Memories

Beaver Pond in October

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The Beaver Pond
in October

Open are the pond’s bright spaces,
brown and withering are the reeds.

Clouds float in the pond’s dark mirror.
Small islands of grass seed
where underwater logs have clogged
and rotted themselves back into life.

Around us, emptiness, empty nests,
earth and its waters waiting for what
strange second coming?

Leaves,
like footprints, delicate on the water,
their pale green tongues lapping
towards the land and everywhere
the low light bright against stripped
white branches.

That lone mast standing still,
gift-wrapped this bouquet of grass
and cloud-enhanced,
magic, these sun

rays,
this October light,

descending.

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Metaphor: Wednesday Workshop

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Metaphor
Wednesday Workshop
26 October 2016

Metaphors: What are they? I must be honest: I don’t really know. I don’t understand them. I never have. I probably never will. This morning, I determined to find out what a metaphor really is. So I Googled metaphor and came up with the following definitions.

  1. A metaphor is “a figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable in order to suggest a resemblance.”
    Well, that is pretty clear, isn’t it?
  2. A metaphor is “something used, or regarded as being used, to represent something else; emblem; symbol.”
    No doubts there.
  3. “Metaphor is a figure of speech which makes an implicit, implied or hidden comparison between two things that are unrelated but share some common characteristics. In other words, a resemblance of two contradictory or different objects is made based on a single or some common characteristics.”
    I know exactly what they mean. Or do I?
  4. “In simple English, when you portray a person, place, thing, or an action as being something else, even though it is not actually that “something else,” you are speaking metaphorically.”
    No misunderstanding here.
  5. “A metaphor is a figure of speech that refers, for rhetorical effect, to one thing by mentioning another thing. It may provide clarity or identify hidden similarities between two ideas. Where a simile compares two items, a metaphor directly equates them, and does not use “like” or “as” as does a simile.”
    Slightly clearer, but not as clear as daylight.

I turn to my blog for help and read that “The egg of my skull / shows hairline cracks: / tiny beaks pecking / fine-tuned sparks of song”. “This piece,” Tanya Cliff writes, “offers a unique and beautiful perspective on the theme (of birds).” I think I can do without the dull, dry definitions set out in the definitions above and understand metaphor as “a unique and beautiful perspective”. This functions for me. Thank you, Tanya.

Two more sequences, this time from October Angel: (1) “she gathers her evening gown / and walks among ruined flowers” (Meg Sorick’s choice) and (2) “a snapdragon opens / the frosted forge of its mouth / and sprinkles the sky / with ice-hard shards of fire” (Tanya Cliff’s choice). I can understand the first in terms of “a unique and beautiful perspective” since the picture of the October Angel is clear in my mind. In addition, evening / evening gown / ruined flowers are particularly evocative. The second sequence is much stronger as anyone who has seen the snapdragon flowers braving the ice and frost will testify.

After thinking about these three examples, I think I can now understand metaphor a little bit better. I would define a metaphor as “a brief verbal sequence that creates a new reality that offers a unique and sometimes beautiful perspective” on something that we have long known and accepted but now, thanks to the writer / poet, see in a different light.

This personal definition allows us to distinguish with ease between dead metaphors and clichés like dead as a door nail or avoid it like the plague while allowing us to enjoy the permutations that spring from the innovation of the true metaphoric sequence. The metaphoric sequence also allows us to distinguish between a two word metaphor and a series of metaphors that are thematically linked.

From my own poetry, ruined flowers would be an example of the first while the longer sequence a snapdragon opens / the frosted forge of its mouth / and sprinkles the sky / with ice-hard shards of fire would be an example of the second. Iterative thematic imagery, a form of sequenced metaphor chains, then links the whole work, be it poem or longer piece, within an associative semantic field of parallel meanings. This also illustrates the idea of differentiating between the inorganic and organic conceit, where the inorganic conceit is the example of a single, independent instance while the organic conceit is woven into the fabric of the oeuvre.

If I now apply my own definition back to last night’s conversations, when mathematics turned to metaphor, I was able to grasp a new and beautiful perspective (the scientific one) on something that I had long known and accepted. My thanks to all who inspire me to write and commentate and particularly to those who participated with me in this discussion: Chuck Bowie, Tanya Cliff, Meg Sorick, Kevin Stephens, and John Sutherland.

All About Angels

 

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All About Angels

Angels: many people believe in them, some people don’t. ‘What are they really like?’ you ask. Well, the ones I have seen, and they are the only ones I can talk about, are nothing like the angels we see in old church paintings.

 Angels visit me regularly. They speak to me through the mouths of innocent birds and beasts and I listen to them carefully, for they are the messengers of Gaia, the earth goddess. If we do not listen to the earth goddess, if we don’t pay attention to her words, the earth and the people who live on it will be in serious trouble, sooner or later.

