Tuesday 27 December 2011

The Right of Books to be Safe

Do books, like people, have the right to be safe from persecution? That is the question. If the answer is 'No', where should we draw the line? And who should be responsible for drawing it?

The Right of Books to be Safe

Macklin's Bible in VII volumes
Butler's Hudibras
F X Kraus's Dante

Douce's Illustrations of Shakspeare
Pinelli's Costumi Antichi
Napoleon III's Histoire de Jules Cesar

Lasserre's Notre-Dame de Lourdes
Benson's Confessions of a Convert
Porson's Tracts and Criticisms

Spencer's Synthetic Philosophy
Pashley's Travels in Crete
Keppel Craven's Excursions in the Abruzzi

J P Uz's Poetische Werke
Gleig's Life of Thomas Munro
and Merejowsky's L'Antechrist

are standing in rows
in wire mesh boxes.

We note the imprints
on their spines.

Their ancient secrets
have escaped us.

Homer and Cato
look on with alarm.

gw2011/

Understanding the purpose of Evil


Millions of ordinary decent people around the world, people of no particular religious persuasion, are asking themselves: What evil lurks behind the latest Christmas atrocity in Nigeria?

This time last year 80 Christians were murdered as they prayed. This year thanks to the vigilance of the police and public that number was down to 40. It could have been far worse.


Seeing Beyond the Immediate

In the beginning She said:
Let there be Darkness and Light!
for without Darkness we should
never be able to fathom the point.
Light alone would blind us
to the Truth - as She knew.

Saturday 24 December 2011

Christmas at the old folks home


The sudden appearance
of light

the afternoon breeze
briefly
stirring
to let through the light of the sun

it moves along the panes
for a spell

a precious few moments

then fades
back to grey

and still
there is nothing to say

______
gw2011/

Friday 23 December 2011

The property of stones


The following poem is about the history of my own country of Wales and my own family but it is inspired, if that is the right word, by the deteriorating political situation in Hungary (see George Szirtes' blog). I offer it as encouragement and support to oppressed and subjugated peoples wherever they are.


regarding
the ancient wisdom
of the people

they knew the swim of the salmon
and the swim of the stars
and they knew the power
in the songs of the stones
as in a summer
of mysterious lights
and mysterious sights
and they could tell you
these people
why the stones
would sing
and they could tell you
these people
many another thing
before the time
of the coming
of the crazy people
with their contrary proofs
and their many damnations
as is known to happen
from time to time
and from place to place
in the world
a crazy people
who didn't believe
all the superstitious nonsense
as they called it
a crazy people with too many books
in which someone had written
that everything anyone thought they knew
must be false
and wrong
and evil
and wicked
and a stumbling stone
on the way to redemption
a crazy people come to knock
them
down
as they always had done
everywhere else
before
but somehow
this time
a
number
held hard to the faith
to the stones
and to the power of the stones
and so it was
that they grew
relentless
and stubborn

just as the stones
that grow
in the fields

gw2011/

Happy New Year


Winter solstice (Northern Hemisphere) was at 05:30 hrs (UT) on 22nd December 2011*

Darkness retreating
Perihelion approaching
Celebrate NOW!

*data: US Navy
image:gw2011

Thursday 22 December 2011

Christmas Reading Choice


Regular readers of this blog will not need telling that I won't be getting overly sentimental about Christmas. I'll certainly not be dusting off the Charles Dickens' classic novel about the moneylender Scrooge.

Having said that, I was reminded the other day that I had, some 8 or 9 years ago, written up the tale of Scrooge & co. for a school play. I was shocked. I had completely forgotten about it; but wonder of wonders, according to my informant, it is still being performed every Christmas.

It happened that I had a class of 30 German-speaking youngsters who were learning basic English and as a volunteer teacher (a so-called native speaker) I wanted all the children to have a speaking part in the Christmas play.

I politely declined to 'do' the school's 'official' play, it was the nativity story, for I saw it had speaking parts for only a few of the children; and had the rest of them just standing around. So I wrote my own.

With Scrooge I succeeded in giving each and every child his own voice. And not only that but I exposed them to an another way, to them a new way, of thinking about Christmas. The children and their parents greatly appreciated it.

Today I took myself to the library. I came back with three books which I plan to get stuck into over the so-called festive season that is unfortunately these days a season of unbridled excess designed to keep the wheels of industry, commerce and bankers' bonuses turning.

My books.

