Sunday 27 January 2013

haiku





the box on a tree in winter

with sunflower seeds for the birds 

the mouse in the hole below



Friday 25 January 2013

One More Enclosure


And then there was
that time
I composed
my passable poem
of literary
madness
and mailed
it

with haste
to the website
of one of the quality
read-in-your-limousine
papers
the one almost too large to unfold and refold
which
I'd found
on my seat
in the tram
on one of my endless journeys to town

its polished slick phrases
under black limousines
and tall
columns
of stock
exchange
pie
charts
and graphs
in that special
black ink
that clings
to your tense 
trembling
fingers

 next 
breaking news
the lit-ed
(most likely
pre-programmed computer)
was moved
to respond

it was only six weeks
(it was very polite)

 thank you for the recent submission
 we regret we are unable to take it

! -o how that missive grinned in my spam box- !

 a true bard
undeterred
I planned (phew!)
 a couple of changes
and formed a new
strategy

I tinkered that verse
 - a tink here
 - a tink there
and when
it was
done
 I mailed it in
a cream
coloured
cover
(a stamp
in the corner!)
right
back
to
the ed. 
the head of new lit.

and
then
I
heard
nothing
more
for
ten
long
weeks

I remember
now
how the post scriptum 
(embossed
letterpaper)
was
underscored
bold

 you are free submit your item 

elsewhere 

the unwritten suggestion:

to simply forget it. 

1 encl.





Weltuntergang haiku




When the last bee is poisoned 

And the tribes have scattered 

Fish will get along swimmingly 


Weltuntergang 

In the next few centuries, if not sooner, the dangerous species known as homo sapiens will cause large portions of the  Earth's land surface to become a radioactive wasteland. Homo sapiens will also destroy most of the world's wild creatures and plants. Homo sapiens will even manage to degrade his own DNA, in particular the thyroid hormone, and create an abundance of cretins. Fortunately homo sapiens will NOT succeed in mutilating or extinguishing all life on Earth. The ocean is vast. Even homo sapiens cannot poison it all with his filth. There will always be fish.


Thursday 24 January 2013

Three Books


The three books shown below are newly arrived here. I'm thrilled to have them and I hope soon to be reading them. 

They were written by regular readers of this Poet-in-Residence blog. 

David Pike, YouTube poet, can be found at the Pulsar link in my sidebar. He is the editor of Pulsar, which was the paper periodical of the Ligden Poetry Society but is now an online poetry magazine. You may submit poems to David at Pulsar via email. You can also view David's many short videos on YouTube. He is often to be found reading his own poetry in his own unique way to camera via the YouTube bar at the top of the Poet-in-Residence homepage. David's new book The Strand is a collection of his poems from the years 2007 to 2011.

Jim Murdoch is your host at The Truth About Lies website which is always on my updated blogs links list. Jim can be found in some remote location in Scotland or, for our convenience, more easily via the internet. He is an excellent book reviewer and I believe he has three books published. I suspect that Milligan and Murphy has its share of Waiting for Godot moments. Yesterday at Vienna's de France Kino I viewed the Ken Loach film Angels' Share which is, amongst other things, about the 2% of Scotland's whisky which somehow evaporates through the walls of the casks and is known as the angel's share. Here's a glass raised to you Jim! 

Alan Morrison is to be found at the Recusant, another website on the Poet-in-Residence links list. Alan travelled to Sweden to research his latest book which is about the "tall skies" and of course the inhabitants of that Scandinavian land. I've never been to Sweden, so I'm eager to know what Alan has to tell me through his long poem. I'm pleased to say that I had a contribution accepted for the important 2011 anthology Emergency Verse, a 300-page tome edited by Alan. It featured work by 111 other poets with a social conscience; ranging from Tamar Yoseloff to Keith Armstrong. Like David Pike's website the Recusant website also accepts emailed submissions.





haiku Q&A


A MEDITERRANEAN GREEN TURTLE

- 40 truckloads of beach? 

"Luxury golf hotel plan on course!" 

- and the 18 greens? 


"Mediterranean green turtle is critically endangered" 
(National Geographic) - click on image -

Monday 21 January 2013

Report: Mayor from Futaba (Fukushima) hospitalized




It won't be over this side of an eternity. Radiation dies too slowly. 



The Mayor from Futaba

The Mayor from Futaba
in Fukushima Prefecture
said this to the world:

My hair fell off 
one woman told me, 
tears were in her eyes.

