A poem about tragedy. I have been thinking about Shakespeare and how he skilfully allows us to see the flaws inherent in his characters and how over the course of the play it seems inevitable that the character will act on those flaws. Perhaps I know the plays too well, but this is how I see the tragedies. I got to thinking about this and this post's poem deals with the idea.
Shakespeare
was right, the old bastard
knew
a thing or two about people.
Problem
was I could never cut through those
words
until it was too late.
When
I did him at school, too briefly, meaning
was
an eel slipping through green fronds in murky water.
Even
A-level left me unmoved- so your man has left you,
there
are plenty more, just go out and find one.
All
this time I was stoking the fires
of
my own downfall, not that I saw it like that.
These
days I read read the plays, make sense
of
that language, feel for the predicaments the people find themselves
in,
all
much to late to be of any use to me.
Only the one poem this time. I am feeling that I have been in a fallow period. What I have written I have not been sure about. The other night at a Juncture 25 meeting we were saying that it is only artists who get blocks. the baker and the plumber never do. Here's the Mountain Goats:
As I mentioned last post I have a couple of poems that are in a different style to how I usually write. Here is one of them.
How did Nemo feel? No, not James
Mason,
and
let's face it, Walt didn't even trust men with beards, so
he
was never going to be faithful to the book,
forget
Herbert Lom, banish all those terribly European images from your
head.
I
meant the real Captain Nemo, the one who had mastered electrical
engineering,
not
Walt's trite mushroom cloud that ends his version.
The
Nemo who had watched his world ripped apart
and
after sinking ships failed to end the arms trade,
scuttled
himself. Only to pop up again
as
the easy answer to the corner
Verne
had written himself into, as altruistic as ever.
You
have to wonder why he kept trying to save us,
we
don't seem to be trying that hard ourselves.
The actors I name all played Captain Nemo in films. The poem came from a line that appeared in my head one day recently How did Nemo feel? I did not know how the poem would end until it ended.
I think it could be clearer but I wanted to get it out into the world now in the hope that I can come back to it with clear eyes.
For once I get the right photo for the post. If each thing we write, every poem or story, is a piece of jigsaw that tells of our experience, our influences, of how we connect different things up to make something hopefully unique and interesting, then I am not sure where this poem fits. I've been toying with a number of ideas recently. I was struck by reading about the dubious flying saucer expert GeorgeAdamski repeatedly meeting aliens [who looked just like you and me] in Los Angeles in the early 1950's. I just love the way he made each planet in the solar system sound so homely, like small town America.
George Adamski's in the Pontiac's back
seat,
the
driver is from Saturn, next to George sits
a
Venusian, who bigs up the mundane, claims
to
like tv and respect the institution of marriage.
He
feeds the con man a white bread vision, the solar system
as
some banal B-movie town, where everyone smiles.
Old
George for his part, keeps silent about
the
flying saucer he's building in the garage.
You
see, he needs proof, something people will believe in.
When
he stands in front of paying audiences,
not
even his honest eyes can quite swing it.
So
that chicken incubator heat lamp housing
will
be made to fly on film. The Venusian
doesn't
care that his world is a nightmare of
green
house gasses gone made. That'll come out later,
[after
people stop seeing Adamski-type ufos]
-just
tell the earthlings what they want to hear
and
everyone's happy, save Amelia Earhart. Who is either
a
bored housewife hitting the highballs at eleven am. Or
an
incomplete set of bones on a Pacific island.
You
takes your pick -some
realities are more fun than others.
This is the saucer
Here's another view
There is much to be said about Amelia Earhart and the mystery that sounds her death. You can read about it here
Amelia at the controls of Electra
Here's a photo of her in front of Electra, the plane she disappeared in. I've taken all the black and white photographs from on line- I hope there is no infringement of copyright.
I have to leave you with Plainsong and The True Story of Amelia Earhart.
Juncture 25 will be reading at the Taunton Book Fair at 2pm on the 8th November. The day is shaping up to being a wonderful event. Why not come down to Taunton and hear us read! Here's a link to the Book Fair.
I continue with my run of inappropriate photographs that do not enhance the post. I think I took the above in Bath this April. A couple of poems this week that I think are in transit. The first fuses two separate evenings.
She stops the car, the night is cold,
the lay-by muddy, my breath smoke. She tells me to look at the moon,
mercury sheens the ridged field, surf sound from distant cars. We
should all see the moon when it is full.
Another night,
in another place she had said: There is only now, be in this
moment. A noisy rickshaw carried us past a bus stop blanketed by
sleeping people, sodium glare washed out the stars.
She
has the map, I would follow her anywhere.
I have been playing about with the shape/form of the poem and at the moment I think it works best as a prose poem. Watch this space
The second is an altogether different kettle of words. It comes from an event many years ago and I think I have invented a word: enambered, to describe the feeling of being totally stuck somewhere. If you have invented this word in the past, my apologies.
