Less Said

the cure

2011-11-29T05:10:00.001-08:00

the cure
for having your heart broken
is having your heart broken again

eventually your heart is in so many pieces
that it stops hurting

once this has happened
gather up all the pieces
and burn them

if you listen carefully
and wait for long enough
you may hear among the desicant
the tiny pulsing smile
of a new heart

There used to be a poem here

2011-09-23T12:45:00.001-07:00

There used to be a
poem here. Reward offered
for safe return.

The ONE essential pre-requisite of a poem

2011-07-05T05:14:00.001-07:00

The ONE essential pre-requisite of a poem is that is says something which needs saying. Nothing else matters as much. It can be beautiful, or funny, or scary. But unless it says something that needs saying, then regardless of how beautifully it is crafted, it is still going to be unnecessary wordage.

Salsa lessons

2011-04-20T13:42:00.001-07:00

(1)

It is not as though over there
is more important than over here.

The only reason that we went over there was
so that we could have fun coming back over here.

It turns out that the dance is more entertaining
if you keep changing your mind.

(2)

It is not as though close together
is better than further apart.

If we hadn't moved apart we couldn't
have come together.

It turns out that the dance is more entertaining
if you keep changing your mind.

Whereas

2011-04-20T06:00:00.000-07:00

Whereas compared to
non-existence, anything
is a bonus, huh?

Plotting the mathematical function of x-girlfriends [Gf(x)]

2011-03-24T05:18:00.000-07:00

Girlfriend x plus one
tends to get subjected
to the ornamental and furniture tastes
of girlfriend x
and the fashion choices
of girlfriend x minus one.

Girlfriend x had a smaller circumference,
possibly owing to the fact that she had a lower value for pie.

However girlfriend x plus one
has a much higher x-rating.

Perhaps we are three terms of an infinite yet bounded series:
an arithmetic progression
with an ever-smaller determinant.

We tend towards a place marked on our x-axes,
but our infinitesimals never quite add up
to the perfect integral of our thighs.

Although there is a limit
to the curve of their breasts,
we will only arrive there
when "why" tends to infinity.

The limit exists as an imaginary number:
the un-square root of minus one;
sometimes it is written as "i";

a point in Euclidean space
where love initially seems
to not be equal to anything,

but later
it turns out
that it is
equal to something
after all.

[Gf(x+1)]

[OfGf(x+1)=Gf(x)]

[FaGf(x+1)=Gf(x-1)]

[CGf(x) < CGf(x+1)]

In brackets

2011-03-17T04:55:00.001-07:00

Not any of these words belong to us,
not even that comma is really ours.
Nor that full stop.

I’m not sure who they do belong to;
perhaps the dictionary
or people who win poetry competitions
or layer upon layer of dead people.

In any case they inhabit us,
words of others’ choosing,
sentences of others’ design.

A horizonless grammar determining every moment
how we should think about everything,
even how to think about the grammar itself.

Secretly there is a horizon;
out beyond the edge of the wordable,
there are new lands of ecstasy that we have never before explored.

Come with me!
Set a trap,
designed so you cannot avoid understanding!

While no one is looking
see if you can’t squeeze a sentence in sideways.

Cut off the escape routes!
Then stick your foot in
and let the barbs tear the flesh from the bone!

If the trap works,
you will not have so much
to say about it.

The big advantage

2011-02-11T05:22:00.001-08:00

The big advantage
that being alive has
over being dead
is that you can Do Things.

Dead people cannot speak for themselves,
and because the present moment (now)
[I mean this present moment (now)
not that present moment (now) i.e. then]
is in many ways unpredictable,
it is a real benefit to be able to act in this present moment (now)
rather than having to anticipate all future present moments (thence)
(when I will be dead)
and take action now
with respect to them.

For example this poem
may very well no longer be
something I would wish to have my name associated with
by the time You get around to reading it.

But despite this
I confidently predict:
readers will still be saying,
"ah, yes! Bonkers Bindon."

About a bird (or two)

2011-02-06T08:49:00.001-08:00

[A fourty-four year-old body skips up Mellstock Avenue
just like it skipped down Mellstock Avenue
holding it’s mother’s hand
when it was a four year-old body.]

[I say "just like" ...
I mean, obviously the body is bigger and bulkier
but it is the same choreography
the same dance step;
the spring in each is the same joy;
a memory of how to make joyousness
imprinted onto it's flesh.]

For a moment I am insanely happy for no reason;
I try to think of a reason:
certainly I have every reason for being happy
(the boiler man only charged me twenty-five quid for a call-out)
but also every reason for being sad
(I just split up with my Very Attractive Girl-friend – quite possibly the prettiest girl I ever dated)

Somehow none of the reasons it can think of provide
sufficient explanation for my mood;

Glancing upwards at the dull grey 4 oclock clouds
plausibly seeking an answer from somewhere
outside itself
I gasp:

a huge multi-faceted flock of some bird
suddenly filling the February sky
as far as the next street on each side
coming together
breaking apart
composed of vast sub-flocks
a myriad of flapping nodes refract in all directions
while becoming the same direction
waves on a choppy sea
perhaps orchestrated by a professor of mathematics
they deliberately attempt to explicate
the principles of complexity theory

[It skips a little faster and little higher]
then I notice the adolescent girl
coming down the street towards me
and remembering fourty-four
[it slows into a brisk walk].

Probably
like your drunk uncle at a wedding
(drunk on being)
[in his mind he is dancing majestically
but he looks ridiculous
to everyone
else].

Open letter to God

2011-02-01T03:37:00.001-08:00

Lord, I pray,
please don't make me have to make
too many moral choices.

Don't make me have to choose
between the life of the mother and the unborn

Don't make me have to choose
between love and duty
or love and pleasure
or different kinds of love

Don't make me have to choose
between my son and my daughter

Don't make me have to choose
between courage and integrity

Lord, I pray,
I know it makes good television,
but couldn't you just spare me
some of the moral choices?

With love,
from your disobedient servant.
xxx

Of course I'm fucking depressed (a sonnet)

2011-01-13T07:13:00.000-08:00

Of course
I'm fucking depressed;
my life is shit.
Really,

what
do
you
expect?

Does that mean I need to be medicated?
No!
It means
I need

a less shit
life.

(Join me on the fight back against psychiatry!)

Badly written poem

2011-01-03T05:10:00.000-08:00

So as it turned out
I gave up all the good things in life
for the sake of a poem

and a badly written one, at that.

A future that's worth not fighting for

2010-11-15T02:46:00.000-08:00

(this is a poem by Andrew Bindon from the collection "Ecstatic union - our own fantasy in preference to someone else's" - 2nd Edition is out on Friday.
Here is a link to the text on PoetBay: A future that's worth not fighting for - On Remembrance Day
)

On Remembrance Day,
I remember the civilians who had bombs dropped on them
I remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki and napalm
I remember the children who lost their parents
and the parents who lost their children
I remember the justifications and lies told by politicians:
old lies, new lies,
from “dulce et decorum est” to “weapons of mass destruction”,
all flavours of lie, new lies for a new generation,
lies for every occasion,
whatever kind of lie takes your fancy.

On Remembrance Day,
I remember the courage of those who have refused to take up arms;
the courage to face up to the stigma of cowardice.
I remember the conscripts who were shot for refusing to kill or refusing to walk into a blood bath
I remember the stupidity of generals
the ulterior motives
the attempt to control of the world’s resources
the complicity of religious leaders,
I remember the profiteering of arms manufacturers
I remember the evil perpetrated by people who were
"only following orders",
or just doing their nine-to-five to feed their families.

On Remembrance Day,
I remember the pomp and circumstance that makes it all seem so glamorous.
I remember the foolishness of young men,
who bought the latest marketing for state sponsored killing and world domination,
who got sucked in by slogans like, “U.N. peace-keepers”,
“global policemen”, “preventing genocide and preventing ethnic cleansing”,
“standing up for the weak against the powerful” (failing to notice that it is us who are the powerful, and them who are the weak)

I remember the naivety of teenagers
who always wanted to drive a tank or a jet fighter and didn't think about what they might have to use it for,
who watched Top Gun too many times when they were kids,
who came from a military family and no one ever taught them any better,
who couldn't think of anything better to do with their lives than join up and suffered from an education system that failed to help them find anything,
who instinctively knew that uniform equals pussy.

On Remembrance Day,
I remember the future we could have
if we all simply refused to kill
if we all simply refused to take part in the killing
if we only ever played violent games with people who had consented to play them with us
if we gave up the option of using our superior military strength to dominate the world's flow of wealth and resources
if we refused to rise to the terrorists’ bait
and refused to fall to terrorists’ level
if we refused to waste our lives getting sucked into petty fights over who has the best ideology
or the best brand of mythic god,
or the most right to a particular plot of land,
if we stopped trying to make up for our laziness and boneheaded inability to innovate,
by stealing other countries oil and other natural resources,
which if we only would put our minds to it we could quite happily live without.

On Remembrance Day,
I remember the courage it takes to oppose the status quo:
That unquestioned social agreement that dying in horribly painful ways while obeying orders merits honour and respect and gratitude,
when actually it only merits sympathy or compassion;
the unquestioned assertion that I and my community benefit from “freedoms” that exist by virtue of the sacrifices the ones who have died made;
the courage it takes to refuse to honour or respect soldiering or terrorism of any kind and certainly not when it is voluntary.
I remember how that marks me out to be ostracised and derided;
how our society is oriented around the blind acceptance that war may be a dirty job, but someone has to do it, and they should be respected for that.

It does not require courage to fight;
it only requires our collective stupidity.
What requires courage is refusing to fight,
and refusing to honour people who do.
It requires courage to stand for the resolution of conflict
without recourse to violence,
when everyone around you is saying that is not possible.
Real courage requires facing up to the risk of vulnerability.
Real courage is something that the world is rarely witness to.
But every now and then
somebody, somewhere, adds their name
to the list of the truly courageous,
and puts their life on the line not to beat an enemy,
but to take a chance on the possibility of a new world.

