THE HOUSE'S MELANCHOLIA

I thought it would be interesting to turn the idea of two people slowly falling out of love on it's head and have the house where they live turn against them. This is a rough draft.

ENVIROMENT

Slowly the house grew unhappy

invested rooms with an atmosphere

that provokes us into arguments

until we were forced to move

live separately

lick our wounds

The next occupants fared as badly

and did not even stay as long as we had.

The ones after them started out happy

but by then the house’s melancholia

an indefinable sad strange aura

could not be overcome

They put the house up for sale again

I’d stopped taking an interest by then

moved to another town, got on with my life

I think the idea has legs but needs some work. I am going to put it away for a couple of months and see what it looks like then.

Here's Bridget St.John from 1972 [honestly it doesn't seem that long ago to me].

Until next time.   

MODELLING ANGER

This poem arrived as I was having a shower. It needed little coaxing, though it is totally fiction.

She had stood in front of me

modelling anger

I’m finished with you

I can’t now remember why

so assume it was because of my adultery

[it usually was in those days]

on the steps of the library

passers by smiled

discretely stopped to watch

Her hands are on her hips

...and don’t put me in one of those things

you try and pass off as plays

some unsympathetic character

bemoaning the hero

who transparently is you

not that anyone would ever give it a read through

She stormed off

in anger not tears

and I didn’t and I haven’t

until this last minute

stood in the shower

when it all returned

and just now

when I wrote it down

Sometimes ideas just arrive and you have to respond to them. The fear is that if you do not they will stop coming. Again this is only as draft. It needs more work.

Do you remember Pauline Murray? I've been listening to her lp with the Invisible Girls a lot lately. Here is the single.

Until next time. 

STOLEN STORY

Sometimes I will hear a story and think that it would make a good poem. There are a number of examples of this process on the blog. Here's a poem that describes that process.

I STOLE YOUR STORY

because it was just there

attractive words hung in the air

on more than one occasion

I have taken a conversation

and cast it in ink on a page

It wrote itself from the first line. Here's a rewrite from a recent post.

A tenor weaves an old tune

breathes new life around the buildings

the wind is set on distort

as if each note had a different weight

and could only be carried so far

If I had a voice

I would sing the words

as I do at home

but in the city

I am silent

It's still not perfect but I thought the last version ended too abruptly.

Here's a very different tune by The Decemberists.

Until next time.

BOUNCING LIGHT

I don't usually sit down and just free write, but the poem below came from an idle half hour of writing with my inner critic in neutral. 

Unexpectedly Peter tickled a trout

a skill he had never disclosed

before that night when the stars

were bouncing their light off the mill pond

He just reached in

then there was this fish

wriggling in his hands

we all laughed

as he returned it to the dark waters

It works I think, a simple straight, forward narrative, something I could have remembered. I don't, though, think it is true. It is a very vague memory. But then again, things don't have to be real to be true, or so it seems with all the made up nonsense circulating about the internet.

Here's the Mountain Goats singing along with the audience.

Until next time.

GHOST FAINT IMAGES

I appear to have spent this afternoon changing the following words into different combinations, ghost faint images into faint ghost images and I have reached the point where I can no longer decide which is the better. The drawer beckons for that particular quandary. I had been reading something about how photographs will fade over the centuries and leave blank shiny paper. Given the present state of dubious narratives, false news and outright lies the poem was an easy write. 

PROPAGANDA

The photos presented problems

having been badly curated

and too quick to fade

to a yellowing cream blankness

We were forced to trace the outlines

of the faint ghost images

with fine graphite sticks

which slipped on the slick surface

As we attempted to harness the past

to justify our political position

Even if I can decide the order of the words: faint; ghost; and images I am unsure that the poem is finished. As I say one for the drawer.

I've been listening to the expanded edition of A Distant Shore by Tracey Thorn, my original album is worn out. Such a classic. 

Until next time.

THE WIND IS SET ON DISTORT

Here is another poem I wrote in Estonia. It's pretty straight forward and self-explanatory.

YOU PLAY THE HAND YOU’RE GIVEN 2

I place my card

on the payment square

it buzzes

a red x flashes

unperturbed

I sit down

It’s not everyday

I fare dodge on a tram

I look about me

no one turns a hair

Seven stops later I get off

Yes I did fare dodge that trip. Then I worked out the location of the card machine. This next poem is also from the same trip.

