Holmfirth Writers Group

 (Definitely NOT mine, Credit to HCF Photography, look them up on FB, I did have the link, but I've copied & pasted a few things since I found it...sorry!)

After a few years of topsy-turvy living and emotional adventure, I came to the time in my life where I really do have to re-evaluate things. 

Smoking, drinking, socialising, relationships, life-choices, attitude to all the above....All need a proper hard coat of looking-at.

In this process, I had the idea that one of my "safe" things, (that's just a relative description, so take it that way, as I have written some stuff which I cringe at to read,) was my writing. It's long been a "hobby", and at times a cathartic prop, a way to vent, to rail at the world, more particularly at my treatment of the world, and vice versa.... I have never pushed it "out there" apart from a few random "Open Mic" nights in the old "Stage Door", as was, before it became the "Box Office". And, apart from the abandoned "Writings of a Birdman" blog, now utterly deleted from every angle, as far as I can find, here, in Dungeon Wood.....

Anyway, to cut a long story short, ha, timely, and appropriate. I made a few moves to find out about the local writing scene, and ended up tonight, sitting in on the Holmfirth Writers' Group meeting.

I have to qualify this a little bit as to "why?"

I want to be inspired, yes, people, events, occurrences, random stuff and things around me do that already. But I'm writing more or less in a total vacuum....  I wanted and needed to see how other people handle their addiction to the pen & paper, or keyboard, or whatever...so, I bit the bullet, and ridiculously, for someone who can sing in front of two hundred people or so when necessary, (or at least I used to be able to, it's been a while) I got the jitters.. My heart was actually racing, like border-line panic attack material, for pretty much the entire time, at least until we retired to the pub.

  

I'm not sure what I expected, but, again, to cut a long story short, we were presented with about half a dozen photos, and told to write something, a short story, a play, poetry, or whatever came into our heads, inspired by one of the pictures..

I chose the top picture, (as I tagged, definitely not one of mine, but one from HCF Photography, who I don't know, and have no connection with, that I'm aware of.... LINK)

Anyway, after about 20 minutes, or so, it was "pens down" and then we went around the table of (I think it was ten) and read aloud what we'd written....

Talk about pressure.....

Dead Mill

Scents, Clean fighting dust, oily, dark,

A breeze disturbs cobwebs, abandoned,

Broken glass crunched underfoot,

Historic North-light pierces into forgotten corners.

Pulling on his roll-up, his memory stirs,

The menders sat here, way-back in his hour,

Sly laughter echoing though his years,

Silenced by stiff charge-hand command...

He peers into time shadows,

Hearing the clatter and back, clatter and back, of looms,

And the shouts of his mates,

Trusted team workers, hard men all.

He spares a thought for the boys,

Shifting wool bales and running hard errands,

Between spaces now silent, labours long lost,

Indescribable perhaps to anyone now.

It was a mistake to come back,

The vacant sad warehouse, broken shuttles on the floor,

Dead spindles,

A trip out he'd said, to revisit his youth,

The old mill, and it's dangerous truth.

Turning from his story, peering at now,

A memory ache in his muscles, a long gone vow,

The machines all sold, along with his soul,

Cheaper imports, deep sadness, then dole....

Stepping through the seized still doors,

Back to today, and positive sunlight,

Briefly he turns and whispers “farewell”

To his pals, the weavers, menders and all.

As he squeezes thought the chained gates,

For the very last time, he half hears “So long...”

From the end of the line,

He knows he's half-dreaming, but can't help but turn back...

Brings forth “farewell, God keep you”

Then, makes his way home,

Puts those memories safe, out of reach,

In an old biscuit tin. And sits.

 ..............

It's not one of my best, far from it, but I'm reasonably happy, under the circumstances. I had to get out of my comfort zone. It's made me think though, which was pretty much my entire reason for braving the whole experience, and I think I will go again next week.

Instead of writing "Woe is me" and "Another failed attempt at trying to understand my world..." or "...  my seeming inability to maintain a relationship...." (a recurring theme if you can be bothered to go back through it all) I suddenly had to run with something else. I now have to try that again, like taking a photo of something new, from a new angle, or whatever.....

 I could write an essay, but I think I nearly did....and it's late. A lot of food for thought, indirectly. The meeting stimulated my own thought processes, which is pretty much all I wanted, so overall it was a success. I hope the others got something, no matter how small out of the experience......

 

Darkness Inside

A Dark Place Within.


