Golden Oldies

Carved in Stone 14 & 15

14


The sun throws shadows
across the cathedral’s face.

Crosses, arrows, stars,
masonic symbols
hammer-and-chiseled
into the granite sea-cliff
of the entrance way,
reveal the signatures
of the master masons
who laboured here.

And not just here,
for they traveled everywhere,
adding their stone signatures
to those of the other workmen
who left a piece of themselves,
carved in stone.

15

In the cathedral
of Santiago de Compostela,
Maese Pedro sculpted
a statue of himself,
a figurine, small,
low down, facing the main altar.

Students rub noses with him
before their exams,
when they look for luck
having forsaken their studies.

Illiterate people
consult these carvings
in the same way the educated
seek knowledge in their books.

16

The Bulls of Guisando,
pre-historic, unweighable,
the bearers of Roman graffiti,
itself two thousand years old.

Commentary:

… workmen who left a piece of themselves, carved in stone … I couldn’t find my masonic markings from the cathedral in Avila, so I added the words carved into one of the Bulls of Guisando instead. Amazing how people want to make a little bit of themselves eternal – in the sense that we extend our names, our graffiti, our messages beyond our lifetime and, stones thrown into a pond, who knows how long the ripples from those tiny word-waves will endure?

So, what’s it all about, Alfie? And which Alfie are we referring to, the one who burnt the cakes or the (in)-famous gorilla in Bristol Zoo, who went missing? And how many Alfies are there out there? And why buy an Alfie-Romeo when you can buy a neat tombstone for a much smaller sum of money and have it remind people of you long after you have gone?

Silly questions, really, but this is what poetry is for, to open up the curious mind and to dig warrens for bunny rabbits so that the hunters of curiosities can dig their ways down and find whatever they shall find. But do we ever find what we are looking for when we first start out? Good question. Carve your answers into a piece of rock and leave it by the roadside to see what happens to it. Or else, you can write a message, stick it in a bottle, and send it out to sea to float on the waves. Put my name on it, along with yours, and maybe, one day, it will arrive at my doorstep in Island View and, if I am still here, I will reply to you by the same method.

Carved in Stone 13

13

What is life?
Is it just an illusion,
as Calderón tells us,
and nothing but a dream?

And what is time?
Does it bend, as Dalí shows us
when his surreal clock breaks into pieces,
time and numbers flying off
as it explodes over a waterfall?

Another clock folds –
a pancake draped
over the bough of a tree.
 
Time – a water clock,
a marked candle,
a grandfather clock,
with Roman numerals,
and time marching,
round and round,
erasing the past,
establishing a future
that will itself
soon be erased.

And what am I
but a moment on time’s clock,
a drop in the clepsydra,
a striation on a flickering candle,
a piece of roughly polished sea-glass
perched on a lonely beach?

Commentary:

Well, Moo has done me proud this time. Two early paintings, both depicting aspects of time, as conceived by Moo. In the first, time is seen as a tick-tock time bomb, or rather a set of tick-tock time-bombs. In the second, in imitation of Salvador Dali (Moo always set his sights high!), a clock going over a water fall and the hours flying off the clock face as time bends. So, tell me if you can, what is time?

Perhaps more important, what is life? Is it a dream, an illusion? And if it is a dream, what happens when we wake up? I know what happens when I wake up – I get up and go pee. Is that to be my final reality? By extension, is life our only reality? Or is our life a series of lives, as some religions would persuade us? And if a cat has nine lives, how many lives do we have? Can they be numbered? Or, like innumerable onions, do we peel away layer after layer? And if so, what is in the centre of the onion when we finally get down that far?

And why do some people write center while others write centre? Is life an illusion, a play? If so does it take place in a theatre or a theater? Or is really a sort of metatheatre or metatheater, life in rings, like the onion, lay after lay, layer after layer? Oh dear, this is all much too complicated. I’ll ask Moo to paint me a painting of life and we’ll see what he comes up with. He’s a bit lazy at the moment and his paint brush has the bends and refuses to cooperate. It’s probably made of cat bristles, and is untrainable and almost impossible to train, let alone to herd. Never mind. We’ll abandon all this for now and give the cat the task of training Moo to paint another painting.