So:

On Remembrance Day,
I remember what we could do with our lives if we lived in a world where violence only occurred between consenting adults.
I remember what could be possible if we used our creativity to make the world a better place.

And I remember a future that is worth not fighting for.

Dulce Et Decorum Est - Wilfred Owen

2010-11-11T13:40:00.000-08:00

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!---An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Right and wrong

2010-11-03T05:12:00.001-07:00

For a while you thought you were right.
But then you realized that you were wrong.
But then you realized that you were wrong to think that you were wrong.
And then you realized that you were wrong when you thought you were wrong to think that you were wrong.
These days you have no idea what to think.
But that’s alright.

Theory and Practice

2010-10-29T09:31:00.000-07:00

When Arthur realised he could experimentally prove or disprove
Albert's theory (that space-time is bent by the gravitational field of objects that lie within it)
by photographing (during an eclipse)
the light from a distant star as it bends round the sun,
he set off to Príncipe – an island off the coast of Africa,
to take the pictures.

Then he compared the same part of the night sky
when the sun was not there.

The greatest experimental physicist of his day
proving the theory of the greatest theoretician.

Practice and theory,
coming perfectly together.

So: that she
wants to get married in a balloon,
although I am terrified of heights,
makes complete sense to me.

After all it is closer to the stars
from which the key ingredients of our viability came
and from which comes most of the energy on our thin planet.

When 14 billion years ago the universe started,
it was either because there wasn't anything better to do,
or because it couldn’t help it,
or for some other reason or absence of reason.

But now 14 billion years later
her and me are up in a balloon,
the fat pair of us, a couple of random lives,
considering whether to promise to love each other until death.

I would love her until death anyway,
but previously you only had my word for that, whereas up here in the balloon,
you also have the evidence that I face my greatest fears
(that massive objects really do bend space-time),
in order to prove or disprove the theory of our love.

The light of a star,
the heat of a burner,
the weight of a sun,
the strength of a basket,
the shadow of a moon,
theory and practice,
Arthur and Albert,
her and me.

At the turning point where the light from a distant star,
passes around the sun,
there is a moment of complete stillness
where all these things hang in balance,
waiting to be proved or disproved,
while light decides whether to go along with General Relativity,
or stick to Newtonian Mechanics.

But just maybe,
once in a lifetime,
if you are very, very lucky,
and you just happen to be on an African island that lies under the moon’s shadow,
the universe will conspire in your favour,
space-time will decide that she does like being curved after-all,
and she will say “I do”.

Maybe

2010-10-18T05:02:00.001-07:00

Not merely being
a person but being a
particular person.
That is the extraordinary thing.

But now, one of my sentences is missing;
I used to have a thought
or a phrase
or at least there was a word,
(I’m sure of it).
There was a word that used to live:
between here …
and here.

Now there is only silence.

In a leap of faith
I attempt to refill the gap in my thoughts.

Sometimes
when you step out onto nothingness,
the ground beneath your feet
is created by your stepping.

And here as I step out onto the silence
I discover the word that I have forgotten.

A god-like word above all others:
a use-mention un-mistake:
it is the word: “maybe”.

Not just living in a universe,
but living in a particular universe.
That is the extraordinary thing.

Games of chance

2010-10-12T08:33:00.001-07:00

The love of my life
broke up with me on Friday
then on Monday I won back her heart
in a game of dice.

You see, we like games of chance,
she and I.
And sometimes when we have had intractable arguments
we have settled them with “Pass The Pigs”.

She was playing to be rid of me,
I was playing to keep her.
She played terribly badly; I beat her three games to nothing.
Although I have to admit that luck was not on her side.

It always did seem to me,
that she is far more than I deserve:
I guess sometimes in life
you just get lucky.

Let's make god tonight!

2010-09-25T10:20:00.000-07:00

What could god be?
If you were going to choose something for the word “god” to mean,
what would you choose?

What if “god” was a kind of relationship
that we could have with each other?
A kind of ecstatic union?

It may turn out to be the case that
making love
is more a work of art
than it is a work of science or philosophy.
Or at least as much art
as it is science.

I mean making love in the sense of:
making god.
I mean making god in the sense of:
“Lets make god tonight!”

When we make god,
when you and I make god with each other,
we become one with each other
we become as one with everything

This is why
despite how some philosopher’s like to tease us about it:
people like me tend to say that
god doesn’t exist until we make her
in our relationships.

Silenced

2010-09-13T03:51:00.000-07:00

If you do what you’re meant to do
That is to say: if you have children
(I don’t mean that you’re Really Meant to have children obviously)
(or not obviously)
(because "Who says" what you're Meant to do ET CETERA nonsense)
(but really we know Who Says)
(they all everyone they all do)
(so we know that although you can say that and be nice, we know you're lying)
(we know what we're meant to do)
(just like we know we're not meant to be FAT)
(even though it's supposed to be "ok" or ET CETERA)

As I was saying
IF
You do what you’re Meant To Do
And Have Children
Then you don’t need to worry, do you!
God isn’t going to forsake you for following your biological imperative, now is she!
(I don’t really mean God obviously, because I don’t believe in God)
(or not obviously)
But anyway
As I was saying
IFFFFF
You do what you’re Meant To Do
And Have Children
(not Really what you’re meant to do but what our biological imperative requires of us)
(but if that isn’t what you’re meant to do then what is?)
(after all if your parents hadn’t done their duty then you wouldn’t even have the choice)
(not Really duty obviously, because how could love ever be a duty)
(or not obviously)
THEN
You don’t need to worry do you:

Although Having Children may not be the right thing to do
It is certainly not the wrong thing to do:
No God in her right mind (not that she exists) is going to burn you in hell for eternity
(not that hell exists)
For following your biological imperative
And anyway you are leaving a legacy in the lives of your descendants,
so you can die happy.
You die, but They Survive.
So you can die happy.
Can’t you!
Yes!
You can.
Well done.

My point is that
IF
You do what you’re Meant To Do
And Have Children
THEN
You have the Smart Money on your side
Because Having Children is the Greased Shoot.
Why take that risk!
Why not just go ahead and do it!
Then you’re covered either way!
Either it doesn’t matter, in which case no problem.
Or it does matter, in which case you did What You Were Meant To Do.

It is those of us who Don’t Have Children who are the ones taking the risk
with their health and sanity and legacy.
They are the ones who really need to have their philosophy well worked out.
They are the ones who need Robust Philosophy,
because they are the ones who are swimming against the crowd.
No one is ever going to ask you to justify Having Children.
They will only ask you to justify Not Having Children.
So its the people who don't have them who need the Robust Philosophy.
See what I mean?

Because they are standing up against their biological imperative
(or else they are just Really Unattractive)
And refusing to breed
And what possible good reason is there for doing that!
I mean I ask you!
What possible reason could anyone have for Not Having Children!

Exactly.
Ok, yes, some of us just simply Are Really Unattractive,
And they should be forgiven – it’s not their fault, you see
But anyone who just isn’t breeding when they jolly well could be breeding
Is well
Is er
Is er well
What are they?
Remind me, can you?
What are they?

They are soon be become Silenced.

Restaurant notice board (haiku)

2010-09-04T13:20:00.000-07:00

Thanks for lying and
saying the food was good. My
boss says I must ask.

I hope I may be

2010-08-29T07:07:00.001-07:00

I hope I may be
a poet. Probably I
am delusional.

Always the same poem

2010-08-27T05:10:00.000-07:00

Although from time to time in my life,
I have told people I am a poet,
Whenever I have tried to write,
I only ever came up with One poem.

Its always the same poem,
same wretched poem,
same damned awful boring poem,
won’t leave me alone.

Says I haven’t got it right yet,
Needs another retelling,
Another new translation,
Into a different language.

Why it picked on me, I don’t know.
I hate it; I bare a lasting resentment.
Probably I should get counselling so the two of us can be reconciled.

I have a hunch I looked like an easy target,
When I was young, and all loved up.

It’s a stupid poem about everything, so no good for passing poetry exams:
They (the big they) always want poems about something:
S.T. in particular, S.T. very specific, as specific as possible, if not more so.
If you write about everything,

they never give you any gigs or prizes or slam trophies,
or readings on Radio 4 poetry please with Roger MgCough.
It’s a bit like life;
It starts with a dream, and ends with a choice.

Everything is (not) waiting for you

2010-08-11T06:12:00.001-07:00

I was going to reproduce a poem by David Whyte and link to his web site, but then I saw on his web site that he would want to charge me $50 for doing so. (A poem or even an excerpt is $50.)

What the great man is! Oh well.

Not content with making thousands from his business lectures and poetry tours, he expects cash for even as much as a paragraph.

So if you want to read the David Whyte poem I was going to post (and it is worth at least $50), I would just go somewhere like here:
http://www.panhala.net/Archive/Everything_is_Waiting.html

Or in the mean time you can enjoy this completely free paragraph instead:

Everything is (not) waiting for you.

The price of our meeting
(not so much as a handshake):

fifty dollars.

There must be something

2010-06-25T10:46:00.001-07:00

There must be something that is good about me;
no other explanation makes any sense;

it just doesn’t make any sense that I’m a complete waste of space.

Why would the universe go to all the bother of making me in the first place,
if there wasn’t something that I’m useful for?

… How to find out what it is?

I think that might be a pussy cat

2010-06-18T03:58:00.001-07:00

I think that might be a pussy cat
sitting on the grass in the sunshine two thirds of the way up the lawn with its back to me
but then again it might be a bucket
(my eyesight is not so good these days).

The sun shining off its back (cat or bucket) is almost dazzling.

The tail of the cat, or handle of the bucket (as case may be)
curls round contentedly.
Not surprising if the bucket is in fact a cat,
but curious if the cat is in fact a bucket.

Either the cat or the bucket is sitting up straight,
which I suppose for a bucket is not extraordinary,
and for a cat not uncommon either.

The bucket, if it is a bucket, has an artifact,
in just the place that a cat (if it is a cat) might have an ear.
And of course, if in fact the bucket is a cat,
it is not surprising that the cat has an ear in that place.

