Tuesday 31 January 2012

Sam's Motors - the name you can trust -


Buy direct and $ave! $ave! $ave!

Ask for easy terms: $1 down and $1 a day!

Sam's Motors
You can bank on us!

This week's special!

Ferdinand GT3 RS

one careful owner
good order threw out
fool surface wreck owed

bodywork needs sum attenshun
reluctant sail
phone to view
tel: 00 00 0000 0000 and ask for George

FREE OIL FILTER TO FIRST 10 CALLERS!

Sam says: Take her for a spin!

Your used camel or ass taken in part exchange
Overseas branches in Iraq, Kuwait, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Bahrain, Libya, Afghanistan,
Opening soon! Tehran

Monday 30 January 2012

Delayed Reaction

The German satellite Rosat
narrowly missed Peking
as it crashed to Earth
in October 2011,
7 minutes later
and it would've been a case of
Peking duck!
Of course, we
in the West
were officially told of this near-miss
back in
January 2012.


Heute, an Austrian daily newspaper, dateline 30th January 2012 (i.e. today), reports as follows: Satellite narrowly missed Peking. It is only now being made known that the German satellite, Rosat, which crashed to Earth in October 2011, came close to hitting Peking. If the satellite had fallen to Earth seven minutes later it would have crashed into the Chinese city.
____
Wikipedia info.- ceramic satellite parts weighing up to 400 kg would have crashed into the Earth. The Bay of Bengal, east of India, was given as a location.

I guess it's a only a matter of time . . . a lot of space junk circling around over our heads and not all of it friendly . . .

Saturday 28 January 2012

The unblemished tale of EU apples

- wholesome, natural and delicious fruit -


The unblemished tale of EU apples

Delicious apples from Chile
Said the print on the box
In the supermarket aisle

I bagged one green and two reds
The green tasted scrumptious
The reds tasted of zilch

No seeds in the red ones

Was another surprise
And yet they were perfect
Shape colour and size

I sadly concluded:
It's time
I got wise

So now
I choose apples
more rustic and wild.

Friday 27 January 2012

Dress code

dress code

Thousands, perhaps millions of people have died, often accepting torture first, for loyalty to one religion against a scarcely distinguishable alternative - Richard Dawkins

where stands
the soldier

there stands
the priest

in his habit


where stands
the priest

there stands
the child

in his habiliments


haiku



cat in the kitchen

the fridge has been fed

the pair of them purr



Wednesday 25 January 2012

Waves of Glass

.

O Israel
they are coming to get you
those dangerous ships overloaded with pacifists
armed with poems and pictures from American children
and middle-aged women with sharpened pencils
Alice Walker is one of their leaders
her color is purple
she's dangerous
you must stop her at Gibraltar
or failing that at Greece
she's Helen of Troy in a wooden boat - things hidden in the decks -
crayons - paints - telephones - cameras - all dangerous things
help! Jesus O God somebody help us - help them -
help everybody - help the Greeks - help the horses on the boats -
sink those ships!
scuttle their ideas!
smash their prows!
send on the g.men!
fire the water cannon - bring on the helicopters - like in VietNam -
where's Ho Chi Minh when we need him?
where's Whitman? Moses? Jesus H Christ where are these people?
Where's the leader?
Take me to the leader. Sit me down with Alice Walker the potential terrorist.
The lady of dangerous lyric! Never mind Clinton. Never mind Bush! Obama!
Jail the poets.
Tear up the the children's pictures.
Wip your asses on their pomes!
Kill James Joyce. O what did I spray? That man's already in Swizzerland. He squats on a rock
like a gnome in a graceyard.
Bomb Tehran- or at least some place around there. Wave the flag. Send in Mossad.
O star of David.
The brightness of thy hope and strength and fame,
like the proud ship that led the fleet so long,
Beseems today a wreck driven a gale, a mastless bulk, and mid
teeming maddened half glad crowds
and Hell at the helm.
Be glad O Is-real
The Book of Revelations is open. The future is waiting. The Berlin Wall has fallen. The Chinese Wall has fallen. The Hadrian's Wall has fallen. The Wall of Jericho is fallen.
I fall on my knees.
I put away my slingshot.
I put away my suicide vest.
I put away my Kalashnikov.
I put away my Enola Gay.
I put away my Little Boy.
I put away my Polaris.
I beseech you O Israel
O United States of Israel.
O Obama.
O JFK.
O MLK.
O John Lennon. I imagine there is a Heaven
in a faraway northern country
in a pastoral region -
O ye composers and mighty maestros where art thou today?
Hail to Barenboim!
Hail to Beethoven!
Hail to Brotherhood!
Hail to Alice Walker the purple terrorist of the children's post office turned back by the coastguard at your borders at Pathos!
Hail to the letters from children embargo!
Hail to the bringers of joy!
Hail to the nuclear submariners!
Hail to the phosphor bombs!
Hail to the drones!
Hail to the poets!
Hail to Israel!
Hail!
Hail!
Hail!
Too late the phantom caressed me.
Too late I was there in spirit of peace.
Too late.
Too late.
Always too late.
O Jesus
why
were you
also
too

