If we can't find Heaven, there are always blue jays

“If we can’t find Heaven, there are always blue jays”
He said, as he opened the car door and walked off into the night.

I looked at his shadow shortening to the street corner
And wondered how I had been so gullible, to listen to this.

I was sitting there now, nothing left. No hope.
Just the memories of something I would not do again.

And like a blue jay, scavenging for food, an acorn or seeds
I looked for traces of hope, anything to put back

The stars that lit my skies, the sunshine and heaven
Before he pushed his way into life, and drained it dry.

The clouds that click, the inner vision, then the ancient burials
Redemption days which I thought I had lived, swept away with reason

And my mouth opens as I speak to the heavens, “Give me back the visionRemember the open flight of a bird that wanted to escape.”

Spiritual Start-up

[from a new poetry sequence which I am developing]



I watched the little specs of dust as they floated
In shafts of light through the church
A voice was working its way through a sermon
But my mind was engaged in this little world
Where the dust bits fall then spin and whirl
Some micro universe where I can imagine
A whole world flowing out and away

I imagine being a deity myself
A young Buddha watching worlds collide
Wanting to ease suffering, push aside
Left beneath the senses
Once it was all flickered into my inner world
Where the imagination can withstand anything outside
Crash of life-form to the real meaning of all things.

Exercises for creating new poems

I thought it would be useful to set out some of the ideas and techniques I use to produce new poems. When the creative muse is off on holiday, I sometimes draw inspiration from old poems. I am also really interested in techniques from popular music, particularly approaches like remixing, remastering and cut-ups. These ideas can be adapted to the printed word.


So, I am currently using the following techniques:

• Take a selection of old poems and re-work each one into a new version, using different lay-outs or verse forms.
  
• Take old poems and redraft or create new poems as reactions, prequels, sequels and observations on the material in the original poems.
  
• Take a number of poems and dismantle them to create new works from the pieces by putting them back together in new ways.
  
• Take one poem and use each line from it as the first line or title of a new poem, creating a whole sequence of poems which builds on the original.
  
• Take one poem and reconstruct it into a series of remixes - like musical remixes, draw out key lines and phrases for repetition and distortion.

I'm going to experiment with some of these techniques over coming weeks. If you use any of them, feel free to post feedback in the comments.

One or Two

A quote from e e cummings:

"One's not half of two, it's two that are halves of one"

Wow. I found that in a book I have just begun to read called 'Man's journey to Simple Abundance' edited by Sarah Ban Breathnach.

When the muse strikes, rather than being on strike

After a long poetic silence, words are beginning to appear in my head again.



Some new poetry fragments – towards a 2007 sequence…

(1)

The sound of the helicopter blades reminded me that
The first time I had stood on this rocky outcrop I had
Wondered what I was doing next
Then the pieces of the jigsaw all fitted

Because the steam-like mist rose from the valleys below
As if it was time to be going
Growing like an adolescent in the kitchen raiding the fridge
Watching everything like it’s the first time.

(2)


Pictures on the wall were all taken with this new camera
Living in a world where every second can be captured as a
Perfect digital image. Still or moving images

Everything caught as a series of digital code
So that every trace of every life can be saved for future viewing
If only we had the time to review everything

At least then we might learn something from the mistakes of history.


(3)


Be here, be now
Somehow holding on
To everything that we thought was
Precious and spoken


(4)

Tangled spindrift
Winged fragments of encapsulation
Such as bones and carcasses
Pieces becoming new things, new essences
As though the earth were starting all over again
Washed and bleached inside the sea-bed
Where once waited creatures now extinct
Flapped and furrowed, waxed and winnowed
Embraced in water, pictured on the stones
Each one scraped against the soul.

because the light faded when it should have stayed bright

When at school, nowhere else but the space that was given
And those tighter moments, when the neurosis of the time
Made no more sense than the 70s were supposed to…


Three lines, two times, and once we had become
The glide of a hawk, the times when we captured
All the dreams that had been spinning around outside


And put them in a small leather bag, pressed in tight
So that we could save them for later
Hang on until it all felt right


Dreams are alive in my head now
Good and bad, sad and mad
Wanting to be regrets, urgent needs to do things now


And so I jump out of the plane, ask rather than waiting
Sing rather than whisper, let go rather than clutch
And think that it is all too much, too particular…

imagining possibilities

you see, when I was young and writing for all I could find
I read somewhere that it was wrong to use too many words
that end in –ing, so avoided it, wanting to get it right


how stupid though, how the rules that we get are really all
there to be ignored, to be recreated. When word writing
is like sound making, a kingdom where you can become your own king


and king can sing like the ings that are all waiting to be worshipped
or the swings that I sat on and went as high as I could
kicking my feet to the clouds, and feeling the rush of my stomach


whatever direction you take – no, wait – it’s me I’m writing about
take the you away, drift into the inner world of my mind
imaginations that are special, filled with quiet secrets


surely the inner signals that we fill the landscape with, are no
more than the rich resonance of colours and sounds, the
one meaning that fits with a spectacle of memories


now – the kingfisher, the colour blue, the word ‘just’
little ticks that litter these constructions, and the breath
the inward and outward signs of life, of purpose.