But it wasn't long
before the mayor's
own hair began to fall
and soon he'd lost
all that once grew
proudly on his chest
and everywhere down
below. Of course there

were the daily nosebleeds
and the thyroid cysts
and the dizzy spells
to contend with too.

So the mayor went along
to the hospital
and politely requested
the appropriate tests.  And they
sent him away!
They sent the mayor away!

*

But soon
it was being newly reported:

Mayor admitted to Hospital!

*

Today the mayor
has a crisp clean bed. And
someone has phoned
to ask how he is.

The mayor can still walk!
they said.

______________________


It is also reported that the Governor of Fukushima has been hospitalized due to bleeding from the colon area. 



I wish both gentlemen a speedy recovery, if indeed a speedy recovery is possible. These prominent cases serve to highlight the plight of thousands of ordinary citizens whose voices are seldom heard.


Joachim Meyerhoff reads Walter Buchebner


There was a good attendance at this poetry reading at the ORF Funkhaus in Vienna on Friday evening just gone. Burgtheater actor Joachim Meyerhoff is always articulate and animated. I recently saw Meyerhoff play the part of Thomas Bernhard's mad doctor in the drama Der Ignorant und der Wahnsinnige (The Ignorant and the Crazy) to glorious imperfection. And so I went to the reading of Walter Buchebner's collection ich die eule von wien (I, the owl from vienna). I was not disappointed!

More to follow.

Sunday 20 January 2013

Le Tour de Farce


 Puppeteer Franz Walters at Vienna's Theater Monokel
with 'Les maries de la Tour Eiffel' from Jean Cocteau

"Go on, Lance!" I'd cry from the crowded sidelines halfway up a mountain pass. I'd be joyfully waving a large green hand or brandishing some other Tour souvenir tossed my way from the publicity caravan. I'd be dancing like a marionette. 

But now, sad to say, I am one of the many who feel betrayed following the doping confessions of the Tour de France 'champion' Lance Armstrong.

Armstrong, who 'won' Le Tour a record seven times, recently confessed on television to Oprah Winfrey that he had 'doped' in all of his 'victories'.

Yes, I was one of those gullible Lance Armstrong fans who travelled half way across Europe (twice!) to see my 'hero' in action. I stood with like-minded friends at the roadside and cheered and applauded  when the invincible strong man rode by.

At last, here is an honest Tour de France rider, winning by the sweat of his brow, his intelligence, his months of winter training, his sacrifices, and not only that but also beating his illness in the process. I defended him up to the hilt. I decried his rival Jan Ulrich and others who said Lance Armstrong was doping. If he was doping they would have found it by now, I said. And I said it often.

I quoted Lance Armstrong's words:  I am the most dope-tested athlete on the planet. They have never found anything.

And so I believed the 'great' man. What else could I do? I bought two of his books. And having read them I recommended them to people. To friends who had cancer. Inspiring, I said.

This so-called betrayal is nothing to me. I will soon get over it. Maybe I already have. We tend quickly to do so when we discover that our sporting 'heroes', our children's and grandchildren's role models,  are nothing but cheats.

Perhaps the whole dirty business will be a Tour de France watershed. Perhaps Le Tour will be clean from now on. Perhaps in future the punishments will fit the crimes. Perhaps. Perhaps. Perhaps. Like Le Tour itself we've been here before. Several times. It seems there's nothing more to be done. It seems there's no alternative.

A year is a long time in sport.

Millions of duped cycling fans will, in the absence of any credible alternative, simply have to shake off   their feelings of disappointment  and betrayal and after a time out for reflection build anew their hope and trust.

C'est la vie.

Others will feel unable to do so, they will no longer dance for the puppeteer.

Either way. It's a crying shame.


Saturday 19 January 2013

God's Night Off


Saturday night in Sammy's Bar
and there I met God

He was hunched on a barstool
And raisin' a gin to his lip

The bottle half empty
Or full, if you like it that way

I was just passin' by
And thought I'd drop in

For one shot of rye
Or maybe a gin

He slurred me the bottle
And he slid me the glass

I measured two fingers
And swallowed that spirit in one

And so it went on . . .
Each one having one

Till all of a sudden
The bottle was gone,

Then God put his hand
Onto mine

Don't worry  said God
There's nothing to fear

Whatever men say,

All is okay

Then he put on his hat
And buttoned his coat

He went to the door and he turned
And said  Lis ten

E v e yt h ri n g's  goi g n  exa cl ty  t o  p a l n


He glanced at the clock
And then like a shot

- he was gone.