Angel

Angel

Oh yes, I have been with them, the lost folk, the tramps, the homeless, the bag-women, all the gente perduta. I have stepped on their fingers as they sprawled on the sidewalk. I have trodden on their toes, tripped over their legs, bumped into their stiff, stumbling bodies and stepped in their wasted body fluids. I have stayed out all night, shared a pack of cigarettes, producing another pack or a bottle from the pouch beneath my wings. Such stories they tell, and they tell them in that antiquated language that I first heard hundreds of years ago. They know me now. I won’t say they trust me, but they tolerate my presence, a Jacques Cousteau voyeur, looking into the sea-depths of their despair.
            Garbed in garbage bags, thin trickles of wine and vomit slipping over their lips and cheeks, bloody bandages wound around needle wounds, they have scars at elbow and foot. I hear the warmish blood whistling its snake song through their arteries and veins but death shall have no dominion, not while I am on watch.
            I enfold myself in my wings and weep as these people, my people now, pillow their heads on bloody bandages. Their world is a world of vomit and reek, yet the edges of their shattered lives rip chunks from my hands and fingers, pluck feathers from my wings, tear holes in my heart. Needles I have seen and touched, blunt, shared between three, five, and twenty-five. Round and round, they go, slipping the thin threads of drug-dreams and tainted blood from friend to friend while the blunt points stab at bruised flesh and leathery vein until the freed blood oozes through fingers and hands clenched tight to hold and staunch.
            Night after night I have watched them searching for something just beyond their fingertips. As the late-night diners emerge from their opulent restaurants, I have seen my people fortifying shop doorways with cardboard castles. I have watched them climb inside, shut down the portcullis, and enfold themselves in the plastic that will keep them free from wind and rain. They all crave the bottle’s warmth. They fight and scratch for that which will hold them together, body and soul, that spiritual glue that binds the spirit before setting it on its drunken dreams of freedom. Kings and Queens, tumbled from their earthly thrones, they dream of the paradise they lost, yet think they can find again at the sharp point of a needle or the bottom of a bottle.
            Oh bird-on-a-wire dreams held captive in a skull-bone cage, how you yearn to grow wings, like me, to soar, to fly, to be released from the body, to at last be free …

Commentary:

This book, All About Angels, is available online at Amazon.ca. Click on the link below to purchase the book.

All About Angels
Paperback edition

Carved in Stone 8 & 9

8

Primeval places,
both light and dark,
surround us.

Dark depths inhabit
the human heart,
and woe betide us if we forget
that eternal darkness
and allow it to thrive again,
for what we believed dead,
will surely rise once more,
and return at night,
to haunt our dreams.

9

One day I abandoned
the temporal quest and left behind
mindless quarrels, bitter strife,
and envious, petty jealousies.

Surrounded by light and trees,
I now confront fall’s splendours,
harvesting golden days,
collecting and storing them,
safe from ravaging storms.

I seek a distant, but honest truth,
that moves, relentless,
through time’s mists.
It sometimes reveals itself
in the low sun’s spotlight
and each enlightenment
lends meaning to many good things
I thought had been lost.

Yet they still linger,
their shadows flickering
across the walls of memory’s cave.

Commentary:

I spoke to a good friend tonight, he shall remain anonymous, just like Anonymous Bosch, and he encouraged me to continue with my blog and my commentary.

Dark night of the soul – yes, we all have them. We question ourselves, our worth, our place in the world and we ask ourselves the five Ws – five W’s – West Indies only had three Ws – Worrell, Walcott, and Weekes – so we add another two, just for ourselves.

Who am I? What am I? Where am I? When am I? Why am I? How many of us ask ourselves those questions and how often do we do so? Like many of us, I am afraid, and I ask myself those questions more and more often as I age. We all do, unless we are non-sentient beings and just waffle along from show – click -to show -click- to show click – to show!

So, if you are reading this – ask yourself the 5 Ws. Who am I? What am I? Where am I? When am I? Why am I? If you can’t be bothered, click to another blog. However, if you are willing to be engaged, send me a snail mail or a husky mail, by sled, via the north pole. I am sure it will get here quicker than Canada Post.