late






Tuesday 24 January 2012

J. Edgar (Warner Brothers - 2011)


This Warner Brothers film is an almost monochrome character study, as you might expect from Clint Eastwood. Nevertheless the film presents an illuminating portrait of the FBI's first director J. Edgar Hoover played by Leonardo DiCaprio

Clint Eastwood's technique, the low lighting and the lonesome piano music, is a welcome break from the heroic mayhem and uproar that is Hollywood's standard fare.

Eastwood's G-men in action were presented as black and white cinema newsreel and as comics and cartoons on breakfast cereal packets.

The film concentrated on the three loves of J. Edgar Hoover the first director of the FBI. His first and greatest love was his mother: ". . . the only person I can trust." His second love was the FBI; his FBI. His third love was his same sex partner.

But of course Hoover is better known for his hates than for his loves. His passionate hate being Communism and its undermining of the United States. If he claimed that the United States was his first love that would be false. He had a love-hate relationship with his country. He hated its Presidents. He hated its negroes. He hated Martin Luther King: "He is a communist!"

DiCaprio's J. Edgar is a classic Mutter Söhnchen - an ambitious and sexually frustrated man dominated and overwhelmed by his mother; the pair of them driven and obsessed.

So what happens when such a personality reaches the pinnacle of power? And how does he get there in the first place? These questions are put under the microscope.

The story of J. Edgar Hoover is dictated by himself in his later years for the record as he would have it presented. The film is therefore liberally sprinkled with Hoover's own quotes.

Of course, Hoover's memories are his own slanted versions of events; a mixture of fact and fiction. They are less than the truth. They are his own hero worship and glorification of himself as the greatest of the G-Men. And when he falls he short, as he often does, there is always be someone else to blame. J. Edgar is a fraud; a man unable to face his own failings.

On the other side of the balance sheet there are stories of passionate love, sacrifice and great loyalty. The finale of one of these remarkable stories is revealed shortly after Richard Nixon gains power. Needless to say, the FBI chief seriously hated Nixon; a man not to be trusted: "I saw it in his eyes."

J. Edgar would never release his control of his FBI. He clung in there like a madman possessed, even when desperately ill.

Why such devotion and dedication? Why not hand over the reins of control and enjoy more of those wonderful days at the horse race meetings?

"You can't trust anyone in Washington DC!" is J. Edgar's short answer. They would take over control and he would never allow them to do that.

But the film is about more than J. Edgar Hoover; it touches upon a nation's obsession with its overwhelming sense of insecurity. At the end I couldn't help thinking that Clint Eastwood's J. Edgar was a metaphor for what is going on in America today.

