Monday 27 April 2009

Poet at Cafe´ Kafka

Vienna's Cafe´ Kafka will host an open-mic meeting of the Labyrinth Poets on Friday 1st May 2009. Sometime during the proceedings, kick-off is 8.30pm, the so-called Poet-in-Residence will appear as an invited special guest. I feel it's an honour to be asked.

There are only 3 or 4 copies remaining, if that, of my personal stock of the "Purple Patch Small Press Award 2008 - best individual collection" book: 'Genteel Messages'. I'll bring them along. With the current euro/pound exchange rate they are now an even better bargain than they were before! Now only a fiver each.

Touching on a more important and more relevant note, Labyrinth founder Peter Waugh has indicated that poets will be able to recite personal bardic tributes to the memory of Labyrinth's Bob Hewis who recently died.

Saturday 18 April 2009

Christmas in Sri Lanka

Reading Wallace Stevens, a remarkable poet previously featured on Poet-in-Residence, but one whose lines at times go on a beat too far (perhaps a result of his career in insurance), and having at the same time the latest Italian earthquake in mind, Poet-in-Residence cast his thoughts back to the long ago days of the great Indian Ocean tsunami.
There are not that many poems which deal with the proverbial nuts and bolts, the hidden depths and heights; indeed the crux of the subject. The subject in this case being natural disaster, otherwise known in Old Testament parlance as 'the Wrath of God'.
High time then to address the issue. Better, as people say, to be late than never.

Christmas in Sri Lanka

Searching among the beach huts

and stores where the snakes
have left their skins on the floor

and Arthur C Clarke has greeted
carbon-based bipeds

the aid-workers move
with aid-workers' smiles

through evenings
evoking spectrums of violet

in which thousands of eyes,
in one mind, speak at once

but there's nothing to say
other than knowledge

of when the seas will breathe out
and in

with short breaths

_______
gw 2009

Gregor Mendel and the seeds of genetics

The garden where the monk Gregor Mendel (1822-84) grew the famous hybrid peas that led to the discovery of genetics is somewhere in the hazy distance looking from the path that runs below the ramparts of Spilberk Castle in the Czech city of Brno.

Gregor Mendel and the seeds of genetics
- A View from Spilberk

this vantage point
under Spilberk's tall ramparts
is a catalogue of noise
in the punctuated haze
of Brno's blinding reflections

catabolism of siren
catatonia of tram rattle
squeals of iron wheels
on glinting rails
punctuating the cataract
of traffic drone

until the unseen youth on
his cheap Czech motorbike
going around and around
in senseless circles
in the inner-city
- takes over the job

witness the sound
of revolution today

it is once again
at its greatest
by the monastery garden

_______
gw 2009

Monday 13 April 2009

The Guardians - a poem for R K Singh

The following Poet-in-Residence poem is for the inspirational Indian poet R K Singh. Hope you enjoy it R K!

The Guardians

With the croaking frogs
and the jambu trees
we share moonlight, fruit
and flies.

With our bamboo flutes
we call upon
celestial lords
with powers to come
and then we fall
on the floor
like sticks.

The guardians sit
on their lotus thrones
and slap their arms
and thighs
and the nagas swim
in the seas of milk
and never ending
noise.

______________
gwilliams 2009

Virginia Woolf's golden pen

Here is another note culled and crafted from Virginia Woolf's diaries. It's here because of the wonderful Easter weekend weather. Make the most of it. As we've come to expect from Virginia the small cloud hovers over the page.

Woolf at Easter

On a sunny voluptuous day
with birds all rasping in their nests
and cawing in the trees -
life is calm and profoundly comfortable.

We are free, serene, and matter of fact;
and without ambition of any sort; the
smooth serenity and blessed illusion
by which we live is returned.

Gold Waterman supplants
the Woolworth steel; a
note by way of warning.
Tea on a wet Bank Holiday.

_______
gw 2009

Thursday 9 April 2009

Another 10-minute Virginia Woolf poem

This poem took rather less time than the last, a bare 8 minutes to compose. Sometimes one is in a devil of a hurry. It looked OK at a glance.

New Year at Rodmell

The sponge behind my forehead
is pale and dry and rather dim
like a bloody sun in a fog -
exasperated unhappy strugglin'
worked over with heat and yaps of dogs
unlike the parson astride his saddle
or the cold dishonest footman
with clear hard picture of human life
where the whole world falls into shape.

_______
gw 2009

Wednesday 8 April 2009

Pope on the nature and state of man

The quake in Italy was felt in Rome. There are those who will say it was 'an act of God', those who will say it was 'a sign' and those who will gather in St Peter's Square in Rome at the weekend and 'pray for the victims'. The rescue of a 98-year old will be hailed as a miracle.

When we reflect, as we do during times of tragedy, on the nature and state of man and his religious and ethical institutions, in this case they are to be found in Rome, do we do right to wonder for example if any Mexican gold from the time of Columbus fell from the ceiling of the Vatican during the shaking of the earth, or if any hairline cracks appeared in the mighty Vatican dome?

