow in time,
Unbending, petrified, cast hard in lime,
Isolated, trapped, abandoned by the stream,
Part of the landscape, part of my dream.

Garden thoughts


Something else I need to remember is how the garden looks when it's almost tidy. It doesn't happen often. Thanks Shob & Beth















The shed bits, barbecue area, pond & stream still need some work!

Saturday 1 September 2007

Chances

Chances

The barrier reaches the sky,
As high as the eye can see,
I dare not look and contemplate
This way to insanity

This side is the normal world,
Secure, mundane, well worn ,
Step into the land beyond,
There’s treasure as yet unknown.

But the dangers that lurk are threatening,
Are the gains really worth the risk?
Can the solid things this side the wall,
Be gambled against a wisp?

How can I refuse the beckon,
Or the promise of what is beyond?
Is it real, will it fade, can I take it?
Can I live in that ephemeral land?

The fire is burning still brighter,
It throws light to every side,
Should I jump and cling to the flames
And go on their wild flickering ride?

Reason demands only caution,
For safety it’s better right here,
Wild abandon offers rich prizes,
But carries a burden of fear.

Now you choose which one if you dare to,
The choices are both very plain,
But the outcome of one is stagnation,
Of the other? Could be bliss; could be pain.

August 07