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.

 

WAITING FOR THE SAUCERS

Millennialism has always fascinated me. The idea that the world is coming to an end is as old as the world itself. I have never been seduced by the idea myself, but throughout history people have been duped. This is a poem about people who believed in something that didn't happen. 

WAITING FOR THE SAUCERS

Before dawn we were on the hill

singing hymns of celebration

confirmation this was the day

we would transcend

to our promised new lives in Heaven

The drizzle did not dampen

the gawkers and cameras did not make us falter

that came later in the full light of day

wet to the skin cold to the bone

perhaps Salvation did not beckon that February day

Conscious of my weak chest

my Mother was the first to question

in twos and threes we walked away

turned back to our earth lives

I have never felt as alive as I did on that hill

I think it wrote itself from the title downwards. This is only a rough draft. It needs time for me to discern the faults, I'm too close.

I have to leave you with Judee Sill's Enchanted Sky Machines which is about such a rescue.

Until next time.   

NO WORDS LEFT

Have you ever ran out of words to say to a stranger? I have on occasion, though usually I ask them questions, most people are happy to talk about themselves. This poem is a variation on that fear.

there was so much conversation

during the wedding feast

that all our vocabularies were consumed

consequently the reception was a let down

no words left between the lot of us

we just looked at one another

and that DJ was neither one thing nor the other

prompting our half hearted movements

on the empty dance floor

so we sat it out for as long as was decent

slipped away from the hotel to our cheaper room

and we never saw either of you ever again

I thinking that we'd been invited to a wedding and all conversation had been used up during the meal. I think this is very definitely a first draft. Though I'm not sure what where it is heading. 

Lucy Dacus has a new album out. Here's the first song released from it, Ankles.

Until next time.  

EARWIGGING

I promise this is the last time I shall show you this poem, I think it's complete-phew! You can read the last version here.

In the 1970s, the K-unit Maintenance

baggin’ room, at Castner-Kelner Chemical Works,

was not conducive to the study of great literature.

We were employed to fix broken machinery,

not to broaden our intellectual horizons,

so there were no pointers to those volumes

that could have enabled us to understand

why we had been educated to a certain point

then handed overalls and told to get on with it.

We drank tea on our breaks

and talked of nothing in particular.

I think the tight punctuation aids clarity, as does removal of all extraneous words. That's always difficult, but it is worth asking yourself how the poem benefits from each word and being ruthless in removing excess.

the parking police walk up our street

earwigging I’m walking behind

it’s like this is the savannah

and we’re the apex predator

we give no one a second chance

let alone some third act of grace

a ticket on every window

and digital photographs of the crime

you can’t argue with technology

it’s a result every single time

This was just a little idea that occurred to me when I watched two traffic wardens walking up the road deep in conversation. The rest was fantasy.

I suppose I should play Lovely Rita by The Beatles to complement the second poem.

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.

  

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.

TICKING OFF WHO KNEW WHAT

It's not often that I take some lines from a poem and use them in a completely different way. But I have this post. You can read the last iteration of it here. 

LOVE POEM

In Stafford there were train spotters

cameras slung around their necks

tablets gripped tightly in their hands

ticking off who knew what

In Birmingham where I changed trains

I was refused hot water in in four

of the five cafes in the last

my jasmine tea was refilled with a smile

Out of the city it was all green country

until I saw the sea at that point I knew

I’d be with you soon from then on

the smile never left my face

It's now a love poem where as before it was more reportage. Same train journey, different focus. You have to be flexible and open to experimenting. 

Here's some Laura Gibson. I've been playing La Grande lately and it really is an impressive piece of work.

Until next time.

THERE HAD BEEN AN OUTBREAK OF POETRY

A rather silly poem this week. The first line [the title of this post] popped into my head and I was away. I thought the villanelle form lent itself to the idea [and the second rhyme]. Having such a clear structure made writing the poem more straight forward. 

There had been an outbreak of poetry

thankfully it was only a villanelle.

The symptoms were a moody intensity,

giving his life an ABA frequency.

He was quarantined in a cheap hotel.

There had been an outbreak of poetry

and his choice of rhyme revealed uncertainty,

he was unsure if they worked that well.

The symptoms were a moody intensity

to which the nurses responded with flattery,

how long it would last none could tell.

There had been an outbreak of poetry

how he longed to get out of his cell.

The symptoms were a moody intensity

to which they suggested psychiatry

as his rhyming scheme was shot to hell.

There had been an out break of poetry,

the symptoms were a moody intensity.

The next step for this poem is to take it to the next Secret Poets meeting and see what they make of it. I'm not sure I will do anything more with it.

Here's The Wave Pictures, a true classic.

Until next time.

