Gifts

Not Enough

Not Enough
A Jackpine Sonnet

Is it enough to treat people
as if they were equals,
when some need much more
attention than others?

Think colds, flu, bronchitis,
pneumonia, covid. Equal
treatment no longer works.

We need to see each person
as an individual needing
exclusive care, a unique style.

We must let them know
that they are not lost and alone,
that they will be approached
individually, each and every one.

Treated equally, yes, but each
in his or her particular case
and cultural situation.

A dream? Perhaps.
But the alternative
is a nightmare.

Comment:

An interesting chat over the dinner table – de sobremesa – led us to the meaning of equality and treating people equally. The kernel of the discussion – I said I believed in treating all people equally, Moo’s guest for the evening, his Plus One, said that treating people equally was no longer right. It was necessary to treat each person as an individual, with different needs, and we must therefore go beyond equal treatment to individual treatment. A word to the wise from the wiser.

Treat other people as you would have them treat you. The phrase goes back a long, long way to Socrates, Seneca, and maybe beyond. It ties in with the ideals of Buddhism and also of early Chinese philosophers.

It centers on the meaning of ‘equally’ and is a wonderful topic for discourse analysis. If by ‘equally’ we mean one size fits all, then we merely drop the grid down upon the targeted individual and tick the boxes where the pieces fit. However, if we agree that such ‘equal treatment’ is in fact potentially discriminatory, then we must break ‘equally’ down and give it the extended meaning of ‘with equal care and attention‘ according to their individual needs and cultural, social, medical, educational, or religious beliefs.

So, here am I, sitting over the dinner table, musing with my family and friends on the meaning of meaning and learning that old ideas can be renewed and that yes, even an old dog like me, eighty plus years old and still counting, can learn a new trick or two [or several], from those who are brought up in a different, younger, more diverse world, and whom are consequently more habituated to this world than I am. It’s a good lesson – and I hope, well-learned.

“And that,” said Moo, “is why I painted Who’s Who Zoo. Look carefully before you label who is who and where they stand in the Who’s Who Zoo.”

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.

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.

Star Field & Brush Fire

Star Field
&
Brush Fire

The evening and my mind
both slipping away
into the grey mesh of twilight
that bids farewell to day
and brings on night

Words no longer link
solitary stars they blink
and I no longer think
the way I used to
logic buried deep
no longer rules

Who am I who writes
these words each letter
a shooting star
trailing bright light
across night’s page

I hesitate confused
and know not what I write
what I want to write
hides out of sight
will not soar upwards
into starry fields of light

Commentary:

Brush Fire – that’s what Moo calls this painting. It wasn’t his idea to call it that. He didn’t have a clue what to call it. However, he explained to KTJ that the reason why he didn’t know what he had painted was because he had finished painting what he had wanted to paint but had some paint left on the paper saucer he uses for a palette, and he didn’t want to waste it. So, he pepper sprayed what you see above. “You mean you were just cleaning your brushes,” KTJ asked. “Yes, ” he replied. “I thought I might call it Sky Fire or Fire Storm or something like that.” “Brush Fire,” said KTJ. “You just burnt your brushes.”

Well, you don’t argue with someone who makes the world’s best peanut butter balls, not to mention superb devilled eggs. So Brush Fire it is. I think Moo is a bit ashamed of himself because he hid his signature on this painting, and you have to look really, really hard if you want to find it. In fact, you might have to borrow my new glasses and use a magnifying glass to spot those three tiny letters among all those sparks and flames – Brush Fire, indeed!!!!

Starry Night

Starry Night
(1889 & 2019 & 2026)

last night I saw stars
never thought to see them again
first time in years
a riot of bright lights
no dark spots floating
no black holes barring
vision’s edge

just layer upon layer
star fields like buttercups
littering the sky
I had forgotten their names
forgotten how many existed
smiling frowning down
immortalized in myth
celebrated in song

daylight broke waves
an ocean of sunshine
untying dreams’ night-knots
sharp black and white memories
shifting to corkscrews of color

two refreshing rain drops
four times a day
a never-to-be-forgotten face
seen once again in close up

Fundy fogs clearing
mist un-threading between
salt-laden pine roots gripping
splitting fragile rocks

complicated emotions
woven into a simple
carpet bag of words

Commentary:

I wrote this some time ago, after a simple eye operation that scraped clean the new lenses that the doctor had placed in my eyes. Distorted vision – it happens in so many ways. Kennel blindness – at the doggy shows, the owners and breeders blind to the faults of their own dogs while eagle-eyed for the slightest fault in another owner’s woof! Cat shows the same. Incidentally, tell me if you can, why a cat show has a catalog, as does a dog show. But why shouldn’t a dog show have a dog-a-log? I wanted to print one foe them when I was working with the kennel club, but their own kennel blindness made them insist on a catalog for dogs.

