A word in your ear

A word in your ear
Whispers
Shouts
Moans
Secrets
Thoughts
Fears
Stories
Jokes
Invitations

Word Play
Word perfect
Word for Word

In a word
A good word
A word to the wise
Words on the wind

In so many words
Give me your word
Put in a good word
May I have your word?

Hoping to have a new poetry group running shortly at Cornerhouse inc.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Blandford-Forum-United-Kingdom/Cornerhouse-inc-The-Forum-Cafe-Huckleberrys-Bookshop/304258382146

Holton Lee

http://http://www.holtonlee.co.uk/

A Way

Three score and ten
Straight sentinels
To the end

Some say their
Destiny fulfilled

They had no names,
But we knew them
Pillars holding aloft
Cool canopies green
Of stars and light
We knew them right

Our journeys pulled
Invisible toward
Arms of welcome
Into the presence
Infused through
Time of each who
Passed this way

Shrouded
In thought echoes
Bearings and
Breath taken
Peace and
Ease descend
Into our core
We are at one
We are not
Mistaken

This was
A special place

And it is gone
The limbs are gone
Our way markers - gone
We see the emptiness
We feel the sadness
We share the devastation
And
Though we know it to be true
That from the earth life will renew
We shall miss our way
Through the trees.

I did some poetry with residents and staff at 'The Barn', Holton Lee, and this is the result of a conversation on the day after they had logged out a setion of pine trees which had walks leading through.

Finding Time

Between beats
Of wings
Intervals of time
And things
Impossible
To possess.

Between sparks
Of starlight
Intervals of time
That might
Blink
Of all creation.

Between the pulse
Of flames
Intervals of time
Remain
Embers
For our dreams.

Between notes
Of songs
Intervals of time
In which
We may belong.

Originally accepted and posted here:

http://http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/A31601468

Festival of Brown 2010

I was fortunate to have three linked shots featured in the slide show for the exhibition in Portugal.







http://festivalofbrown.blogspot.com/

Attendant without portfolio

no angel's portion
in his cropped domain
a distant stare in darker stain

Assumption

French you are
avec rouge hair
a Celt I'd like to think.

Disilluusioned am I
parce que you say
it came from out the sink.

The subject here was a French 'assistant' teacher doing her placement and as I write limericks the following was for her parting.

There was a young teacher, Marie Laure
Who came from some foreign shore
To chattez in Franglais
And parlez en Anglais
Will she come back for some more?

By request, something lighter juxtaposed with the darker.

Toxic Parents

the thought of my father dead
hovers on its cold energy
a rememberance
no
a recollection
maybe
at arms length
it must not come close
too dangerous
you see

the thought of my mother dead
earths itself bonding
to a discharge of belief
negatives
need feeding
insulate
it must stay that way
too dangerous
you see

the thought of me dead
skulks close out of sight
in a corner of sadness
like failures at night
embraced with the dawn

it will not last
I’ll not be a victim
To things of the past.

Nonconformist

Last words

“If you need me……….

Pegged out
Permanently
Limp and wet
They hang
At face value
Shrinking
Still soiled
On the line
They will stay
Half forgotten
Unredeemed too long
To assess their worth

…………………….you know where I am.”


These are the 'critical office' words spoken in resignation when I last had contact with my father.

Carelessness - an explanation.

I often write in a style, not always deliberately, which allows for individual interpretation. Part of the power of the piece then comes from within the reader's experience, emotion and imagination and is often very different from its genesis.

This piece is about the loss of a father, mine, and though still alive somewhere, I had no contact. There is a tendency to blame yourself even if subconsciously, hence 'my carelessness’.

The references in the poem are specific to me and not obvious to the reader. For example, 'Towpath angel' refers to that early memory in 'Canal' and 'Critical Office' is to my father’s office where I had my last traumatic interview shortly after I was 21.

Many years ago I read 'Families and how to survive them' by John Cleese and Robin Skynner. From it I found that we instinctively form associations and friendships with those we have communality, however tenuous. It seems logical and it applies equally to those who are socially isolate and have little in common; they will cleave together. I realised that, of the few friends I had at the time, a good number were estranged from one parent or the other. I wrote this poem to explore this communality and in its original form the ending was different.

“Something between zero chance and common choice
My friends

Somewhat broken these glue free lives.”

So why did I change it? – I have moved on, my father is now dead, there was no reconciliation, and I do not think the communality is the same any more. I left a hint contained in the last line by the word ‘our’.

Kennet and Avon Canal

I can almost hear the 'put. put. put' of a narrow boat just round that distant bend and about to come into view.

Carelessness

Somewhere between towpath angel and critical office
I lost him

Sometime between sure infant and tenuous adult
He went

Somehow between simple holding and false dreams
He moved away

Someway between shared innocence and split accusations
He fell apart

Something lost among our glue free lives


I might say something about this one in my next post, your thoughts and comments are very welcome.