Novel: Tropic of Cancer - Henry Miller
Play: Ashes to Ashes - Harold Pinter
Poems: Coney Island of the Mind - Lawrence Ferlinghetti

I'd love to know what books you plan to read or hope to find under your tree if you have one. I expect travel books and books of legend and myth, especially those about Mayan predictions for 2012 will appear on many of Santa's lists. Cookery books too, these are always popular.

Which way will poetry go? Have we moved on? I think translations are the coming thing.

Three cheers for Christmas!



Cider at home

In an underground station

Winter is a blur


- "We won't be drinking and driving!" -

What's wrong with them?


I'm worried for them.

I don't want them to go down a path of brutal violence such as Europe went down in the 1940's. They must find the path of peace. They are standing at the crossroads.

Vienna University 70 years ago

Already, on Obama Withdrawal Day plus 1, early reports are coming in of 60 people murdered in Iraq. Why?

In Egypt the violence in Cairo shows no sign of ending. Why?

In Libya unreported atrocities are being committed. Why?

In Syria 230 are killed in one day of bloody violence. Why?

In Yemen, in Bahrain, and in other countries conveniently below the mainstream radar protests are going on or are being subdued . . .

In Saudi Arabia a woman is beheaded as a witch . . .

Elsewhere a woman, a victim of rape, is stoned to death . . .

What is the problem? Is the Arab world now going insane?

Thinking aloud, maybe the problem has something to do with all those straight lines the colonial powers liked to draw in the sand.

Maybe straight lines is not the Arab way. Perhaps they are a caravan serai people. Perhaps they feel they are being fenced in.

There's something evil at the root of all this. Friday, after prayers, is often a very bad day for bloodlust. Tomorrow it is Friday. Shall we see it once more?

Wednesday 21 December 2011

Yueltide - as a log on the fire


as when
the cold and sickly smell
of candles clung too thick
was overlaid and all wrapped up
with scented fog of incense

as when the preacher's band
of singers waxing on
in warm and drowsy
muffle to my ears
was as the icy
dressing
of a cake
with layered marzipan
and chain store fruit within

as when the robin sang

upon a window ledge

"a log on the fire"

gw2011/

Tuesday 20 December 2011

The five brothers

"Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't his mother's name Mary, and aren't his brothers
James, Joseph, Simon and Judas . . . aren't all his sisters with us?" - Matthew Ch. 13.


Once, a long time ago, there were five brothers. Their names were Simon, Joseph, James, Judas and Jesus. Perhaps they resembled each other in general appearance. Maybe they even had the same way of walking; the same way of talking; the same general demeanor. It can happen in families. Who can say? It was a long time ago. But it is not totally unlikely with so many brothers in one family that two or three might favour each other. Perhaps Joseph looked liked Jesus. Maybe Simon? Perhaps Judas? Who can say? Someone, probably Jesus*, was nailed to a cross, an infamous Roman torture instrument. He died. Then he came alive again. He walked. He talked. He went to secret meetings. Or maybe it's just possible that this man was one of the brothers? Perhaps it was James; a case of mistaken identity? Or maybe those bloodthirsty Romans and baying Jews had been given a patsy; a fall guy; an impostor? Who can say? It must have been somewhat confusing; five brothers . . . all looking much the same; long curly hair, thick beards, and wrapped-up in cloaks. Who can say? In all the confusion, in the crowded city . . . in those interesting times. I'm not saying it was so. Only that the possibility of error (however remote) exists. That's all. Now don't get me wrong. I'm not discounting miracles. After all there was an earthquake. And the dead did rise from their graves and walk. This is reported in the Gospel of Matthew. Who am I to disagree? I wasn't even there. It was a long time ago.

*Jesus was identified by a kiss. Not by fingerprints or DNA.

A snowman haiku


the chocolate snowman
in the confectioner's window
looks out at the snow

- Cafe' Zauner, Bad Ischl, Austria 2010 -

This snowman haiku is for artist Kuniharu Shumisu at see haiku here. It was inspired by Kuni's current series of snowmen haiku. In the snowy street I took the photo through the cafe' window from an angle so as to eliminate the glare and reflection of the display lights.

Monday 19 December 2011

Who was the real father?

A wise man knows his own father.

"Let there be Light"

As we get ready for the Christmas season with its annual over-the-top birthday party for the Messiah or the Christ it's worth pausing to consider the pertinent point: Who was his real father? There are three candidates.

