I came to Kettle’s Yard
Looking for a shelter
A shelter for dreaming
I found a basket of pebbles
Which was a pretty good start
Then a long tabletop of oak
Supposedly from a slave ship
Or so the story goes
But it is nature
Which truly does it
Such is the seeing of the vase of flowers
On the window ledge by the bathroom
Followed by the shelves
Of collected potted plants
Named as the Land’s Shadows
Or Drifting Trawl Ring Seine
I kick the pebbles
Which sit on the floor
Beside a big slice of tree trunk
I don’t mean to cause a disturbance
But I am excited by the Gaudier-Brzeska
My eye then settles on the fish fossil
In a piece of stone, atop the long shelf
Which divides the large open space
It could be stone
From my childhood river bed
For it appears to be
Not unlike Yorkshire Stone
This then is the dream
In this peaceful place
In this exceptional
Shelter for dreaming
Saturday, 15 February 2020
Friday, 14 February 2020
I want to try and find a shelter
I want to try and find a shelter
In the ways of letting go
For I have been hanging on for way too long
Now to explore the minds and hearts to let go
It began with banging my fists on the floor
Alone in my office I cried out to ask why
In need of a shaman I found a guitarist
Who introduced me
To the music of Stevie Ray Vaughan
Then took me
From his mansion like living quarters
To a bar beside Newquay’s Fistral Beach
I was pulled back from that particular precipice
Though I could not prevent a reoccurrence
Following some esoteric guidance on closure
I tore up and burnt letters one by one
Taking the embers, and the ashes outside
To be blown carefree on the wind
Today I want to decorate my shelter
As a place for endlessly letting go
I have, it is true, hung about way too long
Now I wish to settle on the ambience
To create a mood
For the pleasures of letting go
I chanced upon Poetry Otherwise course
At Emerson College in Forest Row, Sussex
Where a young woman
Who was about to join a closed order
She told me that I must be creative
And so I wrote, and I wrote, and I wrote
And I cried
Then my one door room was my shelter
To be alone and lonely, lonely and alone
Yet daybreak brought the classes
Which created the need for further classes
Classes for shelter, closure for shelter
In the ways of letting go
For I have been hanging on for way too long
Now to explore the minds and hearts to let go
It began with banging my fists on the floor
Alone in my office I cried out to ask why
In need of a shaman I found a guitarist
Who introduced me
To the music of Stevie Ray Vaughan
Then took me
From his mansion like living quarters
To a bar beside Newquay’s Fistral Beach
I was pulled back from that particular precipice
Though I could not prevent a reoccurrence
Following some esoteric guidance on closure
I tore up and burnt letters one by one
Taking the embers, and the ashes outside
To be blown carefree on the wind
Today I want to decorate my shelter
As a place for endlessly letting go
I have, it is true, hung about way too long
Now I wish to settle on the ambience
To create a mood
For the pleasures of letting go
I chanced upon Poetry Otherwise course
At Emerson College in Forest Row, Sussex
Where a young woman
Who was about to join a closed order
She told me that I must be creative
And so I wrote, and I wrote, and I wrote
And I cried
Then my one door room was my shelter
To be alone and lonely, lonely and alone
Yet daybreak brought the classes
Which created the need for further classes
Classes for shelter, closure for shelter
Thursday, 13 February 2020
Today my shelter will be of the past
Today my shelter will be of the past
That one euphoric period of my being
Which today’s memoir tells me
Did not go on forever
It was a time with an inauspicious beginning
Or at least a past emerging from a darker past
To kick things, at least so I was thinking
As I struggled to find my way in
Instead I break off, go outside
To tear myself away from despondency
With no expectations, or baggage
And there I see a fresh morning in its glory
After what seems like weeks of rain
There is an absolute brightness
To the day, to the outlook
Such that my spirits are all immediately lifted
My belief in myself that I can survive
Indeed prosper in this thing we call life
Yet it is a view which I see almost every day
Yes so so very often I open that particular door
To step outside into our own little world
An old refurbished structure, once a stables
Now a sort of adults playroom
For writers, meditators, painters and musicians
A place where in a couple of hours
There will be bacon sandwiches and coffee
A time for writers to chat, to write, to chat
As if the world needs someone to sort it out
But, leading up to all of that cacophony
Which to some may be a symphony
I have the cool air to breathe
I have the new day to see in
That one euphoric period of my being
Which today’s memoir tells me
Did not go on forever
It was a time with an inauspicious beginning
Or at least a past emerging from a darker past
To kick things, at least so I was thinking
As I struggled to find my way in
Instead I break off, go outside
To tear myself away from despondency
With no expectations, or baggage
And there I see a fresh morning in its glory
After what seems like weeks of rain
There is an absolute brightness
To the day, to the outlook
Such that my spirits are all immediately lifted
