THIS & THAT

This week’s post is a little ramshackle and bitty, some photos I’ve been meaning to share, some poems, the stray thought stitching them all together into some shape or other.

These photos of the magpies I found stencilled on an old fire station in Sheffield, it’s now a bar/cafe. I like the way they just were, immediate, unpretentious, and magpies.

The heads are in a museum in Glasgow.  Again I like their positioning, in the large hall they look perfect.

Here is one of our cats, resting in a rare slice of sunlight. As I say positioning is all and this cat knows how to make an impression.

The other Sunday we went walking in Dorset, Hive Beach. As we strolled by the sea we came across this sculpture made of beachcombed material. There is a poem in this somewhere, it’s hiding in my head. Does it inspire you? 

I liked this headlight, it feels like it has grown there.

The way the light floods into the space made me think you can see it as energy, movement, a force of nature or science. Whichever of them claims to name and categorise such things.

A couple of poems to end with. The first was written very quickly-and it probably shows.

OFF KILTER

Take a step back into your past,

Four whole year’s worth,

Observe their faces,

Polish your brass neck.

Later there will be talk,

Can you believe it? They will say,

For now their smiles are to your face.

Ask yourself again why you are here,

If there is no convincing answer in five minutes...

Not sure where this second one came from either, but I liked the idea of words sewing a couple together, but only if they agree on exact meanings.

With the ambivalence of the almost committed,

He chooses every word for its ambiguity,

Weighs the advantage each would gain him.

She imbues each with firm meaning,

Assumes his mirrors her,

Embroiders emotion, hand stitches their future.

He knows he will wriggle through the needle holes.

I want to end with a trailer for next Tuesday. I am interviewing a songwriter from Australia, a man who had a number one single, one of a band that redefined what is was to be Australian in the 1980’s. Miss it at your peril.