A tenor weaves an old tune

breathes new life around the buildings

the wind is set on distort

as if each note had a different weight

and could only be carried only so far

If I had a voice

I would sing the words 

Yes I did hear a tenor sax playing in the street. Actually I jotted down the bare bones of the poem while I waited for the tram!

Brooke Sharkey has just released a video of her beautiful new single.

Until next time. 

ON A SCREEN IN HER HEAD

I am a confirmed people watcher as you can tell from this poem.

YOU PLAY THE HAND YOU’RE GIVEN 1

Tallinn Old Town – Friday afternoon

What catches your attention

as you turn a corner

is the bossy woman with the camera

chivvying the others into shapes

she sees on a screen in her head

It’s only then you notice the Bride

in ivory silk with a bouquet to match

being told where to stand

where to look

who to smile at

and you wish her

against all the odds

a happy life

I haven't got much to say about it as I think it speaks for itself. I have however changed this next poem after discussing it with the Secret Poets. 

CHARADE

I almost bump into Carey Grant

In the toilet of a cinema in Warrington

His image is all over one of the walls

look at the enlarged whites of his eyes

He’s in such a pickle

frozen in black and white panic

Definitely flight or fight mode

who wouldn’t be

He’s being chased

by a crop dusting aeroplane

Stuck in the re-creation

of someone else’s nightmare

As if he didn’t have enough

of his own to be going on with

Just two small changes, one in the third stanza and another in the sixth. Three words have been removed. You can read the earlier version here.

Brooke Sharkey has just released a new single. Her new album is beautiful. 

Until next time.

THE FOUNTAIN FALLS

I had an interesting conversation with a friend this week who raised the point that in the last post's poem there was a need for editing or punctuation. She said there could be some confusion in the penultimate stanza. We talked about the alternatives and I thought the solution was to remove the confusing two words. Here it is in its completed state.

3:30 am IN TALLINN

he wakes into a dream

there is stillness

light

no one is about

yet the fountain falls

perhaps with less pressure

than it had in the dark rain

he wonders when he will wake for real

returns to the large lonely bed to practice sleep

I have to thank Nel for her observation and highlight that collaboration is always a positive process. This poem is now complete.

I was at Tropical Pressure last weekend and was thoroughly impressed by Diabel Cissokho. He is touring at the moment and I cannot recommend him highly enough.

Until next time.  

TO PRACTICE SLEEP

A poem about an experience that felt like a dream. I had arrived in Tallinn after midnight and gone to bed in a hotel. I had awoken a couple of hours later to find the sky was light. I felt I was in a dream and wrote this brief poem.

3:30 am IN TALLINN

he wakes into a dream

there is stillness

light

no one is about

yet the fountain falls

perhaps he thinks with less pressure

than it had in the dark rain

he wonders when he will wake for real

returns to the large lonely bed to practice sleep

It is not a complex poem. I hope it captures the dreamlike state I was in on waking in the night. I have no photographs of the fountain in the daylight as it looked very small. Here's another piece of reportage.

It’s mid-summer’s evening

he’s videoing his car

phone held up on high

metal blasts out of every open door

rises skyward to fill space in the world

he’s riding the curve

of his own imagined wave

Nothing to say about this one. it was simply a note a scribbled down. I have no idea why he was making a video of his car, perhaps it seemed a good idea at the time.

I was reminded of a song the other day that I hadn't heard for a long time. This is Errollyn Wallen with the Brodsky Quartet.

Until next time.

BIG BLUE SKY THIEF

There's been a heat wave over northern Europe and yet there are those who still deny climate change. Beats me how their minds work. This post's poem is about entropy [again], how the heat death of the universe waits for us all.

COUNTDOWN TO ENTROPY

the heat followed him

a thirty degree plus shocker

that set the air to shimmer

and seemed to be everywhere at once

bowling down the tunnel and onto the plane

Somewhere above the sunlit clouds

in decreasing instalments

the heat fizzled out

the big blue sky thief

stole every Joule

I hope what the poem communicates is that nothing lasts forever, that we move towards entropy whether we realise this or not. It is a finished piece. One of those exercises I set myself when travelling.

I had forgotten how good Ruben Blades was until I played Buscando America again the other day. I hope you like it too.

Until next time.

FIGHT OR FLIGHT

I've been moving the lines of this poem about trying to get it as clear and concise as I can. You can read the earlier version here.

