Sunday, 4 June 2017

Blue Tits

Google that and see what you get.....







Not terribly impressive perhaps, but I like the fact I found a BlueTit's nest.....



Saturday, 3 June 2017

Quick Caveat....



When I first started this blog, it went this way...then that.....then nowhere...and was all a bit random. I dallied with Facebook at the time, so some of the early posts, which were relevant at the time, may be less so nowadays.... 

Anyway, in those pre-edited versions of this blog, I occasionally used to say, "click on the picture for the full image".......and I haven't, for a very long time, so there it is.....The whole point of this post....

Comment, like, share, fine, but if you see a small picture, and think it might be interesting, then please, click on it, and see what I do. You won't get a virus from it, just the picture.....

 A cow, or maybe a bull, I didn't go and look.......






Cat Fight at the Pub

A Little Strength.




With a little strength

I lift my eyes to yours.

Superman could not hold their glance.



Divorce.


So, you and him finally blew up,
And repetitious histories draw concluded,
"Marry me, fly with me, to the west...."
Deny the individual requests,
Now seem as irrelevant, and self
Self, self,

Turn now inwards, homewards, to where,
One concentrates on more immediate
And biological schemes.
Streams of fancy,
Dreams for dotage,
Not yet old friend,
Not yet.


Exploder, jealous and at least untrusting,
Mature, so adult, so
Bloody unfair.


Here's another old one.....



Bullet Heaven

Somewhen, somehow, propped up on something,
Slugs, fourteen, fifteen, throat to groin,
Yet

I'm still standing.

Though its the pain that's in slow motion,
Seeing as how I'm in love with you,
But my life is passing before my eyes.


Your deep blonde sap catches me in the flow,
And fossilised, I'm trapped, forever in bullet heaven.

Bleeding, still standing, propped up on something,
The warm tide of love ebbs, flows,
Sweeps me deep into you,
Seeing as how you shoot me dead.

My love still stands,
As I clutch the banister, and slow,
Slowly collapse, as the pain,
Catches up.


My blood on your floor,
On your phone,
On your dress,
As the flow slides, and we, somehow,
Somewhen, sometime, survive,

To see the flowers open and trap my bee,
In this mad fossil heaven,

But so, god-dammit, I love you.



Bolts.


Just put sky hooks and restraint,
Right out of this arena.

All is bolts.
Bolts is all.

Nuts, screws, nails, hooks, hinges,
Bolts to perspex.

But perspex is best,
To shield and save,
Protect and survive.

Deflect gamma, alpha, theta, beta,

Lead lined particles particular,
To this region of your thought,
Arenas of doubt.

On the subject of which,

Who, what, how, why,
Simply bolted to this screen,
Of larger term perspex disbelief.


With worshipful lords and
Forgetful protection.

Where the shiny perspex
Thrives, and survives.

Before The End.



Me & the dogs have had a cracking walk this morning, even if only if one of the regular places. There's this wood near where we live, which makes for a steady circuit, and to my mind is a small slice of heaven. The main walks lead you into what is more or less a "natural cathedral" and when you add constant bird-song, and the sound of the river into the mix, the play of the light through the empty, or as now, full trees you can't help but feel you are really somewhere special......

Instead of doing the usual circuit, we crossed the river, and went down-hill back towards the village, and then, uphill to the top southern edge of the wood....

There are signs of old roads, old paths, from pre-reservoir days, when there were cottages, and at least two mills, producing woollen cloths to a global market.....Now under a century or so's worth of leaves, and rotted leaf-litter....

But the signs are still there... as well as a bees' nest, a hole, maybe red, maybe B&W...hard to tell.....and some Highland cattle, who, could if they want, wander down into the rest of the world, as they are not remotely fenced in, it's just that the terrain is a bit problematic, and they've got a field with plenty of greenery to keep them from even being tempted....