* * * * *

Monday 23 January 2012

haiku shopping



the farmers' market

streetwise purveyors of excellence

air-conditioned throughout







haiku shadowed


"The young man next door;

you'd never have known he was there

he kept much to himself."

image: Jeff Wall's Man with a Rifle (detail)

Sunday 22 January 2012

Signing-up to the Zeitgeist



the old books
taken off the shelves
and taken away

the new books
brought in
and placed on the shelves

the town square
named after the leader
un-named

the town square
named for the leader
re-named

the monument
to the previous leader
un-erected

a monument
to the new leader
to be erected

people returning
and old friends going
on vacation

their national flags
hauled down
and burned
and trampled in the streets

our national flags
hoisted
into the skies
into the four winds

Pin prick of blood

The original was something like this.
And at the same time it was nothing like this.

It was carelessly scrawled in genuine longhand.

Laid out that way by a long-haired
fellow with a stout red pen
and a fondness for ale
and alehouse adjectives
slumped in the corner
of a dusty window
by a slow black river.

It was cunningly offered as art.
It was not double spaced
or on paper.
Accepted.

To the background of Mahler's 10th
on the crackly radio
the green buds of poetry
had opened themselves
and with his red-inked nib
he abandoned his verse
onto the white cardboard stiffener
laboriously removed
from the bargain shirt
with too large a collar
and with sleeves too short

- half price due to the recent demise of the octogenarian shirt shop owner
from natural causes it has to be said and the family's 50% off everything sale -

Be that as it may
the point is: Yes!
It is still possible
to pen a passable poem
on a cardboard insert
with a red inked pen
and a pin prick of blood
in such ordinary circumstances.

May it always be so.

haiku television

to the question

of nothing to watch on TV

put your thinking cap on





Friday 20 January 2012

haiku waltzer



we dropped
into
the toilet

in the underground passage
and with a coin
we engaged

the herzlich willkommen
noting the tenor
and the decor

we conducted
ourselves
with operatic decorum

took our seats
in a row
and relaxed to the strains

of the blue
danube
waltz


we unrolled
the soft paper
we squished the soft soap

we left
as we found
left our smiles in the mirrors


haiku post

returned to sender
address unknown -
it was all so long ago

Thursday 19 January 2012

Wednesday 18 January 2012

Alter wise at owl-light



or a poem written late at night and finished in the morning

why call 9/11 9/11
is something that puzzles me

between moves on the chess board
designed for the blind

in most of the rest of the world
the date that day was 11/9
not 9/11

9/11 was the date
Dylan Thomas died in New York

although at the Chelsea
they would probably say

Dylan died on 11/9
and not 9/11 as it would be said
in Wales

logic tells me
you begin with the smallest
work towards the biggest

first you have the time
then comes the day
then the month
then the year

or am I
simply
nuts
puddled
deranged
and out of my mind

or am I
simply
a simpleton

unlike all the sane
and 9/11 oriented

the 9/11 billions


now it's black's turn to move

Downhill Race


Having gained the top
of the sheep-cropped hill
we paused

to rest in the bracken
and we gazed at the ocean
below

and then I got to thinking
of God
and creation

a dig in the ribs
from my brother
fetched me round

now up and away
the sentence trailing behind him
let's run like hell to the bottom

o we did laugh
as we ran
tripping over our feet

stumbling and tumbling
we arrived
on the beach

we fell on the sands
and laughed even more
each to each

holding our ribs
which were aching
and sore

o we did laugh
on the beach
each to each

it mattered not
who was first
to that place

pure joy
was the winner
of our downhill race


gw2012/

Tuesday 17 January 2012

haiku





birds on the wall
in an open-air classroom
silence in snowfall


Perfect Babies



You know how it is with babies
some are born less than perfect
but they say there was a boy long ago
a direct descendant of God himself
born to a virgin. Let's say he was.
He would have been a perfect baby
but truth to tell he must
like this poem
have been less than perfect.
God's only son was less than perfect!
How can that be, you cry!
Fortunately for the baby boy
God's faux pas
was quickly picked up by
the sharp-eyed virgin
and she took him in
for minor surgery.
It was quickly performed.

Sunday 15 January 2012

Alas to arms!

