A 1950S SORT OF DAY

This Wednesday I had a surfeit of poetry. I spent the afternoon with the Secret Poets offering and receiving constructive feedback and, although I had forgotten he was coming, the evening with Paul Mortimer doing more of the same. 
With due thanks to everyone I offer you a poem about my grandmother. It was inspired by a photograph I found in a pile of papers and which have managed to mislay again.
That's consistency for you.

Grandma Hanley

She sits black and white,

as stern as history,

centre of the photograph.

Square black shoes.

Polished of course.

At her waist the deaf aid

that whistled it's way through my childhood.

About my age now,

after a life so much harder then mine,

she faced the lens.

Photography must have been

a more serious business back then,

I can't align this image with my memories of her.

Perhaps it was a 1950s type of day,

when the past sat heavy on her shoulders,

with a weight that was too much.

She shrank as I grew,

her mind slowly left her body behind,

to wind down in its own time.

These two photographs capture her better.
Me and Paul were talking about slang and looking through some slang dictionaries. He delighted in the phrase: "hotter than a two dollar pistol" but I'm ashamed to say I have beaten him to the draw in using it.

We are talking about Jim Thompson,

how he's hotter than a two dollar pistol,

and just as valued by the literary elite.

Then I go upstairs to find his book to lend you.

I've always tended to leave

whatever I used to mark my place inside the book,

and out of its pages flutter two thick, blue tickets:

David Bowie, Cardiff Arms Park.

So that's the memento and this is the memory:

it was a Sunday in June thirty years ago,

I went with Christine, before we had the kids.

She'd never seen him and oh, how we danced. 

And that was how it happened, and here are the tickets.

I suppose I should end with a Bowie song so here is Let's Dance.

Until next time.

EPICUREAN MIGRANT

I recently spent a very enjoyable weekend on a poetry retreat with The Secret Poets. We each led a workshop and out of one came this post's poems.
During said workshop we were asked to go out into the garden and write about what we found. These are my observations.

The Rosemary

Bought and brought over here

to enrich our palette,

this epicurean migrant may have taken root,

but is still so out of step with the seasons

that these delicate blue flowers

colour this January day.

The Romans brought thyme to the British Isles, I had to check that on line.
Here is a second observation.

Every tree in this orchard plays statues

winter cannot entice a single leaf to show

this is not their time, so they wait

stand stock still until the first notes of spring.

This third brief note is perhaps the one most in need of work.

Guinea fowl in sudden motion

lickterty – split freedom

leaves the hen coop behind

such action carries a cost

the cold fox's hungry eye

I was attempting to capture the dangers inherent in freedom. Not sure it does it. 

However the idea of simply putting yourself in a different place and just looking is excellent practice. Sometimes we need to the stimulus of new surroundings.

Here is Melissa Laveaux. Enjoy

Until next time.

dirt brown tea

How this poem came about is told in the first stanza. I was taking down the Christmas decorations and I was reminded of an event from 1975. The secret in such circumstances is to have a pen and paper handy. Thankfully I did have.

Taking Down the Decorations

Then I am reminded of August '75,

a cottage in Kerry, an invitation from a man,

probably no older than I am now.

After banana sandwiches and dirt brown tea,

he showed us his parlour

made up like Christmas Day.

You won't remember '75,

eclipsed as it was by the next year's heat wave,

but it was a more perfect summer.

The half closed curtains sculptured the sunlight,

bouncing off those mirrored surfaces

with an intensity I have never seen since.

I take the angel off the tree,

box up the string of lights,

pack away the stray memories.

There really was man who brightened his house every August with Christmas lights and decorations. 1975 was a stunning summer, without the water shortage drama of the following year. 1976 is the one we always remember.
I just wanted to capture the process of how thoughts blossom randomly.

Hurray For The Riff Raff has just released a new lp, The Navigator. Here's Pa'lante.

I'm off to listen to the whole thing, as it's just arrived through the post.

Until next time.

DECOMPASSION CHAMBER

Today's post came about from the idea of someone needing assistance to end a relationship. The idea that they could not deal with the guilt of ending it. A play on words of decompression chamber: a decompassion chamber.
The poem was not straight forward. I had to remove a stanza [that I liked but] which confused the narrative.

I need a de-compassion chamber.

Want this guilt excised

before it can bubble up inside my brain

and bend my body back towards herself

who is crying at the end of this telephone line.

On/off – off/on

the light switch of my indecision

makes for a familiar circuit.

We settle for possible second best.

I may leave her yet.

I admire people who can sustain their poetic vision for more than twenty lines as I rarely can. That said any poem is only as long as the kernel of the idea will sustain.

Maggie Roche died recently. I was always a fan of The Roches. Especially the first and third albums. Here they are from 1983 singing Hammond Song.

And here they sing Mr. Sellack.

Until next time.