Here is the ancestral male line of Jesus' genealogy according to Matthew ch. 1 v. 1-16: Abraham - Isaac - Jacob - Judah - Perez - Hezron - Ram - Amminadab - Nahson - Salmon - Boaz - Obed - Jesse - David - Solomon - Rehoboam - Abijah - Asa - Jehoshaphat - Jehoram - Uzziah - Jotham - Ahaz - Hezekiah - Manasseh - Amon - Josiah - Jeconiah - Shealtiel - Zerubbabel - Abiud - Eliakim - Azor - Zadok - Akim - Eliud - Eleazar - Matthan - Jacob - Joseph - Jesus.

Beginning in Luke ch. 3 v. 23 there is a second male line genealogy for Jesus. Note that this one is very different from that given in Matthew ch. 1. Luke takes the trouble to prove to his readership that Jesus is the son of God. Here is how he does it.

God - Adam - Seth - Enosh - Kenan - Mahalalel - Jared - Enoch - Methuselah - Lamech - Noah - Shem - Arphaxad - Cainan - Shelah - Eber - Peleg - Reu - Serug - Nahor - Terah - Abraham - Isaac - Jacob - Judah - Perez - Hezron - Ram - Amminadab - Nahshon - Salmon - Boaz - Obed - Jesse - David - Nathan - Mattatha - Menna - Melea - Eliakim - Jonam - Joseph - Judah - Simeon - Levi - Matthat - Jorim - Eliezer - Joshua - Er - Elmadam - Cosam - Melki - Neri - Shealtiel - Zerubbabel - Rhesa - Joanan - Joda - Josech - Semein - Mattathias - Maath - Naggai - Esli - Nahum - Amos - Mattathias - Joseph - Jannai - Melki - Levi - Matthat - Heli - Joseph - Jesus.

It's as clear as day that Matthew's Joseph and Luke's Joseph are not the same person.

The Joseph referred to in Matthew is the son of Jacob. The Joseph referred to in Luke is the son of Heli. Both these Josephs can trace their ancestors back to King David. But by different routes. That's 40 generations of difference. Matthew's Joseph springs from the line of David's son Solomon. Luke's Joseph from the line of David's son Nathan. And therein lies a Christmas conundrum.

Now we must ask the obvious questions. Was Mary in some way confused? Did she have a problem choosing between her two suitors - the two Josephs? Were both of them graced with her favours? Did she perhaps play one against the other? Which Joseph did she marry eventually?

So then, who was Jesus' real father? Here is a list of the three candidates:

X Joseph (of Matthew's Gospel)

X Joseph (of Luke's Gospel)

X God

You may pick your own cross.

The death of the Euro?

The big problem with the Euro is that no-one knows the answer. Many at Brussels EU-HQ and EZB* don't even know the question. The right question is: What went wrong?

What went wrong is that the Euro became a party balloon that was blown up too big and too quickly. Happy with their big balloon they tied it up with a complicated knot hoping that all the huff and puff wouldn't seep out.

The answer is quite simple really. Find someone who is good at unravelling knots and let a little air out of the big balloon. Get it back down to normal size. About 20% deflation should do it. Merkozynomics won't fix it.

Euro Totenkopf image:gw2011/

*the European Zentral Bank is an organization with a lot of vice-presidents or 'yes men'. I think it's something like nine. Some of them have next to no idea about what's going on in the real world. They are merely incompetents who enjoy drawing huge salaries and expenses. Some were sent to the EZB by their own countries in order to get them out of the way. Behind it all is an old and corrupt system; basically it's a question of having the right party membership card and knowing the right people.

Saturday 17 December 2011

and finally - the Christmas message haiku






People of the World

You can only reach the Stars

United in Peace







A modern icon, the Fenix 2 capsule represents the triumph of the human spirit over adversity. It was built by the Chilean Navy to a NASA design and was operated using a specially designed winch controlled by a team of experts from Austria in Europe. In other words people from 3 continents played a vital part in the 69 day rescue of the 33 Chilean miners trapped underground in 2010. Live pictures of the breathtaking and daring rescue were beamed around the whole world. The Fenix 2 rescue demonstrates the true spirit of humankind.

We must rise from the ashes of our warring history. Only then can we reach for the stars.

