ANOTHER DAY... U.K. NATIONAL POETRY DAY 4TH OCTOBER 2007
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Waiata Dawn Davies New Zeeland |
Kaye Aldenhoven Northern Australia |
Philip Johnson Northwich, Cheshire. England |
Tammara Or Slilat Arbel, Lower Galilee, Israel
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Jim Bennett Wallasey, England |
Catherine Kanaan London, England |
Sally James Edenfield Nr Ramsbottom, Lancashire, England |
Stuart Nunn Chipping Sodbury, England |
Paul Blake London |
Louise Jones Wolverhampton, England |
Angela Keaton Hoylake, England |
Caroline Davies Wing, Buckinghamshire, England
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Mick Moss Liverpool, England |
Bob Cooper Nunthorpe, United Kingdom |
Sherry Pasquarello Pittsburgh, PA, USA |
Barbara Philips Toronto, Canada |
Gary Blankenship Bremerton, WA, USA
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Morning
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6.45am
I thought the morning colours
would be singing for this day
deep throated reds, high
voiced yellows choir like
on the skyline, but no
Morning is holding its breath
wrapped in pearl
waiting for our poems.
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6.15a.m.
Morning on Poetry Day
I wake too early my pup still lolls on my bed my grandsons will arrive later they’ll write and draw on the big table on the cool verandah
at that table my family celebrated my seventh birthday, then Christmas 1951. Mum decorated the damask cloth with grape leaves and cherries - imitating red and green of English holly
this morning I’ll eat my porridge at this blackwood table listening to boys chatter but now, I’m listening to birds waking in my Macarthur palms
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7.40 a.m. Rest day from work so am up early and ready to set off to training session in Sandbach
Moving and Handling
sometimes I feel Like I am trapped married to the job
her hands are all over me
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8:40 a.m
"Darling, Rise and shine…" My virtual lover wants me to cyber with him. "It would be a shame not to make use of this lovely morning erection" he coaxes me. I look at the screen. He certainly wasn't lying. A warm tingling wave ripples on my skin, leaving goose bumps as it subsides Like small shells on the shore line. Strange How we've developed new ways of making love, creating passion without meeting, attraction without bodies, satisfaction without organs… but still I'm dying here, dying to meet him face to face, body to body to feel his warm skin, breath him deeply, taste his sweat… No screen can give you that. Ever.
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8.15 a.m.
I have been awake a little while
dog walked and fed
now I'm just sitting
looking out across the garden
the trees still green
just starting to show
the first turn of Autumn
a breeze shifts the branches
sunlight mottles the ground
from the utility room
the sound of a fast spin cycle
and in the kitchen
the kettle clicks off
I think I may have
five more minutes
before I have to get moving
just time to read the emails
and to write a snapshot
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8.00 a.m.
ugh |
8.30 a.m. A new day dawns
The grey dawn whispers to me “Go back to sleep, your dreams will have more colour than this day.”
“But I see a ribbon of pink among your wisps of clouds.” I reply. “I see summer flowers still blooming a pine tree pointing upwards forever green trails of an aeroplane comb your hair changing your curls into waves.”
“Ah,” she whispers back “You only look east, look west and you will see how grey I am smell the dampness in my air and listen there are no birds singing.”
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8.30 a.m.
Don Giovanni in the gym – a Walkman poem
The rapist on the rowing machine eyes Zerlina on the bike. (Mazetto’s in the weights room with Leporello,
who, tattoo’s flexing, is working on his pecs). Donna Elvira’s tee-shirt (pink and sparkly) says she’s going to try something different.
Mad – mad as you have to be to work here, but Giovanni likes the cut of her tights. Me –
I’m the Commendatore this morning, turned to stone already, ready for breakfast and my overdue revenge.
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5.30
waking alone -
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Morning
Woke up on the third call,
the clock won't do another dely,
so it screaches me awake.
The sun is breaking through
cracks in the curtains.
Spotlights of dust.
My head thick
with last nights wine
and getting late to bed.