Baby Dragon



Freezing rain, modest windy late night,
A dark shape on the edge of the lawn of my life,
A baby dragon?
Here, at the end this dark evening,
Hunting perhaps?
Dragons always find what they seek,
Like black dogs that way...

Hiding in the shadows, my stare still caught,
No words necessary now,
Eyes, what ancient lawn memory,
My transparent animal morality, glassy,
Portal to the sunny shores of my inner reason,
Cloudy in the dragon's casual glance.

No fear, or threat, just a taste in music,
And cheap wines, smokey insight,
|And piffs of steam on this rainy night,
From unbalanced scales and this crowded lawn,
I look skywards, anxious for freezing news,
Mother love, moral glass and ancient.

But you simply slowly silently smoothly,
Turn, and unfurl impractical leatherette wings,
And, hardly wordless, yet silent, steaming subtly,
Churn the night airs around us, smoking,
Freezing, modest, fearless, yet lovingly,
Shake off the lawn, this garden, this earth,
And I know I'll see you again in the moon.




Total change of tack.....


Beer Surfing.

Just what are your afraid of
Tonight, bar-spider ?

The room is colour and sound,
Many faced, many vague memories.
As your brain glides precariously round,
Moments pass as you try to seize

That hook on reality.


The pulse is hard and slow,
Doesn't know which way to go,
As you spin to catch your brain up,
As you slightly stagger.

Warm noises as you try to hear
Lose yourself in that hit of beer,
Try to fight back the fear,
Surrender to the easy chair.


Then "The Rush".
Don't fear the rush,
Let yourself flow,
Just go and flow and ride
The mental surf created thus,
Try not to fall from off the floor,
Let blood pump as you need more.

The wave in your head crashes
On the numb beach.
And then the lights slip into irrelevancy,
And you soak up the heat.

Forget the in-built fear
Tonight, bar-spider,
Arms and legs all over,
So shy until he's drunk,
And gone.



As I said above...a slice of heaven...... Pretty much EVERYONE takes this for granted........when it's better than anything man-made.........No minsters, no abbeys, no anything, other than nature.........



Without comment! Well, I could but it might be misinterpreted by by you lot......I love Laburnums........


Oh, and the "cat-fight"....

I know both of the "ladies" involved, so won't pass judgement.....but if you've just been on a thousands and thousands of pounds kind of holiday, it's probably better not to brag about it to the mother of one of your tenants, whose daughter lives in one of the shittiest mouldiest, and dampest flats going....because, like, that wasn't going to end well really was it?? Especially when you've denied all responsibility for the whole thing.......Really?




It didn't make the evening's ambience especially nice, but hey, it's a proper "local" pub, so pretty much anything goes....is that "democracy" too? I like to think so!



Friday, 2 June 2017

June.

 


Air Fingerprints

Out of the magnificent warm dark windy
Strange sounds of infinitely industrial prayer
Non-nature ghost of process past in distant mills
And un-identity, queer aromas, airs of making
Destroying these eyes with spectral memory
Of chemical moment and gravity, and rabbits
Downwind from this odd airy fingerprint
A walking lecture of past revolution progress
Removed guilty magnificence in our own eyes
Cast useless as far into the dark as yesterday
Turning back to windier chemical conversations
Lost translations, just sounds, love and poison
Upwind, upstream with waterfall magnificence


I sit alone and think,
I think 'alone', and hope,
I hope that things will come to pass,
The things I hope are none too few,
I sit alone, and think of you.


I was encouraged to keep a diary in my early years, several of which I still have, in a cupboard, or wardrobe or somewhere at my parents'. The diaries were supposed to help my (still to this day...) crappy hand-writing...and foster the development of neural paths and all that sort of thing. In some ways I think they worked, as there are days written therein that will be much more easily conjured up in my dotage than today, or yesterday....

As I said, my hand-writing is challenging though. I can't get my hand/eye coordination and timing sync-ed well enough to create any of the stylish writing that some people seem to be able to produce almost effortlessly...


