Night Thoughts

Night Thoughts
Jackpine Sonnet

Alive, the house,
with creaks and groans,
doors, windows, floorboards,
all in the minor key,
soft and low.

Walls give forth a series
of squeaks akin to mouse songs
mouthed at midnight.

Who’s there? Was that
a footstep on the stair?
Nobody replies.

I wonder sometimes what sounds
my guardian angel makes
as he does his rounds.

Sometimes in the cool of the night
I think I sense the passing of his wings,
among those other things.

Comment:


Well, what can I say? Moo took one look at this poem of mine and said “Poor thing. You are in a Tiz- Was. Have I got the cartoon for you.”
“What’s a Tiz-woz?” I asked him.
“This painting is. And so are your Night Thoughts. You’d do far better to go to sleep and stop thinking, especially if you’re going to think such things as these. What’s happened to Blueberry? I thought you had persuaded him to look after the Night Bumps.”
“He got rid of those a long time ago. Anyway, these aren’t Night Bumps, they’re Night Thoughts.” “Well, if Blueberry isn’t up to the task, you’d better ask Roseberry to do it. Either that or you get yourself another cat. Or a great big dog.”
“I’ve always got Teddy.”
“You mean you sleep with three teddy bears?”
“Of course I do. You’ve never hear of a three bear night? This is Canada. It gets cold at night in the winter.”
“Idiot. You’ve got central heating.”
“Sometimes the power fails.”
“Then you need to buy Three Dogs. That will give you a Three Dog Night. One in each arm and one to keep your tootsies warm.”
“You’re not being very helpful, Moo.”
“I’m not meant to be helpful. I am a painter and I use my paintings to stir people up and make them think. If I wanted to help people, I’d be a Social Worker.”
“I can’t imagine you as a Social Worker. An Anti-Social Worker maybe.”
“Okay. That’s enough. Do you want to use this cartoon or not?”
“I do.”
“Then do so. And now I am going back to work. I don’t do day thoughts or night thoughts. I just paint.”
“And draw cartoons.”
“That too! That’s why I am a Moo.””

Striations

Striations

Striations

There are striations in my heart,
so deep, a lizard could lie there,
unseen, and wait for tomorrow’s sun.

Timeless,
the worm at the apple’s core
waiting for its world to end. 

Seculae seculorum:
the centuries rushing headlong.
Matins: wide-eyed this owl
hooting in the face of day.

Somewhere, I remember
a table spread for two.
Breakfast. An open door.
“Where are you going, dear?”

Something bright has fled the world.
The sun unfurls shadows.
The blood whirls stars around the body.
“It has gone.” she said. “The magic.
I no longer tremble at your touch.”

The silver birch wades at dawn’s bright edge.
Somewhere, tight lips, a blaze of anger,
a challenge spat in the wind’s taut face.

High-pitched the rabbit’s grief in its silver snare.
The midnight moon deep in a trance.
If only I could kick away this death’s head,
this sow’s bladder, this full moon
drifting high in a cloudless sky.

Comment:

La poesía se explica sola. Si no, no se explica.

Pedro Salinas.

Poetry explains itself. If it doesn’t, it’s inexplicable.

Tomorrow’s Words

Tomorrow’s Words


belong to another day
another experience
a different thought set

tomorrow’s words
new leaves
drifting from the tree
bright-faced
kites on a wind
we have yet to know

mini-kites they fly
and our eyes
cling on to them
while we stand
tethered
here below

itinerant drifters
they will not stay
they just fly away
notes on a wind
words of a song

tomorrow’s words
tomorrow’s song
yet to be sung

Comment

Some time ago, Moo painted this painting – Ephemera he calls it. He wrote a series of thoughts – in poetic form – then covered them over with paint. “Everything,” he told me, “is transient. Ephemeral. The poems you write. The paintings I paint. All ephemeral.” “What does ephemeral mean?” I asked him. He gave me his Bad Hair Day Moo Grunt – “Go look it up,” he told me. So I did.

