Quotes

The Banks of the Seine

Banks of the Seine

Gnawing at the carcass of an old song,
my mind, a mindless dog, chasing its tail,
turning in circles, snapping at the fragment
of its own flesh, flag-flourished before it,
tournons, tournons, tournons toujours,
as Apollinaire phrased it, on a day
when I went dogless, walking on a mind-leash
before the Parisian bouquinistes who sold,
along the banks of the Seine, such tempting
merchandise, and me, hands in pockets,
penniless, tempted beyond measure,
by words, set out on pages, wondrous,
pages that, hands free, I turned, and turned,
plucking words, here and there, like a sparrow,
or a pigeon, picks at the crumbs thrown away
by pitying tramps, kings, fallen from chariots,
as Eluard wrote, and me, a pauper among riches,
an Oliver Twist, rising from my trance, hands out,
pleading, “Please, sir, can I have some more?”

Comment:
This is a fusion / confusion, if you like, of The Kingston Trio’s song – The Seine – with a quote each from Guillaume Apollinaire – Alcools – and Paul Eluard – Il ne m’est Paris que d’Elsa, and Francisco de Quevedo’s – El Buscon – and a tip of the old chapeau nouveau to R. S. Thomas and Charles Dickens. Fools rush in, I am afraid, where angels fear to tread. Go on. Rush right in. Sort it all out. I double-dog dare you – and thank you for that one, Jude.

Old Wounds

Old Wounds


“The slow wound
deepens with the years
and brings no healing.”

The Minister. R. S. Thomas

How deep time’s wounds
have cut and carved,
not just in flesh and bone,
but in the embers
of that slow-burn fire
 they call the heart.

Memory and mind
have also played their part.

Some days, those wounds
don’t ache at all.

But there’s no real healing,
and a moment of madness,
a knife-edged finger nail,
careless, in the dark,
opens them up again
to bleed afresh
and remind us
of the frailty of the flesh.

Comment:
The opening quote, from the Welsh poet, R. S. Thomas, made me aware of so many sad things that have happened in my life. Usually they lie dormant, asleep like an ancient volcano. Occasionally they erupt, and memory’s hot lava breaks through to the surface and spills like blood. Hard as I may try to control those moments, they are, in essence, uncontrollable. The scars itch. I scratch them with sharp finger-nails, and the old wounds open and bleed again.

Interesting Times

Daily writing prompt
List 10 things you know to be absolutely certain.
View all responses

Interesting Times

“May you live in interesting times.” This phrase, be it a blessing or a curse, it has been called both, is rapidly becoming a cliché. So, are we living in ‘interesting times’? Good question, and I have no answer to it, not one that I would publish anyway.

As to listing 10 things that I know to be absolutely certain, I can’t. And that may be the first thing I am certain about. The other thing about which I have a certain amount of certainty is uncertainty itself. I am certain that yes, we are indeed living in times of uncertainty. Well, most of us are anyway. The other thing that I am fairly certain about, well, 100% certain about really, is that death will come to us all, sooner or later, don’t know where, don’t know when, don’t know how.

So, perhaps I can manage to achieve three certainties – 1. The certainty of death, to quote Dylan Thomas, ‘for all poor creatures born to die’. 2. The certainty of uncertainty itself, to quote Stéphane Mallarmé, in my own translation, ‘a roll of the dice will never eliminate chance’. 3. The certainty that I cannot find seven more things about which I am certain.

That said, I am not all that certain about what I have just written

Flowers

Flowers

“With freedom, flowers, books, and the moon, who could not be perfectly happy?” Oscar Wilde

Yesterday I bought my beloved some flowers. I searched among the bunches in the supermarket to find some that were not full blown but ready to spring from bud to blossom. I had the freedom to buy and with it the freedom that comes from having a little bit of money to spare for those frivolities that keep love alive at any age.

As for books, I read them and I write them, and sometimes they write me, and sometimes I can tell the difference, and some times I can’t. “What is this life, if full of greed we have no time to sit and read. Or when we lay awake at night, we don’t have time to think or write.”

Then there is the moon. “Please let the light that shines on me, shine on the one I love.” An old sea-farers’ song also sung by the beloved left behind on the home shore. There are few things as fascinating as a garden in the moonlight. Delightful too are night flowers blossoming beneath a full moon. “Boys and girls come out to play, the moon is shining as bright as day. Leave your pillows and leave your sheets and join your playfellows in the streets.”

So there you have a recipe for perfect happiness. Freedom from need, cash for frivolities and flowers, moonlight in which to serenade one’s beloved, and a book in which to record the recipe and keep it fresh in mind – add them one by one, stir them gently, plant them – and may perfect happiness blossom for you, too.

