Friday 21 April 2017

A COLLECTIVE SIGH

I'm just back from Lisbon. 
I haven't visited the city for about eight years. You can look at the poem my previous visit provoked here.
Actually I jotted down a number of ideas but have only worked this into something like a presentable form.


Lisbon: 16.4.17

she shades her head
with the poly-pocketed
piece of paper
that proclaims her
tour guide status

the
human
crocodile
pauses
turns
on
her
cue
to
take
in
the
view
and
with
a
collective
sigh

resumes its progress
up the steep street
It's good practice to try and capture a scene quickly. You can work on the form later. Initially you simply want to get down those first impressions.
What I did notice this time was the influx of tourists from cruise ships. You have the same phenomenon in Barcelona.
Here is another rough draft. I literally spoke this into my phone as I walked to the supermarket today.


this time around he is a mechanic
who cannot fix cars
and spends his days changing units
as directed by the diagnostic computer

he has always worked with his hands
made the best bows in his tribe
back on the wind scoured step
was twice a watchmaker in France

he has scraped a making table optically flat
metal speaks to him
steel iron bronze
flint and stone as well

now he does as he is told
his eternal self wonders
if this is the lesson of this life
I am not sure I have got an impression of the depth of reincarnation.
Watch this space for updates.
By the way I am posting every two weeks at the moment.
I leave you with Brooke Sharkey. I saw her again a couple of weeks ago and she was stunning.
Here is Bottletop Blues.
And here she is singing Your Tomorrow.
Until next time.

Friday 7 April 2017

LAST WORD

I think that each of us has a set of archetypes that we mine repeatedly to explain the world around us.
Here is another poem involving Yuri Gagarin and for once it has a title.


Last Word

A terrible loneliness
was how Yuri described
being the first human in space,
up where no one can hear you...
what?
Scream, shout,
or gasp
because you are unable to take in the panoply?

Space is noisy though,
it crackles with hard radiations
and murmurs the echo of the Big Bang.
Wired up wrong, cloth eared,
we just don't pick any of it up
too used to sonic waves in fat atmosphere.

But I don't want to go to space any more,
as I did when I was young.
even as it falls to pieces around me,
I like this place too much,
to ride a controlled explosion
far beyond all that is familiar.

Yuri said that from up there
the world looked so beautiful,
and pleaded we should preserve that beauty.
Down here you can't hear the planet scream,
so we go on killing it.
One day it will speak in a language we all understand.
I do worry that in the developed world we are ignoring climate change at our peril. How many instances of freak weather do we need before we wake up?
On a lighter note Paul Mortimer set the pair of us a task the other day to write a poem using two randomly chosen prompt cards.
Mine read ripped upholstery and a supermodel holding a cat. This is what I wrote.


Artful Entropy

Even the ripped upholstery is displayed with taste.
Tres shabby chic.
Take in the blond waterfall of perfect hair.
She sprawls at ease,
mirrors the cat on her lap.
The fashion edition photo shoot.

The first Saturday of the next month,
sperated as we are by the Pennines,
we will both glance at the magazine's cover,
then you will read the letters page,
while I file away the gardening tips
for a time when they might prove useful.
No idea where it came from. We set ourselves ten minutes for the task. Sometimes a very tight deadline can inspire in unexpected ways.
I leave you with Nature's Way by Spirit.
Thanks Randy, we miss you.
Until next time.