Ephemeral means lasting for only a very short time, fleeting or transitory. Derived from the Greek word ephēmeros—which literally translates to “lasting only a day”—it is often used to describe things like a beautiful sunset, a brief childhood emotion, or a flitting dream that fades in the morning light. The true essence of the word highlights the fragile, impermanent nature of life, trends, and experiences, serving as a poetic reminder to appreciate moments while they happen. Thank you AI and Wikipedia and anyone else involved. Alas, some citations are as ephemeral as words.

Moo’s painting links with several themes from antiquity. Carpe diem – seize the day. Make the best use of the time you have, for time flits by in the twinkling of an eye. Ubi sunt – the central theme of time past – ubi sunt qui ante nos in mundo fuere – where are they who lived in this world before us -. This is an age old question that returns via Gaudeamus igitur – a song still sung in some European universities at graduation time. It also occurs in Villon – Mais où sont les neiges d’antan? Where are last year’s snows. This is the version sung by Georges Brassens.

While the past slips rapidly away, like scenery viewed in the rear view mirror of a rapidly advancing car, the future is always before us. Yet, in many ways it is as ephemeral as the past and soon fades into that rearview mirror as we drive along our chosen paths. The words of yesterday have gone. The words of tomorrow have not yet arrived. We can only cling to the words that we speak and hear now. Catch them if you can. Savour them. They won’t last long.

Frustration

Hand holding pen above blank notepad with coffee cup and glasses on wooden table
A hand holds a pen poised to write on a blank notepad next to a coffee cup
AI generated

Frustration
A Jackpine Sonnet

Hand hovering pen poised
a black shadow hangs over
the blank page threatening
to erase any ink marks
that may emerge

Eyes and mind blank
no butterfly kiss delicate
in its touch of nib to page
a black cloud of nothingness
damns creativity at its source

Who can prise the worm
out from the chrysalis
gift wings to the pupa
change it from slug or snail
into that glorious moment
when sunshine’s beauty
stutters into fluttering flight

Comment:

The top photo, AI generated, was based on the wording of the poem. The bottom one was a Moo choice from his pre-painting selections when he claimed to be a photographer. I like both, but for different reasons.

The first one emphasizes the fear of the blank page, the blank canvas, the blank mind, the overnight snowfall that is awaiting its first foot or hoof print, its first instant of inspiration, its first splash of paint, its first letter or word. And yet, according to many with whom I have spoken, artistic creativity is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration. So, why hesitate? Get on with it. Make those first marks. Take that first step. And remember, even the longest journey begins with the first step.

The second photo expresses the duality of creativity. At the front end of the butterfly, its poised, fragile beauty. At the rear end, the fearsome face it assumes if approached in the wrong way from the wrong direction. Front end – the moment of creation. Rear end – the fear of that first step and the consequent sense of frustration.

So – at the moment of creating, we must consider several things – the fear of failure. But the only way to never fail is to never try. Each failure, however bad, is not a crime, it is a stepping stone on the way to ultimate success. The fear of the first step – this ties in with the fear of failure. Will we slip on the first damp stepping stone across the stream? How long will we permit our selves to search for a safer passage? Is there really a bridge around the bend, a bridge that will stop us from getting our toes wet? And what’s wrong with wet toes anyway?

When we dip our toes in the sea, we feel the cold of the water. When we take the plunge, dive in head first, we feel the full force of the ocean. And that ocean is the creative energy that yes, can sweep us away, can carry us up, can pull us down. Is that what we are afraid of, being overwhelmed by the creative powers within us? Of losing the meagre control we hold over our lives? I truly believe that in many cases it is just that element of being swept away by our own unleashed creativity that fills us fear. But if we never take that first step we’ll never know who or what we are, nor will we understand what we are afraid of, nor will we be able to conquer that fear and accept our creativity for what it is.