Think of the joy and beauty of sight. Sunrise. A thunder storm, dark clouds building. The slash of rain. Those first flakes of winter snow. That snow snake hissing down the road before you whipped by the wind.

Now I am back with new glasses and new eye drops and the world has come back into focus yet again. My beloved is, as she always was, and as I will always remember her. Yet, with my new glasses, I see and sense the subtle changes that have taken place.

And words. That magic carpet of letters that turn an army of ants into a Jackpine sonnet or a song about the sixpence that vanished so long ago. Oral poetry, yes. You can listen to it. But the written word, going letter by letter onto the page – you need vision to see that.

Vision and Revision – we are not writers, we are re-writers. Indeed we are, but without vision, without sight, we would be lost, so lost. Unthinkable a world without words. Unthinkable that night sky without its stars. Ah, to feel the warmth of the sun – but alas not to be able to see sun and shadow, the butterfly upon the flower, the stork returning to its nest.

Sight, touch, taste, sound, smell – deprived of one sense, we are left with four – but oh what a chunk of world goes missing when we lose just one sense.

Neighbors

Neighbors

lights in the new house
we haven’t met them yet
we’ve seen them clearing the lot
digging basement and well
setting up the tile field

children playing riding bikes
bouncing on a trampoline
swinging on swings
their shrill voices breaking
the brooding silence of trees

sooner or later we’ll meet
it will be neat to put names
to faces and decipher
the stick shadows seen
in the distance shifting
dancing changing shape

a new generation of hope
turned into neighbors

Commentary:

“The olde order changeth, lest one good custom should corrupt the world.” Idylls of the King – Tennyson.

We have been here in this house for 37 years. We planted trees, and watched them grow. We watched lots being sold, developed, turned into houses. Many of those who were here when we arrived downsized, moved away, or in some cases, simply passed away and died.

We have seen families move in, and then move on. Some became very good friends, and we miss them dearly. Others were mere nodding acquaintances. Some spoke our language, others didn’t. We met many of them and their children at Hallowe’en until Covid arrived and spooked even the spooks. As an event, it ghosted out of our lives.

Soon it will be our turn to move. Our house will belong to somebody else. Our house? We are restless souls inhabiting a changing planet. We own nothing. We merely borrow, use, and pass it on to someone else who, in their own turn, will eventually pass it on.

So – what exactly do I own? What do I control? Only this single moment of time, this tiny particle of time when I raise my fingers, choose which keys I will type and in what order. And sometimes, even that is incorect / incorrect, for i / I make misteaks / mistakes, fale / fail to corekt / correct them, place the wrng wrong finger on the wrong key. A single slip of the finger – a bright red button – sometimes I wonder how it will all end.

Sun Bird

Sun Bird

You fill a hole in my life
with a strange unfamiliar
super glue
that bonds me to you

ties unseen unknown
bind us and stop me
from being alone

we neither touch
nor hug
yet a secret stream
links us joining us
mind to mind

manna from heaven
descends on the desert
more powerful
than mortal love

The Dancers and the Dance

My poem, The Dancers and the Dance, refers both to the danzantes and to Monte Albán. Monte Albán was the capital of the Zapotecs and the principal city in the Oaxaca Valley (Mexico) between its foundation in approximately 500 BCE and its abandonment in approximately 750 CE. The White Mountain, thus named by the Spanish conquistadores, is justly famous for its temples, its tombs, and its carvings.

Two natural phenomena affected Monte Albán and its population. The first was drought and the dried earth with its brown and yellow tinges is clearly visible in these photos. The second natural problem came from earthquakes, for this is indeed an earthquake zone with active volcanoes causing tremors at regular intervals. The temples, even today, sometimes need repairing as earthquakes have been known to destroy even the reconstructed temples.

In fact, the abandonment of Monte Albán may well have been caused by an earthquake that cracked the enormous natural cistern in which the population’s water supply was stored.

The Danzantes are strange, grimacing characters that have been carved into prisons of stone. They may be captured warriors awaiting sacrifice or the chieftains of conquered tribes humiliated, perhaps tortured, and then flash frozen into stone photographs where for centuries they have danced out their torment. Whoever and whatever they may be, they still dance on Monte Albán.

