Art

Addiction by KTJ

Addiction

Joy, desire, companionship, laughter,
sharing feelings, caring, and dreaming.

Two people so alike in many ways,
painfully different in others.

All my cravings, and desires
set out before me in a beautiful world
so different than my own.

A broad chest to lay my head on,
listening to a heartbeat
that is not my own. 

Strong arms holding me close,
providing comfort.

Cool grass between my bare toes,
earth from the gardens
embedded under my fingernails.

Like an addict,
craving love and validation.

Basking in the glorious
short-term feeling of bliss.

This world, this person,
both my drugs of choice.

Fantasy, then reality,
going from one to the other,
walking out of fire into
an ice bath over and over.

A fantasy world
hiding beneath
a dark cloak of reality.

Comments:

It’s funny how your paintings speak to me. As soon as I opened this email, my first thought was… this is the perfect painting for my poem “addiction”. The colors and the art work bring to life the sentence, “like walking out of a fire and into an ice bath”. KTJ 

So, here we are – the poem and the painting can now be found on the same page. I don’t usually put other people’s poems up on my blog. However, should any of my readers be inspired by one of Moo’s paintings, and should that reader decide to write a poem about it, I would happily consider publishing both poem and painting on this blog. No money involved – my pitiful pension won’t stretch that far.

No promises. But an interesting start to a new idea.
Pax amorque –
rogermoorepoet.

How would you design the city of the future?

Daily writing prompt
How would you design the city of the future?
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How would you design the city of the future?

What future? Utopian or Dystopian?

Dystopian – how does one plan to design the city of the future in, for example, Syria, Gaza, Ukraine, a war-torn African country? There are wars and rumors of wars. What sort of future city does one design in the aftermath of a nuclear war? Bunkers for the elite? Underground tunnels? Radiation free zones? MAD – Mutually Assured Destruction – and who would be alive to inhabit one of those cities? The ultra-rich might escape on their super-yacht-space-crafts. But where would they go? And for how long would they survive? And what sort of cities would they build when they got to wherever they were going? From some of the rumors that I am hearing, the multi-billionaires are already building those -super-survival-Noah’s-Ark-Bunker Cities in various parts of our world as it is now. A water world? A dust storm world? A radio-active world? First, define the future, and then we can design for it.

And remember how many times, during and after the first Iraq war, we have heard generals and politicians boasting that ‘we bombed them back to the stone age.’ Just think about that. The stone age. Primitive in the extreme. No electricity, no running water, no regular food supply, no weapons other than sticks and stones, no bronze (that age came later), no iron (that age came later), no medicine, no doctors, no hospitals … think twice before you celebrate ‘bombing anyone back to the stone age’, because that might just happen to you, over the next few years. And remember, if everybody turns off all sources of light, we will be entering a very dark age indeed.

Utopian – Voltaire’s Candide – “everything is for the best in the best of all worlds.” Great. Now re-read the paragraph above. Even if our desired Utopian world avoids a nuclear holocaust and turns out to be the best of all worlds, we are still looking at climate change, rising seas – with the accompanying joy of developing new waterfront properties!??? as someone phrased it recently – over-population, mass population shifts, a dwindling set of natural resources, a scarcity of food and, more important, a scarcity of drinking water, and a tremendous division between the ultra-rich and the super poor. We are also dealing with forever plastics, polluted water, air pollution, the extinction of vital and diverse species, and so many more problems. A Utopia, perhaps, but a Dystopian Utopia, not a total disaster, but a Utopian world walking the plank towards a shark-infested sea.

So, tell me, how do we design the city of the future? A super-charged Noah’s Ark, space ship city, sailing to Planet B because we have flooded Planet A with so many devastating Dystopian indulgences? A deep-earth bunker, or linked set of bunkers, way below the earth, where a select community think they can ride out the coming storm? And what if our planet disintegrates and becomes just another dust cloud, its debris floating in the universe?

I would like to think that my own city of the future would be a small one-roomed, wooden cottage, buried six feet deep, in the peace and quiet of a rural cemetery. But who will bury me, if the world around me perishes and I survive only to fulfill my human fate, and die? I would also welcome a fiery end with my ashes scattered in the peace of the countryside, or in my own garden. Then I think of the wildfires currently consuming large parts of the world and I wonder if any of that will survive. Moreover, can a welcome grave in an enormous graveyard be considered a city of the future? If it can, get planning.

Mors omnia solvit / death solves everything. Indeed it does. And it will solve this question, this problem, and the future city, that I will never design or inhabit, unless, along with Blake, “we build Jerusalem, in England’s green and pleasant land.” If England’s Green and Pleasant Land still exists. And from what I am reading in the dystopian English press, there is little chance of that! And anyway, I live in Canada, so what has England’s polluted and dystopian land got to do with me?