 So, go out into the garden and the woods. Walk softly. Stand beneath autumn trees. Watch for footprints in the winter snow. Above all, watch out for the living creatures with which we share our world. Listen to them when they speak to you. Pay attention to their words. Do not ignore them, and remember St. Francis of Assisi who called them his brothers and sisters, for that’s exactly what they are. They are our extended family and as we treat them, so will we ourselves be treated when Gaia, the earth goddess, calls us home.

Pensive Angel

 “A penny for your thoughts!”

 The pansies turned their heads,
gazing at her with great disdain.

 They are the lowest of the low,
yet grow again, each year,
from their own scattered seed,
like weeds.

 Their faces are beautiful,
bursting suddenly from winter’s
white dream.

 They create pastel thoughts and fill
the flowerbeds with secret dreams
that they alone can see.

All About Angels, my next book of poetry,  will soon be available on Amazon and Kindle.

Wild Bird

 

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Wild Bird

 A wild bird has built
her nest in my heart.

Her blood-beat
flutters new rhythms.

Birdsong streams
sunlight in my pulse.

Afloat I knew the sea-
surge lift and pull.

Now hot blood rises
with the sun and sets
with this glorious fall
from heaven to earth:

sweet helter-skelter
glide of current and cloud.

Hair is to head
as feather is to nest.

The egg of my skull
shows hairline cracks:

tiny beaks pecking
fine-tuned sparks of song.

Monkey Presses Delete

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Monkey Presses Delete

Monkey loves walking behind the gorillas.
He loves to see fear in faces, tears in eyes
as the gorillas smash and grab and break down doors.

The gorillas break and enter: and when they do,
monkey simply points and gorillas do their thing:
it’s that simple …

Monkey has a code word he took from his computer course.
“Delete!” he says with delight
and the gorillas delete whatever he points to.

He loves deleting parents in front of children,
though deleting children in front of their parents
can be just as exciting.
He also loves burning other people’s books
and deleting their web pages.

The delete button excites monkey:
maneuvering the mouse tightens his scrotum
and he feels a kick like a baby’s at the bottom of his belly
as he carefully selects his victim and “Delete!”

The gorillas go into action:
ten, twenty, thirty, fifty, seventy years of existence
deleted with a gesture
and the click of an index finger pointed like a gun.

Monkey Throws Away the Keys

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Monkey Throws Away the Keys

Monkey is tired of writing reports
that are never read.
He is fed up with frequently asked
questions and their unread answers.
To every lock, there is a key.
Monkey looks at the red and gold
locks of the last orang-utangs
and wonders how to unpick their DNA.

Monkey would give his kingdom
for a key, a key, a little silver key:
the key to a situation, the key to a heart,
the office key, the key to the door,
at twenty-one, the keys of fate,
the Florida keys, the key to San
Francisco’s Golden Gate,
a passe-partout, a skeleton key,
the key to Mother Hubbard’s
cupboard, where she hides dry bones …

On the last day, when monkey leaves work
he takes a lifetime of keys
and throws them down a deep dark well.
As they halve the distance to the water,
he listens to the sound of silence
and wonders if they’ll ever hit the bottom.

Late Summer Angel

 

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Late Summer Angel

“It’s good to stop, while mowing,
and to rescue that one red leaf,
and that one yellow leaf,
and that other leaf
the sun has spotted,
like an old man’s hand.

And it’s good to stay
bent over for a while,
to rest and to gaze
at the October fungi,
mushrooms and toadstools,
thrusting from the earth:
puff balls, dust balls,
little brown umbrellas.

 And it’s good to see
where the moles
have dug new houses.”

 “Better yet,”
says the autumn angel,
“is to stand beneath
the trees, drinking up
the sunlight.

Raise your hand and see
your skin fragmented
into a coat of many colors.”

 Sunshine through
a stained glass window.

 Light rains
droplets down
through speckled leaves.

Note: Late Summer Angel is from All About Angels, the poetry collection that I am currently revising for re-publication. It will be available online at Amazon and Kindle in time for Christmas, 2016.

 

 

October Angel

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October Angel

birds peck their way
through egg shell skies
in search of summer

 ice pellets strike dead foliage

the October Angel
hangs suet from the rowan

a finger of wind
stirs stubborn leaves
whirling them round and round
in a carousel of color

she gathers her evening gown
and walks among ruined flowers

a snapdragon opens
the frosted forge of its mouth
and sprinkles the sky
with ice-hard shards of fire

Note: October Angel is from All About Angels, the poetry collection that I am currently revising for re-publication.

In Absentia 6

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In Absentia

6

Bad Hair Day

It all started when I rolled over at 4:00 am and heard the grandfather clock in the hall strike three. I double checked my watch with the alarm clock. It was definitely four o’clock. The grandfather clock, older than me, had to be wrong.

