NOT GETTING WET

 I think I must be going through a little boom at the moment the Muse is being very generous.
This first poem happened as it says. I did wake up trying to remember the poem I'd written just in a dream.

I dreamt you last night

placed us both in fragments

from meetings and songs

and woke in the darkness

attempting to recall

the poem I had written

sat on that hillside

in the rain

not getting wet

Here's one that arrived in a rush and still needs revision. 

I know that eventually

time will catch up with me

pin me to the bloody floor

in some way I will not like

let alone have foreseen

pay me back in kind

for each night

I crept in with the milk

leave me marooned on a chair

my tongue stuck on repeat

Again it is what it is. There are no hidden layers of meaning.
Sometimes that's ok. 
Oh, creeping in with the milk is something my father used to say when I came home in the small hours. You need to be old enough to remember when milk men delivered milk in bottles very early in the morning. 

Here's me being very vain. Kathryn Williams was amazing. She's on tour at the moment and if you get the chance go and see her. Last Friday was so good. I'm off to see her again on Sunday in Exeter. 

Until next time.

AN INFINITY OF DIFFERENT VERSIONS

I am going to see Kathryn Williams this evening in Bristol and frankly I can't wait. Given the state of the country at the moment any respite from the posturing of the privileged Jackanapes masquerading as the crime minister is welcome. Whatever happened to honourable politicians?
Two poems this post with a religious slant. The first is a true story. I was walking to Stanza Extravaganza at the Artisan Gallery here in Torquay the other evening when I was stopped by two missionaries. I suspect they were new to the game as it was raining heavily at the time and there was little chance people would wish to discuss theology in such conditions. 

When the rain arrived in heavy soaking curtains

he was stopped by a pair of bright young faces

who burned with the missionary's certainty.

Solemnly they enquired if he believed in God,

if he had received the grace of religion.

He thanked them and said he had.

As a pantheist he could see God’s beauty everywhere

even in the raindrops funnelling around them in the night.

Then they asked about Jesus Christ

and were told he needed no middleman.

This second poem has no clear cause and effect.

all that cynicism slowly chipped away

and him older scarred and weary

the infinity of different versions

meant that one would be a good fit

it was inevitable his disbelief

would transmute into faith

but behind his back

they smiled as he surrendered

The poem arrived pretty much as it is. All I had to do was swap some of the stanzas about and clean up the lines.

I have Rob Chapman to thank for this week's music. His excellent account of psychedelic music Psychedelia and Other Colours introduced me to the Geranium Pond. Only in the 60s!

Until next time.

BETWEEN THUNDER AND THE ECHO

I have just discovered this is my 500th post.  I don't normally take note of such numbers but 500 seems like an achievement. I looked to get an estimate of how many poems there are on this blog. Given that there are a number of revised poems, reviews and interviews I would suspect there are at least over three hundred poems.
That really is amazing. I'll leave it up to you to decide if any of them are any good.
Here's to the next 500!
Now  the poem that gives the post its title.

in this still air not a tree shivers

we walk empty streets of paused lighten

and when the rain does come

we are caught in the open

between the thunder and the echo

our clothes far too thin for the wind

which saws through the skin

to pare each bone

This is not a finished poem. I feel it needs to go somewhere but at the moment I am not sure exactly where. It has description but I am not sure it has a tongue to tell its truth. 
Watch this space.
Now a second poem I wrote a couple of weeks ago in Teignmouth.

Teignmouth Poem Number 1

when glimpsed through these trees

the pier could be a bridge

connecting the drab and the mundane with

anywhere you care to dream of

some place of lives lived by other rules

where people tell their truths

and do not meet just to say goodbye

Again I feel this poem needs time to breathe. Sometimes the poem arrives whole and other times, like now, I have to leave them to acclimatise. 
Here's a track from Kathryn Williams' Anthology. It is proving a balm given the political turmoil our crime minister and his jolly gaggle of privileged poltroons are causing. 
Kathryn is touring the UK at the moment. If you get the chance go and see her, she's wonderful live.

Until next time.