My belief in myself that I can survive
Indeed prosper in this thing we call life
Yet it is a view which I see almost every day
Yes so so very often I open that particular door
To step outside into our own little world
An old refurbished structure, once a stables
Now a sort of adults playroom
For writers, meditators, painters and musicians
A place where in a couple of hours
There will be bacon sandwiches and coffee
A time for writers to chat, to write, to chat
As if the world needs someone to sort it out
But, leading up to all of that cacophony
Which to some may be a symphony
I have the cool air to breathe
I have the new day to see in
Wednesday, 12 February 2020
Today my shelter is the future
Today my shelter is the future
For tomorrow I go to Buckfast Abbey
To sleep monastic side
In the monk’s guest-bedrooms
All there will be silence
Silence as a shelter
Silence as a virtue
Silence as a way of carrying on
Yet nature will not gift me silence
Indeed quite the opposite
As I walk beside the gushing river
Listening to the undoubted mass of birdsong
My shelter will also be in the routine
The daily prescriptions of
Matins, Lauds, Conventual Mass
Before evenings of Vespers and Compline
For certain I will have the shelter of books
Books for reading, books for writing
I will often find my own word shelter
In the stained-glass Chapel also in the Abbey
And, because this is a trip to Devon
I will see my youngest son
There will be a smile
Along with amusing conversation
So not all of this shelter will be silence
Although in Dartington’s meditation garden
I hope to find peace, I hope to find calm
I hope to enjoy my own contemplations
My future shelter is also in my automobile
Six hours driving, in each direction
With lots of good music on the stereo
And maybe a shopping retreat along the way
For tomorrow I go to Buckfast Abbey
To sleep monastic side
In the monk’s guest-bedrooms
All there will be silence
Silence as a shelter
Silence as a virtue
Silence as a way of carrying on
Yet nature will not gift me silence
Indeed quite the opposite
As I walk beside the gushing river
Listening to the undoubted mass of birdsong
My shelter will also be in the routine
The daily prescriptions of
Matins, Lauds, Conventual Mass
Before evenings of Vespers and Compline
For certain I will have the shelter of books
Books for reading, books for writing
I will often find my own word shelter
In the stained-glass Chapel also in the Abbey
And, because this is a trip to Devon
I will see my youngest son
There will be a smile
Along with amusing conversation
So not all of this shelter will be silence
Although in Dartington’s meditation garden
I hope to find peace, I hope to find calm
I hope to enjoy my own contemplations
My future shelter is also in my automobile
Six hours driving, in each direction
With lots of good music on the stereo
And maybe a shopping retreat along the way
Tuesday, 11 February 2020
The shelter is in the doing
The shelter is in the doing
Yesterday the shelter
Was to be found in the being
In the being which precedes the doing
The being who reblogged photographs
Who posted poetry with pictures
Towards all four corners of the world
The shelter is in the adsorption
Yes, this shelter is found by being absorbed
Fully absorbed in the doing
The doing which also includes meditation
After writing at the standing desk
Writing words for no one else’s consumption
The shelter is in taking the photograph
Of turning the photographs into a book
Or at least into a book cover
Achieved by rotating and cropping
By being in there with the decision making
This way or that, that way or this
The shelter is in the deep listening
Listening to the Drawn in Pale Light playlist
Music then
Along with the leaves and branches
Providing a canopy for the settled soul
Before bumping into something more esoteric
Which takes one to the jazz night
That night when the shelter was the jazz night
Jazz on a boat, on a boat on the river
Yet with a group of individuals
Who right now
I can hardly remember any of
So better perhaps to return
To return, return to the being
And the doing of that shelter
Yesterday the shelter
Was to be found in the being
In the being which precedes the doing
The being who reblogged photographs
Who posted poetry with pictures
Towards all four corners of the world
The shelter is in the adsorption
Yes, this shelter is found by being absorbed
Fully absorbed in the doing
The doing which also includes meditation
After writing at the standing desk
Writing words for no one else’s consumption
The shelter is in taking the photograph
Of turning the photographs into a book
Or at least into a book cover
Achieved by rotating and cropping
By being in there with the decision making
This way or that, that way or this
The shelter is in the deep listening
Listening to the Drawn in Pale Light playlist
Music then
Along with the leaves and branches
Providing a canopy for the settled soul
Before bumping into something more esoteric
Which takes one to the jazz night
That night when the shelter was the jazz night
Jazz on a boat, on a boat on the river
Yet with a group of individuals
Who right now
I can hardly remember any of
So better perhaps to return
To return, return to the being
And the doing of that shelter
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