Today is National Poetry Day
and I will be going
out later to hear some poets
reciteing poems
in the coffee shop.
For now
I have to drag myself awake.
Clear my head with a coffee
and a drag.
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Post Script once-in-a-lifetime artist travelled to Ukraine captured forever scrapped plans because of silt join fight against miners a killer had not been heard of taxis with special needs are nothing like aircraft the only exit is blocked with yellow and green ribbons missed the chance to be a hoax a floating tree trunk created a stink I kept asking after a crash why the result expected to open up a promised iconic alternative a band of dust swirled around a star |
10 a.m. Splinter
I'm awoken early. Some passing noise The glass milk being delivered to the doorstep below the bedroom window. I try to grope back into the dream of friends, some pub somewhere but the name of the pub and sleep eludes me. Too soon the radio announces Seven o'clock and the day rushes on.
The bed is full of boys. The forefinger of my left hand is full of pus. a three week old splinter or not even that a fragment of a year dead bramble tip that caught my hand. Should have done something about it sooner. Throb.
Over breakfast I hold the throb in a bowl of hot salty water. You lance it with the sharp tip of your Swiss army penknife The children squabble. You tell me to phone the doctors. Talk reassuringly about antibiotics. Throb.
Our elder son practises keyboard in the front room. The TV is switched off but will soon come back on. I leave the house before my usual deadline. A flurry of goodbyes. Kisses. 'Hope your finger gets better'. Throb.
I drive to work surrounded by autumn. Trying to notice trees and the stuff that inspired Keats but even the sunlight isn't helping. The day rushes on. If only I'd done something earlier.
Used a sharp needle.
The line of Rowans greet me on my way into
the office.
Must remember to ring the surgery
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Prelude
fuzzy liquid crystal wobbles vaguely in the darkness while a battered brain deciphers three sixteen, oh god but the bladder bids me to the bathroom where I sit and watch a wedge of light arc across the carpet as the door slowly closes a weak beam looking for the Luftwaffe though it only finds my toes curled up like baby bears I flush and shuffle back to bed ---------------
Morning
Wake up and cough the smelly as the particles of consciousness come back to me in random pattern an explosion in reverse they settle in and take their rightful place as bit by bit the mind makes sense of all these disparate elements that form a sort of logic although it takes a while it all comes back to me the who and where the hell I am the things I have to do today the phone calls and the meetings and the hundred other time consuming details of a busy life but all I really want to do is get back to the arms of Ingrid Bergman which is odd because I don’t remember dreaming her.
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The Fridge Poems (on National Poetry Day 2007) Written 8.20: Inside are yoghurt pots I could crack apart peel a lid and taste cool smoothness, a flavour. In the lush cherry purple I lick the shape of a poem. |
7:30 a.m. pittsburgh pa.
the sun hasn't brightened yet
pale at the end of my street
it moves slow
i match it
heating leftover coffee
cutting a slice of bran bread
cutting a pill in half with a pill splitter
the blue matches my robe
odd that.
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NPD 07 AM
muted dawn slips on fog no trumpets blow as inertia seduces one to lie on leaves sliding into melted gold
but errands must be run agendas honoured, help granted as morning falls into urgencies while I regret my coffee is cold
but it’s not about the coffee it’s the mist that pillages words which weave vibratos along the boughs of my harried mind
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0753
there is no connection this morning no way to tell if there was an earthquake I did not feel to access damage from the hurricane that blew away the neighbor’s umbrella to check whether I won a contest I did not enter
to receive poems written earlier this NPD I one of the last before the vast uncharted Pacific sea
nothing to do but solitaire and the same news as nearly every other day
reboot?
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| Afternoon |
12 Noon
The sun should be overhead but
all I see are silver clouds above
grey stone banks and green
pasture where five hundred
dairy cows line up ready to
stroll to the milking shed.
They are noisy to-day because
their calves have been weaned,
heifers to the feeding tray while
bull calves wait for the stock truck
to take them to the works.