In conclusion,
either the cat looks like a bucket,
or the bucket looks like a cat,
or the sunshine is dazzling,
or the garden is beautiful,
or my eyesight is a tragedy.

But does it matter if the cat is a bucket,
or the bucket is a cat?

Death

2010-05-29T04:09:00.000-07:00

In the moments before death
I wanted to say the truth
but I did not know what it was

How can we say goodbye
to this extraordinary
unasked for mystery
that pretends itself
into every ordinary
crevice of experience?

The un-asked-for gift
is now asked for back

Death standing over me with a scythe
and a clipboard
looking slightly apologetic
"Erm… excuse me…
would you mind going now?"

I look up into his deep blue eyes
I lean towards him and put my arms around his broad shoulders
He winces slightly
Then I whisper softly with my cheek pressed against his:
"In the moments before death
I want to tell you the truth
but I do not know what it is"

Comment about a comment

2010-05-17T15:34:00.001-07:00

Its curious how we bare resentments
I mean its curious how I bare resentments
(and don’t expect I’m that unusual)

For example,
for example
there must be thousands of people just like “him”,
All over the country
All over the world
With their beautiful wives and beautiful children
And looking back on a life time as successful whatever
Having had 3 or 4 successful careers in 3 or 4 glamorous professions
And having done all this great stuff for the betterment of humanity
And
And
And

And I don’t hate any of those other thousands because
Because
Because
Because
Because I don’t know any of the those other thousands
I only knew him
And that was a long time ago

Like the English hate the French
And the Mancs hate the Scousers
And brothers are jealous of brothers
But not jealous of blokes they never met
Even though the blokes they never met
Had everything they ever wanted and didn’t get
(and more than their brothers did by far)
And so on
And so on
We despise the people we were closest to
I mean I despise the people I was closest to
(and I don’t expect I’m that unusual)

And here he is
Showing up on my facebook
A friend of a friend of a friend
Making a comment about a comment about a comment

The emperor's new tent

2010-03-19T13:56:00.000-07:00

"Marketing is the quintessential art-form of the 21st Century." (Germaine Greer)

She … says … she’s … made … Two
"seminal" works: one a tent,
the other a bed.

Perhaps I should just leave it at that?

If I left it at that it would save me from getting in too much trouble.
Then again… (I lick my lips and wonder if I may say out loud what I’m thinking).

Well…
IT’S BOLLOCKS, isn’t it.
Well isn’t it?
I mean, isn’t it?
No, seriously, isn’t it?

The "seminal" she is talking about
spurt out of figurative bollocks.

Probably I don’t need to worry.
Probably no one’s listening anyway.

But just perhaps
This Poem could save our naked emperor of art
from showing his cock in public
(although I know you like seeing it)
(as well as his bollocks)

You see now how this
text could be: a seminal
work of poetry?

(Brackets … Because it’s also Bollocks!)

If a work of art can be invented just by saying it is one,
maybe it can be destroyed just by saying it isn’t one?

We all just slipped and fell into a paradigm hole.
Like a rift in the fabric of space and time.
But then we realized.
We woke up.
We came up for breath and realized that actually
we had momentarily lost our ability to distinguish
our arses from holes in the ground.

The current cultural agreement says that:
it all depends on who is doing the saying.
You and I (the regular cnts in the street):
we don’t get to say.
What ever I write in a poem,
there is nothing I can say that will dethrone Tracey
from her "seminal works" of art.

You and I (the regular cnts in the street)
we don’t get a vote,
or if we did get a vote,
the people with the money and the power,
would use their money and power to subtly alter our minds by means of
"public relations" / propaganda / marketing / the next big thing,
to vote for
[whatever it is that
will have them continue to stay in control over
as much money and power as they can manage to].

The current answer to which seems to be the lovely Tracey.

I know she sat in her tent for six months and whatever.
I don’t know, maybe it even is art.
I mean: live and let live.

But I have to earn a living too.
And (let’s say – just let’s say) I’m a poet.
(I know we can argue about that one too, but just for now let’s say: I’m a poet.)
So how about:
Just by saying so,
This Poem is the antibiotic to the cultural meme virus known as "Tracey"
and the bloke with the formaldehyde whose name I can’t remember.
(Tracey the meme, not lovely Tracey the person, who I’m sure Is lovely
… I’d love to share a flask of tea with her … in her tent… )

I’m not saying I’m not jealous.

But when Bollocks itself
becomes the medium of your art,
you have got to work really hard
to distinguish the part of art
which isn’t Bollocks.

In the same way that Edvard
liked to leave his paintings "unfinished"
I would like to do the same with my poem.

The only trouble is:
how can you tell whether a poem Is unfinished?
Perhaps this Is what finished Is?

The universe is designed to be taken for granted

2010-03-07T11:03:00.001-08:00

Last time we tested light, it behaved in the same way.
Last time we tested gravity, the apple still fell.
Maybe next time will be different,
but I doubt it.
The universe is designed so as to be taken for granted.

If it could not be taken for granted in this way,
every thing would be
so much harder
or that is to say: softer.

Nothing would be predictable.
Some things might get easier, just by luck.
Like if gravity had momentary lapses
at times of plane crashes.

But you'd have to really schedule it precisely
or very locally for that to work,
because otherwise you would save a plane load of people
while the other 7 billion of us
drifted poetically off into space.

When you think about,
gravity has it's balancing aspects.

And I rather suspect that it will turn out to be
Convenient (I'm not saying it was designed, only Convenient)
that light behaves in these ways that physicists don't as yet
entirely understand
(and reliably so),
because
if it did not,

the consequences would not all be so good.

When I speak about god, I am not meaning to suggest that she exists

2010-03-07T11:00:00.001-08:00

When I speak about
god, I am not meaning to
suggest that (he,) she (or it) exists

Anymore than when I speak about love
I am meaning to suggest that I could hold love in my hand
and pass it to you

Or point love out in a police line-up

God isn't something less than everything
and if you need to see how hard it is to point to everything
or hold everything in the palm of your hand
you only have to try it

Do NOT read this!

2010-02-23T06:13:00.000-08:00

Do NOT read this!

Or if you must
make absolutely certain
that you destroy the evidence.

Yes it's true -
we like to mix our metaphors -
penetrate innocence
with some small piece of flesh
(perhaps grey matter)
that has no business being
stuck into places
such as those that
we like to stick it

But then what are we to do?

Living in a world where
new thought-crimes
are being invented every day

The guilt-ridden parent-fixated psychoses
of the ruling classes
mixed together with a resurgence
of medieval, mythic, and magic:
solidified into
a nightmare of regulations
as to what words you are permitted to use
and what order you are allowed to put them in.

Rules about what thoughts you can have,
which of those you are allowed to say out loud,
which you may be permitted to write down,
which ones you can publish,
the direction in which you are allowed to cast your gaze,
whether you are allowed to remember what you saw when you looked in that direction,
the view of yourself that you are allowed to present to others.

All of these things now belong to someone else.

In a community where thought became property,
where words and symbols and pictures and sounds
have more value than land,
a new kind of oppression is needed to ensure the domination
of the haves over the have-nots.

Long after we are gone
our universe will still be here
remembering every choice
we ever made

or else our universe will
not
still be here.

We do not need rules
for anything else.

This poem
will not
self-destruct
in five seconds.

Prayer - Carol Anne Duffy

2010-02-22T05:48:00.000-08:00

Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer
utters itself. So, a woman will lift
her head from the sieve of her hands and stare
at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.

Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth
enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;
then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth
in the distant Latin chanting of a train.

Pray for us now. Grade 1 piano scales
console the lodger looking out across
a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls
a child's name as though they named their loss.

Darkness outside. Inside, the radio's prayer -
Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.

Carol Anne Duffy, Britain's twentieth poet laureate,
and the first woman to be appointed to the position.

Carol Anne Duffy on Wikipedia

I would rather be popular than be good

2010-02-17T14:57:00.001-08:00

I would rather be
popular than be good. But
I am not either.

Last of the mortals

2010-02-03T14:19:00.001-08:00

What pathos is this!
To be here dying,
in the company of those who are the first humans to not die;
or else they live so long that death is merely
the last thing that they haven’t tried yet.

Pronouns

2010-01-24T05:02:00.001-08:00

You and I are both
pronouns. Both of us stand in
the place of a noun.

I wish grammar would
allow us to be verbs. Then
we could fly away.

Maybe if we thought
softly enough, grammar would
treat us more kindly.

There is a second draft of this poem here: 2nd draft

Because you’re worth it

2009-12-19T07:22:00.001-08:00

I just want you to know,
deep down in your bones,
that you are worth so much more than a cosmetic product.

I want you to feel the disgust I feel,
every time I hear them say that corny line.

I want you to feel my revulsion at their arrogance
to compare the worth of your extraordinary life and being
to anything so trivial as their skin cream.

How small does their regard for human beings have to be,
that they would make that repugnant comparison of worth?

I want to give you the freedom
to just say “no”.

To just say:
“I am worth so much more than a cosmetic product,
and so are all my friends and family.
I reject this disgusting marketing,
and I am going to take a stand against it by
never buying their product however good it may be.”

If we all stand together
we can wipe this scourge of vile marketing from
the face of the earth,
and the true worth of ourselves
and each other,
can once again,
shine in the clear light of day.

Why should we bother to stand up against the tyranny of degrading advertising?

Because you’re worth it.

Addenda

The facebook group to go with this poem is here:
Because you're worth it facebook group

Mr Kipling

2009-12-19T06:31:00.000-08:00

Mr Kipling's cake
was on this particular occasion
slightly disappointing
in the face of the relatively high expectations
the marketing had raised within me.

There was too little jam,
too much icing,
and for a cake that claimed to be bakewell in nature
there was exceedingly little bakewell about it.

I suppose even Mr Kipling makes a mistake or two
now and then.

But it isn't surprising when you think about it.
I have been up and down the length of the UK
and in just about every shop
on every street corner
in every town
up and down the land
there are several boxes of cakes
all made by Mister Kipling.