Outsider

Outsider

Outside their window
nose pressed to the pane
always an outsider

Cold rain turned
to sleet then snow
dark outside
inside fairy lights
the fire’s warm glow

I never cried
I accepted sleet and snow
just stood outside
watching the fire
the sparkling tree
gifts at the foot
children playing

I turned for home
my cold empty house
no lights no fire
just me all alone
my parents out partying
me left on my own

Comment:

Poor Moo – he’s been having a bad time. Winston Churchill’s Black Dog of Depression leapt out of the grandmother clock on the wall in the kitchen, draped itself round his shoulders, and wouldn’t let go. Well, that’s what he told me, anyway. Personally, I think he was silly enough as to check his pension plan on the stock exchange – bad idea. That descending red arrow is worse than the Black Dog and equally as likely to drag one down, down, down. Is there a rock bottom? Who knows. What I do know, from my own hard-won experience, is when it’s darkest and all seems lost, that’s when the you know dawn will soon come and the light will break through.

In 17th Century Spanish Mysticism, this is known as the dark night of the soul. Stick with it. Do not despair. That dark night leads to what the Mystics call the Via Iluminativa – the path of light that leads you back upwards, into your normal self and your daily life of sunshine and happiness.

Anyway, in a cri de coeur – a cry from the heart – Moo showed me this painting and asked me to write a poem, just for him, so that he could wallow in his sorrow for a little bit longer then pull himself out of the Slough of Despond. Bunyan – Pilgrim’s Progress – don’t tell me you haven’t read that? You’ll be on Santa’s Naughty List if you haven’t. Anyway, I offered him a hand to pull him out, but he said “No, not a hand. I want a poem.” And here it is. Moo on the outside, looking in. As you can see, he’s wearing Blue. So he’s a Blue Moo. Good job he isn’t from Kentucky – “Blue Moo of Kentucky, keep on shining.” If he was, he might never recover!

This poem is also dedicated to my good friends Ginger and Michael. They live in the Sunshine State and are never left out in the cold. Now, if they lived in Nova Scotia, they might become true blue Blue Nosers. As for me, I am just a reborn New Brunswick Herring Choker. And I think one of those two might be as well.

My Beloved

Pond covered with blooming pink and white water lilies reflecting sunrise and a small arched bridge
A serene garden pond with blooming water lilies under a soft sunrise sky
Image AI generated
based on poem

My Beloved

In my dream garden,
the early sun floats petals
across a lily pond.
Framed among lilies,
my beloved’s face drifts
through a watery space.

So sweet, her embodiment:
she lies languid among the lilies,
beside herself in bloom after bloom,
each flower gigantic in its frame
beneath a wooden footbridge.

I envision her as she was,
this lily who will toil not, nor spin,
 and who sighs with the morning breeze
 that ripples her smiling countenance
into a thousand fragments.

She lies cushioned amid the lily pads,
a work of wonder in liquid impressions
fluid in this fragmented light.

Comment:

I guess Moo will be pretty upset when he sees this AI generated painting of a lily pond. He offered me a couple of lovely paintings today, but they had no lilies in them, so I said “Thanks, but no thanks.” Oh dear. I hope I haven’t sparked another feud. I did ask him if he had some lilies, but he shook his head – “Sadly, no.” he said. “I don’t paint them. I’m Moo, not Moo-net.”

Speaking of Monet – a student once asked me what was the definition of Baroque. He picked a bad day. I was in joyful mood. “Baroque is when you’re out of Monet,” I told him. Dead silence. So I tried to explain. Baroque / Broke — Monet / Monnaie / Money. Then he let out a long, low whistle. “Is that why they pay you the big bucks?” he asked me. Well, I didn’t really get big bucks. But at least I had tenure – the monkeys rhymes it with manure in the Monkey Temple. I guess we’ll stay well clear of that one. Ain’t no lilies in that old temple pond.