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Afternoon
Returning home from rock-climbing a movement in the sink catches my eye, as movement attracts the eyes of predators It's too dark for a gecko
It's too long for a gecko a perfect miniature monitor - Meerten’s monitor, newly hatched attracted by the smell of raw pork
tiny jaw gapes wide an attempt to bluff me dorsal skin starred like the Milky Way underbelly spotted with tiny dark flowers
My grandson releases it into our garden to hides under coconut debris. How did this beautiful goanna get into my kitchen? |
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3 p.m.
Cinnamon, curry, black pepper and ginger, The slow-cooked chicken pronounced its fragrance clearly, the pile of steaming rice, rich with scented moisture, orange carrots and green peas wallowing in its golden luxury, a once-in-a-life-time salad concocted by my nephew, who studies to be a chef, made of lettuce, herbs, pomegranate, blue cheese, zucchini and I have to check my recipe book for what else, the proud smile of my brother, the happy faces of all, my tummy purring with satisfaction, the dogs gobbling on the leftovers, outside the afternoon breeze fluttering the leaves and the Arbel cliff, 400 meters above the Kinneret looms out against the pale turquoise sky, melting past and future into the Now.
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12.30
back home beaten my way through the traffic ready to record an interview but in the silence before the phone call take a few minutes to read a few more pages
I left George and Lenny on the hillside again I know what will happen I have trodden this road with Steinbeck many times
I want to leave them there on that evening before they move down to the ranch
sometimes I think about that camp the inevitability of what will happen the way they are held captive to the writers will
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1 p.m.
lunch menu 1.30
the long kiss goodbye
I watched geena davis killing
bad guys on tv last night
one tough cookie
it’s christmas
I watched the boob tube
3 hours yesterday
so figured I’d better
crank this out
help help
I’m drowning
in sorrows
one aging acquaintance to another
bless you
dearest
I thought
you’d died
how lovely to see you in the flesh
the day is grim and grey
even the sun is pale
when it sheepishly
emerges for its requisite
hour
then effaces
behind a cloud
I fell like a ton of bricks
at your feet
you stand red with fury
in the middle of the road
gio told me he panicked
sometimes at the thought
of dying
he’s 8
roya came for a ticket
to the antiques fair
she’s as highly strung
as my piano
fabiola came with my keys
she complains that her husband
follows her
I try to write in between visits
try to push through the old words
I want to get out
help help
I’m drowning in sorrows
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1.30 p.m.
It is early afternoon, the sun smiles and mocks the dawn’s mutterings. The day has dried like a clean sheet blown dry in autumn’s glow. Still the birds are silent but my dogs
lounge in the
Slowly brightness is filling the room where I write words flow instead of rain
Make my eyes seep into shadows and my cheeks wet. |
3.15 p.m. Edge
They knew, that unnamed gang who made this camp, how much an edge can give you. Height to look down from, backs against the hills,
as though to brace your spine. Distance to see beyond the land you know, to where things turn misty, Welsh, uncertain.
Did Tyndale, clerking a living here, see how far he had to go, the fire in the end? Those six who left for France, they must have known
that he – or he – or he – wouldn’t come back. And yet they did, to this fortunate village,* one of the few with no memorial to the fallen.
Gowen, Grivell, Leach, Taylor, Warren, Weare: (oh, what a lout the Gowen I tried to teach!) commemorate their place – here – on the edge |
1
p.m.
Cloud processions
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12.15
The poets read their poems and left me a bit cold words for the sake of it nothing more but here at the computer it all seems to have a purpose
I am going to the cafe tonight to read a poem when everyone has gone
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Lunch Times falling equipment covers up crossfire unseen pictures set out beliefs let people pass judgement resolve their issues uncontested relationships deteriorate acrimonious break up remains common counter criticisms not grounded in family life are vastly underestimated from witness accounts orgy in bushes limits cuddling there was no evidence failed asylum seekers were cleared of false imprisonment lots of populist measures under the bonnet turn it into a hundred day marathon
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13.30pm
On the roof
I've escaped onto the roof garden leaving the sad people eating sandwiches at their desks. No one comes up here. The door is supposed to be locked. After a cleaner tried to jump off. Probably a cry for help.