How does he do it?
He must get up exceedingly early.
I'm surprised that most of his cakes don't taste
completely disgusting
with so many cakes to bake each day.

How does he manage never to burn the fruit
pies?
If I was Mr Kippling, I would inevitably
forget about the cakes I had in the oven
while I was applying icing to the
the bakewell slices.

So if anybody's asking me,
and I realised that they're not,
Mr Kipling is an exceedingly hard worker.
And should be forgiven,
for coming up with cakes,
which, quite frankly,
taste like they have been mass-produced.

To do list

2009-12-02T03:15:00.001-08:00

End chronic persistent hunger
Provide sufficient opportunity globally for all people to have more than enough
Provide sufficient educational opportunities and support for violence to only occur between consenting adults
Develop our appreciation of diversity and difference
End dependence on fossil fuel and establish infrastructure for supply of renewable energy sources that exceed human needs
Stabilize global population
Stabilize global climate destabilization
Create terra-formation technologies and space technologies sufficient to comfortably house the entire population
Develop cell repair technology to extend life-spans to average 200 or more years of youthful healthy life
Provide sufficient educational opportunities and support for a self-designated and self-determined relationship
with the eternal to be readily available to all people
Have a big party

How I do hate the poetry of others

2009-11-29T08:36:00.001-08:00

How I do hate the poetry of others:
it sticks in my throat
like an attempt to swallow something large and unpleasant,
like an elephant tranquilizer pill or perhaps a smallish whale;
I feel it wriggling as it forces its way down into my brain.

Having to pretend I like this and that [I don't],
notice about that [I notice nothing - it is all incomprehensible],
appreciate this or something about this [wish they'd just shut up],
know the feeling [I don't know the feeling - I just feel numb],
am transformed by a new understanding
[I'm not - I'm stuck forever at the bottom of a deep dark hole].

Hate it all.
Hate it all.
Wish it would stop.
Wish it would all just stop.
Wish it would all just go away.

Until

against every fibre of will in my being
some slight and innocent-looking words on page
refuse to be treated with my usual contempt
and I am destroyed.

Pacifist Suicide Bomber

2009-11-28T04:37:00.000-08:00

Today a
pacifist suicide bomber
blew himself up in a crowded market square.

51 civilians were killed and eye-witnesses
reported that hundreds more were injured.

There are currently 37 people in hospital in a critical condition,
a defence ministry spokesman said.

See how the poem is mightier than the bomb?

See how I achieved as much as you did
without actually having to kill anyone?

(we both achieved nothing)

Wikipedia: Suicide bombings in Iraq since 2003

A future that's worth not fighting for

2009-11-27T14:14:00.000-08:00

On Remembrance Day,
I remember the civilians who had bombs dropped on them
I remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki and napalm
I remember the children who lost their parents
and the parents who lost their children
I remember the justifications and lies told by politicians:
old lies, new lies,
from “dulce et decorum est” right up to “weapons of mass destruction”,
all flavours of lie,
new lies for a new generation,
lies for every occasion, whatever lie takes your fancy.

On Remembrance Day,
I remember the courage of those who have refused to take up arms;
the courage to face up to the stigma of cowardice.
I remember the conscripts who were shot for refusing to kill or refusing to walk into a blood bath
I remember the stupidity of generals
the ulterior motives
the attempt to control of the world’s resources
the complicity of religious leaders,
I remember the profiteering of arms manufacturers
I remember the evil perpetrated by people who were
"only following orders".

On Remembrance Day,
I remember the pomp and circumstance that makes it all seem so glamorous.
I remember the foolishness of young men,
who bought the latest marketing for state sponsored killing and world domination,
who got sucked in by slogans like, “U.N. peace-keepers”,
“global policemen”, “preventing genocide and preventing ethnic cleansing”,
“standing up for the weak against the powerful” (failing to notice that it is us who are the powerful, and them who are the weak)
I remember the naivety of teenagers
who always wanted to drive a tank or a jet fighter and didn't think about what they might have to use it for,
who watched Top Gun too many times when they were kids,
who came from a military family and no one ever taught them any better,
who couldn't think of anything better to do with their lives than join up and suffered from an education system that failed to help them find anything,
who instinctively knew that uniform equals pussy.

On Remembrance Day,
I remember the future we could have
if we all simply refused to kill
if we all simply refused to take part in the killing
if we only ever played violent games with people who had consented to play them with us
if we gave up the option of using our superior military strength to dominate the world's flow of wealth and resources
if we refused to rise to the terrorists’ bait
and refused to fall to terrorists’ level
if we refused to waste our lives getting sucked into petty fights over who has the best ideology
or the best brand of mythic god,
or the most right to a particular plot of land,
if we stopped trying to make up for our laziness and boneheaded inability to innovate,
by stealing other countries oil and other natural resources,
which if we only would put out minds to it we could quite happily live without.

On Remembrance Day,
I remember the courage it takes to oppose the status quo
The unquestioned social agreement that dying in horribly painful ways while obeying orders merits honour and respect and gratitude,
When actually it only merits sympathy or at most compassion,
The unquestioned assertion that I and my community benefit from “freedoms” that exist by virtue of the sacrifices the ones who have died made,
The courage it takes to refuse to honour or respect soldiering or terrorism of any kind and certainly not when it is voluntary,
I remember how that marks me out to be ostracised and derided,
How our society is oriented around the blind acceptance that war may be a dirty job, but someone has to do it, and they should be respected for that.

On Remembrance Day,
I remember what we could do with our lives if we lived in a world where violence only occurred between consenting adults,
I remember what could be possible if we used our creativity to make the world a better place,

I remember a future that is worth not fighting for.

The Wild Swans at Coole, W.B. Yeats

2009-11-26T11:49:00.000-08:00

THE TREES are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine and fifty swans.

The nineteenth Autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.

I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All's changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.

Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold,
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.

But now they drift on the still water
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake's edge or pool
Delight men's eyes, when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?

W.B. Yeats 1919 (1865–1939)

Jerusalem, William Blake

2009-11-26T09:20:00.000-08:00

And did those feet in ancient time,
Walk upon Englands mountains green:
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On Englands pleasant pastures seen!

And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these dark Satanic Mills?

Bring me my Bow of burning gold;
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold:
Bring me my Chariot of fire!

I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In Englands green & pleasant Land.

William Blake 1757–1827

The heart of my self

2009-11-16T05:53:00.000-08:00

There is a tree that has grown up
In the heart of my self
That has weathered a thousand storms,
And looks set to weather another thousand
Before it falls.

Maybe it will not fall;
Maybe when the life has left it
The dead trunk will still stand there
Defying elements, refusing to rot,
Refusing to bend back down into the earth.

It has deep roots this tree of mine:
Sunk deep in the compost of extraordinary love
That a father and mother and sister and brother gave it,
And the storms that tried to humble it foolishly brought with them rain.

Rain nurtures, thunder calls forth exaltation,
Lightning makes a dazzling silhouette,
Wind gives exercise to its supple strength,
And after the storms die back
Sunshine warms the heart of its trunk.

No doubt it will be gone, after a while.

Note to self: an essay on meaning

2009-11-16T05:19:00.000-08:00

Note to self: an essay on meaning
(or why words don't only mean what we want them to mean)

The reason lots of people
In particular myself
Tend to think that my poetry is not very good
Is because they (and I mean us) think that what I mean
By "poetry"
Ought to correspond to what they mean
By "poetry".

When I (and I mean you) talk about "poetry"
I am not talking about something
which I have construed as needing to in any way correspond,
or be compared to or put along side what other people (and I mean us)
may or may not call "poetry".

If you (and I mean me) want to know
what I (and I mean you) mean
By "poetry", read my poems;
My poems provide definitive and exact examples of
What I mean by "poetry".

Please do not ever under any circumstance
Expect my "poetry"
To match up to some standard you have of what
You think poetry ought to be.

My poems just aren't ever going to do that.
My poems just aren't ever going to do that.
My poems just aren't ever going to do that.

You'll only be disappointed (and I mean me)
And so will I (and I mean you).

Why will I be disappointed too?
Because you (and I mean me) came to me expecting
That when I say I write "poetry" I ought to be writing something like
what you would call "poetry"
And I don't:
I only ever write something like what I call "poetry".

But I never promised to write what you call "poetry"
And then call it what I call "poetry" in the first place.
So you accuse me of doing something
Which I never promised I wouldn't do
and now you're blaming me for breaking an agreement I never made
based on an assumption that I never agreed to.

I promise I'll sleep with you
if you promise to stop jumping to the wrong conclusion
and then blaming me for it
(and I mean you)

The Old Lie - WILFRED OWEN

2009-11-11T06:39:00.000-08:00

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .

Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

WILFRED OWEN (1893 – 1918)

High Flight

2009-11-08T04:27:00.000-08:00

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where not lark or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

Hate of few: fought by many

2009-11-08T03:32:00.000-08:00

Hate of few: fought by many,
Man destroying man,
Manipulating horror causing death,
An army of flesh reduced,

Now leaves rank upon rank of white crosses.

A red more precious than rubies,
though wasted for lesser prizes,
is encrusted on the remnants of
kindred killed by kindred.

Living under torturous hardships
devised by ministers,
figureheads, heroes of the people;
murderers of soldiers.

Armies dead, killed fighting for the comfort of their killers.

[It is remembrance Sunday (today) and following the theme of remembering,
the poem above is one I remember from a school magazine - written by one of our classmates, although I don't think he was in my year.
I have written it out here from memory, so may have got bits wrong.
Unfortunately I do not remember the author's name, and my attempts to find it on the web got nowhere.
The author may not have thought it worth keeping around into their adulthood,
but I have always loved it.
If anyone knows the author name maybe you could leave a comment?
Thank you.]

I too married a Troll

2009-10-31T12:42:00.001-07:00

I too married a Troll
Lost two or three Camelots to its filthy greed
And like Luther when my subjects pointed out the
Stench of its breath, the warts,
The tusks coming from the side of its mouth,
How it liked to roll around in shit,
And make enemies out of friends,
How it poisoned everything it touched
And croaked like a hoarse old hag,
When they tried to tell me
I flew into a rage
And cut off their heads.