On Life and Living

On Life and Living

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
Oscar Wilde

To live, to really live, what does it mean? I guess that depends on each one of us, our backgrounds, our education, our culture. W. H. Davies wrote one of my favourite poems “What is this life, if full of care, we have no time to stand and stare.” To know how to live is also to know how to stand and stare, how to make time for oneself, how to take joy in the simple things.

But what if the simple things are no longer accessible or ‘within easy reach’ as my poet friend, Jane Tims, would phrase it? When the cost of living rises, when we cannot afford to heat our homes, when we have to choose between eating or heating, or between food and medicine, can we truly be said to be living? Then, like it or not, existence, in the words of Sartre, precedes essence, and the very act of existing, surviving, maintaining body and soul together, takes over from any thoughts that may strike us, any time we may have to stand and stare.

Do the little things in life, said St. David of Wales, Dewi Sant. But what happens when so many of these little things are taken away from us? Some of us are lucky, privileged, blessed – and we are able to heat the house, run the car, meet a sudden unexpected bill. We do not have to choose between heat or eat, between food or medicine. Others are not so fortunate. They may have lost their homes. They may not have a car, or they may be living in it. Their transport may be a metal trolley, ‘borrowed from a shopping mall before it was lost’. Their only unexpected bill may be the Old Bill, coming to arrest them for loitering, with or without intent. For these people, on a daily basis, an hourly, basis, life’s hard choices are upon them. They are faced every day with a very different choice in answer to Hamlet’s question – ‘to be or not to be?’.

I see them, the people making those choices, sitting on the sidewalk outside the super-market, plastic coffee cups before them. Heads down, eyes closed, scarcely able to look me in the eye. I see them at the traffic lights, holding up their cardboard signs. I look at them as they sit there or stand there or walk up and down, sitting, standing, staring at the traffic.

They also give a new meaning to the last couplet of W. H. Davies’ poem – “A sad life this, if full of care, we have no time to stand and stare.” They have the time to sit, and stand, and pace, and stare – indeed they do – but do they live, or do they just exist? And for how long? These are the real questions.

Black Death

Black Death
1438

Outside my window
horizontal hail
rain blown sideways
surgical the wind
dismembering trees
uprooting the weakest
flattening the strong
rages the storm

Who am I
the one who abhorred thee
who now adores thee
and kneels before thee
in grief and pain

Death’s Dance before me
each street filled
with skeletal horrors
bare bones dancing
naked beneath a star-
spangled sky

‘No thought is born in me
which has not “Death”
engraved upon it.’
Michelangelo

Dustbin Alley

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Dustbin Alley
(1789 AD)

all the dustbins
dancing down the street
trying to achieve
a spring time copulation
to create more dustbins

you can’t have a revolution
without dustbins
dustbin … dustbins … dirty
dusty dustbins

a sadistic way to look at
basket-bins full of sawdust
heading between potholes
wind-blown bins
a right St. Vitus’s Dance

him sitting next to me
knitting a new red cap
to place upon
the old dictionary
me standing
on Gibraltar’s Rock so fair
this square in Paris
Place de la Bastille
where tumbrils rattle
over cobbles

Old Moll in a Moll’s Cap
toothless fairy
at a Goblin Party
afraid of mushrooms
scared of toadstools
[sick]

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Writing Memories 1

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Writing Memories 1
Saint John Free Public Library
10 March 2019

Subtitle: Thoughts and exercises on the role of memory as we grow and age.

Remember: we are not just writers, we are re-writers.

About Words:

Words strain,
crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
will not stay still. (T. S. Eliot, Burnt Norton)

About Effort:

That was a way of putting it—not very satisfactory:
a periphrastic study in a worn-out poetical fashion,
leaving one still with the intolerable wrestle
with words and meanings. (T. S. Eliot, East Coker)

About Revision:

Every attempt
is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
because one has only learnt to get the better of words
for the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
one is no longer disposed to say it. (T. S. Eliot, East Coker)

Introduction:

As promised, I will present here, over the next week, my thoughts and comments on the writing workshop that took place in Saint John on Sunday, 10 March 2019. The workshop began with the above words from T. S. Eliot. They can be used for contemplation about the difficult art and craft of writing. They can also be used as prompts from which writers can develop their own creative and poetic philosophy.  There is more indeed, much more, than the simple splashing of ink upon the page. Yet we all begin with that first splash of ink, that first letter drawn with finger from the computer keyboard, or thumbed on the I-Pad.

Where do writers go next? That is the question. In this workshop, with its series of thematically linked writing models and prompts, I will try and answer some of those questions. More important, perhaps, all participants will have time to think, time to write, and time to read what they have written to a sympathetic audience.

The workshop’s structure is simple: five modules of 30 minutes each. After the third module, there will be a ten minute break. The last two modules will be followed by a question and answer session that can be prolonged for as long as participants wish.

Alas, I am not familiar with the writers in this group and therefore have not prepared individual exercises for each person’s needs. Forgive me for this lapse. What I have done is to draw up some generic hints and some typical models from which participants are free to select what suits them best. But first some notes on the writing you will be asked to do.

