Be kind.
Achieve wisdom and exercise that skill.
The world has always been filled
With angry greedy people.
You cannot legislate them away,
Or hope that they will die out.
The world has always relied on people
Who are kind and wise,
To act as counterbalances to these others.
Unfortunately, the World supply of angry greedy people
Appears to be limitless,
So there will always be a need for kindness and wisdom.
You might just save the world.
Pandering to my Inner Vagabond, here…
If I could just wave a wand,
I would wander the world.
With my notebook in hand,
And a bag on my back.
I would sleep under hedges,
In hotels and haylofts.
Drink beers under trees,
And eat cheese on the moor.
I’d watch clouds over hilltops,
And boats on the ocean.
Shapes and shadows at sunset,
A moon with a view.
And I’d write trivial poems
Of snowfall and sunlight,
Birds singing at dawn
And the sounds of a stream.
There’s the lure of a skyline,
And skylarks above me,
Wine and wood smoke my welcome
At the end of the day.
To travel, to journey,
There’s magic in wandering
Over moorland and downland,
Through woods and through fields.
The world’s full of wonders
All waiting for wanderers.
Let me follow these paths
For as long as I can.
I have decided to absent myself from WordPress World for a while.
I frequently need to take a large step back from the world and give myself some time and space to re-charge my batteries, and also to think deeply about the importance I attach to whatever is going on in my life at the moment.
Those things that cause stress tend to assume a greater importance than they probably deserve to, while the things I do for my own pleasure tend to make me feel unreasonably guilty about giving them the time that others might want.
While there is so much going on, and so little time, I seem able to devote less and less of it to either writing blogs or following others. I have noticed I am leaving far fewer comments, and tending to skim read far more than I used to.
Clearly, I need a break.
But while I am doing that, I mean to write a number of blog posts without feeling under pressure to finish them by some sort of deadline, so that when I reappear I might have something to post that is worth reading.
Hopefully, I will be able to make progress on my book, short stories and poems.
And the odd painting or two.
See you later.
Take one photograph, play around with it a little, create 3 new ones, all different.
Add some autumn haiku, since it’s almost spring.
That was fun.
Yellow maple leaves
Rattling wildly in the wind –
Autumn’s prayer flags
Obsession with time
Is climbing trees in autumn
To get down the leaves.
The last yellow leaf
Hovers above the brambles
Waiting for the wind.
Inspiration, writers’ block, ideas…I could write about all or any of these topics. Instead, I thought I’d simply post another poem – plus, of course, a picture (with far better weather than we’re having here) – and let it do the job instead.
I’m a collector of images long stored in my memory,
A desert inferno of razor-sharp rocks.
A mountain breeze rippling an icy cold puddle,
Thick mists and thin soups, flowers, trains, and old shoes.
I’m a collector of memories, both mine and ones borrowed,
The harrowing journey, the lovers’ first kiss.
There’s betrayal and loyalty, flatulence, hope,
There’s a child being born, and a wolf at the door.
I’m a collector of stories, the stranger the better,
Believable, odd, and ridiculous too.
Close to home or historical, alien, fanciful,
Some to keep secret and some I can tell.
I’m a collector of moonbeams and of chance reflections,
A collector of sadness and bittersweet pain.
A collector of strangely shaped stones in a circle,
And dreams that tell stories I don’t understand.
I happened on a notebook of poems I’d written some twenty to twenty five years ago.
My style has changed somewhat in the intervening years, and most of them seem rather poor now. One or two of them I still like, though, and I think I’ll put them up here now and again.
This one is just called Rain.
I hurried down the road before the storm
– this must be six or seven years ago –
Still silhouettes for trees within the mist,
Around ahead behind me dull and grey.
The air was chilled
And in the hills the thunder growled,
A tiger prowled,
In the high forests of the Weald.
A hundred miles away my cottage refuge,
A forlorn hope now far beyond the deluge.
Sharp blue electric yellow split the air,
A crack like washing harried by the wind.
Then came swollen lazy drops of water,
Beachballs of rain exploding all around.
Dull chattering
The pattering of rain on tiles
After the miles
I’d run through forests of the Weald.
The sound of distant gunfire possibly,
I closed my eyes to see where I might be.
Last night I was lucky enough to attend a great evening of performance poetry at The Java Bean cafe in Tunbridge Wells, for the launch of the new pamphlet by Louisa Campbell, a member of my local writing group.
Supported by published poets Ira Lightman and John McCullough, both of whom gave great performances, Louisa’s was easily the standout set for me.
A natural performer, she read a selection of poems from The Happy Bus, Published by Picaroon Poetry, which is a collection she describes as ‘charting the journey through anxiety and depression and on to peace and joy’.
