“The olde order changeth lest one good custom should corrupt the world.”
Tennyson – Idylls of the King.
A joyous New Years Eve to all my friends and followers. May the New Year prove to be Happy, Healhty, and Prosperous for all.
Nightmares
The jaws that bite,
the claws that snatch,
the hands grasping you
through the railings
as you scuttle upstairs.
Those same hands descending,
beating, shaking you,
back and forth, a rag doll,
then thrusting you into
that cold, dark cupboard
beneath the stairs, no story,
your childhood reality.
And now, those dreams come back
and you lie awake watching
as the grey revenants return
and the nightmares repeat
themselves, again and again.
And return they will, until
that final curtain call,
when the stage turns black,
and you’ll never be taunted,
haunted, and hunted ever again.
Comment:
On Thursday night we discussed the difference between poetry of play and poetry that expresses the authenticity of being. Into which category does this poem fall. Intertextuality – the idea of texts talking to texts. How many different texts can you count, talking to each other in this poem that may even be a Jackpine Sonnet?
When are you most happy?
What on earth does that mean? When? Are we talking time of day, or time of night? Are we talking a season of the year? Are we talking mood swings – happy now, oh dear, mood swing, not happy now? Are we talking Hen Wen, the magic white pig at the feeding trough? “I am at my happiest, oink-oink, when I am eating a big burger from …” – and here you name your favorite burger outlet. None of that Hen Wen nonsense applies, of course, if you are vegetarian, vegan, or have an allergy to burgers or buns!
I can tell you when I am least happy – 7:30 am, on a wet, damp, cold, icy, snowy winter morning, when I have to get up, get dressed, and go out in the mush and the slush to have an early morning blood test – no food or drink for 12 hours – at the local hospital. Last time I did that, I couldn’t find a parking spot, and drove round and around until eventually one opened up, as far away as possible from the hospital of course. No, I was not a happy camper on that occasion. Especially when I slipped on the ice, returning to my car, and then found someone had driven into my side while I was parked there. Oh, that made me so happy and so jolly, I laughed until I cried. [I do hope you can recognize sarcasm when you see it.]
So, let us reverse the question and reframe it by saying that I am perfectly happy when the things that make me miserable do not happen. No fender-bender in the ice and snow – I am a happy man. Caught speeding or jumping a red light – totally by accident, of course, – and the man in blue asks me for my license, sees that it’s my birthday, and lets me drive away with a verbal warning and a jovial ‘happy birthday”! Ah yes, reverse psychology, that sort of thing does make me happy.
So, above all, it’s the little things in life that go right, and not wrong, that make me happy. This morning’s boiled egg, boiled to perfection – not too hard, not too soft. My coffee a perfect blend designed to bring joy and happiness. Marmalade on blue cheese, the Welsh equivalent of Chinese sweet and sour – oh yes, and actually making someone laugh or smile when they read this nonsense I write. Even Hen Wen grunts with joy – oink! oink! – at that one. So if you have enjoyed this post, please take the time to send me an oink or two, and I will be happy. Thanking you in advance is, yours sincerely, Hen ‘oink!’ Wen ‘oink!’ Wink, ‘oink!’
What was the last thing you did for play or fun?
I guess it depends on how you define ‘play’ and ‘fun’. The first snow storm of the winter left us without power for 39.5 hours. That should have been horrible – the temperature outside dropped to -7C overnight, and the temperature inside fell to 58F. Rather than sit and suffer, we turned it into a fun time. A candlelight supper, a bright log fire burning in the grate, reading by torchlight and candlelight. The flames flickering across my beloved’s face and making her countenance softer and more beautiful than ever.
When we lose power, we lose everything, except our fireplace and our cell phones. Recharging them was fun. We have a portable charger, and we also recharged them in the car while driving around. The roads were good – and driving was warm – so that was fun as well.
When the power came back, we called the local tree company (Treecological) and they took down the trees, young, bendy birches, that had bent onto our power lines. When we lost power, a second time, exactly a week later, it was a much shorter power loss. While the first was a power out[r]age, the second was a power outage. Both times, when the power came back on, that first buzz of energy renewed really made us happy.
In between the two storms, we had some warmer, sunnier weather and cleaning the snow with our trusty snowblower was much easier than we expected. Mind you, it is always difficult the first time, when the body is unaccustomed to the machine and all the old tricks must be learned once more. Luckily, you can teach new tricks to an old dog, well, to this one anyway, and I managed to cut a few corners and had fun doing so.