“What’s yellow and deadly?” “I don’t know,” says Moo. “Shark infested custard,” I tell him. “Why don’t you try painting that. You could add some false teeth and a few streaks of strawberry jam.” O

“Okay,” said Moo. “You asked for it. What’s black and blue and lies face down in the gutter?” “I don’t know,” I replied. “Please enlighten me.” “You, if you keep telling jokes like that,” he pulled a paint brush out of his pocket and shook it in my direction. Very threatening.

“I’ll tell you a better one,” I said, smiling, “here – what’s got four legs, sits in a kennel, wags its tail, and barks?” He looked at me for a few seconds then said hesitantly, “A dog?” “Oh dear, sorry,” I frowned at him, “it’s an old joke. You must have heard it before.”

Green Banks

Green Banks

An empty shell I am
the sea sound swishing
when you hold me to your ear

Pwll Ddu and pebbles
Swansea Sands
their fishnets glistening
with golden day stars

Brandy Cove
ever-changing after
winter’s storm surge

Fisherman’s Point
early evening
when dog-fish bark

Pyle Corner
cows in the lane
quick to kick
high the five barred gate
we climb
to avoid them

Rats
in the rubbish dump
grey bodies
scuttling claws

Green Banks at last
home of our summer
sky cloud castle dreams

Comment:

Have you ever held an empty sea-shell to your ear and heard the sea’s soft sighting sound? I used to collect them from the sands, hold them to my ear, and listen. The best shells left you with the sigh and sound of sea and waves moving with a magic that sounds eternally. These I would take home and listen to them in winter, or at boarding school, when I needed such beauty to keep me alive and sound in heart and mind.

Sure I was a dreamer. But oh what dreams and how they have followed me step by step, town by town, country by country. And now they gather here, in Island View, and let me know that within my mind the dream world of memory is immense but I can still capture it and hold it to my heart.

Funny how things come back to me.

1. Taste – and I there at Eynon’s in the Uplands, where I first tasted crempogau, Welsh pancakes. They changed into the Crêpes Suzettes I tried in Cassis-les-Calanques, all soaked in Grand Marnier.

2. Touch – damp wood beneath the hand takes me to boarding school where the walls sweated and the bannisters gleamed in foggy weather. There, in the Vale of Severn, damp mornings were the warm. I also remember the touch of hot air, breathed into my shirt, to keep me warm.

3. Smell – the scent of things burning, burnt porridge particularly, drifting down the drive, and driving through the tree mist and into my nostrils.

4. Sound – so many songs take me back to the places where I used to sing them. Sometimes they attached themselves to a family member, though I didn’t understand how or why those associations were made, not until much, much later.

5. Sight – put them all together and you can see those memories surging out of the mists in all five forms.

Have you tasted sea mist on your tongue? Have you touched the dampness of your jersey when you cycle down Painswick Hill in the mist? Have you caught the smell of wet wool, mist moistened, and clinging close? Have you heard the rustle in autumn when the November mists wrap themselves around ghostly trees and the dry leaves rattle like bones? Have you seen long dead mist warriors rise up from the ground at Badbury Rings or atop Maiden Castle, or on Cley Hill, or Westbury White Horse?

Time and tide wait for neither man nor woman. And memory’s mists do not wait either. they rush in, like angels, and foolish is the the man who refuses to meet them, eye to eye, tongue to tongue, nose to nose, finger to finger, ear to ear – in all their mystical mist-filled glory.

No Man’s Island

No Man’s Island

It’s so easy to lose
our true selves
or to be carried along
by the flow of another’s
rhetoric because we
no longer possess
(or never had)
that inner conviction
that makes us different.

That’s why we must join hands
and link together:
a chain of bridged
and ferried islands
to insulate us
against our loneliness.