Only the toughest plants survive on the roof Sedums bleached to a pale yellow Sweet pungent scent of sage and a sea of pebbles reminiscent of a beach. The day rushes on. Soon I'll have to go to my meeting. For now I'll sit.
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Afternoon 14.01
Well it’s NPD in Britain and Cultural Heritage Day in Europe Serbia has the chair and wants to emphasise they celebrate their cultural diversity how times have changed except here where the posties are on strike and the jury watch ten year old video of Dodi and Di pissed as farts in a lift in order to decide the final verdict it’s 50 years since Sputnik Nigerians are busted for the biggest internet scam ever and school uniforms cost too much I’ve just written a scene for a movie that will never be made but you have to do something I guess.
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Written 12.39: In the fridge tray I feel the lettuce's crisp words tomatoes brightness, a firm yellow pepper and my pen a knife considering touch. |
11.30 a.m.
lunch decisions
poking around the fridge
opening cupboards and waiting
for
what?
not sure
can't decide
come back to my keyboard
a bit more political blogging
too full of baloney
not hungry anymore.
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NPD 1:00 PM 07
leaves exude toast aromas luxuriate wantonly on pathways through the park lit by fall expectations
tail twitching signals two grey squirrels streak carelessly around the sentinel fountain
in the yarn store colours sing eden harmonies urge outpourings of giddy arias
street cacophony clamours as omnipresent hues celebrate exuberantly and in fenced shaded gardens impatiens loom complementary waves
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1300
on the deck in the sun nearly asleep
a squirrel runs along the fence
mouth full of peach pits prunes
his quiet harvest can’t disturb my nap
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| Evening |
5.45 p.m.
My neighbour's chimney smoke
blows east above the newly
clipped pine hedge. Her yellow tulips
nod to the pansies, like celebrities
condescending to urchins.
The scent of woodsmoke
lingers because the farmer
has burned an old hedge
without a thought of
global warming or carbon footprints.
The sun shines through
my windows at last. Between
the grape vine and my porch railing
glistens the biggest orb web
in the world.
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it’s past 8 o’clock
are all those boys in their beds it’s past eight o’clock?
Well two are in their beds and one in mine. He’ll be too heavy to shift so I guess I’ll be sharing with a small boy, and that exhausted pup who now dozes, dreaming of catching up, her sweet muzzle on my clean feet waiting.
the glass lantern with its tiny candle light flickers on the chest, carried in from the pool, where it supplemented the meager light of the Milky Way arcing the gap between dark palms
a balmy breeze lightly stirred the trees in the most romantic way as boys played water rugby.
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17:20
Where on earth do they come from,
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16.30
Climbing up the Arbel we saw a group (definitely tourists – light complexion, knee length trousers, excited smile) hurrying up the cliff with long strange parcels. Never seen anything like it, so we hurried in their wake. At the top of the cliff, the Kinneret lying calmly 400 meters down, the Golan heights pinking away in the sunset, they spread brightly colored wings and started fluttering them, I was sure they would vanish into the thin air the moment I reached them, but they kept on swaying their flags and explained with a smile of Christian compassion that they were praying to God. Indeed, they couldn't have Found a better spot to get closer to God.
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5.45 p.m.
finished for now seven schools in four hours identical readings anonymous school halls countless children packed in for "The Visit"
hundreds of children's faces identical questions but no time to stop and chat always getting on to the next one
maybe touched one or two enough to make it worthwhile the man from the education who drove me round said he though it went well
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6.15 p.m.
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Evening
My cheeks are dry now the sun is sinking westwards. My eyes have cast their shadow on the old bruise of sunset. EPlanes still scratch the pale blue sky their vapour trails criss crossing bleed into a lather of clouds. Now birds chirp as the day shortens fly from the dull grey of a slate roof. There are echoes of stars in this early twilight, the rustle of dead leaves along cobbled paths, and on the slope of the hill one black sheep grazes among the white as day and night begin to mingle. |
8.40
Athletic Club
Under floodlights, they run the daylight away. Despite all jokes, this is serious stuff, to do with faster, higher, stronger.
