Snow today
But only a few
Wispy blustery affairs
Yet sufficient
To remind me
Of that day
On the road over the Pennines
From Greenfield to Holmfirth
Ostensibly the road was closed
But being young, foolish
And filled with bravado
I passed the road closed sign
Thinking
If I can get up the hill
Then it’s flat, or downhill
The rest of the way
And if I can’t get up the hill
I will turn around
Then it will be downhill
As I come back
Surely you see my logic
On the so called easy bit
That is the flat bit
The road was
Only a car widths wide
With twelve feet tall
Drifts of snow
To either side
No room here then
For turn around manoeuvres
To go forwards
Or to reverse
They were the only options
Pure white snow
Clean white snow
Virgin white snow
Yes, virgin territory
For the brave one
Slowly becoming terrified
By the abandoned
Snow virgins
Time moves on
Time moves on slowly
With only a single colour
To keep one company
With a singular concentration
To focus upon
Keep going, keep going, keep going
Keep those wide wheels turning
On no account pause, or stop
But watch the temperature gauge
Keep an eye on the fuel level
And the tyre pressure
No way today
To call in the AA
Today is before
The mobile phone was invented
Yet this is the solitude
Which you dreamt of
This is you
You alone with nature
Yes, this is the silence
The silence you dreamt of
This is you
You alone with the snow
Absolutely, this is the heaven
The heaven you dreamt of
This is you
You alone with the light
But is this the end
The end you never did dream of
Is this you
You; fading, or emerging
Monday 25 June 2018
Sunday 24 June 2018
Hang On, Turn Back, Opened Up
The first lines came automatically, from the deeper subconscious, almost a stream of consciousness thing; it was with me the instant of waking, yet not within the poetry notebook until a few days later. Then written as an epigraph, in two lines. Only when typed up and edited did it become the first four line stanza; something about my losing the nerve to be too pretentious.
And in becoming a stanza the vagueness of the double meaning enters the fray; am I talking to the you who is really me, or is the you a past or present lover, or is the you further away, a deity, or its non-religious equivalent. Am I truly trying to mislead, or hoodwink, or beguile; is to be ambiguous my way always; whether by design, or by default.
In the second stanza I bring into play a couple of words from Ray Bradbury’s book The Zen of Writing. He says to look for zest and gusto; these are both words which I have previously used in my own writing. That I am enthusiastic to share these words says something about how important both zest and gusto were at the time. One of my old bosses said that the thing he loved most about me was my enthusiasm, my can do attitude, my great belief that more could be achieved than we might imagine. I took that as a huge compliment; that’s me, zest and gusto.
The third stanza gives a clue as to how long sometimes the poem is in the soup steadily cooking. I talk of meditation and doubt; that is because in our previous meditation sangha I had come across doubt as I meditated. As a non-religious man I had questioned my own faith in myself, as opposed to my being in need of an external faith or force.
The fourth stanza takes me back to memory, several years worth of memory in fact, but culminating in a very recent memory. On our last vacation we stayed in a swish, contemporary, energy-saving villa, almost on the beach, at Widemouth Bay near Bude. Everyday we were able to walk on the beach, beside the wild February Atlantic surf; the hours and hours which we spent taking photographs and writing are now condensed into these four short lines, indeed only the last two lines are specific to that time.
And in becoming a stanza the vagueness of the double meaning enters the fray; am I talking to the you who is really me, or is the you a past or present lover, or is the you further away, a deity, or its non-religious equivalent. Am I truly trying to mislead, or hoodwink, or beguile; is to be ambiguous my way always; whether by design, or by default.
In the second stanza I bring into play a couple of words from Ray Bradbury’s book The Zen of Writing. He says to look for zest and gusto; these are both words which I have previously used in my own writing. That I am enthusiastic to share these words says something about how important both zest and gusto were at the time. One of my old bosses said that the thing he loved most about me was my enthusiasm, my can do attitude, my great belief that more could be achieved than we might imagine. I took that as a huge compliment; that’s me, zest and gusto.