After four consecutive days of snow blowing – one does it bit by bit when one is eighty years old – otherwise no, it isn’t much fun. But bit by bit, step by step, and the job gets done. So there we were, playing in the snow and having fun. Mind you – once in a while isn’t too bad. But for this to happen every day, over a series of years, that would not be fun. And doubly not in winter, with the cold outside and supplies inside running out or down.
Poppy Day
Remembrance Day
11 November 2024
I wasn’t there
I never saw the gas clouds
rolling over our positions
never felt the barbed wire’s bite
nor the bayonet’s jab
I never hung out my washing
on the Siegfreid Line
(“Have you any dirty washing, mother dear?”)
never broke out of barracks
never did spud bashing
nor feasted on bread and water
nor heard the rifle’s rapid rattle
I wasn’t there
to see them carried away in carts
coughing spluttering vomiting
or bandages over their eyes
walking slowly to triage a hand on
the shoulder of the man ahead
the sighted leading the blind
I wasn’t there
but both my grandfathers were
both decorated
one mentioned in dispatches
signed by Winston Churchill
that one uninjured
the other one gassed
coughing up his lungs
bit by bit for forty years
I am here now
to remember
and to honor them
though so much
has been lost
Comment:
My friend, the painter known as Moo, painted this poppy today. My generation, unless they served voluntarily, as many have done, was never conscripted. As a result, the horrors and tragedies of combat were never known to us, except as seen through they eyes of other people. I think of Wilfred Owen and his magnificent, heart-rending poems from WWI.
Today, I pay tribute to those members of my family who served in the armed forces by land, sea, and air. I also pay tribute to the veterans who survived, and to those who gave their lives in the defense of our country.
What’s your favorite word?
Seems like a daft question to me. Just one word?
Llanfairpwllgwyngylldrawbwlchllantisilioggogogoch – how’s that for a single word? And what’s wrong with married ones anyway. Or should I go for something like – home, health, morning (good or bad), night, how? -as in How! And what about the vast quantity of expletives that are found in so many languages? Many of them are single words, although many others are found in fertile and creative compound structures.
Of course, wrth gwrs, we are thinking of how many single words in how many languages? Or are we? I personally think that phrases might be more important than single words. Thank you becomes gracias (in Spanish) or te / se lo agradezco (more formally). It changes to merci (in French) or merci bien, or merci beaucoup, or grand merci, or merci mille fois, or je vous remercie. Then, in Welsh it becomes diolch, though many prefer diolch yn fawr.
Mind you, when living in Mexico, especially in some of the more isolated villages where food and water are not always the cleanest, bathroom may be a key word. Quick is also an important one. Put them together and you get bathroom quick! Help is also very useful when travelling alone and lost. As is Please! Por favor, in Spanish – two words of course!
Single words, in isolation, can be very dangerous. Especially when using a second language that one doesn’t dominate. Examples of embarrassing mistakes are multiple in the language-learning text-books. Speaking of which, it is interesting how infrequently they offer phrases like “Where is the bathroom?” or “I need the toilet. Now.” Alas, they also avoid the inevitable consequences like – “Too late!” “Sorry!” “Where is the nearest dry cleaners?”
A funny thing, language. And other people’s languages are equally funny. By funny, I mean weird, strange, and unpredictable, especially without a sharp cultural knowledge to permit the speaker to actually understand what he or she wants to say and how to phrase it correctly. Simple example – embarazada, in Spanish, does not mean embarrassed, it means pregnant. You would be surprised at how many young ladies, learning Spanish in Spain, have amazed their hosts and teachers by the simple announcement, often in class, that ‘estoy embarazada’ – ‘I am pregnant’ – and I have seen the looks of amazement adorning the sympathetic faces of the families gathered round the table or the looks on the faces of the classes being so addressed.
So, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I can think of very few words, single words, that I would use on their own. But I can think of many, many phrases, most short, that I would be happy to use, and many more that I would avoid at all costs. As the students in the lower grades of Spanish used to say – “Buenas Nachos” and “I only want to be able to ask for a beer.” “Can’t we watch the Smurfs?” Have you ever tried to understand humor in another language, another culture? It is one of the hardest things to master, especially when it depends on the double-meaning of words, words which, all too often, only have one meaning in the pocket dictionaries people carry around with them. Caveat emptor. Buyer beware. And tread carefully, for you may not know just whose toes you are treading on, nor why, nor how they will react – the people, not the toes. Dangerous things those pronouns.
On the other hand, we can always go religious and turn to the Bible for advice. There we find “Faith, hope, and charity, and the greatest of these is charity.” So. Problem solved. I have found my one word – Charity. That said, I do like the painting Moo offered me for this prompt. He calls it Hope. And remember, you can’t go wrong with any of those three words – Faith, Hope, and Charity. Tolle lege. Amen.