Perfectibility’s the name of this game. See Jo, married a fortnight, dragging a tyre; see Greg and Darren, the sculptured brothers,
faster than looks possible from where I stand. See Tom. Is that determination in his eyes different since his dad’s heart attack last week?
I was never like these children – hated sport, but longed to understand. Well – too late now for more than talking a good race over beer.
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7.30 p.m.
Dark now again, and I hear
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5.00
I need to write something but I also need to get out to the chemist it is hard trying to write "in the moment" as my guru said when life is what is happening and every moment has its pressing need
Tam will be round later will want to get into bed with me
there will be no time for poetry then just sweat and grind and that thing he does that hurts
today I bought a book of poetry this is the first I have ever actually owned since I was a child and I desperately want to sit down and read it
I have had library books over the past few months and gone through lists of poets people have suggested but this was something I bought
it was liberating, that's the word as liberating as writing poetry
but for now its the chemist and William Carlos Williams will have to wait just a little longer |
Voice of Evening |
Evening
Come home to a house tick with dust Forgotten a French friend was fitting windows in the front room Radiators blaze heat though the open door Children run up and down the stairs Ask if we can keep the old window to build a den Their father says yes. |
18.00
Boggling number of poems speed read can’t do them justice but remarkable that out there in the world where we are wherever we are we are in touch at the touch of keyboard and mouse I find that comforting so now to the pub for another dose of verbiage masquerading as art
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Written 4.39: Although I can't see you you're the words that are in there on packets, yoghurt pots, milk cartons, and does the light come on and you select yourselves to make and arrange on each shelf a deep, who will read, ever so cool gleaming poem.
Written 4.58: |
5:30 p.m.
early evening late afternoon
in pittsburgh
makes no difference
we are 10 years behind time
here in our little fiefdoms
city states bound by
2 rivers that flow
into 1
time goes by
the evening crickets are early
dinner will be late
it makes no difference.
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6:30 PM
a cardinal squawks at the feeder he hops impatiently on a branch as black gold of sunflower seeds pour into his grail while the squirrel twitches
I leave them to their gourmand rivalries breathe in heady sweetness of still warm air welcome but not often expected in October but I can sense frost that lurks just behind
heavy ruby hips of the rose that trembles thorny branches arc wantonly over the gate as if to welcome the lover that comes not soon enough or comes only in mists of pendulous memories
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1600
on the way along the shore road to visit a friend whose father passed last night
construction I’ve never noticed
megahouses where simple family homes stood new streets for super-developments patches of forest bulldozed for houses made of ticky-tacky
where will the squirrels live the jays?
where will the peasant call the deer trail?
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| Night |
9.34 p.m.
No moon to-night,
a warm fire,
a hot drink,
Schubert on CD
a new detective story
But you're not here.
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00.00 finally, I understand what
poets do |
Night
So now that the last guest has given me the final hug, the fatal kiss, I remain, sole ruler of my beautiful new house, to reign over the empty rooms of my daughters: the eldest called me from Nepal yesterday, my youngest is busy organizing a field trip in the youth movement, and the hollow look on my dead son's face as he watches over me, calling the dogs in, closing the shutters, hoping for a dreamless night. |
11.00 p.m.
the house is growing quiet in another room the TV is on Charlie follows me through the kitchen out into the garden
the sky is clear the stars and planets visible I think of all the poems today shining in my mind like stars across the sky
all the people who wrote them some I may never meet I think about the last time we did this
Charlie rubs this head against my hip looks up at me
his eyes full of wild poetry
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9.44 p.m.
I walk home from my son's house |
Night
This night is a black curtain so strong not even stars can pierce the coarse fabric of sky and from the half faced moon not even a flicker can be seen. There is mist hovering on bare branches, clammy twigs are dead men’s fingers groping in the hedgerows. I feel a dampness in the air as if the sweat of the day’s sun had opened every pore of soil. Night creatures will scurry in the wasteland of my sleep but it has been a good poetry day and angels will lighten the darkness where no stars shine.