Whenever she says she does

Here is one of the poems which I wrote back in March. I'm about to start writing again. This one stirred me to the page again, and it brought to mind the golden eagles I wrote about in the last post to the blog. The birds in this poem were flying in a massive flock around a railway station as I stood on the platform waiting for a train to arrive:

Whenever she says she does she does
But the light never shines above her head
The way it should – like a veil

I watch the birds, 1028 of them, fly overhead
Like one organism, flexing and changing shape
Creating a mass of darkness in a blue sky surround

The sense of menace is as real as
The sense of plenty that sometimes comes through
Just when I worry about things too much

When the light shines above my own head
I can sometimes pull it down and through
Then the warmth of it all is palpable

Here comes the birds organism again, fifth time around
With each circle of the town, I can feel a little more sense
Understand the way 2056 wings can make a unified sound

Like fingers beating on a microphone as a test –
Pulling patterns together that would be meaningless
Sense, connections, lines between – where the ends meet the means.

Poetry silence - when to start again

I have written hardly any poetry in such a long time now - March was the last time I put anything together which might be called a poem.

I'm inspired by the daily posts on Greg Perry's blog at the moment. He is writing a canto series. Each day sees at least one new poem, and they are well worth a read. Well done Greg - now for some words of my own.....

Foundlings Five: Scribbles Underfoot

The cowboys have gone out of business or
Pretend to be self-made commercial heroes,
The fantasy of TV is a bore,
His town and home barely exist in prose.

Scribbles underfoot were rare, too discrete
They left him to his own devices.
He looked for lovers, quiet town, no-one to meet.
Only sources of pleasure were vices.

Salt water on his skin, so the sun burns
Like breaths of healthy old he diverges,
Takes a girl out and watches as she turns
From beauty of which splendour emerges.

His town and home barely exist in prose,
In poetry oft’ times anything goes.

...another March fragment...

Three are the ways that I have seen you
Gliding across the sky like Jove awakening
Wondering why there are honeyed spaces between
Every field of your vision, every space kept unseen

Remember the secrets you told me, kept separate
Not available for decipher
Un-placed now, re-arranged as though you want
Some bespoke arrangement that only I will understand

Never have I left such distance between as the moments of now
And the time is moving fast and slow all at once
How strange! Take a madman and put him on show
Make him a leader and watch the world glow

Out of Hibernation

Coming out of winter hibernation, I have begun a project for the month of March. 31 poems in 31 days. I'm also carrying a camera and capturing images as the month progresses which I may use to complement the poems. Here is the second poem - unedited or worked, just in its raw form:

Whenever she says she does she does
But the light never shines above her head
The way it should – like a veil

I watch the birds, 1028 of them, fly overhead
Like one organism, flexing and changing shape
Creating a mass of darkness in a blue sky surround

The sense of menace is as real as
The sense of plenty that sometimes comes through
Just when I worry about things too much

When the light shines above my own head
I can sometimes pull it down and through
Then the warmth of it all is palpable

Here comes the birds organism again, fifth time around
With each circle of the town, I can feel a little more sense
Understand the way 2056 wings can make a unified sound

Like fingers beating on a microphone as a test –
Pulling patterns together that would be meaningless
Sense, connections, lines between – where the ends meet the means.

one big race

you’re at that age when
everything’s moving faster,
but you can’t play god.

Earthquakes and poetry

I keep a regular track of the visitors to the series of weblogs which I host using sitemeter. This helps me to see how many visitors are looking at the site, how they get there, and a rough idea of where they are located.

Yesterday someone did a search on MSN Search looking for 'poems on earthquake' and found my weblog for the poetry press which I run. There is a book of poetry which I wrote a few years ago called 'Umbrian Images' which includes a poem about the earthquake in Assisi in 1997. The site visitor was in Pakistan and was therefore presumably looking for poetry about the Pakistan earthquake.

Well, as a response to this, I thought I should do two things. First, post the poem about Assisi - I think it brings into focus the difference between these two disasters. This year has been filled with disasters of immense scale and suffering. It is easy to become numb to it all. But I think we just need to keep responding, doing what we can. The world of global media is a two-edged sword which offers us information on an unprecedented scale and immediacy - but it does give an armageddon quality to all of this. Our reaction and support is vital. (There's a useful post about the impact of the internet on our view of disasters by Seth Godin here.) Which brings me to the second thing I can do as a response. Follow the link to the Disasters Emergency Committee to donate to the Appeal for the Asian Earthquake. Please help.

Assisi Earthquake
(some words taken from a Daily Telegraph article)

On the western edge of town
firemen fear the roof of the upper basilica
might not withstand
heavy rainfall.

The magnificent campanile’s bells
which sound when St Francis’s birds flock
have been eerily silenced as if
their tolling might be enough
to bring the tower crashing down.