This is not to suggest that her poetry is all dark, for that is certainly not the case. Each one bristles with hope and determination, and frequently humour – for Louisa does humour very well – and had the audience frequently chortling (we chortle a lot in Tunbridge Wells. We also chunter about stuff, but there was none of that last night).
And, let’s face it, how often do you get to see a poet declaiming a couple of their poems in a wolf onesie?, or getting an audience in Tunbridge Wells to yell out a chorus of ‘Bugger!’?
Below, an extract from the pamphlet:
To get your copy, click on either of the links below.
My humble, grovelling apologies for my lamentable lack of activity recently. Busy, busy, busy…and so little time. And at my age, too. Shouldn’t be allowed. So I’ll just pop up one of my dubious poems (that’s dubious as in merit, rather than taste) as a peace offering, and I’ll try and catch up with a few of the blogs I follow…tomorrow.
I’m a bit tired now…
The Praising Purple Prose Poem
Purple prose that nobody wants,
Can find a home
In my poem.
These offcuts and discarded words,
Too rich for others to use,
Are just what I need for my poem.
Here on the dusty floor,
This is Just what I was looking for,
For my poem.
I’m collecting it up,
If you’re throwing it out,
And I’m slotting it into
My poem.
Give it to me,
I can put it just there
Between those two lines,
Of my poem.
Too rich for their taste?
Well, it won’t go to waste,
In my poem.
Since that flowery tone,
Is just like my own,
In my poem.
Alliterative, flowery, rollicking lines,
The sort that Dylan Thomas would write;
I’ll give them a home,
In my poem.
Be gentle with me, dear reader.
Moon
With the click of the door closing,
The laughter and the clink of glasses
Has faded,
Evaporated,
and left…
…nothing.
I face the shadowed lawn,
In tidal grey and scattered silver.
Pulling my collar up, and,
Pushing my hands down,
Deep into my pockets,
I crunch down the driveway
As if crushing ice cubes beneath my feet,
Until I reach the street, long emptied and dark,
And now shuttered.
And stop.
Around me,
A sharp silence swirls
Like my misty breath;
A press of ghosts at an invisible bar.
Then looking up,
Through frosted glasses,
I see a perfect slice of lemon moon
In a cold, gin-clear sky.
And I laugh.
I will be away all next week, but I’ll reply to any comments before then and, of course, when I return.
What is it about the internet and kittens, for goodness’ sake? There are far too many pictures of them.
Okay, that’s too provocative. Let’s move on.
She Who Dislikes Being Referred To This Way has been away for a few days. I had presumed that I would sleep better without the snoring, and the duvet being constantly pulled off me, but I was wrong.
For some reason, I’ve not slept particularly well at all.
Perhaps it was the wild parties I’ve no idea why not.
I had intended to begin a painting, maybe even get it finished, but although I carefully planned said painting, even finding a few resource pictures to use, once I sat down in front of the paper, it just refused to happen. My mind went completely blank and my enthusiasm kicked the wall sulkily for a few moments and then ran out of the house sobbing.
Oh well, back to the writing.
I did have a few ideas for short stories and, because I know how to use my time both productively and wisely, immediately started writing two of them, as well as continuing with both the novels I’m writing. That’s what you’re meant to do, right? Isn’t it?
Oh, and a poem.
And, of course, I need to do research for all the various Tales In Process. Isn’t it amazing what a little bit of research throws up?
Here are just a couple of little snippets, a few gobbets of curiosity, that I have come across recently while researching topics in medieval Persia and India, for use in my #1 Novel In Progress, The Assassin’s Garden.
All of the prostitutes in Fatephur Sikri, India, during the short time that it was Akhbar’s capital, were kept in an area just outside the city called ‘The Devil’s Quarter’.
You do get sidetracked, of course, but perhaps that will be an integral part of the plot? Possible spoiler alert?
I wouldn’t like to say.
And at one point, there is a long journey undertaken in my book, by caravan.
‘Caravan’ is a Persian word, I discover. That seems appropriate. In some parts of Persia they would travel by day and rest by night.
In others, the reverse was true. Something to do with the temperature, I expect.
In the nineteenth century, there were caravans that existed just to transfer corpses to holy cities for burial. These disappeared in the early twentieth century, largely due to better understanding of how diseases spread!
And, obviously, I mean the caravans that are chock full of camels and traders and an ill-assorted collection of ne’er-do-wells, not the wretched giant metal boxes blocking ninety percent of our roads as soon as the weather shows even the faintest promise of a few hours of sunshine.
But enough of caravans, for now, I’ve got some words to beat into shape.
Oh, and there are still people who would prefer pictures of kittens?
Mick Canning 