SILK FLOWERS IN THE RAIN

This first poem would benefit from a photograph of the scene it describes but I didn't think to take one at the time. So you will have to make do with this word picture.

rows of silk flowers in the rain

outside the bargain centre

they gift larger than life colours to the day

multiplied reflections in the pavement pools

and we who hurry by with heads bowed

break into a smile to see such brightness

It was not until after I had passed the shop that the line silk flowers in the rain do not need water popped into my head. It was such a dismal afternoon I did not think to go back and take a  photograph. This next poem is self explanatory.

faced with writing a eulogy

I paragraph their experience

make sense of their happen chance

chart the voyage of their life

that I watched from the sidelines

a bit player in their grand narrative

my pen describes the new made void in all our lives

It is a work in progress. It isn't complete. Watch this space. It's strange how some poems you want to make work never quite do. Let's hope this one will land safely.

I've been listening to Naissan Jalal's latest cd Rituals and it is quietly beautiful. Well worth looking out.

Until next time. 

FABRIC CREDIBILITY

Sometimes memories surface and who knows why? Events that I have given no thought to for decades pop up and sometimes I think that might make a poem. This is the story of a crime I committed over forty years ago.

CHAMELEON

my camouflage that year was

a marjons football club jumper

I stole from the Student Union shop

the time I volunteered to accompany

Heather who was intermitting to

join Operation Raleigh for six moths

the Deputy President was anxious that

everyone should know exactly where

she had just come from

I simply picked up my prize

and failed to add it to the list

of clothing she had chosen

in the outside world

I wore it sparingly and only

when I needed fabric credibility

not that anyone ever commented

or bothered to admit they had

taken in the embroidery on my left breast

but it gave me comfort

as I navigated my new reality

The lines wrote themselves and the breaks seemed to fit. I've polished it up a little but essentially this is how the poem arrived. Operation Raleigh was a opportunity for young people to participate in a scientific adventure. I had the jumper for a number of years, it was quite well made I seem to remember. Marjons still has a football club and I still have never played football. Though I am happy to pay for my jumper should anyone wish me to.

The photographs this post are all from Wednesday. The sea at Meadfoot was choppy. Here's Spirogyra with Captain's Log. 

Until next time.

TUESDAY AFTERNOON CAN BE LONG ENOUGH

Poems can come from anywhere. If I knew the land they lived in I'd move there. This one was sparked off by chance. The lecture room computer was locked down and we were locked out. While they tried to unlock it this idea formed.

THE HEAT DEATH OF THE UNIVERSE

today’s marker is a locked computer

that denies us access to the digital cornucopia

such reminders are placed strategically

but we have to want to read the signs

mostly we choose not to

who wants to think in planet time

a tuesday afternoon can be long enough

let alone attempts to imagine entropy

say the last night in the life of the earth

just before all the atoms are scattered

we are here now that’s enough

let’s celebrate instead

the fleeting eternity we live every day

I suppose I must have been thinking about a Radio 4 programme I'd listened to which was talking the heat death of the universe and about how the latest scientific perspective seems to suggest that the galaxies will become ever further apart and the night sky will empty of stars until the sun eats the world. Cheerful stuff. Let's give thanks for being alive!

I also gave thanks this week to the good people at High Moon Records, who have released both of Laurie Styvers albums on a double cd with outtakes! I've been a fan since Split Milk was released in 1972. It took me 20 plus years to locate her second album, now you can listen to everything she ever recorded solo. I leave you with a song or two.

Until next time.

AN ECHO

Here's an older poem that I've finally worked into a shape I am happy with. You can read the earlier version here.

PERHAPS

Once more

the water called to him

to renew their pact

a life on the ocean

beyond the horizon

past the smudge of land and dust.

It was his repeating dream.

The Lisbon waterfront

after the great earthquake

early in the dawn

he walks to the cathedral

to give thanks for his son’s birth.

He knows in this instant

if he does not heed the salt water’s song

he will not visit that city until he is past thirty.

Catching in his first sight of the cathedral

an echo, nothing more

soon replaced by stone and mortar.

Few of us make the right choice.

I think this version is more compact and reads better. At the moment I am compiling a new collection. Watch this space for news. 

Here's some music from the wonderful Palooka 5! They have a new album out next week.

Until next time.

BLOW UP A STORM

Sometimes life just puts you in the right place at the right time. I was recently passing our local conservative club and I stopped to watch as a person with a leaf blower cleared the carpark of leaves. I couldn't help thinking that this is what they want to do to everyone who attempts to enter this country, either that, or fly them to Rwanda. Then I read about the new tory deputy chairman. You couldn't make it up.

SEEING THEM OFF THE PROPERTY

his right hand wields the power

motor chunters monotone

determination

features hard set

mouth a thin line

watch the leaf blower manhandle every leaf

chucking them all out in to the street

I stand on the pavement

at the bottom of our ocean atmosphere

see him blow up a storm

sending them back where they came from

The poem has taken much writing. I think I was telling rather than showing. Perhaps in a couple of months I may decide it is still too telling.

Here's Brooke Sharkey. She's just raised the money to record a new ep. After seeing her live last summer I for one can't wait to hear it.

Until next time.