Tuesday 28 February 2012

Cloud found?

and yet again
once more this day
I'll search the sky . . .
for the tenuous cloud
that lonely floats
on high
and wanders
like the schoolboy
with his kite
over hills and dales
(...or was it vales?)
to play
at something tugging
on a string
. . . and so we fill
our time with days


William Wordsworth's lonely wandering cloud,
look closely (upper rt.) - it's true, I finally found it!


Monday 27 February 2012

Clouds


This item is in reply to the blogger Weaver of Grass's comment on my comment on her blog regarding William Wordsworth's famous phrase: I wandered lonely as a cloud.

I said on Weaver's blog that Lakeland clouds are not in the habit of wandering about in the lonely romantic fashion beloved by Wordsworth. This is because they invariable come in on the Atlantic westerlies, one chasing the other. Endless fluffy white lines of them. Occasional showers.

The clouds are driven over and through the Lakeland mountains and valleys when the wind is strong and when it is slack they turn grey and gather together like sheep in a field on a rainy day. Then comes the deluge. That's the general pattern. Other times a grey front, one massive cloud, can arrive from Ireland and hang around for days.

The rainiest spot in England is not far from Wordsworth's Lakeland home nor for that matter from Ullswater, the place where he was supposedly inspired to write the poem 'Daffodils'.

And even if, as I concede, during the heat of summer there can be on occasion a stray cloud about in the Lakeland sky it would either quickly dissipate or alternatively settle down and rest on a mountain peak to await its companions. It wouldn't be wandering hither and thither like a lonely poet.

Thunder clouds rarely come alone. They build within sight of each other.

My point is that we should always read so-called classic poems as if we are reading them for the first time and we should challenge the metaphors if we believe they are lazy.

Incidentally there are several Wordsworthian entries to be found on this blog. Entering his name should find them springing up like daffodils in March.


Sunday 26 February 2012

Wednesday 22 February 2012

Towers Inverted


The old granaries
reflected in the winter sunshine
on the river
the image captured
with a digital camera
the special offer
you picked up at the checkout
when the girl had to go
to the room
and spend ten minutes
looking
for the last one
which eventually arrived
in a damaged box
you thought to be perilously torn

but when you got it home
and studied the instructions
in seven languages
none of which is yours
you found that it worked

no question about it
the result is plain if not clear
for all here to see

"tall towers
distorted in disturbance on river
"


a real professional job

the blur
to the eye of the viewer

the clarity
to the eye of the artist


and then

to stand on our heads . . .

.

Friday 17 February 2012

haiku forest


A breeze lifts the little prayer flags

A passer-by spins the hollow drums

The frost remains unmoved


for the time being

Wednesday 15 February 2012

Tuesday 14 February 2012

I hear the voice of God

The joker
He speaks to me in the ice floes
He writes down his words for the record
Here's one for the symbol minded
He says
I copy it down in my notebook
His voice is loud
And I fear him not
He growls
Like thunder
And waits
Like a man at a lady's door
Stamping the snow off his boots
It's all a release
He says
And then He smiles
This wise cracking God


Monday 13 February 2012

A thorny point






The burning bush

From where the crackly Voice doth speak

I am who I am








detail: from Anselm Kiefer's Ich bin der Ich bin
now showing at Essl Museum, Vienna, Austria

In Salzburg in 2003 Anselm Kiefer said: Science cannot tell us where we come from. Nor can theology, which purports to be a science. This is why stories exist and mythology which tries to explain something in a non-scientific way, knowing that there is no ultimate explanation or meaning.

The point here is that we are, or at least I am, 4,000 years after the burning bush event, dependent upon the veracity of a few words written in a much manipulated book called the Holy Bible; words pertaining to the identity, or the name, of a mysterious speaker claiming to be the LORD and also therefore my God.

I'm sorry but I fear the evidence is sadly lacking and I cannot accept the tale as anything other than an allegory, that is to say a symbolic and ancient narrative.

I am, if truth be told, being asked to accept one man's story, which may be pure fiction, as an actual event. Call it lack of faith if you like, but I cannot go down a path which asks me to believe that God, the supposed Creator of the universe, was hiding inside a burning bush, or was speaking through a hidden pipe from a nearby cave.

I prefer to see a God who has no need to resort to conjuring tricks, hallucinatory drugs, threats, fear mongering, and tall stories in order to recruit some followers. My God of the billion billion galaxies is not hiding in a thorn bush in the Middle East spinning mysterious riddles . . . that's what spiders are for.

Sunday 12 February 2012

Red Sea 2005


detail: Anselm Kiefer's Red Sea 2005

the creator himself
would go mad given knowledge
of the world's ignoble ways

we must assume that he is

The above haiku (for lack of a better word) is based in part on the following quotation from the artist Anselm Kiefer: "Every human being would go mad possessing full knowledge of the despicable ways of the world. As it is, every child is born into an empty space. That empty space is both empty and full: just as empty factory halls are full of traces and sounds of work once performed there. Every empty theatre is a space brimming with images and condensed words. Full emptiness is like loud silence."

My comment on Anselm Kiefer's excellent exhibition is that we ought all to be captains of our own ships of destiny, or at least that is my general idea; or it was, or it used to be, except that today the ships, that is to say the ships of state on which we all travel, are foundering on the dangerous reefs of avaricious and "despicable ways" and it has all too often been so. The echoes go before us.

Anselm Kiefer is currently showing at Essl Museum, Klosterneuburg, nr. Vienna, Austria.