And I get side-tracked. Regularly, like now, as I was going to go on to explain that the above shortie was my deliberate, and very conscious effort to begin the path of prose/poetic writing. Somewhere I will have the actual date, but I do know it was 1986.....Rather happily, to this day, I still kind of like it, as it's short, succinct, and the only piece I've written, apart from some attempts at songs a few years later, that I can recall, word for word some 30 years later......

 
 

Beginnings

Here, at the beginning of all things
Nothing
Another view of your infinite deep glass soul
Fracture
Pause, run, panicked doubts as it begins
Cautiously, light-speed
The dance begins, crazed and beautiful
Unsure and abandoned
Everything begins

Thought swimming, diving, flying around glass holes
Places to avoid
Waves of calm intensity
Abandoned reasons, and cautious tendrils
Wrap around loving pauses
Fearful dancers career among the beautiful swimmers
As the most ancient schism, clumsy
Shifts…

Another faith healer skates up to the edge
Of success and reasoning
As unreason preens and poses for the fight
Wrapped in loving arms, she acquiesces and
Somehow
The fliers land
Sure and secure this time, intense, clumsy,
Crazed fractures
Calm at last and deeply, cautiously loved
Beginning to heal the darkest schism
Slowly
With love and cigarettes
And wine
And candles, and a yearning.




 
False Memories


Why should I believe,
That all the dreams have gone ?


When I drop back slot in,
Three times in a morning.
Drug free culture,
Fruit juice kissing at bretsa.

And more love than you could shake,
A hippy at.

Slot, click, the views the film.
The wings, skyscraping and sensual,
Telephonic pleas to escape run artists,
With dead pan apologeas to you.

Awakening slowly, slyly perhaps,
Click the pictures, the surround pleas,
For clarity and understanding.

Driftwood, a fire, a beach,
A camembert love affair.
Stars, and missed moments, revisited.


Time machinery, not clocks,
She watches, shaking hppies at dreams.


Telephoning the past, to revise the script,
When dreams create belief,
That all the deadpan understanding hippies
Are awakening from these slots.

With kisses, and skyscraping Kisses.






The second official day of UK summer....

Nice.

That's it, for now, it's Friday, and I haven't been out for two weeks.......sad. So I'm going to make the effort, then realise why I don't all that often and live to regret it!

Thanks for stopping by, be safe, be strong.


Sunday, 14 May 2017

1967 and all that


I thought it was just the moon. Then I was told it was the "Mayflower Moon" Looking around on t'interweb didn't shed much light on that, but I found a few references to the May's Flower moon, which, given where we are in the Northern part of the Northern hemisphere, relates to the late Spring time for fertility, new birth, planting, and re-planting.....

Oh, perhaps not if another milestone, waymarker, sort-of-significant date comes along..



You don't have to look it up, but boy oh boy '67 was a bloody good year for music and art, and, well all sorts of stuff...

Apparently.


I'd like to say that I just wrote that, but after the events of the last few weeks, and especially the fact that the last two birthdays have been spent alone in enormous crowds of total strangers, and my feelings about that, which are mixed to say the least, I can't.

Still, I now have a few new acquaintances, who I'll probably never see again, and have experienced some challenges to my inherent prejudices about ladies who like ladies, so that's been educational....  Oh, and I broke my left hand too, which hurts......

Today I caught up with an old friend, like not seen for 32 years. All I can say is that I wish we'd met up years ago. While we were never actually "close" way back, we were friends, and the proof of the pudding is that we talked like we were, and are still. My sometimes fading faith in human nature was recharged, and it helped my self-belief too.

Otherwise, pretty much everything in my life right now could easily be described as "chaotic".

Disorganised. Random, with a smidgeon of organised, and that is the bit that I have to try to remedy, as it's not doing me much good......