Last Dance

Last Dance

Ten years ago,
in the Hospice for patients,
the shy lady in the corner,
body withered by cancer,
stood up to dance.

She bowed to the band
then floated into movement,
dancing alone.

She clung to the empty air
as she once clung to her lover.

Nymphs and shepherds
played sweet music at midnight
in this room turned sacred grove,
where naiads and dryads
emerged from the shadows.

Her dance-steps
were a draught of joyous water
from the fount of eternal youth
and lasting love.

Commentary:

Moo offered me one of his paintings for this poem. He calls it Keep on the green side. Every Wednesday, in the hospice, a local band came in to play. Some patients danced, others sat and watched, some stood on the sidelines and listened to the music.

I had the fortune to be present at the singular performance recounted above. I never found out that lady’s name and I never saw her again afterwards. She remains a mystery, like the naiads and the dryads, and the hamadryads, who inhabited those mythological woods where so many of us dream our dreams of one last chance and one last dance.

Carved in Stone 6 & 7

6

At Westbury White Horse,
I wandered among unkempt mounds,
forgotten graveyards,
ancient barrows, their secrets
buried deep underground.

I walked to the horse’s eye,
stood there, then sat on the hill’s edge
to watch the sun drown
in a river of blood that turned
the White Horse red.

Shadows encroached.
A creeping chill came over me.
I started to shiver, not with cold,
but with the icy fear that someone,
something, evil and powerful,
long dead, but risen again, lurked,
hidden in the ground mists,
that rose as I fled,
not daring to look back.

7

But that fear,
deep-seated as it was,
could not match the terror I felt
as the sun set
over Badbury Rings.

An ancient horror
reigned over that place.

Mist warriors, visible
only from the waist up,
their weapons drawn,
charged towards me.

I felt chill fingers
clutching my heart, gripping it,
and tightening their hold.
I fled from them in the half-light.

Ancient powers linger long
in spite of charms, spells,
and exorcisms.

No wonder so many ancient tribes
shattered the legs of their dead
so they could not rise up
and walk again.

Commentary:

According to Wikipedia, the Westbury White Horse or Bratton White Horse is a hill figure on the escarpment of Salisbury Plain, approximately 1.5 mi (2.4 km) east of Westbury in Wiltshire, England. Standing at the northern edge of Bratton Downs, on a steeply sloping hillside below an Iron Age hill fort, it is the oldest of eight white horses in Wiltshire. The white horse has long been revered in European mythology. In Celtic traditions, it was associated with the Otherworld, acting as a guide between the realms of the living and the dead. In many myths, the white horse represented purity, power, and the ability to traverse spiritual boundaries.

I love visiting these sites. However, they need bright sunshine and warm weather. When the light starts to fail and the day grows cold, strange feelings emanate from the ruins. Many people have commented on this phenomenon and there are reports of sightings, such as the one that I associate with my visit to Badbury Rings. I went there late one afternoon, and as the evening drew in and the air grew colder, I and my companions felt a sudden (and totally inexplicable) fear. One look, and we ran as fast as we could back to the car park, got into the car, and sped away. None of us have ever forgotten that strange experience.

An Allegory for Gaia

Sponge in Water
an allegory for Gaia

She is in me
as I am in her –
I the sponge,
she, the water.

Our essences blend
with the promise
of an ample life
full of movement.

Eau de vie:
the water of life.

It causes me
to blossom and flourish,
to wither and perish
when her waters fail.

How lonely would I be
if she abandoned me?

What would she be,
what would she do
without me?


Commentary:

A summer without rain led to an early autumn drought. Slowly, water grew in importance. Wells in our neighborhood ran dry. We were lucky and were not affected. But we took great care not to waste water. Eau de Vie – the water of life – the water that brings life and causes life to blossom and flourish.

Without water, we are nothing. We cannot live. Then, when the rains came down, we rejoiced. We walked out into the yard and stood with our faces to the rain, looking up at the sky, mouths open, letting the water renew our hope and faith.

I took the photo, incidentally, from the dining table in my kitchen during a heavy rainstorm. Looking out into the garden, I saw a rush of water, so thick and heavy. Incredible. The photo hardly does it justice.

