A NEGATIVE SPIN

This week saw a new low in this country's fortune. The government wants to lock up those arriving in this country seeking asylum for 28 days without legal redress. We should hang our heads in shame.

Here is a revised poem, you can read the original here.

SEEING THEM OFF THE PROPERTY

his right hand wields the power

motor chunters monotone

features hard set

mouth a thin line

watch the leaf blower manhandle every leaf

chucking them all out on to the street

at the bottom of our ocean atmosphere

see him blow up a storm

sending them back where they came from

King Canute it is said by some

illustrated his powerlessness

as he sat on that throne on the beach

unable to turn back the waves

there was a negative spin put on that one

back when all the maps were half pink

and here I am watching a rerun

I've added a couple of stanzas and included a reference to King Canute. I suspect he was far wiser than this collection of poltroons who are misgoverning the country.

Here is Alea Diane.

Until next time.

AN ABSTRACTED MAN

As I have said before, sometimes you have to remove the line in a poem you are most proud of, for the poem to work.
This poem is a case in point. 

Self Portrait Number 2

Throughout the slanting rain

an abstracted man stands in a bay window

watching individual raindrops cascade

change colour

darken leaves

return to the earth

continue to cycle back to the ocean

Originally I had:

in a bay window
an abstracted man stands
with a blue teapot in his right hand
watching individual raindrops cascade

But in all honesty even though this was how I had been standing, the blue teapot adds nothing to the poem, so sadly had to go.

Here's a poem I'm working on.

once again the weary moon must alibi the daylight to the disgruntled insomniac who is impatient for the dawn as sleep has failed to materialise

the waning disc slowly explains the solar cycle

reduced to a walk on part to explain the absence of morning there had been parity once but that was long ago

the non-sleeper does not care for history and yawns in the moon’s face

the moon sets leaving him alone beneath the brittle points of light that adorn the night sky

Here's an old video of Alela Diane's first album.

Until next time.

UNWRAPPING THE MUMMY

I have come across a number of references to Egyptian mummies being unwrapped recently. Apparently there was a craze for doing so in Napoleonic  France. There was not much scientific rationale for do so, but when has that ever stopped people.
I felt that this activity was fertile ground for the poet.

The Unwrapping Party

When I lay there,

having my brain extracted through my nose,

while my guts were pulled out by the handful

and dumped into the jars at my feet,

I did not foresee that my sleep would be disturbed

by anyone less than a God.

I could even put up with the French interrupting my twilight,

but to be labelled a minor figure,

in the political structure of the Lower Kingdom,

while accurate, could have been said with more respect.

This social event makes no pretence at science,

which has come to replace religion for these people,

I am merely a sideshow to titillate the matrons of Paris.

The professor talks his audience through the process,

removes each wrapping, holding it aloft for their scrutiny.

His commentary revealing more of his time than mine.

Then I will lie under glass, naked,

having seen too much,

and my second cycle of waiting will be ignored by the passers-by,

who hurry to see the real treasures of the museum.

This is definitely a work in progress. Watch this space.
Alela Diane has just released a new album.  It's well worth a listen.

Until next time.

ENCOUNTER REVISITED

Over the past two years I have been writing a series of poems about a person with a terminal illness. Here is the full sequence

Encounter

i

Sometime since the last meeting

he had been replaced by an actor,

similar to be true, but older

and slightly more coarse,

who riffed off his own allusions rather

than answer your well meaning questions.

He was angry, that was plain,

manifested in little jibes

that made you uncomfortable.

ii

Disease has depth charged his life,

percussion, shock wave, percussion,

and it will sink him in sunless water.

I cannot begin to understand how that must feel.

iii

he inhabits his history in a manner I have never had to

he developed the technique in the silences between the ticks of the ward's big faced clock

his best he now believes is behind him

a doctor has told him his immune system has gone rogue

he describes himself as shanghaied in an unresponsive body

he signals, I put ear to mouth

it was worth it, you know, 

every single fucking minute was worth living

The sequence attempts to describe his physical deterioration over a period of time, that is why each stanza is numbered. 
In the third stanza I wanted to try and catch the nature of his speech with lots of little statements and almost no punctuation.
I do not think there will be another stanza added but you never know.

Here is Alela Diane and Ryan Franesconi with Shapeless from the Cold Moon album

DOG IN SPACE - PAUL AT PONTINS

My parents at a Pontin's holiday camp in the early 1960's.

A couple of different things this post. In contrast to the hot weather we have been having here’s a haiku I wrote in April-when it was not as warm:

Words freeze as spoken

The coldest night in the world

Winter will not end

Do you ever find it difficult to imagine the cold when you are in the summer? I do.

Which one am I?
My family at Babbacombe in 1967.

 Around the time I wrote the haiku I was at a festival. It was so windy as I drove up to the camping area I saw a marquee take off and collide with a parked car. I later wrote this:

In its haste to escape from the festival,

the absconding marquee trips over a car.

Later it will be pinned down

And a man assigned to watch the dissident.

Me and my brother early 1960s on holiday.

As well as posting these old photographs of my family, I thought I’d include a short piece I wrote at a creative writing class I used to attend ran by Genista Wheatly. If I am honest I cannot remember the brief. I think it was to write something as dialogue. So I write this monologue.

“You kids have got no respect, not like in the old days. Then we had respect, now you laugh when I tell you the truth. Years ago you’d have been quiet, but hell, years ago, in the good old days, I would not have said what I just said. Stands to reason, then you kept schtum, now you laugh.”

“I tell you I helped in the space race, yes me Moscow Dog Catcher, second grade. Things were different then, no, I did not have Comrade Korolev’s talent or his favour, but I played my part. Got this watch, yes it is only a Vostok, not a Poljot. Yes I know Yuri had a Poljot when he first orbited. Me I got a Vostok, like a military hero. Don’t work now though it is right twice a day.”

“How did I get it? I caught a dog, a lovely little bitch, barked a lot called her Liaka. It was during my two years conscription, I had worked as a dog catcher previous. October 1957 and this dog had been hanging about the base, barking and carrying on, kept the men awake at night. Well those that weren’t melting the boot polish and drinking it that is. The sergeant says to me “You soldier, never could remember my name that one, you were a dog catcher before weren’t you?”

“Yes Sir” says I. “Well, catch that mutt before I have it shot then we might get some sleep!” “I’d just caught the dog, lovely animal, real friendly. I’m stood there talking to the dog, trying to calm her, “I’ll call you Laika, as you bark so much.” Then this man in a grey trousers and a leather jacket comes up to me and tells me how the country needs such dog. To be a space pioneer, he says. To follow in the footsteps, alright paw prints, of Bars and Lamka, only they did sub-orbital’s and they were ok. They came back.”

“She over heated, or the stress killed her...They were never sure. Took seven hours though. Less than a days’ work plus several million roubles to kill a dog, seems like a lot of effort. But as I say things were different then.”

“Now what about that vodka you promised me?”

Both of us at Pontin's Morcombe holiday camp around 1965.

Laika was launched into space on 31^st October 1957. The other dogs mentioned flew suborbital flights and landed but poor old Laika died. 

My parents at Pontins Blackpool in 1970.

On a slightly less sombre note Alela Diane’s new cd was released here in England on Monday. I cannot stop listening to it. It is both sad and beautiful. I am working on a review that may appear next week. I have also been very taken with Lizzy Stewart’s Cardigan Heart. A small work of art. 

I shall leave you with Alela singing.