Comment:

I first published this in 2017 with the title Islands – I have changed the title, very slightly, to move closer to John Donne’s No Man is an Island. What I have noticed more and more recently is how we tend to isolate ourselves. Birds of a feather flock together – true – and nowhere truer than in this bloated Soccer World Cup with its 48 teams to be expanded next time, 2030, to 64 teams, unless we have 64 teams in 2028, because this circus demands to be offered more frequently so it can make even more money … or is so that more teams can compete in the final stages. Remember – the finals are meant to be the ultimate challenge – the best 32 teams in the world – until Quatar (2022) 42 teams and now USA (2026) 48 teams.

Il gruppo della morte – remember that? It’s when three top teams were drawn together in a group of four – and one of them was doomed not to get out. Didn’t happen this time. No gruppo della morte this time – 24 top teams all got through, and the next eight third best place finishes. There were some very one-sided games. And there were many games in which one team parked the bus – all ten players inside their own penalty area and no way to get through. This led to some very negative defensive football. And don’t forget that terrible off-side law – no portion, not a hair or a fingernail of the attacking player could be seen on the – bow your heads in submission – Video Assisted Referee’s screen. And how far back do you go when searching for that minor infringement that will disallow whatever happened to whomsoever it happened to?

Before the days of the electronic spy in the sky, the rules of rugby were fairly straightforward. “The referee is the sole judge of fact and of law.” In addition, in those days, the advantage needed to be immediate. No five minute wait while the players bang away at the goal line from the one yard until an infringement takes place, the attacking team fails to score, and we all go back to the original infringement. And no five minute wait while all the moves leading up to the try are checked and double checked so that there are no imperfections. For those without memories – check the Barbarians versus New Zealand in Cardiff, way back when, in 1972 or 73. Look at those high and dangerous tackles leading up to that wonderful Gareth Edwards try. Guess what? That try would never have taken place with a VAR check for dangerous play.

Writing these words, I feel myself to be isolated. A man with a memory who has been left out in the cold by a world that has moved on and left him behind – with all his beautiful memories. “See that house?” My grandfather asked me, when I was an avid collector of autographs. “Knock on the door and ask for the autograph of the man who lives there.” I did. He was old. He was asleep. Leave the book. He’ll sign it when he wakes up. And he did. I have the book here in the house and the autograph standing in isolated glory in the middle of a page. W. J. Bancroft – aka Billy Bancroft. “Who’s he?” you ask. Well, just go and look him up. You may be surprised at what you find down memory’s lane where my grandfather and I wandered hand in hand all those many years ago.

As for Moo’s painting, he calls it Craters with Creatures. But I call it In search of times past. Look closely. You can see many of them within the picture’s frame and they are all searching for something they have lost and would desperately love to cling on to.

Decision Time

Decision Time

When down means up
and up has nowhere to go
save for the desert sand
barren and bare shifting
through helpless fingers
or the hour glass waste
with two trunkless stones
propping up the sundial’s
wrinkled face and time’s sneer
of command its wilderness
voice always a choice
between thinking and feeling
for yourself or believing
frozen words dropped
from winter’s snowflakes
to melt in the toothless mouth
of a new day another decision
the future laid out ahead
and you with no map
no GPS nothing to get you
to the last place you want to go

Comment:

Some strange touches of surrealism in this little poem that weaves its way through an intertextual maze recognizable, I hope, to many of those who read this blog and follow these comments on a regular basis. Travelers from far-off lands tinkle their echoes through the lines.

How many of you have read the South Wales Echo or listened to the paperboy, almost always an old man, chant his late afternoon song outside Cardiff Market or Down by what used to be Howell’s, not so long ago, when my world was so much younger and I too lived in a far-off land before I became a traveler. What sort of traveler, you ask. Why, a traveler in time and space, of course. Listen. Can you hear him? “Echo. South Wales Echo.” As regular as clockwork.

