WITH LOOKING GLASS STEPS

A poem about partings. The air feels filled with farewells at the moment. It's dissertation time and final exams loom.  

THE SECOND REHEARSAL OF THE LAST PRODUCTION

we walk side by side

with looking glass steps

turn    in slow motion

this moving dialogue offers

a split second view

of all the rehearsal halls to come

how fragile is the house of now

a time of endings

our finals    farewell

the walls will hold our sound

the floor our footfalls

the air our breath

we will never end

though all come to stillness

energy translates

I was attempting to capture endings and beginnings, that point when something is stopping but other things wait in the wings. This is definitely a work in progress. 

Here's a lovely video of Paul Simon with a beautiful arrangement of one of my favourite songs.

Until next time.

SILK FLOWERS IN THE RAIN

This first poem would benefit from a photograph of the scene it describes but I didn't think to take one at the time. So you will have to make do with this word picture.

rows of silk flowers in the rain

outside the bargain centre

they gift larger than life colours to the day

multiplied reflections in the pavement pools

and we who hurry by with heads bowed

break into a smile to see such brightness

It was not until after I had passed the shop that the line silk flowers in the rain do not need water popped into my head. It was such a dismal afternoon I did not think to go back and take a  photograph. This next poem is self explanatory.

faced with writing a eulogy

I paragraph their experience

make sense of their happen chance

chart the voyage of their life

that I watched from the sidelines

a bit player in their grand narrative

my pen describes the new made void in all our lives

It is a work in progress. It isn't complete. Watch this space. It's strange how some poems you want to make work never quite do. Let's hope this one will land safely.

I've been listening to Naissan Jalal's latest cd Rituals and it is quietly beautiful. Well worth looking out.

Until next time. 

A FISH YOU COULD NEVER MAKE SWIM

 I watched a French film recently The Green Perfume. It was fun in a Hitchcock-like way. But from the start I had a feeling of Deja Vu, that I had seen the film before, I realised that I had not because it was only released in 2022. Yet each new scene seemed familiar. In the end I gave up worrying and just watched the film. It led to this poem.

just as the lights dimmed

deja vu wandered in

occupied the seat next to his

and from the opening credits

provoked split second echoes from the future

playing his emotional responses like a kipper

[a fish you could never make swim]

how he worried about these instant memories

that he could not place in the fabric of his life

eventually he gave up trying to

and just let the film roll over him

This is one of the poems I've been working on lately and I am not sure it's the definitive version. I'm attempting to get that feeling of rolling with the flow in response to events beyond control. Watch this space.

Just before Christmas I got a couple of cds by Sachal Vasandani and Romain Collin and I can't stop playing them. The interplay between the voice and the piano is exquisite. 

Until next time.

THE BUBBLES FLED

Here's a couple of revised poems. You can read the previous version of this first one here. I've changed the ending as I was not happy with the poem, to be honest after the first line I didn't think it flowed. Hopefully this is smoother.

just like that the champagne went flat

we were in the presence of a bigger mystery

one that would carry us to a place of metaphor

and consume a whole twelve hours

we had been there before and would visit again

so I watched as the bubbles fled from the pale liquid

sometimes all you can do is trust

and watch the seconds as they uniquely unravel

I wanted to project tranquillity, that a loss of ego can lead us to something wonderful. That there is no need for fear. This second poem is hopefully more show than tell. 

the anchoress dreams

sap green spring leaf

her time again would be

to sail as a dandelion seed

over all man made enclosures

but the bell’s toll wakes her

in the half light same four walls

as it has been these past ten years

the sun takes its time

to rise above the barred window

and where she wonders

is God in all of this?

I think the last version was an information dump. What I have tried to do is lead the reader to the same conclusion, but I am not sure that the final two lines are needed? At the moment I am working on a number of poems that are slowly coming together, they will appear in due time.

Hurray For The Riff Raff has a new album out, you can order it here. I leave you with a track.

Until next time.