Complexity out of Simplicity

Llifting the mood

I have a pet amphibian
He really is a beauty
I like to call him 'Tiny'
Because he is my newty.

Humour exists even in dire circumstances.

You and me

No skin scars for me
Whip wheals of redness
Nor electrode burns

No need

I have the withering seed
Voiced deep in love
And fear that grows

Secretly.

I wrote this autobiographic poem many years ago when things were not good. At the time it was cathartic as I had few outlets for my emotional state. I decided to place it here as it resonates, great word which I must not use too often, with the 'Wheat Free Woman'.

I like to bring a degree of ambiguity into my work which allows the reader to engage with the poem, to bring themselves into its heart and to write sparsely where the power of each word and its setting is as significant as the subject.

Not quite a wheat free woman.

Couldn't resist this photo from the 'Scarecrow festival' at Bisterne.

The wheat free woman blues

I got out of bed this morning, as you do
Pushed the night from my head
Stumbled into the bathroom
Thinking about my bread.

God knows why?
Well, I do really.

The kettle is in the kitchen, naturally
Watching where I tread
Cat’s missed the dirt box
But it’s nothing to dread.

You do, you know
Get used to dealing with shit.

Drop a bag into the cup, English Breakfast
Then it caught me, what he said,
The smug bastard
“Woman, it’s doing you wrong
The things you’re getting fed,”

As if I don’t know already
And I have a fucking name,

“These grains have got your guts
Wheat from out the bread
Yeast’s fouled your reason
And you’ll take of to your bed.”

Yeah, and who is it
In the football season
Has all the sickies?

So I kicked him out
I’m not so easily led
Just what did I see in him?

I’m on the crisp ’n rye now
And no more crying eyes
All puffed and fucking red.
But, now my soul is mostly bled
Just don’t mess with me
Or you’ll be fucking dead,
So to speak.

Miss B web site

Do visit Miss B

http://www.wix.com/MelBennett/Miss%20B

Darkness slips and saturates

times like these

they say
there are no
words
at times like these
other than the
platitudes
we have learned
to smooth our
inadequacies

like fluttering bats at dawn
unspoken words return
unsettling to the mind
each with a space to find

and such words as
can be spoken
oft no justice brings
to common emotion
but with care
can be read
between the lines

Friday

Digging

Mind with pen engaged
turns the metaphoric sod
furrow to the waiting page

‘god’, my father, took
his spade just the once,
unlike Heaney senior

and dug a quarter plot
by the book, perfection
then fallow, quite forgot

sickled it once or thrice
till we moved, up, away
where digging wasn’t nice

God, what he missed
the earth, the tilth
the waiting harvest.

10 February 2005

A reflection with apologies to Seamus Heaney

Shortly to be published in 'Poetry Express, details to follow.

Sailboats

Polyptych

myopic clouds drift along
tight blue stretch sky
revealing
threshold to lintel

Sailboats 'Two Step'
To their mark on the beat.

cheesewired cliffs pitch
heaving stop framed
mooring
bay to headland

Sailboats glissade
On the wind power bent.

baulking sand underlines
footing wave assaults
gritting
soles to sanwiches

Sailboats pirouette
Gleaming deltoids sheet trim.

uncertain wallflower town
weighs up its options
pretending
arcade to quayside


I saw a triptych painting where a series of views were superimposes over a background. This experimental poem is from 1991 and is a view from Weymouth as a background with details of sailing yachts.

Sweet Nothing

This poem is in response to a very powerful BBC play of the poem's title from 1990. This is an abstract word picture, an experimental poem now divorced from its subject.

raised a babel proof armature
on its prow
this alien
fleshed it from within
our future stow

he saw where they might never
use their rasps
on forhead brow
focused sea of tranquility
now in moonbeam grasp

so sing soft wailing songs to his
thinking box
a living fuel
to melt every chain
and consume each fool
the witness mocks

Spiral Doodle

Ceramics

Diamonds in the Sky

Door

There is a door
somewhere
in my head
I saw once
closed tight

for Jane

Fragments

no more silent mornings
holding back sounding walls
so who did say
the view is black
finding fragments
like unforgiving choice
alone on some spiral track

to the left or to the right
you can not tell
the way to move
to the front or to the rear
is all the same
the stuff of recurrent fear

this space
rough and smooth
strewn with tears
is not yours

yours is stillness
among hands
that raise but
do not hold


This is a recent piece and is an example of a thought stream around which the work evolves.

Locii

Starting Out

Like many journeys there is often a back story before it begins proper and so it is with my poetry which got underweigh as a 'mature' student. As part of our English professional studies we were required to try our hand at writing a poem. I had already set down some notes about things from my childhood, I was concerned that I might forget them in years to come. Strangely these notes had a poetic tone. Once I got started I found myself writing odd pieces.
Here are a couple of my childhood memories and the piece from college.

Canal

Sun worn tow path
High shouldered we walked
My father's head between
My knees, my hands
Firm on his forehead.

One of my first memories from about the age of three.