 Where along the way did I lose my self-belief? I know it's come & gone through the years, and that there is a kernel of it underlying everything that keeps me going, as I know I'm "alright" really. But like, when I think back to some bits of who I was, while I was never full-on cocky, and full of myself, I did have times when I just didn't give a flip whether people liked or understood me, and it was when I started really caring that I started to lose that confidence.



One more before I go to bed....



I haven't written much lately, well, not for weeks, though occasionally I do, and then bin....I do want to filter through a lot of my old stuff, like the above, from my "year out" from college, when I think they are worth keeping, and want to push this blog out more, though need any of my 3-4 readers to help me in that if they would care to?

My line of thinking, random though it usually is, is to keep on trucking, build this up to where I'd be happy to send it to a potential publisher, and if that doesn't work, think about starting a Go-Fund_Me type of thing to cover the costs of turning the pictures & poetry into something you can actually hold in your hands. The suggestion today was to try to do that via an on-line e-publisher, which had only breezed past my thoughts, but now I will have to have a proper look at it again....I really do invite your thoughts dear reader. Step out of the shadows please, and engage....am I barking up the wrong tree?? Is it all just bollocks?

 

Saturday, 6 May 2017

Hangover Rambling Inemotional Gibberish


I'll just leave that there....for a few days longer....


Bloody Goddess, Bloody Girls.

The beginnings of the long slide,
Slips into my passenger seat,
Be my own misbegotten bride,
And accompany me in the street.

I played 'chess' on your bathroom wall,
And slid deeper into the trap,
Nothing my muse said could stop my fall,
Another dead feather in your cap.

My car stalls and I run in scream,
The radio yells out that sex is free,
The coach coughs and picks his team,
But you won't run away with me.

The green scars on the bathroom face,
Black mould where dreams have died,
I knew that I only exist in space,
But I couldn't see if you knew I lied.

The sliding street trips us up, Ha !
I fall and break my fall on you,
Was it her he loved or just her car ?
A thriller mystery that lacks a clue.

I shake hands then with future loves,
Sit in fear in your bathroom mirror,
I examine the inside of your plastic gloves,
And try to remember what to give her.

Oh the night melts in a glass of red,
My car cools from its restless flight,
Readjust my position, straighten my head,
Unconscious of this emotional fight.

Change is on the way for bathroom games,
I think I'll read a book or sing,
Or try to remember all your names,
Or weigh up all the grief you bring.



Every Sodding Day.


Inane radio, unfocussed thought,
Sense of “does it even matter?” loss,
Impending, drift where once drive,
No life-belt, water-wings,
Every single bloody day regret, no charity,
Split off intellectual acceptance,
From sterile but bleeding emotional,
Bleeding routine, rocks for cast sailors,
Safe only if you catch them before,
They utterly annihilate you.
Friendly DJ, familiar soundtracks,
Do little to surface my reality,
Just soft, safe, dull, familiar,
Every sodding day.




I sooo should have made the effort last night, to go to the folk festival, but my head isn't right.

I made it worse, and then went for a walk in a "new" place today.  It didn't help much, and part of it was the aim of clearing my head, comparing cameras, lenses and so on, but the light was so piss-poor, and my thoughts weren't coherent enough to do more than a few. Maybe I'll try it again when I'm a bit straighter.

All the pictures in this post were from that walk.....


 
Cut off again

Slowly circling, off-pitch, off-centre
Now hum with me and see for me
This half degree from opposites
This near closeness to sheer blind perfection

As lofty cragged ice walls creak worryingly
Stepping back to chaos from this window seat
I watch you in my prejudice
Predeciding the depth of my love

Waving the web away to nothing with casual hand
Before giving my eyes wholly
My tongue, my throat, my lungs,
Your kiss, your window seat, your curtain,

My love song
The one with ever such a disturbing chorus

My ice valleys, my volcano, my chaos
A half degree from centre
A thousand miles to the nearest doubt.