But in Swansea, everything was different. There it was the South Wales Evening Post, chanted by a paper boy turned old man who sang out – “Po-ost, Po-ost, Evening Po-ost, South Wales Evening Po-ost!” That double or extended vowel was a signature tune that brought on the evening and the turning on of the old gas lights that used to light up the streets.

Living in Santander, Spain, the street calls were totally different. There it was the lottery man, usually blind, who stood on the street corners crying out “Para hoy! Tengo para Hoy!” Today’s lottery. I have tickets for today’s lottery. So many lotteries in Spain. So much fun. In the laundry at the bottom of Perines, where I used to lodge, if your laundry ticket number matched the winning lottery number of the Ciegos – the Blind People’s Lottery, then you could claim a free wash that day.

So many memories. The past fading slowly away. The future coming ever closer. I look out of my window, and what do I see? Well, there’s always a bird in a tree, but today the clouds are building, playing piggy-back, and climbing on top of each other, reaching higher and higher into the sky and, sooner or later, there will be rain. Blessed, comforting rain. The gardens are dry. The aquifers are low, and yes, we need that rain. Para hoy – today – please!

And then maybe the desert will bloom again. The woods will flourish and, guess what KTJ saw in the woods the other day? You can’t guess? Well, I’ll tell you what KTJ told me – “I saw a partridge, then an owl, then two bear cubs, and the mother cub, followed by a third cub, and then a mother moose with a wobble-legged baby moose trailing behind …” If you ever see a mother bear with cubs – oh-oh, decision time, remember to make the right decision – don’t get between the cubs and the mother. Or you might end up as the Teddy Bears’ Picnic. And you wouldn’t want that!

And each time you meet a wild animal, you make a decision. To stop or not to stop. To take a picture or not to take a picture. To shoot or not to shoot – with a gun this time [nasty!] not with a camera [nice]. And remember, Santa’s got a list and he remembers who is naughty and who is nice. So think twice before you make that decision – you wouldn’t want to end up on the wrong list at Christmas Time, would you.

Blood from Stones

Car tire over a pothole containing small monster figurines with aggressive faces
A car tire hovers above a pothole filled with snarling monster sculptures.
Image AI generated.

Blood from Stones

The road ahead a bandage
leaking grey blood from stones.
The snow plow brutal,
carelessly lifting scabbed edges
until the gore overflows.

Spring always promises renewal,
but freeze and thaw also open
old wounds making them bleed.

A merry, mazy life we lead,
threading the car’s needle through
holes torn in the asphalt’s fabric.

Some holes are so large they have
lives of their own, and names –
Grand Canyon, Yawning Gap,
Patty’s Peril, Big Bertha, each one
well-known to neighbors.

Others are pornographic,
their open orifices painted,
laughing in scorn, dentated
vaginas ready for anything.

Such decorated potholes
 are soon filled, their crude
messages swiftly erased.

Comment:

Three flat tires in the last month and spring’s potholes still out there, waiting to trap me. Apparently, one neighborhood on the North Side of the river decided to decorate their potholes with pornographic drawings. These were swiftly filled and their messages totally erased. Alas, we on the South Side are not so daring. We don’t go out and paint our potholes. Personally, I wish we did. July – and many potholes are still there.

Not only that, the road into town is being repaired. Hooray! However, the tarmac was stripped off two weeks ago and has yet to be replaced. Boo! More than that, at the end of our street, just before the highway, one or two enormous potholes still gape. They lead directly to a dip that rises abruptly when it meets with the now stripped highway. A champion clunker that – a genuine tank-trap. I think at least two of my flat tires occurred after going over that one.

It reminds me of my grandfather’s stories about WWI and ‘going over the top’. Now, each time I approach it in the car, I call out loudly, “Look out, grandpa, here I come.” I call that particular pothole Grandpa’s Revenge. My own personal name. I don’t know what the neighbors call it. And I don’t know why grandpa is seeking revenge! But below the tires, the pothole awaits, gnashing its teeth.