DREAM SWITCH

Here is a poem that arose from the first line, it snaked around my skull for a week or so before gracing the page. At the moment that seems to be how I write, thoughts before ink so to speak. I used to write everything down immediately. I don't think one way is superior to the other, the main thing is to acknowledge the idea.
The second half of the poem came later and I am not sure that it is clear.
It took a couple of drafts to arrive at the layout. I think the spacing adds to the effect.

he swapped his wife for the radio

by acrimony not by choice

disillusion, breakdown, loss

and here he is in the night

twisting in memory soaked sheets

balancing sleeplessness against recrimination

the pressure of the night compresses the World Service

dream switch

to a grandstand view

of his hopes falling at the first hurdle

then dead horse heavy

he is trapped beneath

it will take years to get free

I have just received the new cd by Brooke Sharkey and I am off to see her tonight in Totnes. It is truly excellent and I shall be reviewing it next week.
She just gets better and better,

Here's a house concert from earlier in the year.

Until next time.

ONE OF THOSE DAYS

A couple of hours after I'd sketched out this post's poem I read an article which described how a number of people believe that our reality is a simulation created by others, presumably future humans.
It sort of fits with this poem.

it was one of those days

an i'm living in a novel type of day

that brought the realisation he was a minor character whose only function was to be bumped off by a more interesting protagonist an act that will illuminate a particular facet of his killer's personality

such days are not good

his head rests on the cold window pane

it is 4:13am not yet light

he will wander through today's chapter carrying a sharp sliver of sleeplessness

I have no idea if those people are correct and to be honest I do not care.
I think the myths we tell each other about the world we live in mirror our technological development. 
Let's just give thanks and praises for being here.

To that end I leave you with one of my favourite singers Martha Tilston. She's touring at the moment. 

LUMINOUS GREEN CORAL

An unusual poem this post.
I shall leave you to read it for yourselves.

For Ollie

In the morning there was loss.

He had hoped it would be different,

that the luminous green coral

which had formed baroque knots

on his ceiling the night before,

would still be there...

It was not. 

The scales had fallen on to his eyes once more.

The shamanic pattern that had overlaid his vision

and granted him glimpses of a truth

so much older than human time had fled.

There had been communion then,

there would be again.

I think we are all connected by the land we live on to the changing season's, but we have forgotten to listen as they ancestors once listened. This inability to hear has taken us out of step with the land.
Here is a very rare video of Jaki Whitren from 1973. This was a small hit. I had the LP. She only made the one. What a voice!