The restorer says
“I know the fresco which included this detail.
I’ve restored it twice before,
to see it like this makes my heart sink.”

One local says of the monks,
“I don’t see any of them
rolling up their sleeves
and getting to work with a spade.”

Meantime,
twenty five thousand people
have no homes.

And
we look at moments of time
without the context of history
and emphasis becomes distorted.

3·10·97
13·47

bright by echo of bright recall

bright by echo of bright recall
there is nothing more

only the neatness brought about when we tidy as we go along
turning everything into some sort of song

then there is the won mind-set
no idea why!

then there was the loss of a consonant in a clever
smug sort of whatever

and finally we let it all go
pretend that nothing has happened

seal the secrets in a small envelope,
light a candle,

hold the secret over it
until it ignites, then let go and

watch the paper turn to blackened feather
light, and fragment, into the air

gone forever, burnt out of existence.

The words begin

The words begin

Like something that slips down the page - not sure

And an image
that is all that poetry is
something that we can picture in our mind

like the arrival of god
at a party when he hasn't been invited
and the host is busy pouring drinks
nobody knows the way to speak

so the first person to open the door, says
"sorry, I know we must have met, at some point that is,
but I have no idea who you are, and you’re not coming in here!"

The door slammed shut…and then silence
nothing to say
the music dies away as the guests wonder whether
they have missed something really important
of consequence.

for it is all of consequences
outcomes
within the chaos of complex adaptive systems
we all try to make some sense.

seek out a god
and then when we find one,
we shut the door, refuse to recognise
ignore the voice in our head
and strike him off the guest list

safe in the company of those we know.

Escaping writer's block

New words
New creations
New intimations of creativity
Old spaces
Seen before spoken
Somewhere we have been before
Law taken over
Wondering whether there is more in the dust
Specks that have recovered
Speeches that have been replayed

Once the lines have opened
There is not much left to the sands of timeliness
Such as the scan of a mission best replayed

taking words apart

Taking
Opening all out
Splitting a cloud like candy floss
Breaking air apart
An atom-smasher
Blaster.


Other words
Pretend
But do not understand the flow
Through all connections
No rejections
No sorry.


Not part
Not apart
Not even one strong sense of innocence
Would be enough
To split sides
Make asides
Not see.


Even when
The words are spent
The spoken sounds are louder than the heard
The things I say
Are not the same
As yours.

That poetry reading

I mentioned recently that I was due to give a reading at our local poetry group on the first Thursday in July. There were about 60 people gathered for the evening. It was the same day as the bombings in London, so there was an air of sadness and shock hanging over the audience. Earlier in the evening I had begun to wonder whether reading poetry felt like the right thing to do in the circumstances. In the end, like many people that day, carrying on as normal felt like totally the right thing.

I read 8 poems, including a number of poems included on this site recently. They were all taken from the "28 poems in 28 days" cycle which I wrote earlier this evening. I find that reading poetry to an audience changes my relationship to the poem. I hear it differently. In this reading I heard some lines as really strong, which I had not noticed before. I heard rhythms which worked, and some that didn't. Overall I was really pleased with the material - I was taken by its intensity. And I felt that I had rediscovered some of the playful side of using language again.

What did the audience make of the reading? It is always difficult to tell at a poetry reading. Unlike a live music concert, it does not conclude with booing or frantic cheering. Poetry readings are an altogether more polite affair - at least where I come from they are.

I felt an empathy from the audience. As I looked around whilst reading there was an attentiveness which is always helpful. And there was a good level of applause at the end too. The highlight for me was after the event, when one of the organisers came up to me and said "that was fascinating. Thank you."

The rest of the evening was excellent too - there was live music from a duo playing accordion and bagpipes, another poet reading, a poem of the month, and a talk about the poetry of Edward Thomas.

One good outcome from the evening was a resolve on my part to travel further afield and do poetry readings. Further reports here as they happen.

inside the bones of my skull

I am due to give a poetry reading at a local poetry group at the end of next week, so I am busy choosing poems to fill the 10 minute slot which I have available. I'm going to take the selection from "avenues of in between". Here is one which I intend to use:


I am the reaper, the big repeater
Spinning out the lines, the ones I’ve heard before
Echoing and etching everything I find
The craftsman at his task
Needing only to serve words to myself –
Or to anyone that will listen.

Having something meaningful to say
Screwing up pieces of paper, pieces of all
That I throw away, of the words that I hold on to
The turning wheel, the replay, and the play back
Finding my way to the something
That is new.

Inside the bones of my skull
A good tune, a few words that are useful
A speech, a list of things that I keep
Special delivery and a knock at the door
Searching the feelings just beyond reach
Opening out the corpse to examination.

Obsessive seeking, needing one more splice
A few moments in the recess of the day
A replay, then separate times that have not played before
Long tunnels under roads, scary times
Crazy instances of the books that I long to write,
The speckled memories of a few cheap rhymes.