How could there ever have been any justice for it revenge retribution the powers of divine intervention but no great relief from these visceral agonies denial scales to tip to weld to tilt to weigh the odds and stack great light from beyond your sense relieves regret and shit faced view in sharp contrast the sky is then covered in cast iron plates rivetted and upheld by prayer below the arc of rust and grime spinning with the wheel of time the rock gives semblance of trust and then is gone no recognition no recollection from the once loved and lies with self preservation in mind I find the tarmac hard in winter grip melds memories of burning trolleys and school diversion my version to authority not me denial as new electrical thought thunders and rebounds from the iron now corrugated in places this life and digital recollection with no visible means of rapport tense and edgy the animal fight or flight the holiday the love that asked all and caught the lightning blast slippy and royal denial steel railed and the roosting carrion look on pylonned junction to rickety life and bleary self ritual you small shit I have no pity left not yours to receive this time or hatted loss minus freezing and laughing superior dreams now seem to fly and never reach this roof below the birds and clouds and storms train waiting with ancient love and pulling the plug the floor fell away the walls quick follow and exposed timbers breeding worms and beetles grow new roots into the earth below deny all follow the jack follow the swift decisive prey and reveal nothing loose this cold clammy grip on the floor as a whole congregation of roaches and fleas and mites and choristers tumble out of sight and blend coloured glass with gold and and and lift the glass to your brain and insert with taste and tasteful backdrop to new arrivals multi ...
disciplined in the art of reason and antilogic and and and naturally it will then be time to remember not yet she was weird though in an off beat frame normality flickered behind eyes decanted from these shotgunned barrels and cut out the straw relieve the taut tight sinuses of this crazy straight fiction and with a crumbling seizure face the wall you cant its gone to create a world imagine one too much too soon too misguided and walk away over these crumbled blood soaked stones and bricks with large dreaming so fly then swim skywards and fantasise the lot so addicted to adrenaline not a thrill seeking hedon just a night owl escaper trapped in these glass flowings amber ice wispy smoke flickering joist ends telephone reality grippers so addicted to waste to oblivion to running to beer perhaps arguably to love to lovers new and old past and passed to addiction itself burn this beautiful life this beautiful optimism when you have nothing it says in piss stinking grafitti on the underside of this iron clad sky with slow flowing larva streams you have everything to gain laughable aphorism and obnoxious bilious aftertaste what do you know as God lands and reminds you of your own chemical imbalances easy to back away He doesn't follow but is there when you turn your wings hurt your legs have gone and your arms wrap around my waist too big a doubt arises in poisoned guttle where three heads boil and fizz and blow steam into these dark fissures the light return to adolescent pastures green and once again forgot intended force repressors chase new prey the outsider why cannot ever be the answer wheels within prisms and reflected spectral memories on screens of disaster as the human leaves the glass refills and melts into ancient tables no needles no pins no blood no terror just a sad whimsy a notion a creed of...
self self self where now the dawn of roses where lies the land of light so ruddy in the baking evening so barren and denied come with the dawn interpret at leisure and make lists to rule thought freestyle frames bend frames break but are not so organic cut wood and twine create your own not quite the chameleon more the diamond multi-whiskyed and many faced the Mr Ben of this revolution your red blonde brown hair in great huge windows and silver chariots only grips the childish side where browns blondes and reds should fear to tread no love lost no love found just a higher aim on this loving ground and metros at midnight and dogs at dawn not quite following the many born nor realising true germination in this sea of plough and waking within more confidence shrinking ego wilted with no serious repercussion propped suspended held up tied down and bagged and drowned lets get the hell out of town burn it down head for the hills and natures skills with no sense of timing no concluding gesture realising perhaps that to survive is a strength in itself while wobbly the normal headed escape while escaping youre nearly normal with still justice it could be said no thought of wickedness was in your head simply the observations built up in years that the people are trivial and you are people values float meaningless under torrents of blistering tears of ration control and lack are much the same soul conditions in this hall of fame but there stands the weirding mirror reflection shows the mind aquiver but as straight as a loser and half as simple as a prime contender for knockout bouts on this stage of ground illusion dont miss the station X-file elation and empty bottled romantic friction cast skywards in prime addiction duty obligation warped by self preservation yes I could learn from you look around see what it is you do to wind this clock and create your life I might be your man but you're not my wife. 