. . . or a song from his faire Lady


Magniloquent knight
of gentle birth
and nobly bred to arms
my chivalrous
champion servant rides
with short diagonal strides . . .
. . . a
cavalier quixotic
all too fond of Spanish grog
he waves
his trusty sword
at the windmill
in the fog

Saturday 14 January 2012

It's turtles all the way down

a
turtle rising from the waves - hand painted by nature










In a Brief History of Time Stephen Hawking tells of an old lady attending an astronomy lecture. After the speaker had described the movements of the stars and planets the old lady stood up and said: "Young man, what you have said is nonsense. The world is on the back of a turtle." "And what is the turtle standing on?" countered the scientist. "It's turtles all the way down!" the old lady informed him.

Don't laugh at the old woman. I found the above stone on a beach at the precise spot where I had found a turtle strangled to death by a plastic sandwich bag the previous day. There were millions of stones on the beach. How this singular stone caught my eye as I was walking along is also a mystery. There were no other illustrated stones to be found. I looked for them. Turned many stones over.

Lahr counters debt in homeopathic doses

Since 25th May 2009 the Munich artist Christin Lahr has been making daily money transfers of one cent to the German Federal Ministry of Finance.

On the online banking transfer slip there is space for a maximum of 108 characters in the box marked: Reason for Payment.

Each day Lahr copies out the next 108 characters from the 3 volume text of the 39th edition of Karl Marx's "Capital: A Critique of Political Economy and crosses them off in the book. In this way the entire text of the book, approximately 1,696,500 characters, will be transmitted to the FRG over a period of 43 years.

Lahr has calculated that her 'homeopathic' donations could pay off the national debt in 300 years, due to the exponential effects of interest and compound interest, if the national debt could be frozen at the 31st May 2009 figure of € 1,746,599,197,210.

She states: Once a day, the micro-donations upset the state's balance sheet for about the length of one breath. They serve as triggers for debate.

Not included in the above calculations is the required labour and any added value for example through cultural and symbolic capital. It is better to give than to receive.

Friday 13 January 2012

Olden Tree

An Emperor
and an Actress

upon a golden Path

where the Woods were thick
with Rocks and Roots
and muddy underfoot

and an endless Rain was falling

its endlessness was falling
and not one silver Cloud to see

from the Hollow
of an olden Tree


Emperor Franz Joseph I and companion

______
gw2012/

LIBRARY BOOKS:
The Fifth Column - Ernest Hemingway
The Proust Screenplay - Harold Pinter
The Complete Stories - Alice Walker
A Henry Miller Reader - Henry Miller (Ed. John Calder)

Thursday 12 January 2012

Poetry 2012


Following the success of Poetry 2010 I am tempted to offer poets the opportunity to showcase new work at Poetry 2012 (the so-called Year of the Awakening). If there is enough interest out there I will endeavor to edit and produce a printable e-book in similar format to the one at Poetry2010. I shall again be looking for approximately 20 poems (up to maximum of 20 lines each). They can be e-mailed to gwilataondotat. Please include the words Poetry 2012 or Poetry Twenty Twelve in the subject line.

Full guidelines available now at the Poetry 2012 thumbnail.

About these woods

About
these woods
I belong
with the running stream of song
on a gloved-up winter morn
when I take a note as to its measure
or someone stands upon a stick
that snaps
aside my path with heavy foot
and I turn to listen
to the silence
and a man
unhoods a hawk
and sees it soaring to the sun
above the running stream of song
about these woods where I belong

gw2012/

Tuesday 10 January 2012

winter haiku






the sunny yellow rose petal

and the clinging honeybee

two worlds about to fall

God's War Manual


Examples of chosen people - 1: the Herrenvolk

As in 1914 and 1938 the World today stands at the edge of the abyss. This time the holocaust will be achieved at arm's length as it were; computer controlled drones and nuclear missiles will clear the way. It will all, as they say, be over by Christmas.

The United States of America-Israel and the Republic of Iran are proudly posturing and parading, flexing their muscles and exercising their disconnected vocal chords. They are brain damaged and mismatched boxers on the scales before the big fight. But this is not a casino in Las Vegas. And there is no referee.