There will be those who will point out that quakes are common in Italy, a land that is in geological reality a part of Africa; a continent pushing its way with a boat-people's persistence into Europe. In fact it could have been a lot worse. It will get a lot worse. Italy is the site of the mighty and dependable Vesuvius who sits quietly smoking his pipes and waiting for the moment of his next fiery outburst.


"alike in ignorance [...] created half to rise"

Of the Nature and State of Man With Respect to Himself, as an Individual

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;
The proper study of mankind is Man.
Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise, and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the skeptic side,
With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest,
In doubt to deem himself a god, or beast;
In doubt his mind or body to prefer,
But born to die, and reasoning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
Whether he thinks too little, or too much:
Chaos of thought and passion, all confused;
Still by himself abused, or disabused;
Created half to rise, and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled:
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!

Alexander Pope (1688-1744)

Monday 6 April 2009

Harrison Birtwistle's Last Supper at the Semper Depot

The Semper Depot is a huge high space in Vienna's city centre and was in bygone days, the time before special effects and minimalist scenery, a storage space for all kinds of theatrical props and parapheranlia ranging from the large to the very large.

In the Semper Depot everything needed for theatre and opera was block and tackled almost into the heavens. And it was in these heavens two evenings ago that Jesus appeared in the form of 5 red stars; 4 stars indicating where the crucifixion nails went into his hands and feet and another where the soldier's spear pierced his side. Today he is still dripping blood and we see it fall onto the hands of the women kneeling in awe below. Jesus is hanging over them in the heights with his silver crown of stars around his head; until he temporarily vanishes into the darkness and quickly appears on Earth once more.

Jesus has now arrived, with a large splinter removed from his eye, to celebrate the year 2,000 with his disciples. There will be another Last Supper. Even Judas, much to the other disciples chagrin, has been invited. A ghost, rising from the wreckage of the previous Last Supper, hovers around the scene and observes with us the goings on. Needless to say, Jesus is again betrayed, if betrayed is the right word. He is pursued and hounded by the paparazzi. He will have to pay the ultimate price once again for his fame and his message.

This Last Supper the round the table chat is of the genocidal nations. Jesus reveals that the holocaust has finally broken his heart, in fact shattered is the word he uses. The workaday disciples, whom Jesus refers to as the salt of the earth, spend half of the time arguing amongst themselves as to the meaning and interpretations of biblical texts and the other half looking suspiciously at Judas. They are clearly a half-crazy bunch. But Jesus to prove his love, washes their feet. Judas is the only one to have his shoes removed by Jesus' hands. The others have to take their own shoes off. The dust of forgotten wars and killing fields is on your feet, says Jesus.

The State sacrifices millions on its altar to the future but life is God's gift to you, explains Jesus simply and clearly to anyone prepared to listen. He walks in the garden, and tells of the crimson tree of the Hebrew, Muslim and Christian religions. Dark strange sounds of birds are heard. And it begins to rain. But still no disciple can figure the answer Jesus' favourite riddle: What can stand in front of the sun and not leave a shadow?

Riveting performances by the cast, especially from Jennifer Davison as the ghost, Alexander Puhrer as Jesus, Ladislav Elgr as Judas, Rupert Bergmann as Peter, the singers of the Chor der Neuen Oper Wien and the musicians of the amadeus ensemble-wien conducted by Walter Kobera. Full marks to all concerned with stage building, lighting and special effects, all not so easy to do in this dark monolith of a theatre.

It was an evening to remember. Harrison Birtwistle (music) and Robin Blaser (text) can be delighted with this Vienna production of The Last Supper.

Sunday 5 April 2009

Another Finnegans Wake experiment

Bloody wars in Ballyaughacleeaghbally
or a tribute to James Joyce

In the delldale dappling light
nancing by in flags or flitters
cranic heads in proudseye view
and in some greenish distance brum! brum!
tankyou bonnet to busby - the agincourting
tic for tac bissmark Underwetter!

Lord allmarshy! Durblin is sworming -
And so they went on, limelooking horsebags
in plight pledged peace on a tradewinds bay
and I with a big brewer's belch and the dungcart
and grassy ass ego pufflin blowbags behold Him -
as he is cruppin into hiz raw lenguege to loose a laugh.

_______
gw 2009

Is the above a poem? And if it is, the question is: Who wrote it? 80% of the above text is taken from 10 or 12 pages thumbed open at random in James Joyce's Finnegans Wake. It is then a series of phrases cobbled together with a few extra linkage words and several substituted words or changes to make some kind of sense or, more correctly, an impression. The whole process took perhaps 15 minutes. Does it make any sense to do this? Is it a complete folly, like Queen Victoria's rocket on Darwen Moor, and therefore a waste of time and effort? Or does it rightly serve to perpetuate Joyce and his creation Finnegans Wake in some small way and to give delighful words and phrases a new lease of life?
And all this by the common man from the tap room! Do it for yourself. Take Joyce's wonderful book with you the next time you go for your quart or half gallon of Guinness. Ponder the text over-hunched the bar or invisible in the sepia corner. Here's the packhorse-bridge reminder:

The critics all laugh
about Finnegans Wake -
the more stout you do quaff
the more sense it do make!