In The Museum of Past Hurts
You
would polish every twisted set of tragic thoughts,
concerned
that each did not lose it's value.
It
was imperative, you told me, to study
every
piece at the correct time, if you
were
to fully feel it's impact. There was no other way you
could
possibly remain enambered in misery.
So,
with scrupulous precision, you rewrote exhibit titles,
the
better to keep you stuck.
I
only went the once, your guest, it was not to my taste,
like
that discordant serious music you listened to,only with more blood.
You
had dragged that ediffice with you throughout your life.
I
sensed there was pride in your curatorship, after all
that
museum was all you had.
This week I have been listening to Shelagh McDonald's second lp Stargazer and I think that this is the best track.
While looking for it on Youtube I came across this French tv recording of Bridget St. John from 1970. The sound could be better but what the hell...
I've noticed recently that there is an increasing lack of continuity between the photos and the content of the post. I have decided not to worry about this. It would be aesthetically pleasing if they mirrored each other but seems increasingly less possible. The robot should figure in a post about The Tempest, via Forbidden Planet, but sadly does not.
I wrote this poem two years ago. I had been talking to a man who had served in Afghanistan and he had shown me some footage. The images circled in my head for what felt like a long time, before they coalesced into this poem.
Helmand
Province 2010
For
Sam Ryder
Between
two mud walls that demarcate
public
road from private fields,
on
a highway to there and back again,
three
men crouch, part the dry earth,
plant
their secret hatred,
imagine
its savage flowering
that
would soak the soil with blood.
They
have prayed for this moment,
three
hearts intent on mayhem.
Through
the eye of a spy drone,
distance
grants perspective.
Listen,
it comes down to this:
three
figures in a landscape,
two
AK47’s, one IED.
Gift
to each of these characters
a
back story that suits your position,
for
the mortar has their range,
the
ordnance falls.
It
ends here.
I think those who perpetuate violence must be stopped before they can harm others but in doing so we put a burden on those we ask to protect society. We leave them with that burden and we, as a society, are often unwilling to recognise this, let alone to help them with. As John Donne wrote: Any man's death diminishes me. We see it after any war, the last battle is the coming home. Odysseus knew this and it has been true since. John Schumann when I interviewed him highlighted the issues facing Australians returning from Vietnam. They have not changed, we need to offer those who do protect us the support they need. I think we fail them. I am leaving you with There was a Man by Pearls Before Swine, from their anti-war masterpiece Balaclava.
I have been following poet Paul Mortimer for a number of years now and his work just keeps on getting better and better. He has such a deft touch and is overflowing with ideas. Paul is a member of Juncture 25 and contributes to a number of on-line groups. His own blog welshstream is always well worth a read. I await the release of his first collection which hopefully will not be long. Anyway let's hear from the man... What got you writing in the first place? I’m not sure anything in particular got me writing. I think it was
something I was born with! That sounds really pretentious, but I
don’t mean it to be. My mum was an avid reader and always used to
read to me apparently when I was small so by the time I started
school I could already read. I still ‘eat up’ books. When I was
young I used to write a lot of short stories. Again my mum told me
these things. I had two bouts of amnesia, one when I was 5 and
another at the age of 10, so sadly I have no real memory of my
boyhood years. At the age of 17 I became a journalist and spent the
next 42 years writing news and sport so when I retired at 60 I
decided to write for me and poetry was my main outlet, though I’d
written no poetry apart from a few pieces when I was in my late
teens. I took an OU short course in poetry writing, which was
absolutely brilliant, and I suppose that was the trigger.
Who influences you? That’s a very big question. I prefer to use the word impress rather
than influence as that can indicate certain poets’ styles steer
mine and I like to think I go my own way! There’s a huge range of
poets I enjoy, I just love reading the stuff. I’d only be touching
the tip of those who impress me but they include Derek Walcott, Simon
Armitage, Ted Hughes, Charles Bukowski, Nick Laird, Helen Dunmore,
August Kleinzahler, Thom Gunn, Hugo Williams, Michael Donaghy …. I
really need to stop there! I also subscribe to about four poetry
magazines and love discovering new work and poets. And don’t get me
started on authors….. I love the blog, how would you describe it? Fun. I just love putting stuff out there and seeing what responses
come back. It really started when I hooked into a sort of online
poetry forum called dversepoets and I needed a blog to link into
their tri-weekly workshop-type of events. The poets are from all over
the world so I initially used it for putting up poems created through
the workshops. I use it for other work as well now.
What other mediums
do you use and why?
