Thursday 30 April 2015

Room at the top



 High-rise apartments
Nestling together 
 Cheap! Cheap! chorus the tenants

Tuesday 28 April 2015

The End of the War




There is only one war. 
And it is the war. 

It is the war we are having now.
And the war we had yesterday. 

It is the war we had a century ago.
And it is the war before that. 

There is only one war. 
In my lexis  

War is the action 
Of the unbalanced mind.

Different ages. 
Different tribes. 

Different uniforms. Different 
Technologies 

Are merely features 
Of the never-ending war.

We, 
The peacemakers 

Who were blessed 
And promised the Earth 

We the collateral millions 
The refugees 

The homeless
The sick

The innocent 
The desperate 

Now pray 
To whatsoever God/s there may be: 

Let the war be consigned to the museums
And history books. 

And let the notion 
Of the plurality of the war 

Be rejected 
That all may bury their differences

Instead of their brothers and sisters;  and that
We may finally commemorate 

The End of the War. 
Let it now be done. 

Amen.



Monday 27 April 2015

Divina Comedia de Dante Alighieri / music from Mozart and 12-line poem




Earthquakes can be Hell
Floods can be Hell
Tsunamis can be Hell
Typhoons can be Hell 
Volcanoes can be Hell 
Hurricanes can be Hell
Landslides can be Hell 
Snowstorms can be Hell 
Droughts can be Hell 
Bush fires can be Hell 
Plagues can be Hell
Hell is War with/out fail. 






Tuesday 14 April 2015

3 things I hate


I hate gorillas because
they bash old ladies
over the head
and steal their handbags
containing their life savings 
leaving them only with lonely tears
and haunted by endless nightmarish nights
full of fear and moths

I hate moths 
because 
they masquerade as wardrobe-friendly bankers
and shamelessly nibble away
at people's good clothes
in the darkness
and when they have eaten all the best fabric
and also the house
they have the brass neck 
to demand another fine meal 
and another fine meal
 and yet another fine meal
which the mealworms will gladly provide

I hate mealworms 
because
they masquerade as silver-tongued politicians
and go through four stages
of development and growth
and are pests
 that is to say they are pests 
unless you happen to live in China
in which case you'll know 
that mealworms make a fine meal
  in Beijing they eat them 
fit to bust.



Günter Grass: Writing against the wall

Monday 13 April 2015

Sunday 12 April 2015

Fine particles




An Iron Lung

over the plains
and the cities 
 the pale moon sun 
 like a sickly child 
turns up the heat,

talk over the top 
 of the smog 
the barrier beneath 
the yellow rolled fog, 

it stands in effect 
for the whole blue world  
which is yellow 
and hazy, 

the child 
in the picture 
  will breathe 
no other






Saturday 11 April 2015

Photos from a Venetian wharehouse


Alexander Egorov's In the Forest (detail)
(acrylic on canvas)

Alexander Kosolapov's Hero, Leader, God 
(painted resin, metal armature, metal stand)

Annalisa Venturini's A Beggar Sitting
(hyper-realistic silicone sculpture)

There was recently an art contest held in Venice and 100 finalists were chosen.

These works impressed me because of the artistic quality and the strength of the message.


Wednesday 8 April 2015

Unscrewed


or, a poem for Easter 



The white doves are attacked by gulls,

   Their hearts pecked out, their entrails flow, 

The fish swim deep, are speared by terns,

   White lightning flashes from above,

The lambs go to the slaughterhouse, 

   Are chopped and served on china plates, 

The bread is stale, to eat it now 

   Requires water, maybe wine.

One light still works, but that is all, 

   Unscrewed the bulb out in the hall. 



Tuesday 7 April 2015

Photo of an Italian poet




The third and final photo of the current sequence. Here my light source is, appropriately for an Italian poet, from a garden. The garden is on the opposite side of the building to the sea which is the light source in the post directly below this one. 

An anonymous person, much smaller than the poet, stands almost tentatively at the edge of the scene with his back to the camera. 

The ghostly poet drifts through the walls of the gallery and peers into the unknown distance and casts his shadow before him.



Photo of Federico Fellini


Here is Federico Fellini.  The sunlight off the sea is seen in the long glass window of the door. Images are entering his head. 

The vague cloud effect from something unknown perhaps hints at a work of genius gently forming. 

