REINCARNATION BLUES

There's a lot to be said for sharing your work with others because they will not be as familiar with it as you are and will see the flaws. This revised poem benefitted from being discussed with friends. Thank you Secrets. You can read the pervious version here. 

REINCARNATION BLUES

It was lucky that we had the gramophone,

separated as we were by time,

and you could leave me messages

in the canyon spirals of shellac discs,

cunningly wrought as they were from insect resin.

Eventually I happened upon them

in fire sales of bankrupt stock.

Then with a growing fascination,

in the backrooms of second hand shops

that litter the fading ports this side of the warming sea.

You described your love for me

in the words of Tin Pan Alley tunes,

spry three minute miniatures that chronicle

the moves of smiling men who could never be me,

and the heartbreak from their treachery.

You see I arrived too late though not by choice.

You had jumped impulsively from the Bardo

as the drop zone came into sight.

I hesitated. Too late I followed.

Half the globe away your siren songs had long been sung.

You were gone decades ago

and now I have the hands of an old man

with a face that almost matches.

This time around we got out of step.

Mistiming, loneliness are the lessons we lived this life to learn.

Like the revised poem last post, this poem too has gained punctuation and lost some words. It reads better now. It is I think complete. 

Here's the Ezra Collective, get dancing.

Until next time.

FIVE YELLOW STARS

I met up with the Secret Poets this week. We try to meet every four to six weeks. As usual they were able to offer constructive feedback on  my latest poems. This one lost part of a line and gained some punctuation.

BUTTONS

Who saves buttons these days

to rescue a garment in time of need.

Your mother did, in a big glass jar.

Studiously she cut them off those labels

the ones we only notice when they make us itch.

I’ve never told you this before,

too embarrassed,

too distressed,

because I mislaid it one move or other

after her death.

All I can offer you is this,

a litany of buttons you will never see,

pearl white, little maroon, big wooden buttons.

Oh, and the five yellow stars

she meant to put on the jumper

she never had the chance to knit you.

You can read the other draft here. I think this poem is as finished as it will ever be. Thank you Secrets.

Here's Astrid Williamson. Her latest album is excellent.

Until next time.

  

YOUR SIREN SONGS HAD BEEN SUNG

Sometimes in that half awake borderland I dream poems, occasionally they appear near fully formed, this one did not. I had the bare bones [though at the time, it was just a screed of words on a page] and I let the idea percolate for a time before attempting to shape it. 

It was lucky that we had the gramophone,

separated as we were by time,

and you could leave me messages

in the canyon spirals of shellac discs

cunning wrought as they were from insect resin

Eventually I happened upon them

in fire sales of bankrupt stock

then with a growing fascination

in the backrooms of second hand shops

that litter the fading ports this side of a warming sea

You described your love for me

in the words of Tin Pan Alley tunes

spry three minute miniatures that chronicle

the moves of men who could never be me

and the heartbreak that results from their treachery

You see I arrived too late not by choice

you had jumped impulsively from the Bardo

as the drop zone came into sight

it was obscured by turbulence I hesitated

half the globe away your siren songs had been sung

This time around we got out of step

you are gone decades ago

I have the hands of an old man

with a face that almost matches

mistiming, loneliness are the lessons we live this life to learn

Essentially I was thinking of a couple with a karmic bond - an intense relationship between two people that is rooted in past lives or lives. My semi-dreaming state thought about what would happen if they were separated by time but connected through early recordings. I was thinking of 78's telling a story to the one who was born later. 

Does it work? I think the idea is basically sound but it may need revision. I shall show this poem to my colleagues the Secret Poets. Watch this space.

Here's another old psychedelic band, please ignore the awful cover. Blonde On Blonde deserve better art.

Until next time.

A LITANY OF BUTTONS

This poem has had a long gestation. Some poems need time to feel their way to a conclusion. The rare ones arrive nearly fully formed but others take months, or longer to coalesce. 

Just A Little Insight into Her Beauty

No one saves buttons these days

to rescue a garment in a time of need

your mother, did in a big glass jar

studiously she cut them off those labels

the ones we only notice when they make us itch

I’ve never told you this before

too embarrassed

too distressed

because I mislaid the jar one move or other

and there were many, after her death

All I can offer you is this

a litany of buttons you will never see

pearl white, little maroon, big wooden buttons

oh, and the five yellow stars

she meant to put on the jumper

she never had the chance to knit you

I am too close to this one to talk much about it. I'm not sure this is its final version but it will do for now. 

Ryley Walker has just released a live recording of a show at the Phoenix in Exeter. It was an excellent evening. Here's a recent recording.

Until next time.