I sat up in bed and blinked. The light of the telephone flashed on and off. Someone had left me a message. The message machine was downstairs along with the grandfather clock. No way I thought I’m not going down there, not even for two birds with one stone. I rolled back the other way, stuck my head under the blankets, and tried to go back to sleep. I could sense the flashing light, even if I couldn’t see it and the Westminster Chimes played false notes, sometimes one too short, sometimes one too many. I counted them instead of sheep and couldn’t fall asleep.

At six o’clock, with the room in darkness save for that ever-flashing light, I struggled out of bed. I had dumped my dirty clothes in the laundry basket and I needed everything clean and fresh. I hobbled to the chest of drawers and pulled out socks and pants. Then I went to the clothes closet and took a clean shirt off the hanger. My pants went on more easily than usual and my shirt just slipped over my head. I hauled up my jeans and placed my first sock on the sock machine. It felt a bit awkward, but went on with no real problem. The same with the second sock.

I removed my pocket flashlight from Teddy’s ear where I keep it overnight and tucked it into my shirt pocket. It fell to the floor. I checked my chest … no pocket. I noticed a bulge on the right hand side where no pocket should be … pocket … but inside the shirt. I reached up to the buttons and they too were inside the shirt. To hell with it I thought I can’t be bothered to change. I slipped my Birkenstocks on and felt a lump under my left foot. The heel had slipped under the arch. My sock machine had failed me. I checked the right foot. I could see the heel all right: it was in the middle of my foot just above the toes.

By now I needed the bathroom so I hobbled across to it. No flashlight in my non-existent pocket, not wishing to turn on the bathroom lights, I fumbled for a moment or two and then for a lot longer. Why, oh why, was there no Y-front to my pants? Ours not to reason why … and it all happened. Clean pants and all.

So, I turned on the light and checked myself out. Socks upside down? I took them off. Clean pants on back to front and twisted and now slightly more than damp? I took my jeans off and my pants with them. Shirt on inside out? Off with it and anyway, it was wetter than it should be and I knew I hadn’t bean sweating that much. I looked at the clothes in their little pile on the floor and I kicked them as hard as I could. Of course, I stumbled and only saved myself from being part of the bathroom accident statistics by lurching for and grabbing the towel rail which came away in my hands, towel and all. Luckily, I kept my balance and I didn’t fall.

I got into the shower, washed myself down, got out again, toweled myself dry and climbed back into bed. I stuck the flash light into Teddy’s ear and then I took it out again and hurled Teddy at the still-flashing telephone. Bull’s Eye … or should that be Bear’s Eye? Anyway, the darn thing stopped flashing and I was able to go back to sleep for about an hour.

When I woke up the second time, I dressed very carefully. Socks with the heel in the right place, check! Y-fronts with the Y where I need it, check! Shirt the right side out, check! Go downstairs and erase the overnight message, check! Light stopped flashing, check!

I limped to the IMac and turned it on. Then I opened my documents … I open my documents … I ope … but the error message keeps flashing across the screen. I can’t open my documents because I need a new app. This app is no longer functional on the new system the IT men installed just yesterday. I abandon the IMac and go to the PC. I open the documents with no problem at all. I start to work on a poem and ERROR … ERROR … ERROR … Norton needs to be uninstalled and re-installed . URGENT … ERROR … ERROR …

I shut down the PC and walk into the kitchen. The floor is wet and slippery. I think for a moment that, with the willing suspension of disbelief, I am walking on water. But no, sad reality returns: the cat has thrown up.

Juggler

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Juglar /  Juggler
(from Land of Rocks and Saints)

1

 In the beginning was the word,
and the word was tossed in the air:
a dove over dark water.

It grew as it descended,
turned into tongues of flame,
each of them licking
at the listeners’ hearts,
tearing them apart.

Sleight of hand:
this deck of words, tossed skywards;
jacks and queens tumbling,
caught, tossed up again;
words, nothing but words,
this pack of wolves descending.

2

 Lips part as words draw blood;
red wound of the open mouth,
a rose in spring’s garden
bears us down with crimson scents.

The spirit is trapped in its cage,
flesh and bone binding those wings
with their urgent urge to be free and fly ….

“… you would have seen …” he says.

And so we see: the sea, white horses cresting,
St. James riding over the mountains,
bone on lance point, spear bloodied,
Moorish chain mail bursting asunder,
El Cid advancing on his foes.

Words join with words,
become joint with gesture;
they plunge into our chests,
grow tight round heart and lungs.

Juglar: In Spain, the mediaeval juglar was musician, singer of songs, juggler, and general entertainer. The oral tradition still thrives in Avila and in places where the rhythmic and musical emphasis of the spoken word is still important.