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10.30
National Poetry Day
A day like any other? No, not quite. Book read: ‘Sick Puppy’: Carl Hiaasen. Music listened to: Mozart, Shostakovitch, ‘Jacky Wilson Said’.
A day Descartes would have understood, when poetry and physical effort both made the running. Exercise and brain.
The sun shone, and the Cotswold edge was lovely. Edward Thomas must have walked that way. Tyndale too. And those six volunteers.
Meanwhile, my friends demonstrate the body’s frailty. Roger dead two weeks ago. Bill and Joan, both heart attacks. My best friend, Tony,
in that distant hospital, half his blood spilled, leg hacked, re-made – please providence – made good by surgeon’s skill.
So how to sum it up, this Poetry Day? I ran and walked, fashioning language as I went, and knowing I was not alone.
Food cooked and eaten with love in sunshine; streets, fields and lovers, the pleasures of life poured out all day to follow the sun.
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22:40.
Night. No words. No
special poetry
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Midnight
thank God for KY Jelly and William Carlos Williams and computers and a life that starts to mean something
I don't want to write poetry like I heard at a cafe today I want to write it well not the quick rhyme fell in slime anything goes if you have the time rubbish that means nothing
I just read the Road to the Contagious Hospital and The Red Wheel Barrow I am listening to the PK CD and I have been reading over poems from all round the world
and now I can't stop crying because it has been there all my life and I didn't know
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Newsnight
Vikings were here
I can't stress strongly enough
pathways are turning into rivers
on the second day
the move will bring end
to our commitment
into treatment of witnesses
of a psychological thriller
hangs in the balance
contrasting but related
family connections
a wonderful part of our heritage
that I took as a joke
forgotten and neglected
not life threatening
the journey began
the book is here
in the shoes or sleeping bag
all are welcome
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Night - 0.43 - Liverpool
Back pissed oops missed the deadline story of my life
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Written 6.25: Boiling rice for the chilli con carne - will it swell into a poem? |
11.00 p.m.
11.00 p.m. pittsburgh and
3 chicken wings and
2 rum and diets
seven of us
as the evening wore on
the music loud
laughter louder
easy drive home
radio low
scrubbed face
striped silk nightshirt
and all of you.
to kiss goodnight.
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11:30 PM
I am high on words on poems read on poems yet to be written and yet to be read
and this I know to be true before I sleep tonight –
exhilaration is reading a blizzard of poems no one I know has quarrelled today happiness can be an extraordinary lingering summer day tomorrow is my twins’ birthday celebration is love love is celebration
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10/4/2007 Bremerton, WA, USA 2130
headache and chills early warning the misery looms three weeks before flu shots available
too under the weather to care about CSI’s gore Mad Men’s manufactured nostalgia any Survivor
or poetry shot round the world
tomorrow early enough to post the last to pen the final
comments beyond the horizon
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| PS |
P.S.
a wash of words
ideas
images
from many places
even the "other side of midnight"
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PS
I'm sitting on my sofa gazing |
P.S.
pages
already yellowing
yesterdays news
overlaid
by today's scandals
yesterday's people
still
bleed and grieve and laugh
post
poetry day
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PS In the night, maybe, I dreamed I wrote a poem then woke to find I had. |
Other Single Poems
| Paul Blake |
Maureen Weldon Cheshire, England |
Jonathan Shaw | M.V. Pozar |
| Midday
Observations upon some Words of Mr Sean
O'Brien, Poet, on his Receiving
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Morning
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Annandale Street Inside the aircon's hum, outside the westerly's -- Ahead, brittle leaves dancing behind a blue car's tyres -- A plastic bag full of wind springing green branches half a news-spread crossing the bitumen -- 34 degrees on the dashboard Sky tinged purple with haze. |
Discarded Remains
A fall from the shelf |