Solitary 1 & 2
1
They drove me there,
passed through the gates,
unpacked my trunk,
chatted with the head,
shook my hand,
then drove away.
The metallic clang
of the closing gates
still lives with me.
How old was I?
Six? Seven?
I no longer know
and there’s nobody
left alive to tell me.
I remember so well
the woodgrain on the desk,
the carved initials,
the loneliness that bit,
the barred windows
of that empty classroom.
2
An only child,
taken away,
left among strangers?
Why, why, why?
Doubt’s pinball
bounces round
my empty skull.
What am I?
Who am I?
Why am I?
How did I become
whatever it is
that I became?
mea culpa
mea culpa
mea maxima culpa
Was I the one to blame?
Comment:
I prefer it as two poems, rather than a poem and a commentary. It may even be better written in the third person. I’ll have to think about that! It’s always a good way to work. Thank you to all who commented, by email or otherwise! Your comments always help me think, and re-think.
Solitary
They drove me there,
passed through the gates,
unpacked my trunk,
chatted with the head,
shook my hand,
then drove away.
The metallic clang
of the closing gates
still lives with me.
How old was I?
Six? Seven?
I no longer know
and there’s nobody
left alive to tell me.
I remember so well
the woodgrain on the desk,
the carved initials,
the loneliness that bit,
the barred windows
of that empty classroom.
Comment:
Looking back, I wonder just how and why I ended up in a series of boarding schools, starting when I was only six years old. What does that abandonment do to an only child, taken away, and left among strangers? I still have nightmares and wake up screaming, from time to time.
Why, why, why? The pinball of doubt bounces round the interior of my head as I struggle to plot different paths, different ways, how life could have, might have, been so different.
I guess that schooling, force fed, made me what I am. But then the pin ball starts again – what am I? Who am I? Why am I? And how did I become whatever it is that I became? Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa – was I then the one to blame?
Chuck Bowie
(June, 2019)
We met at St. Andrews, at low tide, on
the underwater road. In secret we
shared the closed, coded envelopes of thought,
running fresh ideas through open minds.
Our words, brief vapor trails, gathered for
a moment over Passamaquoddy,
before drifting silently away. Canvas sails
flapped white seagulls across the bay.
All seven seas rose before our eyes, brought
in on a breeze’s wing. The flow of cold
waters over warm sand cocooned us
in a cloak-and-dagger mystery of mist.
We spun our spider-web dreams word by word,
decking them out with the silver dew drops
proximity brings. Characters’ voices,
unattached to real people, floated by.
Verbal ghosts, shape-shifting, emerging from
shadows, revealed new attitudes and twists,
spoke briefly, filled us with visions of book-
lives, unforgettable, but doomed, swift to fail.
Soft waves ascended rock, sand, mud, to wash
away footprints, clues, all the sandcastle
dreams we had constructed that afternoon,
though a few still survive upon the printed page.
Comment:
This is a ‘get well soon’ post for my friend, Chuck Bowie. Let us hope it gives him that little boost all artists need, when they feel a little bit down. An excellent writer, I am pleased to support his work and bring it to the attention of the readers of this blog. The poem, incidentally, is taken from my own book, The Nature of Art and the Art of Nature.
Chuck and I met at St. Andrews, on the beach, and spent a pleasant hour or two discussing both art in general and the structure and characters of this book in particular.
Was that really in June, 2019, more than five years ago, when he was resident artist at KIRA? So many tides have risen and fallen since then. So much water has gathered and flowed. Vis brevis, ars longa – life is short, but our art outlives us – long may both authors and their art survive and flourish!
A Touch of Frost
1
Cooler nights
have brought
a touch of frost
to higher ground.
At night,
temperatures fall.
By day,
they build.
I watch as Autumn,
finger on lips,
tiptoes
through the garden.
2
With a wave of its wand,
winter threatens.
A gust of wind
swirls the leaves,
bears tufts of snow
dancing round the tree.
I watch
as my grandchild grows,
my child grows older.
She has a gentle
touch of frost,
a grey fringe
at the curl’s roots.
When I glance
in the mirror,
I see the full effects –
drifts of snow
gathered on my head.
I look
at my beloved.
Her hair –
a crab apple tree
in full spring bloom.
Comment:
Nice to add a new poem of my own to this poetry page. Today’s poem came as a result of discovering Moo’s painting – A Touch of Frost. Painting and poem, painter and poet – a great collaboration.
rogermoorepoet 