Too bad in my version the Troll won the day
Arthur never woke from the cunning potion plan
That was meant to free my eyes with tears
He died on the floor where he’d swallowed
I had no words of wisdom from a secret dragon hidden under my castle
No Merlin’s spell to wake him
No Arthur to save me with a blow and a blade
No Genevieve to release the last final stench of its foul intestine
The troll’s sorcery was too powerful
For my limited magic.

Instead I fled my kingdom
A subject of mockery throughout all lands
Unable to divorce my beloved Troll
No princesses came calling after that.

But maybe one day,
Maybe one day I shall rise,
I shall rise as the Troll I became when I married one
And I shall have my revenge.

For some miraculous or un-miraculous reason or absence of reason

2009-10-27T04:10:00.001-07:00

For some miraculous or un-miraculous reason or absence of reason
The universe exists today
And when I consider the alternative
My heart bursts with joy

Hallelujah - Leonard Cohen - Versions exploration

2009-09-19T09:55:00.000-07:00

Most versions seem to begin with this verse

Now I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do ya?
It goes like this: the fourth, the fifth,
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

This verse is a reference to the Book of Samuel with David who is, as well as a nifty fighter, a mean harpist. His "secret chord" that "pleased the Lord" is enough to release an evil spirit from Saul, the man he is shortly to succeed as king. See: Whose Hallelujah is it anyway
Most versions also seem to follow along with this next verse:

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew ya
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

The story of David continues for the first half of this second verse (above). Having saved Saul from the evil spirit, David spies the beautiful Bathsheba "bathing on the roof" and gets her pregnant. However, in the article linked above, Alan Connor, goes on to point out how half way through this verse, the story being related changes completely to that of Sampson and Delilah from the Book of Judges... Ok on to verse 3 .... Well verse 3 in some versions. Cohen actually recorded one version that starts from here. (Maybe he got bored of all the bible references?)

Baby (some versions say "Maybe") I've been here before
I know this room, I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew ya.
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
But love is not a victory march
It's a cold and very lonely Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Enough said, I think.

There was a time you let me know
What's really going on below
But now you never show it to me, do ya?
Remember when I moved in you
The holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Yep, ok.

It's at this point that versions diverge.
In one version it all ends up rather depressing (although not of course because it's Cohen) ...

Maybe there's a God above
But all I ever learned from love
Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew ya;
It's not a cry you hear at night
It's not someone who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

However there's another version with a much more optimistic conclusion...

You say I took your name in vain
But I don't even know the name
And if I did, well really, what's it to ya?
There's a blaze of light in every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool ya;
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
etc.

Cohen is variously reported to have written anything up to 80 verses.
If anyone has access to any more of them, I would be ever so pleased if you would post them in the comments or email me.
Be great to hear what else this song gets up to!

The link below is a recent live performance by Cohen in London which the recording industry (who pay for their yachts and private jets out of your iTune dollars) won't let me embed. Leonard Cohen performs Hallelujah live in London 2009

instructions for a body - Marty McConnell

2009-09-10T05:46:00.000-07:00

Marty McConnell's web site is here

Snippet from instructions for a body
by Marty "Do not let this universe regret you" McConnell 2005.
I'm not going to reproduce the whole thing in case someone minds me doing that.
Although would love it if Marty would call me and give me permission. 8-)
Hopefully she will forgive me just these few lines.

I found a full text version of the poem here but not sure how much longer it is going to be up there for.

Below the text in any case you can hear her say the whole thing on YouTube (twice).

instructions for a body
praise the miracle body: the odd
and undeniable mechanics of hand,
hundred-boned foot, perfect stretch
of tendon

tell me there are no gods then,
no master plans for this anatomy
with its mobile and evident spark

someone says “children of light”
and another, “goddessfragment” and
another, “chosen” / a dozen makers,
myriad paths, one goal:

some scalpel, some chisel, some crazed
sentimental engineer giving rib, giving
eyelash, giving gut and thumb --

all mattering. all set down
in a going world, vulnerable
and divine

in the beginning was the word.

[...]

Or this is an alternative version:

Addendum
Thank you so much Marty (see the comments for this post) for graciously giving me permission to reproduce the whole of this poem.
I've been reciting this to loads of people, and it keeps moving me deeply each time.
I especially like the lines I have emboldened below.

instructions for a body

praise the miracle body: the odd
and undeniable mechanics of hand,
hundred-boned foot, perfect stretch
of tendon

tell me there are no gods then,
no master plans for this anatomy
with its mobile and evident spark

someone says “children of light”
and another, “goddessfragment” and
another, “chosen” / a dozen makers,
myriad paths, one goal:

some scalpel, some chisel, some crazed
sentimental engineer giving rib, giving
eyelash, giving gut and thumb --

all mattering. all set down
in a going world, vulnerable
and divine

in the beginning was the word.

or before time there was a void
until a voice said “I” and was

or there was star and dust,
explosion and animal, mineral, us::

praise the veins that river these wrists
praise the prolapsed valve in a heart
praise the scars marking a gall bladder absent
praise the rasp and rattle of functioning lungs
praise the pre-arthritic ache of elbows
and ankles
praise the lifeline sectioning a palm
praise the photographic pads of fingertips
praise the vulnerable dip at the base of a throat
praise the muscles surfacing on an abdomen
praise these arms that carry babies
and anthologies
praise the leg hairs that sprout
and are shaved
praise the ass that refuses to shrink
or be hidden
praise the cunt that bleeds
and accepts, bleeds
and accepts
praise the prominent ridge
of nose
praise the strange convexity of ribcage
praise the single hair that insists on growing
from a right areola
praise the dent where the mole was clipped from the back
of a neck
praise these inner thighs brushing
praise these eyelashes that sometimes turn inward
praise these hips preparing to spread
into a grandmother’s skirt
praise the beauty of the freckle
on the first knuckle of a left little finger

we're gone / in a blizzard of seconds
love the body human
while we're here, a gift of minutes
on an evolving planet, a country
in flux / give thanks

what we take for granted, bone and dirt
and the million things that will kill us
someday, motion and the pursuit
of happiness / no guarantees / give thanks

for chaos theory, ecology, common sense that says
we are web. a planet in balance or out, the butterfly
in tokyo setting off thunderstorms in iowa,
tell me you don't matter to a universe that conspired
to give you such a tongue, such rhythm
or rhythmless hips, such opposable thumbs –
give thanks or go home a waste of spark

speak or let the maker take back your throat
march or let the creator rescind your feet
dream or let your god destroy your good and fertile mind

this is your warning / this
your birthright / do not let
this universe regret you.

© Marty McConnell, 2005
Thank you to Marty for permission to reproduce this!

There's something lost but something gained in living every day

2009-09-03T04:10:00.000-07:00

Both Sides Now
~Joni Mitchell~

Bows and flows of angel hair
And ice cream castles in the air
And feather canyons everywhere,
I've looked at clouds that way
But now they only block the sun
They rain and snow on everyone
So many things I would have done,
But clouds got in my way

I've looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down and still somehow
It's cloud illusions I recall
I really don't know clouds at all

Moons and Junes and ferris wheels
The dizzy dancing way you feel
When every fairy tale comes real,
I've looked at love that way
But now it's just another show,
You leave 'em laughing when you go
And if you care don't let them know,
Don't give yourself away

I've looked at love from both sides now
From give and take and still somehow
It's love's illusions I recall
I really don't know love at all

Tears and fears and feeling proud,
To say, "I love you" right out loud
Dreams and schemes and circus crowds,
I've looked at life that way
But now old friends are acting strange
They shake their heads, they say I've changed
There's something lost but something gained
In living every day

I've looked at life from both sides now
From win and lose and still somehow
It's life's illusions I recall
I really don't know life at all

Please tell me in the comments if there are any YouTube covers of this I have missed that you particularly like. 8-) (or other media sites not YouTube)

How to love this cat?

2009-08-21T03:55:00.000-07:00

My girlfriend's cat comes into my lounge
and sharpens her claws
against the silence of my grandma's old rocking
chair.

How to love this cat?
That is the question.

(With apologies to Mary Oliver)

Blessed

2009-08-18T06:50:00.000-07:00

Four days ago
a butterfly
a red admiral
flew in through my open window and got himself stuck behind glass trying to get out

I cupped him in my hands and threw him back out into the free air
and off he flew

For the last three days
a butterfly
a red admiral
has flown back in through my open window
and flutterred happily around my room before
flying out again

It seems such a coincidence
I wonder
is it the same butterfly each day?
coming to thank me?

In any case
when he comes by
I look up from my work
and feel blessed by him

Mary Oliver - How to love this world, that is the question

2009-08-12T02:37:00.000-07:00

Spring

Somewhere
a black bear
has just risen from sleep
and is staring

down the mountain.
All night
in the brisk and shallow restlessness
of early spring

I think of her,
her four black fists
flicking the gravel,
her tongue

like a red fire
touching the grass,
the cold water.
There is only one question:

how to love this world.
I think of her
rising
like a black and leafy ledge

to sharpen her claws against
the silence
of the trees.
Whatever else

my life is
with its poems
and its music
and its cities,

it is also this dazzling darkness
coming
down the mountain,
breathing and tasting;

all day I think of her –
her white teeth,
her wordlessness,
her perfect love.

Embarrassment

2009-06-30T07:58:00.000-07:00

Each time I read
Each cringing line of
Each of my so-called poems
It makes me want to take them down off the internet and hide my embarrassment

So why don’t I?

I think it is because
A long time a go
I promised god
I would never let being a bad poet stop me from being a public poet

Down by the salley gardens, William Butler Yeats

2009-06-20T12:35:00.000-07:00

Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet;
She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet.
She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree;
But I, being young and foolish, with her did not agree.

In a field by the river my love and I did stand,
And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white hand.
She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs;
But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.