My poem, The Dancers and the Dance, captures a different form of dancing. It is taken from my book Sun and Moon: Poems from Oaxaca (2000) and contains echoes of the vibrant folkloric culture that thrives to this day both in the city of Oaxaca and in the Oaxaca Valley. Here, traditions are remembered and relived. Each year, on the Day of the Dead, for example, families place food and drink alongside photos of the dearly departed on altars inside their houses and their doors are thrown open to welcome their deceased family members as they return along the marigold paths that lead to their former homes.

The Dancer and the Dance

she comes here to dance for me
only for me does she dress this way
she shows me her dreams
unfolding them one by one
silk and cotton garments
drawn fresh from her scented closet
thin copper bracelets
carved wooden mask
only her eyes reveal
subversive flesh and blood

2

she orchestrates her story
skin drum
rattle of seeds in a sun-dried pod
single violin string
stretched across an armadillo’s shell
I too am tense like an instrument
waiting to be played
the bones of my love
reach out towards her

when she makes her music
familiar spirits return to the earth
dancing in a sash of moonlight
she recreates an ancient spell
gold letters plucked from dark scrolls
no wands no words
just water’s purity
flicked fresh
across lips and face
she binds me with the string of notes
she undoes with her hair
our bodies form an open altar
we worship with mysterious offerings
drawn from wells set deep within us

Rain falls from the sky
Moon turns his face away
suddenly in darkened alleys
clouds hold hands and dance
dense streamers of light
dangle from street lamps
shadows remember their forgotten steps
gently she draws me to her
I try to follow
frail whirlpools of withered leaves
fragment weak sunshine
in light’s watery pool

her magic grows
I take my first step
an unmapped journey
into desert space
we move to old rhythms
across moon flecked clouds
raindrops fall more slowly
faltering drum beat
diminishing water

high above us
the ghost of a melody
shaking its head
wringing its hands
we return at last
to light and air
the moon’s vacant face
scowls in an empty field
someone has plucked the stars
one by one
and threaded them like a chain of daisies
now there are no sky flowers
to adorn the night

7

noche de rábanos
someone has taken a knife
and peeled an enormous radish
this cartoon moon face
this full skull hanging from nothing
this lantern lighting from above
now my lover sculpts time
and space
into small chunks
each sacrifice
a jewel between her fingers
I pin to my chest
three small notes
and a skeleton of words

8

inside my dancing head
the fires have gone out
without her hands to guide me
my feet have turned clumsy
scars layer my wrists and ankles
star crossed bindings
cutting against the grain
I gather a harvest of stars
she holds them in her eyes
her fingers are grasshoppers
making love in my hair
when she kisses my fingernails
one by one
we both know our bodies
will never be the same

together we weave a slender cage
she cuts out my heart with her tongue
placing it on an altar inside the bars
she locks the tiny door
a silvery key wrought from moonstone
my fluttering heart grows miniature wings
next time the door is opened
my wings will fly me to her lips
my heart is a caged bird on a tiny perch
it chirrups a love song
its image in the mirror answers back
breathless it scrapes its wings on the moon
its body striving upwards to the stars

on Monte Albán the danzantes
sway to soft music
their shadows dance in and on stone
as they have danced for centuries
wind rustles the grass
moon casts sharp shapes
darkness ascends the temple steps
huge fingers grasping upwards
an owl’s feathers clutching at the skies
at dawn tomorrow
the sun will rise beneath our feet
we will squint down on its majesty
we will pluck the ripeness of its orange
in our outstretched hands

our last night together
I pluck a blossom from the tulipán tree
a final offering of my love
she gives it back
I place it in the pocket of flesh
where I once kept my heart
tomorrow when the flower breaks
it will stain my shirt
a damp splash of blood
no longer running in my veins
the scent of our happiness
will cling forever to my fingers

My Love For You

My Love for You

A Jackpine Sonnet

Yesterday fled quickly by
today limps slowly on and on
tomorrow draws near
yet never arrives
if and when it does
it becomes today

As for me I feast on shifting
shadows my story a tapestry
reversed – hanging
back to front unreadable

It is hard to slough your skin
the skin once shed can never
never be donned again

My body white bone grey gristle
no longer wrapped in skin
is bonded together by super glue
made from my love for you

Comment:

Moo assures me that this painting, unsigned and untitled, is actually his. After yesterday’s doubts, I must believe him. He says it is called U-R-My-Sunshine. He also thinks it would be a great painting to go with this strange little poem that crept somehow out of my head and landed on my page. It reminds me somewhat of the church cat – it crept into the crypt, crapped, and crept out again. “Oh what a naughty pussy cat.” Who U-R is up to the reader / viewer apparently. I doubt that I am his sunshine after what I said about him yesterday. Oh sorry. You didn’t read that blog? Well, shame on you! You’ve got to do your homework if you’re going to keep up with me and Moo.