Suggestions for the writing exercise included in each module:

Write a prose memoir, just reminiscing.

Use 1st, 2nd, or 3rd person narrative.

Choose 6-12 words from the reading and expand on them using associative fields.

Write from an image or a metaphor.

Journal style: automatic writing, but try to select the gems.

Letter style: write to a friend.

Writing Levels:

Since I am unfamiliar with you as individual writers, here are four generic writing levels. Choose one and write from within that level. By all means work your way through the levels, if you wish to do so, one level per module.

Beginning Writers: Just write, using the prompts to help you get your own words and experiences and memories on the page. Don’t be afraid to ask me, or more experienced writers in the room, for help.

Intermediate Writers 1: Try and concentrate on writing about one or two senses within each exercise.

Intermediate Writers 2: Try and combine two or three senses within each exercise.

Advanced Writers: Use the prompts as you will and concentrate on imagery, metaphors, letting the language doing the work, and combining or mixing the senses. Also, please share your experiences (positive and negative) with other writers in each mini-group.

Reading and discussion:
         NB Change tables and seek new people in mini-groups after each module. Ideal size of mini-groups is 3-4 people.
We need to learn how to share, and how to accept very diverse opinions, some of which may be good and some of which may be bad.
Don’t just talk to old friends: discover and make new ones.
Listen to the comments and accept them or reject them after you have thought about them. Don’t argue. Don’t explain. Don’t defend your writing. Just listen and see how others read and see and understand your work.
As you read and listen, learn from the other writers, how they write, how they read, how they express themselves.
We are all in search of our own very personal and elusive voice: you won’t find your voice unless you use it. Remember: use it or lose it.

Invitation and Reminder:

By all means comment on this workshop and its modules. Module 1, with some polishing and though, will appear tomorrow.

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Cat & Janies

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Cat & Janies

Everybody needs a cat to keep them honest. Dogs are cynics. Cats, on the other paw, are born manipulators. Princess Squiffy, seen here, is intent on the red squirrel that is eating seed just to the left, outside of the picture. PS is trying to hypnotize it, draw it close. If it comes near she will pounce and scare the ‘bejabers’ out of the poor squirrel.

Behind the cat are three blossoms from Clare’s geranium collection. Clare salvages the best geraniums each fall, re-pots them, and keeps them indoors throughout the winter. They bring us joy and color whenever they blossom and are as bright as male cardinals against the snow. We have a pair of cardinals who visit regularly, but hungry, prowling neighborhood pussy cats are often on patrol, so the cardinals are very wary and do not hang around for long. I can’t say I blame them. I don’t mind the blood red reflection of the geraniums on the snow. I am adverse to the blood-red of real blood.

Speaking of which, as I grow old and my skin becomes drier and more like parchment, I find I cut myself much more easily than I used to. This morning I pumped gas into the car. The air was cold, my hands were cold, my skin was taut. I noticed nothing until I got inside the gas station to pay. I had blood all over my hands from a half-inch crack in the skin of my right index finger. I do not know how it happened. But there it was. The young girl in the gas station was excellent and cleaned and patched me up in no time at all. She was very nice to me. I felt lucky. So I bought three lottery tickets. Within five days we’ll find out whether I was lucky or not.

It’s wonderful to be around young people. So much bounce, so much energy. So much joie de vivre. Mind you, our granddaughter wears us out in no time at all. I guess I’ve earned peace, rest, comfort, and relatively easy living in my retirement, mon âge d’or, just like Princess Squiffy. She’s a house cat, incidentally. She can look at that bountiful banquet of squirrel and bird, but she cannot reach out and touch. She can merely make the window rattle as she charges the sliding door. She reminds me of the Pelican, whose beak can hold more than her belly can. Except in her case, especially with the birds, it’s more like her eyes behold more than her belly can. Whatever I do, I don’t want a kitty smorgasborg, nor do I want to turn the bird feeder into a pussy cat feeder.

Speaking of pussy cats and how they belong in houses, here’s one of my favorite short poems from Guillaume Apollinaire: Le chat (1911).

Je souhaite dans ma maison :
Une femme ayant sa raison,
Un chat passant parmi les livres,
Des amis en toute saison
Sans lesquels je ne peux pas vivre.

I searched for the text online, as I had mislaid my own collection of his poetry. By the
way, Apollinaire is one of the few poets (English, French, Spanish, or Other), whose
poems I did not give away during the ‘Grand Clean Out’. The little drop down offered to
translate this page for me and, for once, I clicked it. Here’s their rendition of the poem.

The cat

I wish in my house:
A woman having her reason,
A cat passing among the books,
Friends in any season
Without which I can not live.

 Now all I need to ‘make my day’ is a poem about Geraniums, and I know exactly where to find one.