THE WORLD NEEDS MORE VIOLINS

The other week on Instagram Annabelle Chvostek posted a photograph of her violin in front of her face and entitled it The World Needs More Violins. The phrase struck a chord within me. I wrote to her asking if she would mind me using it and she did not. This is what I came up with.

each day the edge draws nearer

the world needs violins more than ever

bone and bow to dance on strings

generate vibrations in the air

that tell us change is still possible

- if we act now

It's a simple little poem. There is time to change, to pull back from the worst effects of climate change, but we have to want to. Music brings us together and can act as a catalyst, and though I sometimes despair there is always hope.

Here's the woman herself in conversation.

And here she is with a recent song.

Until next time.

DRINK IN THE BEAUTY

I've been in two minds whether to share this poem or not. I think I am too close to it to see it clearly. So you get to be the judge.

the spot was idyllic and

I had been happy enough

looking at the wrong tree

elaborately inventing signs

of how your ash had fed the forest

then Nigel pointed out

a wet grey streak on the soil

ten foot from where I stood

that’s life you whispered

in the rain drops that watered the velvet moss

drink in the beauty

It is based on a true incident. I did misremember where we had scattered the ashes and I think it doesn't matter. Rejoice for the gift of a life lived well and the cycle of birth, death and rebirth.

Leyla McCalla has a new album out. I cannot recommend it enough. 

Until next time.

JUST OPEN A WINDOW

There are some poems I repeatedly return to. I am not sure if I make them better, perhaps I overwork them? Here is one I have been revisiting.

he exists inside of the event

unable to find the thread to follow to daylight

finding letters then words he speaks

imagine

staring at the world

through a letterbox

set in a stout locked door

and having no key

I reach for my metaphors lock pick

just open a window nip out the back

but he will not budge

my words merely the clatter

of cutlery poured onto quarry tiles

The final image is powerful. I hope the sound conveys the stuck nature of the interaction. You can lead a horse to water and all that. For change to occur the individual has to want to change. You can read the earlier version here.  

The poem is laid out differently and many of the lines have been altered. Which do you think is the better?

Here's Footshooter featuring Albertina.

Until next time.

EYELESS IN AUTUMN

I have spent the last two weeks cat sitting for my daughter in London, hence no photographs of the latest Ryley Walker concert. I wrote the last two post in advance as I tend to do when I am away. I travelled to London by train and as I approached Wellington, near Taunton in Somerset, I saw an abandoned factory with most of the glass missing from the windows. This set me thinking...

summer project

we broke all the glass

in all the windows

no one stopped us

it took time

but the sounds were so addictive

the crack and cascade of glass

eyeless in autumn

the snow went wherever it would

when summer cam round again

there was nothing to show it had ever been there

The poem wrote itself. I liked the idea of the building leaving no trace, although the hardest lines to write were the last couplet. I suspect it is complete.

Ryley Walker was amazing, on top form, just wonderful. But I leave you with a new single by wondrous Pollyanna.

Until next time.