GATEWAY TO THE LUCK

I think this poem draws on vague childhood memories. I have a hazy notion of looking for a four leaf clover in the playing field near my childhood home that I have turned into this.

It was the topic of our summer

one we would return to every so often

as we sat in the central school playing field

looking at the clover

counting leaves one two and three

on the lookout for number four

the rock solid gateway to the luck

You told me that your uncle once known a man

whose life had been turned around

more luck than he knew what to do with

We renewed our search

the days were long the field was large

our prize glittered just beyond our fingers

It is far from complete. The last line is in question, I am not sure that I can get away with clover glittering. I thought of tangible but it worked even less well. I think this poem has legs though. We await developments.

Plumes has a splendid new album out, you can buy it here.

Until next time.

BRIGHT CURLED CRISP

Autumn has definitely arrived in Devon, it should have, you cry, it's November! Well, yes it is, but it's been unseasonably warm recently. Here's a poem about the season.

AUTUMN

The leaves were leaving

right angles in the wind

bright curled crisp

they fly from the branch

Then circle as if unsure

of what to make of this word freedom

only to fall

heavier than the thought

Briefly they will jewel the pavement

Nothing to say about this poem really. This next one is another in the long line of poems about writing poems. 

It comes down to the poem shouting at you

oi! over here!

As it mimes a metaphor

that you only half appreciate

You are just the hapless scribe

whose hands are full

Recording every word

as best you can 

Again it is just a little observation. I think I am in a period of writing miniatures. Small, self contained facets of lived experience. I hope they chime with you. 

Here's Ben Webster and Oscar Peterson.

Until next time.

 

UPPED STICKS

I recently went to Morlaix for the weekend, it was a flying visit. I had been there about five years before and I thought I had retained a reasonably accurate mental map of the town. I had not. It did provoke this poem.

FIVE YEARS LATER

At least two buildings had upped sticks

and shuffled across the square

to present different vistas

of their architectural features

All the roads have been rerouted

and the town centre must have shrunk in the rain

so that when we returned

our mental maps were astray

Try as we might

we were lost

and could not find our way

This is a first draft. I think the ending can be improved and I'm not sure about the layout. Watch this space.

Both Chris Cleverly and Boo Hewerdine are on tour at the moment, so I've a busy a busy week coming up as they are playing in Devon on different nights. Here's Boo live earlier this year with Yvonne Lyons. It takes a while to get going but it's worth it. 

Until next time. 

THE DAWN WAS FRESH AND CLEAR

 A personal history poem first this post.

21^st BIRTHDAY POEM

Colours erupted in the wet sky

the fireworks arrived on time

as we toasted my birthday

in malt and Moroccan

Time started to leapfrog

a series of stuttering memories

that I could later never quite sequence

but the dawn was fresh and clear

I walked home

leaving a set of footprints

on the dewed grass

that eventually led me here

This is something I've been looking at for a couple of weeks and please regard this as a first draft. I think it's pretty straight forward reportage. The events happened at a festival back in the 70s and it did conclude with fireworks.

I don't know where this one comes from. It wrote itself and I don't know what to make of it. 

Elvis said to Elvis in the Clones For Hire stockade:

I’d never have gone and done it

if I’d have even had half an inkling this would be my fate

I’d have sacked that bastard Colonel for a start

Marilyn Monroe sighed:

You always say this before they retune your head

but you never ever act on the impulse

or think about the situation we are all in now

She was called away to another job

she was the most popular of the Heritage Clones

The other Elvis sighed

and wished he’d stuck to driving trucks

It did make me smile though.

Iron and Wine were excellent. Here's a video of him live.

Until next time

DECONSTRUCTION OF THE HEART

This week I attended a new local spoken word evening. It was an interesting event, although I could have done without the drunken man in the black overcoat and hat who talked all the way through the evening oblivious of what was taking place around him. It is unusual to encounter such a level of self-absorption. He was talking about the great Sam Cooke some of the time and insisting that his swan song, A Change is Going to Come, was entitled A Change is Coming... Close but no cigar.

With the assistance of the Secret Poets I have redrafted this week's poem. You can read the pervious incarnation here.

THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY

A Friday night hotel bar

he’s a couple or three drinks ahead of me

his every word is big voiced into his phone

he is deconstructing his heart

I’m the other side of a flimsy partition

trying to camouflage my listening ear

I can’t pull out pen and paper

to record his every heartfelt word

Can I?

The poem wags a finger in my face

Whispers: this one’s not going to happen

As you can see I have removed a line that was superfluous and respaced the poem. I am still not sure of it amounts to anything serious, but I am satisfied with it. 

I suppose given the poetry evening events I should leave you with Sam Cooke. 

Until next time.         