______

On May 13th 2005 there was a great sandstorm in the Red Sea

Saturday 11 February 2012

haiku tao


Am I a man imagining
I am a shadow, or a shadow
imagining I am a man?

in deep thought


haiku self-portrait


the obscure

self-portrait in shadow

haiku

the obscure self-portrait

Friday 10 February 2012

haiku superimposed


my shadow

goes before me

a bit part in a movie



photo of Andrea Fraser addressing my shadow in Projection
level -2
4.2 - 28.5.12 mumok, vienna

inthebeginning

"there came three priests . . ."

in the beginning
the people
looked into the sky
and saw the moon
and the stars and the sun
and the cycles of nature
and they fished
in the rivers
and in the sea
and they moved
from place to place
with the migration
of the birds and the fishes
and they gave thanks
to the gods of the heavens
who lived in the sun
and in the moon
and they named their days after them

but then

from the desert
there came three priests
who spoke to the people

there are too many gods
and you the people are becoming
confused

and so the people
destroyed the old gods
who lived in the sun

and the moon
and the rivers
and the sea

and created the gods
of the three hells
and three heavens

three gods
to make them
make war on each other

and the people fell
before the new gods
and became as their sheep

tractable followers
through gaps in their walls
without even a dog behind them

and when the gods saw
that the people
were sheep

they were
all
well pleased


______
mouse masks and other claes oldenburg exhibits at vienna mumok 4.2 - 28.5.12

Tuesday 7 February 2012

haiku


a rustle in the reeds

vamoosed the wild pigs!

now nothing stirs


This is the final picture in this series of 5 photographs from the frozen lake in the Lobau.

Some of the unseen wild pigs may one day end up being simmered and stirred in the stewpot, hence the wordplay in the last line of the haiku. This is also a play on the apparent devastation seen in the photo for the pigs turn up (or stir) the earth with their snouts, even the frozen earth, to get to the roots, and so with the ground made loose the surrounding trees eventually fall.

Obviously too there's the third meaning of nothing stirs - nothing disturbs the silence. This reminds us that there was nothing moving in the reeds, not even a gentle breeze.

Vamoose is a Spanish verb which I though might add a little spice ;).


Monday 6 February 2012

haiku reflections


ice skaters glide
and seen from the lakeside
the rhythm reflected

___________________________________

haiku frozenology



unidentified
frozen
objets d'art


and an



unbekannt frozen Objekt




Sunday 5 February 2012

haiku acquastronomy


a release of gas
caught in the ice of a lake

stars, clouds and galaxies


Richard Brautigan's Sombrero Fallout

Sombrero Fallout is the first Richard Brautigam novel I have read as far as I can remember.

The story is two surreal stories in one.

The title story concerns a sombrero falling into town from the clear sky and how this minor event sparks a major riot which finally has to be put down by the military. The whole townsfolk takes leave of its senses. The sombrero keeps its cool; but only just.

The interwoven story is of a heartbroken American writer's love for a long haired Japanese woman who sleeps with a cat. Is love a form of insanity? That is the question.

The TLS blurb describes Sombrero Fallout as "playful and serious, hilarious and melancholy, profound and absurd..." so that saves me having to think of those words. I'd just like to add that it's delightful and entertaining.

Richard Brautigan dedicates Sombrero Fallout to Junichiro Tanizaki who wrote The Key and Diary of a Mad Old Man.

In his introduction to Sombrero Fallout Kevin Williamson refers to a BrautiganWorld where nothing is as it seems, where anything can happen, and nearly always does.

Williamson goes on: "Poetry had been boxed into a corner, had got lost in the fog, and was later found dead beside a bottle of Tennessee whiskey and a .44 calibre gun. Shot between the eyes."

Richard Brautigam lived from 1935 to 1984. He had nine volumes of poetry published. His last novel So the Wind Won't Blow it All Away appeared in 1982.



Saturday 4 February 2012

haiku for Geoff Stevens (1942 - 2012)




To put out the fires

They throw petrol on the flames

The seller warms his hands





Friday 3 February 2012

All the way from California


. . . now plunge in!

I'm talking about a book I ordered. It has now arrived here in Austria. It's a second-hand copy of Milorad Pavic's Dictionary of the Khazars (Alfred Knopf, New York 1988).

I'd never heard of the book until a few days ago when a young Rumanian student of my acquaintance happened to mention it. I was so intrigued by the description of the thing that I was soon ordering my own copy. And, as I say, here it is! And all the way from California.

A few words from the jacket sleeve will explain the reason for my excitement:

"It is a novel about a whole world and a great lost people. It is a book of knowledge. It is all about the present and sometimes about the future, which is why it begins eleven hundred years ago. It is about three great (and unruly) wise men - one Christian, one Jewish, one Moslem - whose disputes about the way the world should be are never done. It's a mystery wrapped in bedazzling philosophy. It's an Arabian Nights romance wrapped in a mystery. It's several murder stories wrapped in a romance. It's an illumination wrapped in secrets. It's a wickedly teasing intellectual game and an astonishing adventure . . ." and so I shall now proceed to read it, or more correctly "plunge in."

I plunge.

________
Milorad Pavic was born in Belgrade in 1929. He is one of Yugoslavia's most acclaimed poets. The Dictionary of the Khazars is his first full-length novel. It is translated from the Serbo-Croatian by Christina Pribicevic-Zoric.


Wednesday 1 February 2012

then God said: Let there be cars


. . . so they

created fog lights sidelights

headlights brake lights parking lights

reversing lights indicator lights oil-warning lights

interior lights door-panel lights control-panel lights

radio and cd-player lights map-reading lights

cockpit glovebox & drinkcooler lights +

lights to fire their

cigars . . .