WATCH THE TOWN CONTRACT

I spend a very enjoyable afternoon this week picnicking with the Secret Poets on Babacombe Downs. It is always a joy to meet up and the conversation and constructive feedback is superb. Thank you.
Here's a revised poem. You can read the earlier draft here.
There have been a number of changes, though I am not sure the poem is finished.

on first hearing that the 256 bus route has been discontinued

1. so called progress

trumpeted efficiencies

planned changes

equals

more people fewer buses

the 256 has run its course

now joins the other phantom routes

those ghost transport numbers

that fade when the last driver dies

and the final passenger forgets

2.

autumn comes to Wolverhampton

the chill of looming winter

at the concrete finger bus stop

Rachel waits most week days

for thirty years or more stoic

buses are as regular

as politicians promises

there is no poetry on the number sixteen

just smudged windows

through which to watch

the town contract

A couple of lines have been changed around to aid the poem to read more fluently. Reading your work aloud is essential. You need to hear the sounds of the poem. Poetry was after all an oral art form.
For me the poem captures the times. Our high streets contract and coarsen. We are a collection of individuals not a community.

I received my copy of the Kathryn Williams Anthology yesterday and what a treasure trove of delights it is.
At 20 cds I'm still working my way through the beautiful music it contains.

Until next time.

WHEN THE SEA RETURNED

I wrote this poem quite quickly, like the last post, it came from a collection of random words picked haphazardly from several unconnected books. Working with a limited number of words can be liberating. 
Once the basic idea is down on paper you can expand on it in any way that you think works.

Just One of Those Things

when the sea returned

the lovers had gone

to create energy their own energy

in a rented room

then to part

on some street corner

late in the afternoon

in a press of people too preoccupied

with keeping the wolf from the door

for the intensity of their farewell

to ever be noticed

the lover’s regular roles awaited

the end of their embrace

I am not sure that the title works. It does not seem to add or enhance the poem...
I find titles to be difficult.
I wanted the poem to capture a moment, something fleeting. A miniature, I suppose, as opposed to a big idea.

Also as mentioned last post both Kathryn Williams and Anna Ternheim are touring in the autumn. I may see you there.
Also on a really positive note Ryley Walker is playing some dates in America. He has been 75 + days sober and sounds very positive. I wish you all the best Ryley.
Here's the man himself in Utrecht last year. What music! 

Until next time.

DOUBLED SHADOW

Another work in progress. 
I am not sure how this poem arrived. I was opening books at random and jotting down the first word from each that I liked. I ended up with a page of words and I fashioned them into this.

hidden fires burned low

so the city leaked light

into a crumbled grey sky

casting doubled shadows on to broken streets

and more than the morning was lost

slowly

unseeing

with scant regard for his surroundings

he walked onwards

like a man lost to the world

his reality now reduced

to a parade of scenery flats

and himself a cypher beyond decryption

I think that the piece is complete in as much as I do not believe it needs more added to it. Whether the meaning is clear is another matter. I think I need to work on that.
Watch this space.

Kathryn Williams is touring in October to promote her Anthology box set. I'd get your tickets now, I have got mine. She is wonderful live.
There is also a rumour that Anna Ternheim is playing London in the autumn. More when I get the details. Here's the link for the new album.
This is an interview with Kathryn.

Until next time.

JIGSAW DAYS

I  do not want to write much about this post's poem, discretion is the best policy.

Poem for C

Given the economies

of supermarket squash

and the cheapest of vodkas,

it had always been

how much could he drink,

in the shortest amount of time,

to keep ahead of blacking out,

to avoid the grey dawns

when monochromatic

migraine imitating aftermaths

immobilised him in a space

where he could do nothing

but relive it all over again.

I met him in the fragile truce of sobriety

that he called his jigsaw days,

as he placed his pieces

into shapes that just might work,

into patterns that had eluded him on the drink.

Some events, he confided, never end,

so you have to find different ways of getting on with it.

I've been listening to a lot of Kathrine Williams this past week so here is Cuckoo.

And this is In a Broken Dream.

Until next time.

A SEQUENCE OF UNOCCUPIED SPACES

I haven't got much to say about this post's poem save I began it at the start of this academic year and only managed to complete it last week. 
I had been thinking how when we are new to a job, house, city, everything looks new to us. We do not yet have the connections, the history of the place.

Of course the room had been sanitised:
floor swept; windows washed;
shelves dusted; desk polished bright.
It's all so shiny and new
to the man who,
one day each week
sits behind it.
Which just leaves the dust in my head,
the taste in my mouth
and the sequence of unoccupied spaces
that litter the university.
The new broom has swept so clean
that the students don't know what they have lost.

I am going through something of a Katherine Williams phase at the moment. here is Monday Morning.

Until next time.