What is your favorite season of year? Why?

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What is your favorite season of year? Why?
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What is your favorite season of year? Why?

I don’t have a favorite season of the year, nor do I have a favorite Season of the Heart. The book came out today. Hot off the press, it waits to be gifted to my friends and faithful readers.

The heart has multiple seasons, many more than the four with which we endow the earth. The seasons of the heart may occur in any order, for all them may be experienced in a single day. Many will be gifted to us in the brief moments when our modern society allows us the time to meditate and find the inner silence that generates the deepest and most sincere thoughts.

Each heart season – joy, sorrow, remembrance of the past, the dark night of the soul, despair, hope, and there are many more – will recur, some with persistence, others with less frequency.

I enjoy all of them, for different reasons. As Antonio Machado might have written – “In my heart I felt passion’s thorn. When I plucked it out, I was all forlorn for I couldn’t feel my heart at all. Now I’d rather replant that thorn. The pain was better after all.” Remember, wherever there are roses, there are also thorns.

If humans had taglines, what would yours be?

Daily writing prompt
If humans had taglines, what would yours be?
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If humans had taglines, what would yours be?

I really only want a one word tag – poet, and that’s the name of my blog – rogermoorepoet.com.

An award-winning teacher, researcher, poet, and short-story writer, I was born in Swansea, the same town as Dylan Thomas, the famous Welsh poet, whom I emulated in my youth. I wrote poetry throughout my childhood, but I never took lessons, nor was I known as a poet.

Early in 1962, I sent a sonnet to the poetry competition of the Stroud Festival of Religion and the Arts. I left school and was studying in Paris, when the results came out and I discovered that I had won first place in that competition. In my absence, a deserving boy from my school was sent to pick up the award, a book of poetry, signed by Ursula Vaughan Williams. The poem was published in Trydan and I have a copy of it somewhere.

Throughout my undergraduate career (1963-1966), I wrote poetry. Much of my early work appeared in my university’s student arts review, The Nonesuch Magazine – the Flower of Bristol that giveth great light. Alas, I was not studying English, and only the English students seemed capable of being called poets, so I was always called something else. I wrote a lot about nature, back then. One day, when I hand delivered my poetry submission, the editor of Nonesuch, an English student, asked me if I was a pantheist. “Good heavens, no,” I told him. “I’ve got a girl friend.” This answer did nothing in university circles to affirm my wanna be status as a poet.

Some of these poems survived and a couple appeared in Stars at Elbow and Foot. Here is one from Last Year in Paradise.

St. Mary Redcliffe

Time and Temple Meads
have begrimed your wand-thin spire,
the tallest in England.

You waved goodbye
to the Cabot boys,
Nova Scotia bound,
as they set sail.

Starlings lime your belfry,
gift and inspiration
of Merchant Adventurers,
that gentlemen’s company.

Worms wriggle and gnaw
at your ship’s figure-head,
harbored now, bare-breasted,
sturdy in your oak-beam nave.

Rust rustles and creaks
at the Edney Gates,
wrought to last centuries
by Bristol ironmasters,
themselves apprenticed
to learn time’s laws.

I call myself a poet. I think of myself as a poet. In Santander, Spain, I was known as the mad Welsh poet! What an honour it would be to have Roger Moore Poet as my tagline. I’d rather leave the ‘mad Welsh’ out.

But why stop at one tagline? I am also an award winning teacher and researcher. And a long-term rugby coach. How would they be as tags? Roger Moore Coach? Roger Moore Teacher? Roger Moore Researcher? Not quite the same thing. No resonance and I can produce no links to attach to those names. They are much more run of the mill. Anyone can be a coach, a teacher, a researcher. Not everyone can be a poet, let alone a famous poet, like Dylan Thomas. Besides which, I live in Idlewood, not Milkwood.

There is one other alternative, however. Roger Moore 007. Alas, that one belongs to someone much more famous than me, even though we share the same name. But I might go one step further. How about 3M-007? That would do at a pinch – pretty unique – there aren’t many of them about! I love it. So there we go – a choice of two taglines, either of which fit – Roger Moore Poet and Roger Moore 3M-007.

Which one would you choose for me? “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” But remember, I ain’t no rose. So please don’t tread on the tails of my all-disguising, multi-colored 3M-007 poetry coat.

Describe one simple thing you do that brings joy to your life.

Daily writing prompt
Describe one simple thing you do that brings joy to your life.
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Describe one simple thing you do that brings joy to your life.