The third stanza gives a clue as to how long sometimes the poem is in the soup steadily cooking. I talk of meditation and doubt; that is because in our previous meditation sangha I had come across doubt as I meditated. As a non-religious man I had questioned my own faith in myself, as opposed to my being in need of an external faith or force.
The fourth stanza takes me back to memory, several years worth of memory in fact, but culminating in a very recent memory. On our last vacation we stayed in a swish, contemporary, energy-saving villa, almost on the beach, at Widemouth Bay near Bude. Everyday we were able to walk on the beach, beside the wild February Atlantic surf; the hours and hours which we spent taking photographs and writing are now condensed into these four short lines, indeed only the last two lines are specific to that time.
Saturday 23 June 2018
Documentaries
Down the hill
With head, and video camera
Poking out of the sunroof
Trying somehow to capture
The pastoral
Then to watch the professor
Who obviously hadn’t attended
The seminar on social skills
Whose nervousness almost stole away
His immense breadth of literary knowledge
Who else
Will walk out of a summer’s morning
Who else, through his writing
Will capture your imaginations
Years and years after the events
Then to hear of the artist
Who gathered in, then exploded nature
Who embraced and exposed technology
Such that he gifted action, and I saw the light
Again, and again, and again, and again
With head, and video camera
Poking out of the sunroof
Trying somehow to capture
The pastoral
Then to watch the professor
Who obviously hadn’t attended
The seminar on social skills
Whose nervousness almost stole away
His immense breadth of literary knowledge
Who else
Will walk out of a summer’s morning
Who else, through his writing
Will capture your imaginations
Years and years after the events
Then to hear of the artist
Who gathered in, then exploded nature
Who embraced and exposed technology
Such that he gifted action, and I saw the light
Again, and again, and again, and again
Friday 22 June 2018
Denial
Nineteen, or Seventeen, what’s it matter
If the target to achieve is seven, or eight
In this way your morning awakes you
In this way reality catches your solar plexus
Amazing really, that it’s taken sixteen years
Think of all what you did in your first sixteen
Which is where your memoir faltered
Thirty years before news of this illness broke
As it did in that telephone call
To a Yorkshireman visiting Yorkshire
Of course by now you know I’m skirting
You too can feel the words meandering
That is how it must be, I have to conceal
For concealing is my learned behaviour
But, as you can see, I sort of want to reveal
I want to, but no I cannot, what is the point
What is the use of giving you news
Which actually is only of any concern to me
If the target to achieve is seven, or eight
In this way your morning awakes you
In this way reality catches your solar plexus
Amazing really, that it’s taken sixteen years
Think of all what you did in your first sixteen
Which is where your memoir faltered
Thirty years before news of this illness broke
As it did in that telephone call
To a Yorkshireman visiting Yorkshire
Of course by now you know I’m skirting
You too can feel the words meandering
That is how it must be, I have to conceal
For concealing is my learned behaviour
But, as you can see, I sort of want to reveal
I want to, but no I cannot, what is the point
What is the use of giving you news
Which actually is only of any concern to me
Thursday 21 June 2018
Bays Set Out For People Watching
What to do, where to go
How to let the day develop
How to help affairs shape up
Watch the waitress take the orders
Watch the waitress pour the coffee
Watch the waiter serve the breakfast
Look at the glum-looking chap
At the next table, not a smile
So far, not one hint of happiness
Who knows what his worries are
Who knows the troubles in his life
Who knows the debts he has incurred
Maybe he looks on me in the same way
What a miserable sod he might think
He could even dismiss me, as a waster
Though I don’t feel at all uneasy
I don’t feel at all out of place here
I don’t, until I see, and hear, his laughter
How to let the day develop
How to help affairs shape up
Watch the waitress take the orders
Watch the waitress pour the coffee
Watch the waiter serve the breakfast
Look at the glum-looking chap
At the next table, not a smile
So far, not one hint of happiness
Who knows what his worries are
Who knows the troubles in his life
Who knows the debts he has incurred
Maybe he looks on me in the same way
What a miserable sod he might think
He could even dismiss me, as a waster
Though I don’t feel at all uneasy
I don’t feel at all out of place here
I don’t, until I see, and hear, his laughter
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