I think the internet has been brilliant for
poetry. It opens up a whole world of talent out there you would never
otherwise tap into or come across. To be honest the stuff that gets
published or wins competitions is only a tiny fraction of the
excellent poetry being produced. Since the blog I’ve branched out
with a Facebook poetry page and Twitter – that one for micro-poetry
which I love writing. I think 40 plus years writing newspaper
headlines that capture the essence of a story have helped me, don’t
you think?
Where do you get the ideas from?
As a journalist you always had to be inquisitive and tuned in to
life and that’s where I find my poetry. Absolutely anything can
trigger off ideas. I never actually go looking for them. For instance
on a walk across Dartmoor recently I came across a sheep spine and
came up with a poem on the spot. It’s actually turned out to be one
of my favourites. I think having always been an imaginative person
has helped me see poems in all sorts of places. The only ‘forced’
poetry comes mostly through the monthly workshops we do at Juncture
25 and I love those. Its brilliant being put on the spot and having
to deliver something in about 40 minutes. You go places with your
mind that you wouldn’t otherwise.
Free verse or form-which does it for you?
Free verse. In the OU course we obviously had to do form which was
excellent discipline. I do struggle with things like villanelles and
sonnets. I’m always left feeling that I’m forcing a poem in a
direction I don’t want to take it. But that’s just me. I enjoy
reading form poetry.
What's in the pipeline?
The main thing is a novel which gets launched on October 18.
Called Ravenhart it is a crime fantasy. There’s a thing called
National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). You basically just have to
writ 50,000 words in four weeks and I had this idea bobbling about so
though I’d give it a shot. That was two years ago and it seemed to
come together quite well so I spent some time working on it
afterwards and now here we are! It’s very exciting. What’s even
more exciting is that a Belfast publishing company is showing
interest in publishing a poetry collection. That would really be a
big thing for me. Finally I have another little fun project on the go
called Defacing Dickens. I bought several old Dickens novels from a
charity shop and am making what I call art poems by linking
particular words on a page. (I’ve sent you an illustration if that
helps!)
If you were interviewing yourself-what question would you ask?
If you weren’t writing poetry what would you do: Read it! Poetry
is such a wonderful form of literature that says so much in so few
words and still leaves huge spaces for your mind to fill in.
If you were a book what book would you be and why?
Poucher’s The Welsh Peaks. It was my dad’s book - I have it
now - and is a little old black and white guide to the mountains of
north Wales where we both come from. He took me climbing with him
from the age of 11. Snowdonia is a hugely evocative place for me; I
can smell the rain, moss and granite whenever I think about the
place. I suppose it’s a sort of spiritual home for me really (not
in the religious sense) and there is a great sense of freedom you
feel when climbing or walking the ridges. And in a way that captures
the essence of poetry for me. The ability to break free and capture
something different or special with words.
SHEEP SPINE
Life
and death
bleached
on this peaty moonscape.
Here
it is elemental.
Moor
and sun,
a
harsh unforgiving beauty.
Knuckle
on knuckle.
Each
notch etched clear
in
its whiteness.
No
wool.
No
flesh.
No
muscle.
Picked
clean.
Purity
laid bare.
Simplicity
of structure in
the
chaos of wilderness.
This
is where it all ends.
Bone
and earth.
Thanks Paul. You can listen to Paul reading Sheep Spine here.
Two poems this post that I have excavated from my notebooks, as I have said many times before, distance grants perspective. I had obviously not thought the poems worked, but now feel that they do.
First here is a little observation from yesterday. Pretty self-explanatory, but I'll tell you anyway. I noticed a builders van stopped at the lights and the guy in the passengers seat was fast asleep. The van had a Bridgwater telephone number on the side.
the glass transforms his sleeping face
muscles
relax are reshaped by the flat pane
too
much beer last night means he
can
doze in the passenger seat all the way from
Bridgwater
the lights change the driver mindful
that
this sleeper can be a proper nark
slowly
pulls away from the lights
Now for the notebook gleanings.
wrong
footed by my mouth
no
chance to change
events
careen forward
I
must play my part until
one
of us cries
tension
cracking
we
see each other over the wreckage of the evening
For those of you not familiar with the examination system in the UK A-levels are the qualifications that enable you to go to university and night school is what it sounds like.
Shakespeare
was right, the old bastard
knew
a thing or two about people.
Problem
was I could never cut through those
words,
until it was too late.
When
I did him at school, too briefly, meaning
was
an eel slipping through green fronds in murky
water.
Even night school A-level left me
unmoved-
so your man has left you, there are
plenty
more, just go out and find one.
All
this time I was stoking the fires
of
my own downfall, not that I saw it like that.
These
days I read read the plays, make sense
of
that language, feel for the predicaments the people
find
themselves in, all much to late to
be of any use to me.
I liked the idea of realising far too late that Shakespeare holds advice that could have saved you if only you had been able to understand it in time. In the tragedies we can see that the participants flaws hold the seeds of their downfall and I was playing with this.