William Butler Yeats

Three choices I don't have

2009-06-11T03:01:00.000-07:00

The admission price to the game of life is facing death

I have no interest in whether I am clinically depressed
No interest in artificially altering my mood to be more socially acceptable even if I am
I have no cries for help in me – I have felt this way for 30 years
So many things could get me anyway, I refuse to make Death’s job any easier

I just want to consider the choice I don’t want
Whether to carry on or kill myself
In contrast with the much fairer choice that nobody has
Whether I would rather have this life or have never existed

Unexpectedly the choice I don’t have is strangely comforting
There is a third choice also not available
Whether I would prefer someone else’s life
But not much comfort in that

As the passenger flight from Rio to Paris falls out of the sky
Or I stand on the 105th floor of the burning world trade centre considering
Whether to choke on fumes and burn to death or fall 105 storeys
I consider the choice between this life and non-existence

And my surprising conclusion
even in the face of death
is life

Michelle Ryan talking about Rudyard Kipling

2009-06-06T06:31:00.000-07:00

Below is the text of the two poems she refers to:

The Female of the Species

WHEN the Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride,
He shouts to scare the monster, who will often turn aside.
But the she-bear thus accosted rends the peasant tooth and nail.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

When Nag the basking cobra hears the careless foot of man,
He will sometimes wriggle sideways and avoid it if he can.
But his mate makes no such motion where she camps beside the trail.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

When the early Jesuit fathers preached to Hurons and Choctaws,
They prayed to be delivered from the vengeance of the squaws.
'Twas the women, not the warriors, turned those stark enthusiasts pale.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

Man's timid heart is bursting with the things he must not say,
For the Woman that God gave him isn't his to give away;
But when hunter meets with husbands, each confirms the other's tale—
The female of the species is more deadly than the male.

Man, a bear in most relations—worm and savage otherwise,—
Man propounds negotiations, Man accepts the compromise.
Very rarely will he squarely push the logic of a fact
To its ultimate conclusion in unmitigated act.

Fear, or foolishness, impels him, ere he lay the wicked low,
To concede some form of trial even to his fiercest foe.
Mirth obscene diverts his anger—Doubt and Pity oft perplex
Him in dealing with an issue—to the scandal of The Sex!

But the Woman that God gave him, every fibre of her frame
Proves her launched for one sole issue, armed and engined for the same;
And to serve that single issue, lest the generations fail,
The female of the species must be deadlier than the male.

She who faces Death by torture for each life beneath her breast
May not deal in doubt or pity—must not swerve for fact or jest.
These be purely male diversions—not in these her honour dwells—
She the Other Law we live by, is that Law and nothing else.

She can bring no more to living than the powers that make her great
As the Mother of the Infant and the Mistress of the Mate.
And when Babe and Man are lacking and she strides unclaimed to claim
Her right as femme (and baron), her equipment is the same.

She is wedded to convictions—in default of grosser ties;
Her contentions are her children, Heaven help him who denies!—
He will meet no suave discussion, but the instant, white-hot, wild,
Wakened female of the species warring as for spouse and child.

Unprovoked and awful charges—even so the she-bear fights,
Speech that drips, corrodes, and poisons—even so the cobra bites,
Scientific vivisection of one nerve till it is raw
And the victim writhes in anguish—like the Jesuit with the squaw!

So it comes that Man, the coward, when he gathers to confer
With his fellow-braves in council, dare not leave a place for her
Where, at war with Life and Conscience, he uplifts his erring hands
To some God of Abstract Justice—which no woman understands.

And Man knows it! Knows, moreover, that the Woman that God gave him
Must command but may not govern—shall enthral but not enslave him.
And She knows, because She warns him, and Her instincts never fail,
That the Female of Her Species is more deadly than the Male.

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

If

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

Michael Horowitz quoting Yeats

2009-05-26T07:59:00.000-07:00

"Out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric. We make poetry out of the quarrel with ourselves." William Butler Yeats

Michael Horowitz quoted Yeats today on the Radio 4 Today program.

See the bottom of this page and the links from it for the full source of the Yeats quotation.

Caroline Bird says some useful things about poetry and also one of her own

2009-05-20T09:37:00.000-07:00

Link to Caroline Bird's web site:
About Caroline Bird

A poem lovely as a tree (I think that I shall never see)

2009-05-09T09:14:00.000-07:00

A poem lovely as a tree" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333860192085625474" />

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks to God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

From "Trees" by Alfred Joyce Kilmer

The river has no interest

2009-04-24T07:51:00.000-07:00

The river has no interest in my description of it or my attempt to describe it
does not care if it is seeming poetic how the sunlight catches the slight ripples on its mostly flat surface as it hurries round the corner of Hangman's cottage
has no regard for my mood or point of view
how I am entertained by the small boys who,
calculating that an inverted umbrella may serve as a small boat
deliberately drop an old red umbrella with broken handle at the bend
then hurry down to the bridge with expectations
the umbrella ("ella-ella")
will come down the river to where they will, reaching over, recover it
and repeat

The river has no regard for their game either
the umbrella drifts slowly around the pool of twinkling sunlight
and moving gradually away from the fastest route of water towards the bank on the far side
it stops in reeds next to the garden that belongs to the cottage

The boys return back behind me and one tries to dislodge the umbrella by throwing small pebbles haplessly in its vague direction.
I wonder about the windows of the cottage just beyond but do not feel inclined to say "stop";
possibly a broken window might improve my poem.

The old man from the cottage comes out to his garden and considers:
the boys standing slightly sheepish discussing whether they should wade across the river to retrieve their toy
(they have stopped pebble throwing),
me sitting on the bank in the sunshine hands in my lap,
the old lady who passes by mumbling warnings and pleasantries, afternoons and how are yous,
a young girl pulled along by an ugly dog,
a couple holding hands.

The old man pauses an unnecessary moment:
perhaps he is wondering what description he will use for the river in his poem.
Then he offers to put on welly boots and retrieve the umbrella.

Looking down into the water,
I see the river has many layers downwards, as well as across.
The different layers move at different speeds.
The river seems almost as though it is a living thing,
but that's wrong obviously.
We all know it is only water, and water is made of molecules.
Hydrogen and oxygen.
I learnt that at school.

A mother duck, and seven tiny just hatched ducklings come up the river towards me,
but pause under the bridge where the boys had stood waiting for their umbrella.
Why do they stop there, I wonder.
Are they waiting for something?
Like an umbrella that they dropped once,
way up stream,
in the hope that they might later be able to retrieve it.

Filipa Azul translated by Stewart J. Scott

2009-03-05T07:16:00.000-08:00

Here are some wonderful poems sent to me today by my friend and a very special poet, artist and photographer, Filipa Azul. Filipa very kindly gave me permission to post them here.

You will see as you read them that they are quite delightful. At one and the same time ridiculously funny, tragic, poignant, urgent and compelling.

She asked me to post them both in the original Portuguese and the English tanslation by Stewart J. Scott. They are just the tip of the iceberg with Filipa's poetry. She is also a photographer and artist. I will post links to some of this when I find it, but for now you can at least enjoy these:

Filipa Azul Tradução do original português, para o inglês, de Stewart J. Scott

I
today there is nothing special that I really want...
bring me only a golden narwhale
Mr and Mrs green-pawed unicorn
half a dozen gnomes
... but from the oaks of the white forest!
a red-headed, mute mermaid
an honest politician
some ambrosia biscuits
and a small cup filled with the elixir of youth.
oh ... and the newspaper!
any will do ...
they are all full of good news.

hoje não me apetece nada de especial...
tragam-me só um narval dourado
um casal de unicórnios de patas verdes
meia-dúzia de gnomos
... mas dos carvalhos do bosque branco!
uma sereia ruiva e muda
um político íntegro
umas bolachinhas de ambrósia
e uma tacinha pequena com elixir da juventude.
ah... e o jornal!
um qualquer serve...
estão todos cheios de notícias boas.

II
Diary
on the 31st September,
without fail,
I will change my attitude

agenda
dia 31 de Setembro
sem falta
vou mudar de atitude

III
it's vital that technology evolves
it's vital to discover quickly
a way for the newspapers
the radio
the television
the internet
to give out a smell
...
I really want to see who can bear
the front page
the news bulletin
the TV news
the live coverage of the war
without vomiting
...
smell is crucial
for the education of the nausea

é urgente que a tecnologia evolua
é urgente que se descubra rapidamente
uma forma de os jornais
a rádio
a televisão
a internet
terem cheiro
...
sempre quero ver quem é que aguenta
as primeiras páginas
os noticiários
os telejornais
os directos da guerra
sem vomitar
...
é urgente o cheiro
para educar a náusea

Filipa Azul Tradução do original português, para o inglês, de Stewart J. Scott

Here is a link to some of Filipa's photographs:
Filipa Azul, photographer artist poet

Start by taking two protons

2009-02-28T08:47:00.000-08:00

Start by taking two protons (nuclei of hydrogen)
Heat them up so that they are hot - really hot.
Hot enough that they are moving fast enough that just occasionally they get close enough
that the strong nuclear short-range force can lock them together.

When this happens one of those protons can turn into a neutron
and two particles called a positron and a neutrino come flying out
and the remaining proton and neutron join to make an isotope of hydrogen called deuterium
(about 1/7000th of the Hydrogen in water is actually deuterium).

Getting the two protons together takes a long time - so be patient.
But once the deuterium has been made everything else is easy.

Add another proton and it will join up with the deuterium
turning it into a helium3 nucleus and a photon comes flying out.

Mix 2 of these Helium3s together and they can stick to make a Helium4 nucleus
(otherwise known as an alpha particle - as in alpha, beta and gamma radiation - if you studied school physics)
and a couple of protons come flying out.

This whole process produces energy - a lot of energy.
Some of the energy can be put back into the whole business of getting
two protons together in the first place (which we started with).

Some of it can be used to make star-light.

And some of it, when we get up in the morning,
and feel it on our faces
we will get to call sun-shine.