The European Union has joined the foolish crowds at the ringside. The EU's Iranian oil embargo will bring joy to the neo-zealots and the warmongers in the military-industrial-monetary complex; those who work in the dark, those whom 'Ike' and 'JFK' warned us about; those who want to control the world and its resources. It will not bring joy to the nuclear club nations of China, Russia, Pakistan etc..

Madmen and crazed prophets have taken over the asylums and casinos. For them World War III now beckons temptingly. There may be no turning back.

But what does God say? Where does He stand when it comes to this eternal business of War and Conflict in the Middle East, in the region of the so-called Holy Land and His so-called chosen people ?

Let's read from the so-called instruction book.

from God's War Manual

Psalm 60

For the director of music. To the tune of The Lily of the Covenant. A miktam of David. For teaching. When he fought Aram Naharaim and Aram Zobah, and when Joab returned and struck down twelve thousand Edomites in the Valley of Salt.

. . . God has spoken from his sanctuary.

In triumph I will parcel out Shechem
and measure off the Valley of Succoth.
Gilead is mine, and Manasseh is mine.
Ephraim is my helmet,
Judah is my sceptre.
Moab is my washbasin,
upon Edom I toss my sandal;
over Philista I shout in triumph.

. . . With God we shall gain the victory,
and He will trample down our enemies.

Ah yes, now I remember. 

In triumph I will parcel out Eurasia 
and measure off the Valley of Danube.
Bohemia is mine. Austria is mine. 
Poland is my helmet. 
Belgium is my washbasin. 
Upon the Urals I will toss my sandal. 
Over Abyssinia I shout in triumph. 
With Satan we shall gain victory, 
and He will trample down our enemies 
for a thousand years . . .


Monday 9 January 2012

haiku

in the snowy woods
in the silent rustle of leaves
the edge of my path

haiku intention


walking with purpose
a man in a deerstalker cap
is carrying a gun

This almost threatening haiku is my first idea of something suitable in response to Prof. David McMurray's request to readers, at Asahi Shimbun, to submit haiku about people returning to work after the holidays. It's an interesting and varied subject to think about.

bullet train driver
his spectacles left at the station
peering into the fog

I wonder what happened to that guy. You may remember that his train was suddenly stopped when he radioed-in that he couldn't see. He'd travelled about 12 miles, picking up speed, with several hundred passengers on board, before he realized he had a problem, as I recall.


Library books:
The Forbidden Tree - Rose Ausländer
Naked Lunch - Williams Burroughs (abandoned - heavy going being too repetitive).

Poetry Rat

I am delighted that my Poetry Rat e-book is proving popular. It's where I put my own favourite poems. Work goes on at snail's pace, but it does go on. At the time of writing there are 34 poems within the Poetry Rat pages.

You will notice (if you go there) that there is no comment section enabled. Readers of Poetry Rat may leave comments here at Poet-in-Residence if they wish. See, for example, Gerald England's comment two posts below this one.

Poetry Rat, now in its third month, has had over 800 visitors. That may not sound a lot until you consider how many people would, or could, read a conventional poetry book even as its author compiled it? Not too many.

On the subject of statistics I am highly pleased that my Poet-in-Residence blog received more than 50,000* hits during 2011. This is a huge number for this one-man-show, and so my grateful thanks to all my readers. Each and every one of you.

*50,913

Saturday 7 January 2012

Magic Mirror

"Magic
mirror
on
the wall
by
the hatstand
in
the hall
will
you
reveal
the Truth
to all?"

"The truth
is shown
to all who ask!"

How was it for you?

Another one over
sighed the thousand-faced god
(and all of them true)
at least for one year
in our time and space 'verse
(how was it for you?
did the rum hold its flavour
in the overnight tumbler?)
and what else did we waste
apart from our time?

Is the best sell-by-date
the one that's not known?


Dragooned


Dark clouds collect
On the horseman's head
Wind's whistle blows

Jet-black songs
Obscure its opus
Numbers
Echoes
Spots of rain

Friday 6 January 2012