CHARADE

I almost bump into Carey Grant

In the toilet of a cinema in Warrington

his image is all over one of the walls

look at the enlarged whites of his eyes

He’s in such a pickle

frozen in black and white and panic

Definitely flight or fight mode

who wouldn’t be

He’s being chased

by a crop dusting aeroplane

And is stuck in the re-creation

of someone else’s nightmare

As if he didn’t have enough

of his own to be going on with

I've changed some of the lines about and I think I'm finally satisfied with it. As I get older I find myself tinkering with poems in a manner I don't think I would have when younger. I suppose it's the distance from the poem that enables me to see other possibilities in the words.

Here's another enchanting song by Brooke Sharkey. You can buy her new album here.

Until next time.

SOLO SAILOR ON A LIMITLESS SEA

I have been playing about with an idea for sometime now and I think I have managed to get it into a rough order. I think it's self explanatory.

If he was alone on a storm tossed sea

he would call out to Jesus

wouldn’t we he asked with certainty

[this was the place to pause in the lesson plan]

There could only be one way

fall onto your knees

and start to pray to your redeemer

It was all wasted on me

Stuck in a trough of towering waves

solo sailor on a limitless sea

how had I ended up there

Exactly what was my backstory

I could never make sense of the Trinity

and this latest example of faith

was totally beyond me

I refused to go to confirmation class after that

The metre isn't quite there nor I suspect is the ending. Watch this space.

Brian Wilson passed away last week so I shall leave you with a classic. Thanks Brian.

Until next time.  

WATERLOGGED RICE

Here's an autobiographical poem about food. I've been vegetarian since the 70s and the lack of preprepared food caused me to develop my cooking skills. 

MY COOKING ADVENTURE

It began with rice and veg, a suitably earnest dish, taken from the pages of a second hand macrobiotic cook book

The dense and contradictory Introduction defeated me and so I never completely understood the philosophy

What the hell, I just jumped in and started to cook

The serious food of 1970s vegetarianism gave way to obsession, to make the perfect souffle which in turn led to a pasta machine

Then the subtleties of the mezze and authentic regional dishes from the subcontinent

Now I am old, I have the moves, I can do it all from scratch without breaking into a sweat

and I’m a long way from the days of underdone vegetables and waterlogged rice

The poem assembled itself from the first line and I am not sure that it has the right ending. Over half a century a person should be able to develop their skills if they so desire. I wanted to capture how serious the food was back then. This is definitely a work in progress.

Pollyanna has just released a deluxe version of her ep Man Time, needless to say it's superb. You can listen to it here. I leave you with Diamond Ring.  

Until next time.

CIRCLED THE EARTH

I do like a sauna and I've been enjoying the new crop of seaside saunas that have popped up in the south west. I was sat in the Blackpool Sands sauna the other week and began to write this in my head.

The pop up sauna

is all varnished pine and dry heat

in truth it is a big barrel

laid on its side

near the tideline

I’m sat sweating inside

I look out the porthole

on what could be a moonscape

I think about Yuri

and Valentina

who circled the earth

in capsules the size

of a large washing machine

just to be the first

So the poem mentions Yuri Gagarin, as many of my poems do. Valentina Tereshkova was the first woman in space and I saw her actual capsule in the Cosmonaut Exhibition in London. It was very small. I've not much to say about the poem. It's a bit too new to make sense of. Watch this space.

I leave you with a song about a spaceman by Bob and Carol Pegg.

Until next time.

 

WHO WOULD COURT MISFORTUNE?

Some poems are based on real life, some are not. This is one of those. Not sure about the ending.

ELEPHANT ORNAMENTS

My father would have none of it

china elephants holiday gifts

they always bring bad luck

and who would court misfortune?

There were moments when a child

that I sensed elephants in the living room

the drum taut tension of things unsaid

I knew not to ask

I had an interesting discussion with a friend about last post's poem and was prompted to make a number of changes.

For Euan and Murray

I am carrying you

into your dreams

This is

my walking spell

the same circuit

of forty two steps

Again and again

around this room

And as we move

all I ask of you

Is to close

those tired eyes

Then you

will cross the border

Don’t worry

the whole wide world

Will still be here

when you awaken

What do you think? Does it work better? I think so. Thanks Nel.

Here are Everything But The Girl.

Until next time.