(With thanks for provision of technical consultancy from Professor Brian Cox)

Call for end to Poet Laureate job

2009-01-30T04:00:00.000-08:00

Link to article on BBC web site.

Wendy Cope, a favourite to succeed Andrew Motion as Poet Laureate, has called for the post to be abolished.

Last year, Motion said the job of writing verse for the Royal Family was "thankless" and gave him a case of writer's block.

Who we are for each other

2009-01-29T07:54:00.001-08:00

She is my goddess
I am a source of amusement

Inaugural Poem recited by Elizabeth Alexander

2009-01-22T07:47:00.001-08:00

Inaugural Poem

Praise song for the day.

Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each
others' eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All
about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on
our tongues.

Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire,
repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an
oil drum with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.

A farmer considers the changing sky; A teacher says, "Take out your pencils.
Begin."
We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or
declaimed; words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then
others who said, "I need to see what's on the other side; I know there's
something better down the road."

We need to find a place where we are safe; We walk into that which we cannot
yet see.

Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead
who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked
the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices
they would then keep clean and work inside of.
Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every
hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables.

Some live by "Love thy neighbor as thy self."

Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.

What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national.
Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt
grievance.

In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any
sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp -- praise song for walking forward in
that light.

Elizabeth Alexander

Lives of great men all remind us

2009-01-07T07:52:00.000-08:00

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
"Life is but an empty dream!"
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
"Dust thou art, to dust returnest,"
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each tomorrow
Find us father than today.

Art is long, and time is fleeting,
And our hearts though stout and brave,
Still like muffled drums are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no future however pleasant!
Let the dead past bury its dead!
Act! Act in the living present!
Heart within, God overhead.

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime
And in passing leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints that perhaps another
Sailing over life's solemn main
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour and to wait.

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I gave buns to the elephant

2008-11-26T02:06:00.000-08:00

At the Zoo
by A. A. Milne

There are lions and roaring tigers,
and enormous camels and things,
There are biffalo-buffalo-bisons,
and a great big bear with wings.
There's a sort of a tiny potamus,
and a tiny nosserus too -
But I GAVE BUNS TO THE ELEPHANT
when I went down to the Zoo!

There are badgers and bidgers and bodgers,
and a Super-in-tendent's House,
There are masses of goats, and a Polar,
and different kinds of mouse,
And I think there's a sort of a something
which is called a wallaboo -
But I GAVE BUNS TO THE ELEPHANT
when I went down to the Zoo!

If you try to talk to the bison,
he never quite understands;
You can't shake hands with a mingo -
he doesn't like shaking hands.
And lions and roaring tigers
hate saying, "How do you do?" -
But I GIVE BUNS TO THE ELEPHANT
when I go down to the Zoo!

Freedom of speech

2008-11-08T03:16:00.001-08:00

Could one poem really be worth a life?
Just one poem?
And if so, which one?
How can I begin to have the people who "care" understand the question,
Let alone come up with an answer?
To understand that it really might have been alright,
To have given up everything,
Money, power, appreciation, children, love, goodtimes, bonne omy, laughs and drunken nights out, success, holidays in the carribean, you know... The whole works.
Everything that you're supposed to care about.
Even dignity.

For the sake of a few words on a page,
That "most people" will never hear
And those who do will misunderstand
Take these words to be the puerile rantings of a child
Who didn't get enough love
Or too much
A teenager who didn't get enough sex
Or the wrong kind
A man who trusted too much
Or thought too much
Or thought too little
Or about the wrong things

Freedom of speech,
Is not the opposite of censorship or oppression
Of course we must not be censored to even begin
But this is only the beginning

Flower power

2008-10-01T02:40:00.001-07:00

The bloke who sells flowers on the High Street
seems to compensate
in my imagination at least
by having cultivated a face that is scarred
by every bar-room brawl he could lay his big fat fists on
or else he practices self-harm
or else he was just blessed with being born ugly -
ugly enough
that no-one would ever accuse him
of having a modest interest in the effeminate charm of a lily
or subtle fragrance of rose.

He has the manner and sounding of a geezer -
fields of mud - from the roots and bulbs presumably -
have sunk themselves deep into his pores
to such an extent that even after sever washing
and many long baths
he still looks grubby -
like as though he is only in it for the money -
and the build of a wrestler from the 70's.

But as he rough-fists a handful of poppies
into the pastel covered paper,
something in his eyes gives the whole act away,
and you realise that deep down inside
he is a complete girl.

Girly girly girl!
Likes rough-fisting the pretty flowers.
You don't fool me!

Thirteen Senses - History - Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms

2008-09-16T03:50:00.001-07:00

Carl thinks this goes well with my poems... 8-)

Poetry T-shirts direct from the poet

2008-09-05T06:18:00.001-07:00

You can now buy any Andrew Bindon poem you like on a T-shirt direct from me, using Google check out...

Check out (ha!ha!) these links for 4 examples of poems you can buy on T-shirts this way.

Guiding Star
Gods final ecstasy
Coming to meet you
Chasing the sunset

If anyone wants other poems from the e24mp web site, no problem, just send me an email.

looking back

2008-07-31T03:10:00.001-07:00

like fishermen who tell tales of
the one that got away

18, 19... something like that
wandering randomly and alone through the rain forest
in my t-shirt and shorts

I stumble into a circle of pipe-smokers
with amazing faces
like rock that has weathered a thousand years of sand erosion
ten or fifteen of them
passing the pipe from one to the next
their eyes go down to depths in me unknown to myself
but I sit down with them and smile ridiculously

moving onwards
18, 19... something like that
it does not occur to me to be frightened about anything
wandering randomly and alone through the rain forest
in my t-shirt and shorts...
and my beach sandals

walking from a clearing into an area of dark forestation
I happen to look back behind me
and there silouetted against the clearing sky
I see I have just walked right under

a spider
whose body area is the size of a junior basket ball
and whose leg span is easily a meter
squatting motionless
on the centre of
a web that spans from the upper trunk of a palm tree on one side
of the path
to the upper trunk of a palm tree on the other side

the fronds of its web look like coarse string
everything is scaled up
just like something I saw as a child trying to get out of the bath
but 50 times as big

still, 18, 19... something like that
it does not occur to me that where there is one
there are likely to be several

and after giving the spider its due respect
for having had the decency to not drop on me
I plod happily on
beside the crocodile infested creek
and out to the deserted sandy shore
that provides a colouring pencil outline
to the north eastern coast
of that extraordinary island

for some reason
which looking back
is inscrutable to me
I spent a week or so in the rain forest
and did not come to any harm

Song

2008-07-02T04:05:00.001-07:00

W.B.Yeats poem, The Song of the Wandering Aengus.
"I went out the hazel wood,
because a fire was in my head,
and cut and peeled a hazel wand,
and hooked a berry to a thread."

W.B. Yeats was an Irish poet and key figure in 20th-century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and English literary establishments, Yeats also served as an Irish Senator. He was also important to the Irish Literary Revival, and founded the Abbey Theatre. In 1923 he was awarded a Nobel Prize in Literature for what the Nobel Committee described as "inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation".

Yeats greatest works include The Tower (1928) and The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1929).

Ad-word poems, ad-words poetry

2008-06-30T02:52:00.000-07:00

Today I have invented a new poetic form.
To tell you the truth
(not quite sure why I feel obliged to do that, but anyway)
I doubt I am the first to have invented it.

It is called "Ad-word" poetry.
The rules are that you poem has to comply with Google Ad-words advertising rules.
Roughly the rules are similar to hai-ku, but only roughly.

The poem must be 3 lines (followed by a valid URL).
The first line has a maximum of 25 characters.
The second and third lines have a maximum of 35 characters.
The displayed destination URL also has a maximum of 35 characters.
Google apply some other rules as well, some of which are a bit arbitrary.

I actually started writing ad-word poems a couple or so months ago with my ad-word haiku which you can find earlier in this blog... in fact if allow any ad-word advert to count as an ad-word poem, then a couple of years ago or so at least.

But I only really started writing ad-words ads specifically to be poetic creations more recently.

It is fun to actually submit your poetic ad-word creations to Google. If you can manage to get them approved by google you then have a way of determining which are most appealing, because people will tend to click more on the ones they like (presumably).

Of course you don't have to submit them to google at all - you could just try out the form without actually creating corresponding google ad-words ads. (Oh, yes, the sky is indeed the limit).

Here is one I submitted to google today:

I used to pray to live
forever, but now I only pray to be
a poet, chasing the sunset.
lesssaid.blogspot.com

An ad, you may say, that is "NOT by Google".

Abstract Nouns

2008-06-26T03:02:00.000-07:00

God and truth and death and sex:
  It’s all so simple and yet complex
  I aim for smiles but keep getting frowns
  So I'm trying to give up the damned abstract nouns

Abstraction (the word) is itself quite abstract.
  Am I stuck up my gastro-intes-tin-al tract?
  Is it time that I made a reality pact,
  And turn all my rhymes into matters of fact?

God and truth and sex and death:
  You tell me I'm only wasting my breath
  And my peer’s condemnation is doing the rounds
  So I’m going cold turkey on damned abstract nouns

Since I've been having my meaning unpacked
  I’m starting to see what my poems have lacked
  Like a grand inquisition is having me racked,
  And I’m forced to denounce all the nouns that abstract.

Truth and sex and death and god:
  I try to be normal – perhaps I'm just odd;
  Want to fly the trapeze but I'm put with the clowns.
  So I try to cut down on the damned abstract nouns.

But the more I resist them, the more they close in
  No chance of salvation from this poet’s sin
  The more that’s encompassed by any damned word
  The more that my clichés are mocked as absurd

Sex and god and death and truth:
  I expect you'll be wanting a little more proof.
  How it is, as they say, is not quite how it’s stacked,
  And amongst all my blessings not one of them’s tact.

So you must forgive me for my subject’s scope:
  My ratings have fallen beyond any hope
  And for failing to see how the mundane astounds
  I’m condemned forever to damned abstract nouns.