The light in Fellini's eyes is like the light on the waves in the sea behind a window now floating in space.



Monday 6 April 2015

Photo of an Italian actress




If anyone knows her name perhaps they could leave a reply. I think she may be an Italian film star. 

The smaller framed portraits were on the wall behind me and were reflected in the glass. It worked out quite well as a composition.

In our lives we play many roles. When the mood takes us we may reflect upon some of them.


Sunday 5 April 2015

A Fools Tower Card for Easter



From the Fools Tower (see post below) my card for Easter. From a racked selection of free photographs to take away I helped myself to this one and a couple of other pictures which also showed scenes in the mortuary. They are all unsigned. I think the photos could be photos of the work of a patient.  Psychiatric patients, as I have discovered through visiting many such establishments ,  often display a great and wonderful talent for painting. 




Saturday 4 April 2015

Madhouse


The circular building with 28 windows corresponding to the lunar cycle on each of its 5 floors is the Narrenturm or Fools Tower. It is one of the lesser known landmarks of Vienna. It was built by the Austrian emperor Jospeh II in the 18th century. 

In the centre of the circular building there was (until about 1910) a tower where his majesty had his own apartment and from which astronomical observations could be made and views over the rural landscape and the nearby city could be appreciated, for in the time of the emperor the Narrenturm was situated outside the city which has  in modern times expanded to include it. 

Other residents (apart from the emperor who refused to reside in the Schonbrunn Palace but preferred to travel incognito into every nook and cranny of his empire to talk to his subjects on more or less equal terms) were the emperor's collection of lunatics and the medical staff. The Fools Tower was a majestic hobby as well as being a royal escape hole; somewhere safely away from the pressures of being an emperor.

The Vienna public who enjoyed visiting the tower at the weekends and climbing up its walls to peer through the windows at the patients within had no idea that the face looking down on them from the topmost point, from the apartment at the summit of the tower, was no other than their emperor. 

Because the primitive toilet system in the 18th century building was continually blocked with human and other waste the interior of the building was reputed to be the smelliest place in Vienna. One can imagine the effect of the foul stench on the weekend curiosity seekers peering through the glassless windows of the tower in the summer months and their reaction; perhaps the inhabitants, after the  initial shock, were immune to the smell.

In winter the Narrenturm would be bitter cold. There were attempts involving steam and smoke to provide a kind of central heating for the Narrenturm but unfortunately they failed miserably. 


. . . I am Sigmund Freud and a banana,
or also can simply be a banana !!!

Thursday 2 April 2015

The People's Man



Look how the people's man
Whose love is in the mirror

Juts his polished chin
Into the daily TV camera

Lenses, grins and waves
His restless hands

To who knows who
Off stage, and out of shot.

He drinks root beer and eats
Bread rolls. He sings folk songs

And talks of wrongs
To be put right

If you agree to sacrifice
Your rights, but just for now,

Until the struggle has been won
And all are lying in the sun.



Grave News


At Easter it is customary to visit the graves of friends and relatives, the so-called dear departed who rest in peace, in order to pay one's respects and recall the good times shared when the loved one was alive.  

Sad to say, what meets the eye in my local graveyard is not always an agreeable sight. Today in the forest of headstones many headstones lay alongside my path like a row of felled trees; it's an annual tradition I have come to expect. But this year, as the photos show, the demolition was beyond the pale. 

The modern death business recycles the marble and granite, and rearranges the bones and the ashes of the occupants. Room for new arrivals to rest in peace is thereby made available in the subterranean mansions. At a price.

The next in line await their turn. 






The Leg of Ham


On Green Thursday, that is to say the day before Good Friday, we read the papers to see what we should  do, for they do know why we should shop for the Lord's Last Supper; (traditional) the leg of ham, the frozen spinach (thawed and boiled), the whisky (blended) and the cola (usual brand), the seedless grapes (wash well), the salmon (smoked), the eggs (to fry) and the walnut cheese (check the date), not to forget the 8 or 10 pack 3-layered toilet rolls. Other news in the paper: hundreds of beggars have stormed Vienna's Easter Markets, protesting farmers have blocked the streets with their tractors, the doctors are threatening more strikes, a new prison may be built, European Lottery Jackpot stands at €73 million; no small potatoes. O my God.