Fenix 2 image:
gw2011/

Christmas decoration haiku

- its maker unknown

Christmas tree haiku





remember your present

is bound

to the evergreen








gw2011/

Friday 16 December 2011

Christmas card haiku

a boy is born
people flock to see him
- does he look like his father?

gw2011/

Christmas star haiku

following the star
I came to the place
where it STOPPED!

It is impossible for a heavenly body to remain stationary. All heavenly bodies are perpetually in motion - therefore it could NOT have been a star in the astronomical sense. It can only have been something terrestrial, such as an illuminated model of a star as in my photo.

gw2011/

Thursday 15 December 2011

haiku


a songbird's high note

the end of a woodland walk

a leaf silently falling


gw2011/

Alfred Hrdlcka's Holocaust Monument pre-Christmas

Book-
ended

It
had
nothing
to do with
baby and tree

It
had
all to do
with death
and suffering

Visting the Hrdlcka Holocaust Monument which is situated in the centre of Vienna a short walk from the famous Vienna State Opera under a steel gray winter sky just a few days before Christmas I wondered how it came about that a nation of Christian people could, in a period of just two decades, be overwhelmed by an almost insatiable appetite for mindless violence towards followers of another faith that is to say the Jews.

But not only the Jews. There were also other peoples such as Gypsies who were victims; not to mention the mentally ill, whose number included the elderly and senile, children in hospitals and psychiatric institutions; in fact any human being of less worth; people who were seen as being a drain on the Reich's almost unlimited resources. And I am the right person to ask these questions since I have no religious corn (or axe) to grind, whichever way you want to look at it.

I left the metaphorical temple early. It was at the age of six when on a Sunday morning in a church I pocketed a silver coin (it was a sixpence) given me by a teacher of religion in exchange for my correct recitation of the Lord's Prayer. I knew then, even at that young age that this silver coin was in the nature of a bribe, and that it was therefore wrong to accept it, let alone to offer it, but I didn't know then why I knew that. I therefore refused to learn the Apostolic Creed in exchange for the next proffered silver coin, one of even higher denomination (a shilling). In spirit I had already left the organization that would have me.

Many years later I made my personal pact with God. I was his servant. He would direct me. The others were merely showmen, opportunists and foot soldiers, followers of little worth. I have been proved right time and again. This brings me back to the Hrdlcka monument, suitably bookended. The contents between the covers are invisible. The invisible contents are the true contents. It is a matter of faith. But it is not a matter of faith in any of the many organized religions with headquarters in the world's major cities. It is the simple faith of one who wonders at the fury of man when aroused. And how easily that arousal is to direct through the power of false prophesy and coin corrupted.

Tuesday 13 December 2011

Getting in the mood for the annual birth of Christ celebrations

*
A

phallic

symbolled

tree with stars

and lights and tinsel

seen from afar stands on the

square of every town of pealing bells

and crowded churches steepled all around

where people come to sing and clown and warming

mugs of wine and punch are slowly drunk which is jus' great

in'it

babe

?

gw2011/

Alan Morrison's Captive Dragons / Shadow Thorns (Concluded)

the slayer

Canto I,
begins:

Here be dragons of the head's uncharted territories
Committed to a hospital of terracotta bricks . . .

Canto 2, goes on to describe the nature of several of the dragons the poet found committed there:

. . . docile as flowerpots

The poet informs us that those whom society perceives as possessed of dragons, for example the drowned shouters of a seawater society, are to become docile through the therapeutic touch of electrodes.

Like Burroughs and Ginsberg with The Yage Letters or Ken Kesey with One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, Morrison is a sensitive poet equipped with relevant insider knowledge and consequently he is able to provide a deceptively innocent and/or brutal humour as he feels to be appropriate.

Without the humour we the readers can never hope to face, let alone understand the nature of the dragons; or God's failed experiments as the priest poet R S Thomas labelled society's mentally damaged victims; those most ill-equipped to hack it in our brave cruel world.