Thursday 17 January 2013

Asteroid 2012 DA14 - a close approach



image credit: wikicommons / nasa neo


Asteroid no. 2012 DA14 resembles a rocky potato and measures 35mtrs (115 ft) x 80mtrs (262 ft). 

It is predicted to pass through Earth's geosynchronous ring plane at a comfortable 0.09 LD*, or 35,000kms (21,750 miles) above the centre point of the planet; that is 28,500 kms (17,700 miles) above the planet's surface.


On 15th February 2013, the day after St. Valentine's Day, the romantic asteroid no. 2012 DA14 will be nearer to the Earth's surface than some of our orbiting satellites.


It will fly past the Earth at a relative speed of 28,000 kph (17,400 mph) and will be visible through binoculars from parts of Eastern Europe, Asia and Australia.


We shall no doubt be told more about this non-hazardous object as the date of its closest approach approaches.



*LD - Lunar Distance: i.e. the distance between Earth and Moon.

All numerical values are approximate. 


Update 15th February 2013:
Meteorite comes to Earth in Russian Urals. This, we are being told is NOT the same meteorite, just a coincidence! Nevertheless more than 100 people have been injured from flying glass caused by explosions in the air, according to a spokesman for the Russian Interior Ministry.

Blackbird in Snow



there was snow

and the blackbird


in the apricot tree


observing the fall




when he flew 


    he flew quickly 



over the road



    something moved

in the hedge



Snow Removal



More scrapes of the shovels 

Over yesterday's grit 

Now under the layer of new snow 

And the throwing of snow 

From the pavements 


Into the roads

Where the ploughs push it all 

Back onto the kerbs

And into parked cars.


A town with more shovels 

To be handed out 

To an army of men 

Who thank God 

For the snow and the chance.


Today the wind blows

And extra men drift 

Into the yards where they stand 

In long queues 

And hope for the worst.






Wednesday 16 January 2013

NIPPON CHINBOTSU / JAPAN SINKS

Today, manga-artist Tokihiko Ishiki will be in the Austrian capital, Vienna, to open an exhibition of his most famous and chilling work Nippon Chinbotsu (Japan Sinks); at the city's MAK Museum until the 21st April 2013.

The artist drew inspiration for his gigantic images of the imaginary mega-disaster from the 1973 novel Nippon Chinbotsu, a science-fiction best-seller penned by Japan's Sakyou Komatsu (1931-2011) which describes the sinking of Japan resulting from a series of massive and cataclysmic earthquakes.

We saw for ourselves on our breaking-news televisions unforgettable footage of a recent tsunami wreaking havoc along the Japanese coastline; the burning houses, the fishing boats and the factories carried along atop the giant wave like toys, and the people running before it for their lives.

Japan is probably the most unstable piece of real estate on the planet. The Japanese archipelago sits on many fault lines in the earth's crust where gigantic tectonic plates of unimaginable power move relentlessly on their collision courses. Hardly a day goes by without an earthquake of some significance on land or in the sea. In addition there are the volcanoes; the most famous Mount Fuji, the slumbering giant, may wake any day.

And yet, man in his folly builds 56 nuclear power plants each containing quantities of uranium and/or plutonium in such an unstable place.

A farewell sunset for the 'Land of the Rising Sun', and (courtesy of jet-streams and ocean currents) also for most of the rest of us, might arrive sooner than we think.

There are ancient stones in Japan which line the coast. These stones were left by those who went before as a warning not to build near the sea. They were ignored by those who thought they knew better but didn't know better, as we saw when Fukushima Daiichi destroyed 4/6ths of itself.

And I remember watching aghast as from one of the buildings a mushroom-like cloud appeared and climbed heavenwards flinging, it was later reported, plutonium fragments and invisible hot particles far and wide.

I shall go to the Nippon Chinbotsu exhibition at the first opportunity.

The headquarters of the IAEA, the so-called nuclear watchdog, is here in Vienna. The current leader of the IAEA is another Japanese, Yukiya Amano. Perhaps he will take his dedicated staff along to the MAK? If he did it would be, as I see it, a good day's work.

Was SF writer Sakyou Komatsu who died 3 months after the Fukushima disaster a Japanese prophet? Time will tell.


Intriguingly the exhibition includes some words from Czech writer Milan Kandera (The Book of Laughter and Forgetting): The first step in the liquidation of a people is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history. Then have somebody write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history. Before long the nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was. The world around it will forget even faster. 

To quote Ishiki: Japan is suffering under amnesia. (. . . ) Tokyo was destroyed in the twenties by the devastating Kanto earthquake . . .