Saturday, 29 April 2017

Very Random Scream



It's been a while since I posted anything but my own crap, so here's a cracking bit of Johnny Cash to break up the madness.

I did try to reduce the size of the embedded video, by changing height & width in the code, but it just ignored me, so I gave up.....It's up to you whether or not you just listen to it, or watch and listen.....

Shucks, after watching that one three times in a row, I let YT do it's automatic "next track" thing, and of course "Hurt" came up.. Then the tears started, and I thought, I've already "liked" it, on YT, and probably commented before too, so commented again just to be sure...(!) and then thought I'd post it here too...



Don't waste time reading the comments, or you'll just get mad at the idiots who can't listen to something for itself, without getting all tribal, and judgmental about nothing whatsoever, because that's what our commercially centric world is making us.

And this is me being happy..... Sheesh........

Third of the Year Already......


Ambulance

Some crashes happen for no madness
Others create it, forlorn understated belief
That it’ll all just work its way through

The articulated dream, hybrid mad thinking
Took you to caves,
to dark twittering caves, that drank you in.

The ambulance couldn’t get,
Snowed in by your early dark decisions,
But we lie here with blue lights dancing
on the bedroom ceiling,
And its siren in our hearts.



Arcana Reflex.


Sharp grey-blue smoke,
Curling, madly about this return,
Something told me, that we could cope,
Yet there was still so much to learn.

To turn your thoughts about,
Breath it in and then scream out.

The initiate mysteries we took in deep,
No climb to wisdom was quite so steep,
Lost my voice singing in my sleep,
Found it again, in your clothes strewn heap.

And it came unbidden, that this love was true,
That for us, there was little we could do,
To turn about old-heart shards, into something new,
Above this bedlamic affair, songbirds flew.

Began to see then, to understand,
Swirling whisky glass, in my hand,
Brings knowledge, and a little relief,
Into this moth's life, so sweet and brief.

Now we may huddle, as lovers tossed,
Rag-dolled bodies, where all sense is lost,
Perhaps to weigh, measure the real cost,
Time to track foot-prints, in this cold dawn frost,

Kiss me in this cool deep return,
Well tell me dear what have we learned ?
Have we the respect we think we've earned,
Seeing truth in eyes, kindled fire burns.




Alive.

We walk
Into a cinema
Cast of faces
Familiar
Haunting

Dead and welcoming
We take our seats
The stranger sits
Across the aisle

The film was unimportant
Feelings of gentle insecurity
General darkness

At home, long cool building
French window to a beach
Non-existing

The Lovers
The stranger, intruder
The questions
No answers

Attack and parry
Defend, and strike
The knife in his chest
Refuses to cut
Fight

I stab, while we flee
The windows are open
No beach to run to.

I stab his legs
His head and eyes
His skin comes away
The stranger

He is down
Knife under jaw and
Upward thrust
Twist into soft flesh
And splintered roof.

Lies still, the stranger
The dream continues
We are flying
Past the cinema.


Past the trees
Beech. No beach.
And nightmares
And stallions

A feeling, no view
That he refused to die
Standard chase and panic
A pause and perhaps
We'll live this time
Unimportant detail.


It's been a funny few weeks. Not funny "ha ha", in fact lacking a lot of "ha ha" altogether really, but hey, we're a third of the way through 2017 already. What did you expect?

Last night I was determined to go out and see people, but wasn't up to it when I got there, so didn't stay so long, and tonight, feeling a lot better in some ways, wasn't up to actually going out at all. Great. 

Still, on the positive side, the dogs have had two proper nice walks, and there's still Sunday to grapple with........



As a parting gift, here's a leveret I spotted the other day, trying her hardest to be invisible.....