In Captive Dragon's the reader will meet every conceivable variety of dragon; ranging from soporific Cheshire Cats / and wing-clipped escapologists . . . to . . . dragons in psychic meltdown . . . supplementing their theraputic electrodes with a Smartie selection of downers: chloropromazine, benzadrine, desmethyltramdol, dihydrocodeine, and dopamine so that most dragons keep returning in screaming tumbrels of ambulances; and all of them ready for their next fix as in Canto XXXV,-

. . . repeat defenders
Of irrefragable fragilities, recrudescent delicacies,
Inconvenient sensitivities conveniently
Misperceived as subversive tendencies, heretical Celtic
Quirks that can't be timetabled to rational Angled targets;
Silent rioters of rogue psychologies scooped out
Of cryptic contexts; psychic jigsaw pieces, riddling
Puzzle-boxes carved with mottled trepidations,
Deep-grooved anxieties and tortoiseshell aversions
To shelved selves; undeliverable parcels nonetheless

By the time the reader arrives at this verse he will be long aware that

Dragon's hatch from shells
of fractured narratives, splinters
of disrupted lives . . .

and that they have their own language. It is called Dragonic. In Canto XII Morrison gives the reader an inkling of its many properties:

A clash of rambling syllables, verbs that burn rubber,
Adjective trips, permissible slips,spoonerisms,
Farm-yard grunts, oral tics; unpronounceable parlance -
If written, like Sanskrit, spidery, tortuous, horizontal,
Or vertical . . .

Twitching sign language of irregular grammar . . .

Thundery arguments muffled in shut bedrooms . . .

For 3 years the Mill View Residency (2008-2011) Poet-in-Residence Alan Morrison, a self-confessed neurotic Doubting Thomas, bravely persevered and struggled on. He devotes several cantos to what he calls Poetry's Opportunity.

Eager to seek something far more rewarding than basket cases put to weaving wicker baskets Morrison eventually succeeds through the medium of poetry, in a Finnegans Wake kind of way, with his neurotic bid to provide a suitable outlet for the subdued fire of his soporific students.

Morrison's book may prove to be one of the poetic wonders of modern psychiatric literature. It is one of the keys to the mysterious world of art brut*. It belongs on the shelf alongside the works of Freud and Jung.

"This is poetry appropriate for the mental health experience, regardless of our own histories and directions," says Nick McMaster of the Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust.

And of course he is right, but that is merely to scratch the dragon's back. With Captive Dragons I think we have a prequel. A work of Joycean proportions may lurk somewhere over the near horizon. Something of it may already be here. It is surely coming.

_____
image:
photo taken by myself
at Venice Biennale 2011
- main pavilion
- artist unknown

*entering the term "art brut" in the blog search box will bring up an explanatory post relating to the pioneering work with the artists of Gugging.

Monday 5 December 2011

Alan Morrison's Captive Dragons / Shadow Thorns (Part 1)

teleco-soup*

When I wrote about Alan Morrison's A Tapestry of Absent Sitters on 1st April 2009 I naturally had no inkling that my idea of use of the word 'dragon' would spark an epic 'insider' poem of 2,368 lines.

My copy, signed by Alan Morrison, arrived a few days ago. I have yet to read it.

Captive Dragons is a by-product of Morrison's 3 years of voluntary work in the field of mental health as a weekly Poet-in-Residence at Mill View Hospital, Sussex. The book's publication is supported by Star Wards, Sussex NHS Partnership and the Arts Council of England.

On his 'Acknowledgements' page Morrison wrote: "Thanks also to . . . Barry Tebb . . . and to Gwilym Williams for drawing me towards dragons as a motif through a phrase he used in his review of my previous Waterloo collection . . . to Jeremy Reed . . . Mario Petrucci . . . to Steven O'Brien . . ."

Here's the important stuff:

Captive Dragons / The Shadow Thorns
Poems from the Mill View Residency 2008 - 11
by Alan Morrison
ISBN 978 - 190674239 - 3
first published 2011
by Waterloo Press (Hove)
95 Wick Hall
Furze Hill
Hove BN3 1NG
England

My review will appear here soon. Meanwhile stay cool. Or be bold and read another one .

*Image acknowledgement:
Photo by myself of a scene from the Venice Biennale 2011
presentation 'teleco-soup' by Tabaimo (Japan Pavilion).

Sunday 4 December 2011

Syndic Journal No. 5


The new issue of Syndic Journal is now online. Regular Poet-in-Residence visitors will certainly enjoy reading it.

One of the poets featured in Syndic Journal No.5 is India's unique R K Singh; a writer whose stimulating work many of us here are already familiar with.

Yuri Taki who lives near a Fukushima 'hot spot' also contributes to no. 5.

It's all a labour of love.

Let's take a look.

.

Saturday 3 December 2011

From Orizaba 210 Blues

This poem, what Dominic Rivron describes as a Variation on a theme, is composed using the same technique as the poem immediately below it. It is also a "words by Kerouac" effort. You might try and construct a similar verse for yourself. I'll choose another poet to work with next time.