Hallowe’en

Hallowe’en

1

Today is All Hallows Eve.
Tomorrow is Oaxaca’s
Day of the Dead.
The clocks change
the day after tomorrow.

Today, it’s raining,
and rain is a trick when
it forces celebrants off the streets
and town councils vote to change
the traditional date and send
young children out trick and treating
on a dry, warmer night.

But this rain, after drought,
is a Hallowe’en treat.

It brings a promise
that the aquifers will refill
that wells will not run dry,
and above all,
it brings us hope.

2

Around us, fall thrives
and watches and clocks
will soon fall back.

Trees weep for lost leaves.
Flowers that flourished
now wither and perish.

Hollyhocks topple and fall.
Bees’ Balm is abandoned
by butterflies and bees.

3

I expect time
to change with the clocks
and my body clock
will soon be out of sync
with the tick-tock chime
that denounces each hour.

Hours that used to wound
now threaten to kill.
They used to limp along,
but now they just rush by
and I, who used to run
from point to point,
now shuffle a step at a time.

But still I live in hopes to see
the clocks spring forward
once more.


Commentary:

A great poem for Hallowe’en, even if I say so myself, and I haven’t even mentioned the Blue Jays and the Los Angeles Dodgers. Oh, woe is me. Shame and scandal in my poetry.

Game Six of the World Series on Hallowe’en – wow! – well, one team will get a treat and the other will receive a very disappointing trick. I know which team I support, but I don’t know who will win this time around.

Having said that – with substantial rain after drought, everybody in my province is a winner. And who could wish for more than that?

Carved in Stone 3

3

Death is everywhere.
It rides a pale horse
in the lands
where Odin reigned.

Sleipnir, his eight-legged steed,
carried him round the world.

It also carried the god
to the underworld,
and brought him back,
one of the few to enjoy
a return ticket.

Purity, innocence, power,
the White Horse rules
these Wiltshire hills,
a symbol of hope and renewal.

Above the horses,
hill forts in high places,
lie hidden.

Wave after wave
of earth-wall and ditch
blend into the landscape
making the forts
invisible from below.

Commentary:

Odin > Wodin > Wednesday, in English, not Mercredi (French) or Miercoles (Spanish). English, via Anglo-Saxon, often goes back to the Nordic gods of the invaders. Not so in Welsh for Wednesday in Welsh is Dydd Mercher, the word breaking down into “Dydd” (day) and “Mercher” (which is named after the Roman god Mercury). Alas, it is all too easy to reduce language to its most basic level. But dig below the surface and the wonders of language, history and culture, adoption and rejection, complication and simplification, are all there to be seen.

Our language links us, binds us, holds us across our culture and history. And remember ‘to lose our language is to lose ourselves.’ While to learn another language is to grow another heart and soul.

 

Carved in Stone 1

My very own hand-carved verraco
Del Rincon (Avila) a Roger

Carved in Stone

1

Behold me here,
filled with a sort of shallow,
hollowed-out wisdom
accumulated over decades
while listening with my eyes
to the words and thoughts
of writers, long-dead.

Imprisoned in book pages,
do they bang their heads
against walls that bind,
or hammer with their fists
at the barred lines
of their printed cages?

These spirits long to break free,
but they choke on library dust
and pollen from verbal flowers
that bloom unseen.

Those old ones avoided
the traps of temporal power,
or, once trapped,
gnawed off a precious limb
to limp into freedom

Commentary:

Carved in Stone is the second dialog (Chronotopos II) in my Bakhtinian Dialogs with my time and my place. Clepsydra is the first Dialog. You can follow it, in its entirety, starting with this first, introductory post.

Reception Theory – I write, you read. Any meaning that you extract from my poetry will depend on your own culture and background. Tolle, Lege – Take and read. Read slowly, and with care.

I am a poet, a dreamer, if you will. These are my dreams. Tread softly on my dreams, for when you enter my world, you mingle your dreams with mine. The result, I hope, will be an interesting intellectual blend of new creativity.

The hand-carved verraco, in the photo above, was given me by my friends in the Rincon (Avila) where I spent four happy and creative summers. Never forgotten. Blessings and pax amorque.