Monday 14 January 2013

haiku


HELL'S TEETH AND ORANGE PEEL



still life seen

as through a glass, darkly 


            the bridge    . . . .                                  too far 


Friday 11 January 2013

It burns really well


It burns really well!

            Brenna Tuats Guat - Hubert von Goisern

where is the place
where the devil gets his children
this is the place
where all runs together
where is the fire
hey where will the lightning strike now
where now is the hut
where the hats are on fire

have we bad luck or good
to fall down or fall up
to be fat or be thin
is there reason and rhyme
share it out,  pour me one
to be down or be happy
if I was a christian I'd know
where the devil piles up his muck

but everyone knows
money don't grow in fields
and you cannot eat it
but it burns really well
and as long as we heat
with the corn
and the beet and the wheat
the hat also burns

where is all the money
missing from everywhere
and no-one ashamed
how come the words of the liars
are always twisting the truth
they take what they will
or they steal it
these scoundrels the devil shall take

that is the place
where the devil
gets his children
where it all runs together
a tour with the lightning
and all the hats burning
just in that moment

everyone knows


___________
The above is an attempt at the seemingly impossible - a translation from Upper Austria's Goisern dialect into an almost singable English. I think it's near enough to give you a sense of the lyric in the Hubert von Goisern song Brenna Tuats Guat, the official version of which is available to view on YouTube.

I tried to provide a link to the video but failed miserably.

Thursday 10 January 2013

Song for a turtle




The Turtle and the Pebble


In Cyprus
One morning

On a beach facing north
I discovered the turtle

Cast away on the stones
By the storm 

Her fate clearly sealed
With cellophane wrapper

The very next day
The very same place

I found her memorial 
Her image on stone 

She was riding the waves
 Towards home 

  

Wednesday 9 January 2013

A home is not a house

The house of the novelist Hermann Hesse
near Lake Constance


a bench in a park makes a good house
cover the seat with a strong plastic sheet
and sleep under a blanket in winter
or sleep under the stars when its warm

underneath your house you
can stow away
gear
your plastic bag of bottles and bread

and the shoes
they gave you when you begged
you'll need to take them off at night
or else they'll give you hell in the day

that's when you need your best foot forward
to ride in the warmth of the underground trains
on the circular line
until its time to go back to your bed again

a bench in a park makes a good house
cover the seat with a strong plastic sheet
firmly tied at the corners


Tuesday 8 January 2013

Bruno Gröning (1906-1959), the healer.


The other day I received a leaflet about a man I'd never previously heard of. He was a healer and it is documented that he healed many people without taking any money from them or even touching them. He was a German and his name was Bruno Gröning.

Curious to learn more about this man I looked on YouTube and there I found two documentary films in English about his life.

There is at the foot of this post a useful link to a website which in its turn has links in the sidebar to the two YouTube films. In these films, which are actually trailers for much longer films, you will meet some healthy looking individuals now claiming to be completely cured of their illnesses and you will be able to judge their testimonies for yourself.

I am sharing this information because it confirms something that I believe in and have discussed here on Poet in Residence from time to time and that is that there is an invisible force in the universe that is more powerful than we can begin to imagine and it is a force we can access and use for good.

Gröning gave the force a name. He called it Heilstrom.

Gröning is also an interesting person because when he was young he confided to a friend that he would one day be able to cure thousands of people and later in his life he predicted the manner of his own death.

When the German authorities banned him from using his healing powers he said that he would 'burn up inside' and that is exactly what happened according to the doctor who performed the autopsy. Gröning's Heilstrom had no way or means of release - nowhere for it to go - and so it destroyed him. The official cause was given as stomach cancer.


You'll need approximately 35-40 minutes to watch both of the YouTube documentary highlights. Together they present a remarkable story.


Monday 7 January 2013

The Numbers


       Green shoots of economic revival are already evident  -  Ben Bernanke 2009



We emptied 

the chest 

decorating the tree 

the many long branches. 


We followed in order 

wherever they went.  

More Growth!  was the word 

and great was its season. 


It all had to do 

with the numbers. 

Numbers from nothing 

rising to hundreds 


To thousands 

to millions 

then millions to billions 

and trillions 


Even quadrillions and 

then on 

and on 

for as long as one counts. 


Far 

beyond   

even the zillions

we went.



________


Courtesy of my local Chinese Restaurant here are my 2013 fortune cookie lucky numbers: 12, 32, 17, 11, 04, 37. Good luck to you and may you win many prizes!