HITS, HEADLINES & IDLE SPECULATION

Have you watched any of those biographical films that seem to be being made with increasing regularity these days? Films that purport to tell the story of a musician who has died? I've watched a couple over the last year and the experience has prompted me to write this.

we should know better

but we gather round the flat screen

while a life we think we know

through hits and headlines and idle speculation

and where we were when we heard they’d died

is played out before our eyes

The actors get the set pieces perfect

follow the live footage

better than we remember

but the director has their own ideas

and the script has been negotiated through

the demands of all of those who outlived the subject

we know better but still we watch

as if hoping for a different outcome

On both occasions when I began to watch I said to myself that this will not be my sort of film but I persevered anyway. Neither was. We all have our own idea of a narrative and to make a film you have to ensure that none of the people involved who are still alive are libelled so the film must walk a changing line. I think the poem needs a title, any ideas? 

I'm looking forward to seeing Iron and Wine in Bristol in a couple of weeks. His new album is well worth a listen.

Until next time.    

THE NEAR HORIZONS OF A SMALL TOWN

I ran a poetry workshop this week in Kingkerswell Library and I'd like to thank the people who attended and made it such an enjoyable morning. Thank you. This poem was begun in that workshop.

THE NEAR HORIZONS OF A SMALL TOWN

By Widnes Bus Garage

a mock Tudor pub

we never went in the bar

too full of bus drivers and mechanics

talking tickets, fare stages

bemoaning bus stop politics

But the snug had a jukebox

famous amongst our crowd

you stocked it with imports

to maximise income

you’d figured out the angles

rode the 70s for what they were worth

I imagine you today

balder

older

slightly embittered

at how it all turned out

it’s all rubble now

so much flat waste land

As you can see it still has many miles to go before it is able to stand on its own two feet and go out into the world. What I have not been able to do, so far, is to complete the narrative of the individual I am thinking of. The specific manner in which their life changed. 

This next poem is a redrafting. Actually I have removed a line which I think makes the poem read better. You can read the last version here.

INTERSECTION

the sun is in my eyes

but the rain falls

it’s one of those days

showers

and a winter angled sun that blinds

so the wedding party

appear to materialise

out of the glare

in small groups

impossible heels that

click click click towards you

dressed to the nines

coats held over hairdos

I should not be surprised

the bells have made announcements

and here on the cracked pavement

our lives intersect

and just like that diverge again

Once again thanks to the Secret Poets for their invaluable insights.

Sachal Vasandani has a new single out. 

Until next time.

THE FIRE IS ASH

I met with the Secret Poets this week and their excellent constructive feedback has enabled me to revise some poems. You can read the last draft of this poem here.

THE MORNING AFTER EDEN

you wake

amazed

you had managed to sleep

after all that palaver

the fire is ash

damp grey in this drizzle

no hope of cajoling a flame

then you realise you are naked

and that is a sin

he wakes

the recriminations begin

and carry on to this day

The last line has been removed and there is less focus on the sin of being naked. It is now tighter and hopefully a better poem. This next poem has also been changed, you can read the last version here.

 “Never, ever, put bread on the fire.”

My mother was adamant about this

“Not even two day old stale crusts

because you’re feeding the Devil.”

In winter she would burn vegetable peelings

they would smoulder on the coals

deprive the room of heat.

I used to wonder about the menu in Hell

whether Satan longed for a soft white barm cake

Again the last line has been removed. There was some discussion as to whether there was a need for food critics or if it weakened the overall poem. Apparently barm cake is now correctly spelled.

Here's Chris Cleverly, the sharp eyed amongst you may spot me in the crowd.

Until next time.  

BRING ORDER TO NATURE

I'm not sure about this poem. It is based on something I saw recently, a woman digging out blades of grass that grew between the paving slabs outside her house. Her lawn was composed of plastic grass and the exacting precision with which it had been laid reminded me of a model train exhibition I had seen in the early summer. 

The grass on her lawn could have been laid

by a carpet fitter and probably was

it’s plastic and could outlast The Bomb

It looks like a scene in a toy train diorama

the well kept garden of some dream house

that faces the train line with a waving figure in the doorway

Meanwhile she’s on her knees

hoicking up rebellious sods of grass

that have the temerity to poke up between the paving stones

And I wonder if the model shop sells plastic figures

that enable such order to be brought to nature

I am not sure about the end, whether it needs to be less critical, I suspect it does. I was struck by the artificial neatness of the lawn and how she was endeavouring to remake the street in its image. Perhaps this is what humans have been doing from the get go attempting to remake the world to suit the image in their heads.

Coincidently two different albums have just been released about Amelia Earhart and both are worth a listen. This is Public Services Broadcasting.

And this is Laurie Anderson.

Until next time.