Sticker album 2018

Working on a new set of stuff...

Wind Chimes ~ 2017

2017 and time to start a new set of poems/songs/words.

The photo, of a cornfield in Norfolk last year, was taken on a walk while the wind played invisible tunes across it, a giant, natural keyboard.

And it reminded me of this, from ten years ago, a poem for a keyboard...

Wind Chimes (and doorbell)

ACF, BDG, CEG, ADA,
ACF, BDG, FAC, EGD,
DFA, FAC, GDG, ADA,
FAC, GBD, ACF, BDG,
FAC, GBG, ACF, BDG,
EC

Arctic Tern

So, this is an oldie, probably from well before 2007 (my immediate archives only go back so far) but sometimes it's good to revisit. Thinking of writing a new set of poems and, in going through my garden photos from 2015, found some of bizarre frost patterns which caught my imagination again. Don't ask me how I connected it to this poem, who knows how those synapses fire. New set will be under the working title, 'Summer Road'.

Arctic Tern

Dry creek runs in my veins

And the drumming blood

Beats in my brain

Can't escape this passing place

If we chance to meet

Offer me grace

Silver grit and oil sticks in the crepe tread

Of my sandals again

Must be a summer road

Can't promise much

But my boat sails

On those oceans we sing

Like the stickers on the orange string

We'll throw our nets and sing

Strange lands unfolding

Scooped up in the wings

Of this Arctic tern

Feathers smooth in the skin

Flying over the ice cradles

Is how she begins

Dry creek runs in my veins

And the dust I bring

Will inflame

And your eyes will cry

With the beat

Flying across the seas

Until only the shadow of my wings

Is the structure of the tide

And I'm singing in your eyes

rain tomorrow

Now seems like a good time to start a new set of poems/songs under the title 'rain tomorrow' taken from one of my poems, Reculver Beach. I took the cover picture at Minster Leas last year.

Reculver Beach

The rough leather of a dog fish skin

Spiry and age-spotted into dry seaweed

Scratching on the soles of our shoes

And a perfect crab shell, legs and all

Hollowed out by the tide

Soft parts long since departed

Now weeping scales of salt onto our palms

Bleached shells and smooth pebbles

Picked from a beach pocked with horned poppy

As we walk beyond the reach of the sea

And all along the Viking Way they cycle

Flat out, fast and free

Billowing their hair with a windy brine

From Wigmore and wherever

In serious pursuit of leisure

Here now, the old flint walls

Flinching under a blue sky

As starlings form a chorus line

High up on the rafters of the old towers

To entertain us with a song and dance

From some bawdy, birdy music hall

Reviewing the late summer sky

This weather cannot last

Rain tomorrow

And they will give one last bow

Then exit left for winter

And all along the Viking Way we walk

Dawdling at the view

Of giant windmills out to sea

And trains and tractors

Pulling the flat land taught

Below a winnowed sky

We reach the car park

Just time for a drink and a snack

This weather cannot last

They say it'll rain tomorrow

And we comment, again, on the cormorants

Fishing from the posts in pairs

And if they were young egrets we saw in that tree

And we give one last bow to the beach

While checking our shoes
Then exit left for the motorway

Seven more miles to go

Time for a new collection of poems and songs and bits and bobs that I'll be collecting along the way. It seemed to start this year with Snake River (see previous blog, a poem about our local river which isn't called snake river but the timing of writing it coincided with the Chinese New Year [year of the snake] and I can't think of a better title right now than a line from it, Seven More Miles To Go. The photo is from one of mine from the garden. I'm guessing that, as always, journeys will be a theme.

Sometimes I

Sometimes I find the sky is turning me blue
& sometimes you find time too, time to
Sometimes I remind you too much
& if all the world could be poured into a glass
We could drown our sorrows
Or at least attempt to
The roll of a dice won’t help it pass
But it’s true
Sometimes I find the sky is turning me blue

The horse and the plough
The race and the clouds
I can’t explain it any clearer
You’re no nearer than before
What truth will you recall

Sometimes you find time too, time to, sometimes to
Sometimes I remind you too much
Sometimes you
I’ll see you and raise you
Sometimes I find the sky is turning me blue

Wayfarer ( project for 2009)

Artwork for wayfarer

Project themes ~

journeys
travelling through life
movement
inner voyages
paths crossing
linear time
stories that go places