What is A Jack Pine sonnet, you ask? Well, I don’t have a clue. But now that my other buddy, Ryan, has introduced me to AI, I will ask my AI what such a thing might be. Asking now. Hang on to your seats. It tells me it’s thinking. Aha! Here’s what I think it thinks it thinks.

AI says – A jackpine sonnet is an irregular, spikey poetic form created by Canadian poet Milton Acorn (from neighboring PEI), in the 1970’s. It typically acts as a 14-line sonnet with 7-13 syllables per line, but allows for flexible line counts (e.g., 12, 18, or 20), using internal and consecutive rhymes rather than strict, traditional rhyme schemes.

Key Aspects of the Jackpine Sonnet:

Origin: Developed by Milton Acorn, often known as the “People’s Poet,” as a uniquely Canadian, gritty form of expression.
Structure: While it aims for roughly 14 lines, it can vary in length based on the needs of the poem.
Rhyme and Rhythm: Uses internal rhymes (rhymes within a line) or consecutive end-rhymes (e.g., AABB) rather than standard sonnet structures.
Style: It is designed to be “irregular and spikey like a jack pine tree,” focusing on structure and integrity rather than rigid adherence to traditional verse rules.

So, now you know what a Jack Pine sonnet is. But I bet you’ve never heard of Milton Acorn! I have. Here’s the poem I wrote about one of my meetings with him. You can find it in The Nature of Art.

Milton Acorn

“Oy,” he waved strong carpenter’s hands, “Make this
work.” I typed in my code and the machine
came to life. “Go away,” he pushed me out
and slammed the copier room door behind my back.

Later, my secretary came in and caught him,
his face pressed to the glass. He pushed the button,
lights flashed, the machine whirred and copies emerged.

In his hand he held images of his feet,
arms, legs, head, all of his body parts.
“Tape, not masking, clear tape, 3M.”
Flustered she fled, brought Scotch tape,
watched as he stuck himself together.

Over lunch he showed me his work:
a self-portrait, shadowy and cloudy,
whiskered and worn, smelling still of printer’s ink.
That’s how I remember him: unique, stately,
unmistakeable, uncouth, unseemly:
a jack pine growing in its own self-image.

Farewell, my dear friend, Milton.
And that is how I remember you.

Rage, Rage 38

Rage, Rage
38

Now, my heart is once more
a time-bomb ticking
beneath her fingers.

I dream of walking tall,
with her by my side,
in the youthful paradise
of a distant,
long-promised land.

My tom-tom heart,
softening clay,
putty beneath her fingers,
thumps out a hoodoo
voodoo beat on its drum.

Victor Sylvester,
and his orchestra,
Sundays on BBC radio,
announces his signature rhythm –
slow, slow, quick, quick, slow –
my mind waltzes to the music
plucked from my heart strings.

Wild winds blow in from the shore
buffeting my heart, breaking it apart.
Blown open, in spite of my dreams,
my secret is not a secret anymore.

Comment:

Absent without leave, I have chased the dreams of rugby and cricket and abandoned my poetry until another today. And here I am, a week after St. David’s Day, still dreaming, still raging, still recalling so many things.

Wild winds blow in from the shore buffeting my heart, breaking it apart. You can see, in the photo above, the wind tugging at the waves. A lurid sky fills with heavy clouds and oncoming rain. My heart is out there somewhere, wave-washed, blown open by the simple beauty of wind and sea.

How many now recall Victor Sylvester on BBC Radio on a Sunday afternoon? Or the Billy Cotton Band Show? That was our Sunday afternoon entertainment long before we had TV. You can’t imagine it, can you? A world without TV. So many things fade away from far too many people.

Who now will talk of my Voce and my Larwood, long ago? How many saw Hammond at his best, with his imperial cover drive? Ken Jones? Cliff Jones? JJ and JPR? Lloyd and Bleddyn? Old visions, buffet my heart, breaking it apart. Frank Worrall in Swansea at St. Helen’s. Everton De Courcy Weekes at Bristol, in the County Ground. I have the photos. I have the memories. And I have a broken heart when I remember things, some personal, some not, that so few people do.

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