Shop

it stands
yet time has passed it
gone with clock and watch
of my granfather's craft

it endures
in childhood's shroud
of filtered memories
half alive

Room Dream

a cuboid
cold blue and sterile white
but for tiles of mottled green
sitting impersonal in the light
harsh rigid friday dream

the dream
room tossed sat petrified
by the fumbling fettered void
and deep a warming thought cried
awaken softly solid cuboid

A Case in Point

I see 'Orange'and a 'Reddish' colour which I guess as 'Brown'. I can't be sure. Last year one of my photos was featured in a show by 'Festival of Brown'
http://festivalofbrown.blogspot.com/

http://www.flickr.com/groups/1151349@N25/discuss/72157622030836284/

http://http//www.flickr.com/groups/1151349@N25/


I can never be sure if my shots meet their criteria, evidently this one does.

Colour Blind

Colour Blindness' is a misnomer. True mono-chromatic vision is rare in humans and usually the result of trauma. What is true is that 'colour blindness' varies both in degree and in form and you are only aware of it in three circumstances. Naming, matching and discriminating. As I understand it, for me there is a low light colour shift- primary colours, no problem, seconday gets tricky, tints and hues - confuse.


Yes, I know it is pink.

The red of a rose
Is a succulent sight
Scientifically defined
By its wavelength of light

But
Is what you see
The same as for me?

My guess
Well, probably
Yes

But
If it were purple
I doubt it.

Dimpsey

On a whim
Late afternoon sun
Drew us to the sea

Cirrus laced its slow
Incandescence
Gold, orange,cherry.

We watched the sea
Flatten out
In the twilight

Then the horizon
Sharpen briefly
Under the streaks
Of night

Unseen
The naked moon
Full, soft and blushing
Rose behind the ridge
As we turned homeward
Before she regained
Her composure

German Soldier

6th June 1944 - 2004

Lonely man among men
Facing the sea
You waited, watching
Faceless the invisible enemy

Six decades on
No reunions
No gratitude
No parades
No pride
No end

Just
Night visions filled with
They that grow not old

And the job you had to do
The foe, a harvest to scythe
A shell’s length on the beach
Until bloody and blunted
They found a way to relieve
You of your duty

And the faces took on form
And the waiting was no more
And the survivor’s guilt began
And the wrench of thanksgiving

Soldiers, humans
But for geography
Brothers in Arms
Recognise the other

Like them, your deeds
Haunt the days and
The nights, the fallen

You return
To remember before
You too cease to age
And take the hand
Of an American
Who once faceless
On that beach faced
You, lone man

Sixty years break down
And sharing more than
That which held them apart
Lone men no more.

Kimmeridge

Like the anty tourists
Dull sleepy clouds withdraw
Leaving us the warm remains
Of the sun tipping towards
Tyneham Cap

We chase the last rays
Up the hill
Up knee buckling steps
To the watching Folly Tower

We watch the fire dance
Scorching off to the West
Then the hard descent
Into the slow still twilight

Sight gives way to sounds
Owls start to resonate
Distant voices over fields
Night closes moonlessly

Then
Bursting from the scrub
Overwhelming Nightingale song
Lapping on every inbound wave
Reflecting on every cliff fold
Transforming everything.

Intersection

Dolphins

All day
We watched the sea
Each mood a promise
Nothing like it could be

All day
Taunting waves
Odd ships and sea birds
With sun dried eyes.

Then –
Joyous
Headlong
They came
Sewing the sea
Stitching the waves
Into the dusk of our vigil.

19:55 hrs, 11 July 2001 Bay of Biscay, ‘Pride of Bilbao’

A journey with this memorable intersection.

Journeys

Sometimes starting with the obvious enables an overview, an opportunity to examine the scope and breadth of a topic or issue, so let’s state the obvious. Everything has a journey simply because everything has a place in time and in space and every journey can be mapped with their starts, stops, diversions and intersections. All journeys mesh into the layers and webs of other journeys to form networks. It is these layers, I suspect which give rise to the concept of ‘degrees of separation’.

Quote: George Braque

"Art is meant to upset people, science reassures them."

Impermenence

I enjoy making images from seemingly 'worthless' subjects by just tweeking them a little, OK. sometimes more than a little, in Photoshop. This one has just been adjusted for levels, contrast and then the colour saturation has been cranked up.

Comments

I have changed the settings so non-members can comment.

Clay

Silt, cold in my hand
Once stood, hard
On other land
Buried long waiting
For force and heat
The cycle to complete

Torn at our request
By imposition
By our will
By furnace,
Petrified , transformed
A fragment of our being imortalised

No matter what their worth
Both will return unto the earth.

Copyright. John Daniels

The display is just by the tills.

Display of Ceramics

Dorset Arts Week - Stewarts Garden Centre Wimborne

Spent the morning setting up the display for '15 Days in Clay'.

http://www.15daysinclay.co.uk/15-days-in-clay

http://www.stewarts.co.uk/

http://www.dorsetartweeks.co.uk/