Call God the Mother

- I almost called these poems -

Who spawned all this God
One was called Boston Kitty
By men and maids
Of heaven-hailward
In the wild bar
Burned out every day
Aint we all?

On Sixth Street near Mission
We booted and we brained
From High Masquerade
Red, white and black and blue

And Lightning Creek morely roared
O me, - gingerale we drank

In the ancient blue Buick
Crrash!

Crash toutes les shows

Buddha pra-teeth torn

Under a headache cross

"Man is here!"

That I could not take

Today is Sunday
Much words has been written about it

Thieves' Markets & imbeciles
In the city of the midnight
See?

The tatata of thusness
With palm and forefinger
Hungry to burn in the candle

And the early spring
One or the other
Who but a Who's Who
He says "Who?" and I says
Never to return
The worst is yet to come
And everything

Routine "Hello Sucker, we
Eat in my drugstore"
Campaign in Buffalo
Tapped me on the arm
Bullshit in the tree
Was imparted to me
Forms and costumes and noses
Wood cracking in the sea
Everything, anything, God
And died all a silent
Dans son tombeau
Ooogh! he upped & come back
On Tenor Saxophone
A Milan
Bent down to the mud
One night
To his arms
And ah -

Jiggling gently in the night
He said and prodded me
The most beautiful sound in the world
Fantasm crazam crazam
For the pretties on the square
Faces green on the benches
Old ladies of shame, the same
Sin

And I don't care?

Who cares? Wha?
What's the moon got but tunes?
All sucks on same air
Ere aye mice Burns
Ah God be merciful
From here to eternity
That's where I'll be

Friday 2 December 2011

Frisco Blues and Jack Kerouak

The following poem is by way of an experiment. What I've done here is to take one of Jack Kerouac's long poems, in this case the 80 chorus poem San Francisco Blues, and then to take one line from each chorus (or verse) and assemble these lines together in sequence to create a new Jack Kerouac poem using only Kerouac's own words. Jack, I hope you approve wherever you are,

FRISCO BLUES

I see the backs
you see in black
of a thousand hundred feet
an excited selzerite
taste washed in
to work in dawn
in the milky dawn
of pain
in San Francisco
in the reel of wake up
to buy bananas
to step on it & get some bread
and Acme Beer
hurrying and laughing
breathless
with the battered coat
that's my home
and a red bag hangin
far away.

Don't ask for gold
and death & taxes
marching arm in arm.

Swing yr umbrella
for the world
and death
to happen
on a rainy corner
as a soda truck
at quarter of four
when the dog's let out
Sambati was his name
earnest for deliverance
it was a mournful day
in the calm & peaceful
"Rain on. O cloud!"
bluer than misery
Oh -
what a deal!

Pour me a drink
and sing another song
give me a hiball
or lay down dead
to end up there
to advertise the stone
in the afternoon
in this town
in the hellish street.

And I'm no where
torn and tattered
in some old dream
and unknown
dead
to come on in
on the last & fading hill
that everything
light illuminates
tonight off Toohey's head
on Labor day
when Frisco was a drizzle
falling everywhere
you here see
gelatinous & composed
for funny you.

The tattered awnings flap
the neons redly twangle
- "Switch to Calvert"
sun on down
of shady curtain night
in almost dark
dusk down sky
nevermore to remain
lost in the blue
for sullen brooding boys
bluely
glaring from black eyebrows
who walk alone
and then wearied
absolved of suicide
mourning the Renaissance
call.


See R K Singh at See Haiku Here


On the blog See Haiku Here there are now appearing some delightful, almost spiritual, haiku from my favourite Indian poet R K Singh. I have no hesitation in recommending a click.
Here's one seasonal 3-liner of my own.

straw on my back
snow in my beard
no holly and ivy in sight


gw2011/

Thursday 1 December 2011

Night Train to the End of the Line



















Heading out of the town
on the underground train
I looked over the others
and worked out the odds.

No conductor in sight.
And now late at night.
Only lights and metallic
announcements.

I made bets with myself:
as to who would get off
and who would remain
on the train.

I was wrong every time.

But still in the end
I collected.

gw2011/

Professor Freud takes the last train to Paris


He is apparently dangerous.

He knows the dark secrets of their minds.

He will ride on a long train of thought through the night.

He will leave them behind.

He knows they'll not let him down.

He won't lock the door.


gw2011/