Cheers!

Wednesday 1 April 2009

A Tapestry of Absent Sitters by Alan Morrison

A craftsman and maker of finespun poetry, a young poet as deep as the black lakes of mythology and as fierce as the great dragon of legend, Alan Morrison is often to be found hunting through the physical and mental debris and detritus piled out of sight and conveniently out of mind in our darkest nooks and corners. But he is also a bardic detective, archaeologist, historian, nurse, doctor and apothecary.

Under the swiftly moving moon, bending past the university door, the mental institution, the drug clinic, the soup kitchen, the alleyway, the dockside, or the derelict factory, Alan Morrison is like Musil's Young Torless armed with an all-seeing eye and a notebook. The end result is the counterblast that comes at us from many directions. Sometimes from many directions all at once. It's his destiny. His mission. And make no mistake about it.

To read his latest collection is like a chocolate and champagne evening. A poetic luxury. And this is a strange contradiction for the poet is a Poet-in-Residence in a mental institution; he is a socialist in the true sense in his doing and thinking. See his website The Recusant. It is so.

The End of the Metaphor

Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?

T.S.Eliot, The Love-Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

The leaky pipe of the basement flat
boarded-up across the road
squeals and rustles like a tattle of rats.
I've stopped by the hand-spurned railings trailing
steps of brattling leaves to listen,
be convinced of no infestation.

is an example of the way Morrison creates the mood. The poem goes on to examine, amongst other things, where the metaphors have their origins:

The brain, a garbled labyrinth of honeycomb
abuzz with bee-thoughts stumbling by their stings
bumping off walls like balls of string.
As long as there are ropes, one copes . . .

. . .

each tock-thought, a sweaty palmed haul up the bend
in slippery banisters, a hesitation
on the stairs . . .


One other poem to quickly look at is also full of grim and battered thoughts. It's a strong contender for favourite poem in the collection. It's about the great Welsh actor Richard Burton.

The Lion of Pontrhydyfen
i.m. Richard Burton (1925-1984)

..to obviate the idea of the richness and extraordinary beauty of the world, I thought it was best to leave it.. - Richard Burton, 1974

Roman bust on barrow shoulders,
marble-sculpted mouth and brow,
leonine; stabbing blue-fire stare -
two Satanic labradorites.

Trajan's face reincarnate
as a pitted Co-Op pulpit boy
into a flinty mining village
choked in pits and damp-steamed hills.

Voice awash of ash and granite
splashing anger, rasping rage -
now vanquished angel's caterwaul -
now hounded scowling howl -
now stone-intoning chapel roll
grafted on the thumping page.

Flame blazed out like Zanzibar...
Cormorant...on his scorched tongue
singed by tar and brackishness;
a barstool bard of verbalese . . .

with obvious reference there to the fishing boats in Dylan Thomas's play for voices Under Milk Wood which Richard Burton recorded for the BBC. Moving on we come to more wonderful word magic,-

Visage, vodka-ravaged to
cratered moonscape, wasted cast
quarried out of rakish fame's
encrusted spine, harsh fags;
roar tamed to a smoky growl...
pockmarked god with white-licked sides;
a lion snarling its last gasped drags.

In a universe full of ten-a-penny poets Alan Morrison is the genuine gold-struck and ready to be minted article. He is a poet setting off on his own unique journey; one that many will want to follow. A Tapestry of Absent Sitters is a clear step-up from Morrison's well-received Mansion Gardens for it packs the anger and verve we've been anticipating, hoping would dare break-out. It's a great feeling to be in at the start of what may ultimately prove to be a massive career.

A Tapestry of Absent Sitters
by Alan Morrison
ISBN 978 1 906742 04 1
Waterloo Press (Hove)
95 Wick Hall
Furze Hill
Hove BN3 1NG
England

Even more Irish impressions

Here they are for what they are worth. And, yes, there are more to follow!

IRISH FARMHOUSE

A green room in a farmhouse Bed & Breakfast -
a room with a wire hanger on a nail on a wall
to hang my coat on, and a musty oriental
sheet on the sagged bed; and many pillows.
An old cobweb hangs in the dusty drinking glass
on the bedside table and a dead crane fly hangs
from the ceiling. I lie on the bed and think -
I think of Larkin's Mr Bleaney and how near we are
to where the ocean breaks on the beach.


A STRANGER'S THOUGHT IN PORTMAGEE?°

the universities are stuffed
with politically correct academics -
what else can you expect from a people
with no moral radar
but shibboleths of cosy liberal consensus
and moral laxity


THE GREEN PATH

over slatey stones
and springy bright green turf

and silver dolphins
in the sunny seaweed
scented breeze and rain-
washed air


ON BALLINSKELLIGS BEACH

cormorants
snipe
lapwings
tern
kittywakes


SOME QUOTES OF THE DAY

"If I didn't have my own house I'd be really banjaxed"

"I hope the sun shines for you"

"Only the real Irish come from County Clare"

"I'll see you tomorrow with God's help"


°have no idea where this observation is from or even why it was noted down