Painting.

I was always told that I couldn’t paint. “You don’t have a clue. Give it up now. You’re wasting your time, and ours.” Same with drawing and any other form of visual and creative art. I tried to build model aircraft – Spitfires and Hurricanes, Gloucester Gladiators, SE5s -. They were ugly, lumpy, had crooked wings, and never flew properly. The few that I managed to launch often fell apart on landing. Same with model kites. The one I did manage to build took off in a half a gale and got stuck in a tree.

Failure!!!!!

Much later in life I re-discovered Henri Matisse. “I make meaning out of shape and color.” Then I stumbled across Salvador Dali’s famous statement: “I don’t know what it means, but I know it means something.” From there I started to take lines for a walk, and moved into cartoons – you will find some earlier on these pages *click here* – or – *click here* – or just explore these early pages for yourself.

From these cartoons, I moved, with the encouragement of Geoff Slater, the Art Director at Kingsbrae International Residencies for Artists (I was the first writer in residence, June 2017), to actually painting, for the first time, with acrylics on canvas. This led me to my Pocket Paintings / Peintures de Poche, made with acrylics on 4″ x 6″ postcards. What fun. I now have well over a hundred of these and, guess what! – just like my books, I give them away to my friends for free.

These simple, linked acts – writing – painting – gifting – bring me great joy.
Long may it continue.
Pax amorque.

Coming Soon ….

Coming soon ….. to a Rollator near you.

Yesterday I checked the galley proof and all seems well. The distortion on the photo above is all mine (!) and the original cover is much clearer, better, straighter, and brighter.

I have not posted for two weeks, and yet some of my faithful followers have still clicked on this site to see how I am doing. Thank you so much.

Several things happened last month. (a) I started a stretching and exercise program. (b) I upped my walking to 4000 steps a day. (c) I used a combination of Rollator [Nexus 3] and shopping cart to build up, slowly, to an hour a day of aerobic exercise.

That’s all good news for the physical body and the mental state, but not such good news for the creative cycle. Blog postings have suffered and my online social presence has been greatly reduced. On the good side, I have been out and about, around the garden and around the block, and have re-established contact with neighbors, friends, and the local canine newbies and golden oldies.

I also managed to edit and correct and revise Seasons of the Heart and this chapbook of poems, based on my meditations on Anam Cara (by John O’Donohue) will soon be available to gift to my closest friends.

As you probably know by know, I do not sell what I call my “Covey Collection” of self-published chapbooks and books. If you wish to support my efforts as an artist, you can do so by clicking on this link and seeing if there is anything that fancies your tickle, sorry, I mean tickles your fancy.

B & W

“Slim words couched
in the empty whiteness
of the page.”
John O’Donohue,
Anam Cara

black words
          white page
thoughts
          floating in space

airs and graces
          whirlwind words
blowing through
          freshening
cleansing

cotton clouds
          silky sky
that one word
          waiting
to be spoken

that one thought
          soon to be word-borne
out from the dark

a new existence
          to brighten us
blind us with light

We’ll Rant and We’ll Rage …

We’ll Rant and We’ll Rage …

Spring is here. An election is near. Road repair season has started.

1. Spring potholes – they are terrible and they are everywhere.

It was so bad in one area of town that people filled them with water and put out little plastic yellow ducks to float on them.

That way they could be seen, which saved the loud clunk of them being heard and felt.

In one place, some street artist used the potholes as the centerpiece for porno pictures.

Success –  early next morning, the potholes had been filled in.

2. Spring road repairs – horrific – and all too abundant.

We have a sign at the bottom of road saying “Caution – Construction  – drive carefully for the next 6 kms.”

At the 1 km mark, a lollipop person with a STOP sign. 

Ahead of us, 24 cars – behind us, the traffic line up is building. 

We wait 15 minutes.

A white half ton appears, followed by a line of cars. 

The half ton pulls into a drive ahead of us.

We count the cars as they drive past.

99 of them. Then a pause.

The white half ton reverses out of the drive and pulls up in front of us.

On his tail gate a sign that says “FOLLOW ME”.

He pulls away, and the first car follows him, as do we all.

He drives at 10-15 kph.

After 1.4 kms, we see the road works – the actual working space is less than 200 meters long.

We keep driving. 

At the 3 km mark, the white half ton turns off, into someone’s drive.

Alas, the driver of the first car has no sense of humor and doesn’t follow the leader into the drive but sets off at speed down the road.

I count the cars that are waiting to return – 59 of them and more arriving.

It has taken us close to 25 minutes to negotiate 200 meters of road repair.

