JUMBLED, JIGSAWED SAND GRAINS

I recently participated in a Zoom poetry workshop with the Secret Poets. I came away with these two poems.

the sea strand

I could never piece together

these jumbled jigsawed sand grains

and here comes the sea

to chaos any illusion of order

I often walk on the beach at Oddicombe and imagine all the grains of sand rubbing along next to each other. I suppose if the poem is about anything it is our human desire to give the world an order we understand. If only we could...

This second poem relates to the bedroom I work in. I had just finished painting it when we did the workshop and one exercise set me thinking about the items in the room. I'm not sure what the American term for cling-film is, I've looked it up and it appears plastic wrap is the word.

notes from a nearly decorated bedroom

the cling-film sighs, resigned as it is to wrapping brushes

and so back to the staid darkness of the kitchen drawer

the paint scraper's blunted edge from increased labour

is content to dream, until it cuts again

the walls try out this new colour

uncertain, but with no choice

the wardrobe, the chest of drawers

and this table I write on, will welcome the quiet

Here's a band from the late 60s Blonde On Blonde with Castles In The Sky.

Here's Chorale.
There's appears to be, in the words of Carl Rogers [and his brother Roy], a bit of conditional positive regard going on in the song.

Until next time.

WHAT WAS ONCE

Just before this second lockdown we went to Wedmore for the night. Wedmore is on the edge of the Somerset Levels, a particularly flat area, close to sea level. 

When I lived in Somerset I was always conscious that, not so long ago, this whole area had been tidal marsh.

I think it was this that sparked the poem.

Auger

its nearly the end of the world

we wait in the flat lands

word may come in days, or weeks, or never

that the water will return is certain

rolling over fields, obliterating streams

dykes will yield, roads disappear

once all this was not ours

but living memory is too short a span

we think we know, we do not

but the eels remember

as they slither through the wicker traps

what was once, and will be again

The end of the world reference could have been to the coming lockdown or the American elections. In a way it doesn't matter. I'm not sure how I chanced upon the eels, I've used them before as an image for something that is hard to catch. Still two poems in six years hardly is a theme. 

I suppose the song should continue the water image.

Here's Spirogyra [the English freak folk band not the US jazz funk combo].

And this is The Wreck of the Hesperus by Procul Harum.

Until next time.

A MAN ABOUT TO MELT DOWN

 

This post is not about the mad emperor across the sea, though given the ignorant and undignified manner in which he has presented himself this week, the title could fit him like a glove. The more I observe him the more distressed I become. On reflection a good title for a poem about him would be Conduct Unbecoming.

This poem attempts to look at three different outcomes arising from the same situation.

A man about to meltdown

Not the one who’s barricaded

himself behind his front door

and is now shouting threats

at the coppers through the letter box

while his uncomprehending family

huddle mutely on the sofa,

as if it were a life raft.

Not the man who faced by the road block

must turn his bus around,

inch by inch in front of the stopped traffic

the one for whom

a street has never looked so narrow.

But the one who suddenly cannot get home

and it has begun to rain.

He’s not the worst off by half

and inside he knows it

but in its own predictable, deadening way

this is all too much.

I was attempting to capture the panoramic consequences of an action. I'd be interested in your thoughts. 

It's felt like a long seven days. Here is a band from the 80s, the Mulemena Boys. I have one album on tape and it's wondrous but I've never been able to track down an album or cd.

Here's the album.

Until next time.

SKITTLING LEAVES & LIVES

 

In the world in which we are living is just getting crazier. Hopefully the Mad Emperor Across the Water will be stopped and our own bunch of clowns given their marching orders sooner rather than later. I just want to say my thoughts are with you all in America.

I  was in Bristol last Saturday. I had been to Flow, a superb vegan restaurant the previous evening. This sign outside the Registry Office caught my eye.

PLEASE WAIT HERE FOR YOUR CEREMONY

Sign outside Bristol Registrar Office

The last Saturday before the second lockdown

The woman in the deep violet suit

is telling her father:

I’m not nervous at all, isn’t that strange?

The group of six huddle

as winds blow through the city

skittling leaves and lives

Tomorrow you will phone

tell me your wedding is off

death by a thousand regulation changes

Here for the ceremony queue the rain has returned,

the bride, the groom and their chosen four

run for any sort of shelter they can find

The penultimate stanza refers to a friend's wedding plans that have been scuppered by the pandemic.

This is the poem I was going to run this post.

Cheap Fireworks in the Rain

I left my family for this? he mutters.

He has already told me

this is a new start.

That he’s drawing a line under

the collapsed business

the catastrophic marriage,

and has taken the opportunity

to study English in England.

So here he is in Totnes

observing us natives celebrate the anniversary

of the putting to death of some Catholic.

It is a Sunday.

It is drizzling.

The kind of rains that soaks through

and there we are all outside

with the cheapest packet of fireworks

glumly igniting each one in turn.

And you do this every year? he asks

as finally the sodden blue touch paper

I’ve been trying to light for the last two minutes

suddenly flares into life

and very nearly takes my eye out.

And is it always so bleak?

Always I reply.

The story is about as true as any poem I write. It the event is Bonfire Night, a traditional celebration of the fact that Guy Fawkes did not blow up Parliament.

I leave you today with Paul Simon singing American Tune. Who would have thought there could ever be a worse President than Nixon?

Until next time.