A sweet little pussy called Millie

2008-06-07T02:54:00.001-07:00

A sweet little pussy called Millie
When younger was just slightly silly
But as she got older
And plans became bolder
She'd fly twice a year to Si-cily

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams

2008-05-29T00:02:00.000-07:00

...But I, being poor have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

from He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven (1899) by W.B. Yeats

her cat

2008-05-27T01:52:00.000-07:00

ball of fur(iness),
fluffy purr(iness),
slightly fat -
her cat.

now evening comes

2008-05-19T14:10:00.000-07:00

What can encompass the tales of a thousand shared battles,
a thousand victories, a thousand defeats,
a thousand loves and friendships won and loss and resurrected,
the joy and the sorrow,
the light at the end of the tunnel?

We who found each other on the same journey,
we who lived and fought and died together,
we who gave everything for a dream,
we who gave our lives to a great adventure...

WE have laughed at the mountain!
Huddled together when the wind blew coldest,
tasted the dew in the early morning,
watched the sun rise on its highest peaks,
scaled its most treacherous slopes,
built homes in trees,
made fire from wood,
and in that magic twilight cooked wild vegetables on an open fire,
and gathered together to toast a day well spent.

So what shall we say, now evening comes?

Folk law will always speak of great leaders of men,
awesome warriors,
gods and goddesses,
gallant knights and destined heroes:

He was a hero worthy of the word,
a conqueror worthy of the victory,
a captain worthy of his men.

So we'll sit round the camp fire until the mist clears from the sky,
and after each of the stars
we'll name a sorcerer,
a princess,
a jester.

We have lived lives worthy of folk tales,
worthy of songs,
worthy of wonder.

So lets fill our hearts with joy,
fill our hearts with peace,
fill our hearts with happiness,

now evening comes.

Human sacrifice

2008-05-10T01:52:00.000-07:00

she comes to me as a
wet fire
where I must again and again and again
worship,
douse her flame,
she surrenders unabashed her emptiness,
quench her majesty with my tongue and lips,
she breaks the bread and offers it to me,
her body is given,
she raises the cup over her head,
this is her blood which is given for me,
her cup of supplication flows over my pilgrim's kiss,
with sweet tasting honey,
a living offering
from heaven to heaven,
she rises again
bringing salvation,
born not of pain,
nor righteousness:
but born of
ecstasy

i carry your heart with me

2008-04-30T05:43:00.001-07:00

i carry your heart with me
(i carry it in my heart)
i am never without it
(anywhere i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling)
I fear no fate
(for you are my fate, my sweet)
i want no world
(for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

e e cummings

Bad day at the office

2008-02-03T05:07:00.001-08:00

In blackest black of deepest deep
A window on to endless night
Where gloom's the company I keep
And all I see is fading sight.

My dreams drown on indifferencies,
not blessed by great catastrophes.
Thinking is a slow disease
where all hope drowns in vanities.

In blackest black of deepest deep
Just as I sow, just so I reap.
Pity's pit too deep and steep
with bargains turning out too cheap.

In blackest black of deepest deep
where gloom's the company I keep.
Nothing left except to weep
and all before me endless sleep.

The path is fading where it began
Now turning to the setting sun
While I was betting on the come
I have just lost while others won.

Perhaps it is because I don’t understand goodness

2008-01-19T07:37:00.000-08:00

Perhaps it is because I don’t understand goodness
that I do understand truth and beauty;
Like Vader, I understand what must be done,
To bring balance to the plotlines, not to mention the force:
It’s not pretty.

George already decided,
CGI is strong with me – mediclorians off the scale,
Nothing for me to do about it, except pout and brood,
And fight with my conscience.

Whereas beauty is obvious,
and truth may take a while but ultimately cannot be avoided,
(its in the script)
goodness seems to always be walking the other way
from where I’m going

not even sure if I want it –
there is something about badness that is rather, um, good.
the dark side throws way better parties.
Who wants to hold hands with an Ewok,
When you can surrender to a man
Who’s weapon is buzzing green neon
Who’s love is death,
Who quite possibly is the embodiment of all evil,
not in a small way:
commands a thousand squadrons of men in white shiny body armour (those helmets!)
and owns a space ship the size of a small moon.

If Vader wrote poetry in quiet moments,
The early hours of the morning when he couldn’t sleep,
Or those times when a friend abandoned him,
Like Obi Wan,
And even though he was about as annoying as any friend ever gets,
And he was mostly glad to be free of him,
Part of him couldn’t help missing the irritation.

Eventually, I know, I’m going to get my brain fried,
And the great evil that runs black blood through my veins
Will be thrown into a nuclear furnace,

But until that happens,
I’m going to enjoy banging Padme Amidala,
For the brief moments of happiness I have been given,

Before the killing begins.

Monkey Trap

2007-11-29T05:24:00.001-08:00

The design of a traditional monkey trap
as many people may know
involves the use of a vessel
containing something tasty, perhaps a nut or a banana.

The vessel has a small hole it in
large enough for the monkey to just fit a hand through
to take hold of the banana.

When the monkey has the banana in its hand
the monkey's fist holding the banana is now too big
to go back through the hole.

The monkey is not smart enough to realise that to free himself he needs to let go of the banana.

Neither am I.

In the beginning

2007-11-20T16:53:00.001-08:00

In the beginning
god created the heavens and the earth
and god said:
"If I'd had more practice I might have done a better job,
but its a lot better than nothing."

Obviously

2007-11-13T02:36:00.000-08:00

Obviously,
if there is a god,
there must also be a goddess.
It is ridiculous to assume otherwise.

Modern love story

2007-11-12T06:16:00.001-08:00

Love of my x tugs
at my heart-strings each time she
pokes me on facebook

All poetry is rubbish

2007-11-09T01:34:00.000-08:00

All poetry is rubbish
unless you mean it
in which case
all poetry is the opposite of rubbish

Haiku version:

All po-et-ry is
Rub-bish un-less you mean it
And then it is-n't

Love online

2007-10-31T02:09:00.000-07:00

Love on-line: When I
re-al-ised you are a scam
-mer it broke my heart

That dog!

2007-10-05T12:24:00.000-07:00

Oh to be a thing
With-out a mind – like a dog.
Like that dog in-fact.

How many published poets share our name?

2007-09-29T09:51:00.000-07:00

I realise there are plenty of other people in the world called as I am, and Dave Gorman famously made a career out of tracking down his name-sakes, and I know really EVERYBODY is a poet - more or less secretly, BUT!

This made me chuckle - really laugh out loud - when I did a search on my own name today, and discovered someone writing poetry saying it had been inspired by someone with my name... like that required no further explanation... Now I know I have had my moments - like my humiliation on the Richard and Judy show, and having poems translated into arabic and so on... BUT I'M NOT THAT FAMOUS!

And next comes the horrifying thought! Could it be possible that there are 2 (fairly) well-known poets called as I am and worse: the other one is way more popular!

With "Bindon" being a lastname only slightly more common than Humperdink, I am currently feeling like the lesser known of 2 singers called Engelbert.

That being the case I would like history to remember that I was the one who founded the "Emergency 24-hour Mobile Poets" way back in the early nineties. It might even have been late eighties... Who can remember that long ago.

And bending down beside the glowing bars...

2007-09-27T12:08:00.000-07:00

...

and bending down beside the glowing bars
murmur a little softly how love fled
and paced upon the mountains over head
and hid his face amid a crowd of stars

W.B.Yeats

A hai-ku is a

2007-09-19T03:34:00.000-07:00

(1)
A hai-ku is a
po-em with five syl-la-bles
in the first line and …

(2)
Hai-ku: three line po-
Em, five syl-la-bles in first
Line, se-ven in sec-

(3)
Three line po-em with
five syl-la-bles, then se-ven,
then five in the last

(4)
Hai-ku: three line po
-em, five syl-la-bles, then se
-ven, five in the last

(5)
Hai-ku: three lines. Five,
se-ven, five syl-la-bles. Tends
to be (a) bit snea-ky.

(6)
Hai-ku: three lines. Five,
se-ven, five syl-la-bles; Oft-
-en a bit snea-ky.

(7)
Here's the real deal

My life has been a kind of prayer

2007-09-16T03:16:00.000-07:00

My life has been a kind of prayer
Lived backwards
Instead of praying 2 live
I hav livd 2 pray

Foolishly Blieving that simply
Wanting, in public,
the world 2 rise
Cud make it so

Of course, howevR,
I am not dead yet...
;-)

Coming to meet you

2007-08-14T08:59:00.000-07:00

This is an "old favourite"... no really.
This poem was translated into arabic and presented to Saddam Husein as a gift by his brother in law after the first gulf war.
Not that I take any responsibility for how other people have interpretted it, or used it, nor what they have made it mean, but I just mean to indicate that it is reasonably "well known"... eg. it is reproduced on the Our Planet web site ... which I have nothing to do with (even though they put my email address at the bottom of their page, and a link to my software services web site!), and I have seen it in some other places as well.

You can buy this poem on a t-shirt!

Starts on back...

Incidentally, you can buy this poem on a t-shirt! And because it is a bit like a prayer, they make very good nighties.

COMING TO MEET YOU

We are throwing down our weapons
We are leaving our barricades
We are coming to meet you

There are sixty-five thousand of us

If you receive us with friendship this will be
...something new
If you do not we shall die

And they rise out of the ground, across the barbed wire,
Through the mist, and the shells fall
And they walk on

And with each rifle shot
My father died, and my mother died,
And my sister died, and my brother died,
Falling at the other men's feet
Helped to the ground by other men's hands

And still they come, stumbling on through the mist
Pace after pace
Wave after wave of men going to their deaths

You can buy this poem on a t-shirt!

... finishes on front.

And then...
ONE man
One man in an army
One man in the world
Threw down his rifle and cried
And then another
And another
And another

And no one knew it could happen
And no one can be sure it would happen again
But everyone who was there when those soldiers met
Everyone who felt that embrace
Everyone who knew that joy
KNEW that love can be made in the world each day
By ANY ONE MAN

I am throwing down my weapons
I am leaving my barricades
I am coming to meet you...