3. Bridge closures – there are three bridge crossings from the south side to the north side of the river.

One is at Mactaquac, over the dam, about 15 kms up stream from the Westmoreland Bridge, the central crossing point. 

The Mactaquac crossing has been reduced to ‘one way at a time’ traffic for the last two or three years, and will stay like that for most of the summer. 

Don’t ask, they won’t tell and I can’t tell, because I don’t understand.

The third bridge is the Princess Margaret. 

It is closed to all traffic for the next five weeks and this is the third year that someone has been working on it.

So, for the next five weeks, we are all reduced to crossing the river by one bridge, the Westmoreland, unless we drive 15 kms to a ‘one way at a time’ crossing or 20 kms down river to the Burton Bridge at the Town of Oromocto.

Rage, rage, against the dying of the light!
My thanks to my good friend, Dana Webster who inspired me to write this by sending me a rant of her own. NB Click here to link Dana’s Creative World.

What sacrifices have you made in life?

Daily writing prompt
What sacrifices have you made in life?
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What sacrifices have you made in life?

Oh dear, so many, many sacrifices. Here, let me count the ways. This morning, for breakfast I sacrificed a banana, followed by an orange. Last night, for supper, I sacrificed a lobster – and it was lovely. I thanked its spirit for allowing me to nourish myself upon it. Then, for lunch, I sacrificed three eggs and cooked them in an omelet. You know what they say “You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs”. Nor can you be a robber baron without breaking legs. Sorry. Wrong post. That belongs under “Have you ever broken any bones?” To which my answer is – “Only those of other people.” Maybe I’ll write that one later. But for now, two poems for your entertainment!

Squeezed Orange

Clock greets the hours
with hammer blows,
on a quivering anvil.

Rooster crows
his thick, rich cocoa rico:
morning provides
smells of roasting beans.

Squeezed orange –
glass fills with a golden liquid,
as fierce and sweet
as sunshine on a branch.

A wasted globe,
this orange bath robe,
spent and exhausted,
soon to be transubstantiated.

Breakfast

Yesterday,
I sacrificed a chicken.

Unborn,
it lay within
it’s calcium cocoon,
dormant,
a volcano sleeping
beneath thick snow.

Tap, tap, tap,
the silver spoon
bounced off
the hairless skull:
a sudden crack,
a spurt of orange blood.

Note: This poem is taken from my poetry collection Obsidian’s Edge – From Morning to Night: A Day in Oaxaca

Son Spots

Sun Spots

A painting and a poem dedicated to an only child who, in spite of all his achievements, was never good enough to earn the love of his parents.

Emptiness

The emptiness of air
          leaves the birch standing there,
framed by a space
          that will fill with chatter
and a flock of birds.

When evening comes,
          darkness frames the ash.
It sparkles
          with the gold dust of stars,
that swim through space.

Beneath snow’s empty page,
          grass and flowers root.
They will grow green tongues
          and rage next spring
at the coverlet
          keeping them in place.

A touch of warmth.
          Tiny flowers start to show.

What language do they speak
          as they spread their petals
and let fresh spring words flow?

My head fills with emptiness.
          My mouth is a silent space.

I sit and wait for words
          to break like sea waves
and create, who knows what,
          when they fill that empty place
within my heart and head.

White Space

White Space

A place of silence,
          white space
at page edge,
          bearing witness
to the absence
          of words.

A place to pause,
          rest,
to think.

A place,
          like the white space
between lines of prose,
          where eye and mind
can pause and rest.

Bewildering
          the pounding
of earwig music,
          the advert repeated

again and again,
          the omnipresent
sound byte.

Everlasting,
          the loop, the loop,
the interminable loop
          that intrudes on
silence.

Words

Words emerge
          from the silence
of blood and bone.

They break
          that silence
the day they are born.

Silence,
          once broken,
cannot be repaired.

A word once spoken
          cannot be recalled.

The greatest gift –
           knowing how to be alone,
how to sink into silence.

A world of words
          smothered at birth
and that world,
          dismissed, forgotten,
sometimes still-born.

A lost world of words
          whirled on the silent wind
that fans the unborn fire within.

The spider web of the mind
          blown clear by the wind
that blows unspoken words.

The hush of the tadpole
          swimming
into its own metamorphosis.

The sultry oblivion
          of blood and bone.

Poetry that expresses the authenticity of being. Playful, yes, but packed with meaning. Taste it on the tongue. Savor it in the mind. Touch the words on the page. Indulge yourself in the white spaces between the words. Read and re-read each poem. Dive into its depths. Swim – but do not let yourself drown. When you surface again, return to the light and remember, all will be well.