Deep within the true and bizarre universe,
Of percept and concept and lucid visions,
Of internally programmed psycho televisions,
When free falling through trance states to fly,
To attain a pure and natural high,
Lies a black disk, a region to avoid.
Self-preserver steers away, but lingers,
Nothing to warn, except accurate fingers,
And though before confused, the truth will out,
Mind, once dumb, tongue once numb, now should shout,
To keep from falling in, this mental bin,
To tell total all to the driver,
This belated stoning, awry arriver,
Internal voice talking stops, and manyana,
Narrow is the escape from unsought nirvana. 

Metaphors

Metaphors Run Out

Was that the week, when allegories flew?

Meanings were lost in sincere conversation,

And the metaphor mill stopped grinding?

Demonstrations of love, affection, and concern,

Fell slack as the enemies' guns sad-hiatus,

Words failed, as shutters stealed to...

Silent brooding metaphors, self protection,

A heart's clang, a clicked steel lock,

Towering doubts and incomplete parley.

No black dogs, no silly waving,

No bleeding daffodils, nor endless dreams,

Just a dried-up metaphor well.

No bleeding hearts, lost souls,

No telephonic pleas for clemency,

Pointless behind these walls.

Hearts still beating, under safe roofs,

Food in the pantry, but not for souls,

Gut reaction, purely digestive.

Deeper, darker sadness, impossible explanation,

Connection unbreakable, remains unwatered,

Starved but immortal, sad shutters.

No anger, no fear, just monumental loss,

Infinite ways to expound these feelings,

Evaporated and gone, in plain super-heated drought,

Drying all the metaphors, and parching my love.... desolate-preservation.

  

 

Off Centre

A half-degree from centre

Switching between eye-searing ice-scape

Mountainous valleys, and sweeping, brilliant moors

Then back to patched chaotic nonsense

With radios, photos, tables, candles, cutlery

Mad web-blink then, off-key

Slightly perhaps, I sing my love-song

From behind snow blind burned retinal memory

Like a child, window seat behind closed curtain

Cut-off and uncertain

Repeating a chorus from volcanic depth

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.

 There are times when words aren't enough. They help though.

A very expensive month so far March, very very blooming costly.....in all sorts of ways.

Turning a Corner

Got.

Forgotten chips of granite and calcite,

And unknowable string, mermaids’ hair.

Put my shell to your ear:

You’ve got me, you’ve got me, you’ve got me,

Now, never lose me….

Dancing across white hot beach love,

Too much for the simple barefoot approach.

Crash into waves then crash on love loungers,

Water, wine, beer and song:

You’ve got me, you’ve got me….

Hear the roar of my love,

Calling from distant shores.

Crash through cool foliage, fragrant,

Noisy with birds and grasshoppers,

To the cool, cool white room….

And dive from these rocks into love.

You’ve so damned got me.

 

 

The camera never lies, I do possess a giant dog......

===========

 

Car Park.

Standing by a fifth century castle in twentieth century ruin and rack

And the greensward all about the picnic area

Car park and a sense of lost perspective

That may never be the kind of trip

You'd let your children ride round on a three ring circus horse

Guard on sentry duty

Outside the palace where you saw the shade

Of an unrealistically beautiful woman

Keeping hold of the hand of time

To watch for the return of common sense

And reason and burning ships that carried the souls

Of her children

And when you speak she leaves a faint scent of

Autumn woodland maybe a hint of pine

And herbs that remain indescribable in

Profusion of senses that reminds

The car park attendant to check his pulse

And his purse to buy cigarettes

To smoke lonely in his wooden sentry shed

Where the fifth century seems to live these days

And knights have left to sleep at Alderley with the wise man and

His king carrying out the role of the watchmen who wait for a secret

Picnic signal

To remind them of Armageddon and innocent heady days

In the very place you stand in feeling no larger

Than the mushroom in the sward and no sword

Leaps to you grip as the battle-chief locks

The car park gates for the end of the day.

 

 

There is no common thread between these, except for me. No personal comment, no hidden messages, just some random poems picked out, and pictures likewise.

What has this to do with turning a corner?

Maybe nothing, but I have made a decision, and, hard though it initially is going to be, I've managed a few days already, so am determined that it's one that's going to last for some time yet. The alternative is to sink back into the same old mind-numbing routine, again, and we know that that doesn't really work, so maybe having an ever clearer head might.

I'm not going to drag out the soap-box and tell the world about the reformation, but as I said, I'm giving myself a sincere chance here.

  

 

Sprite.


Blind bats frequent your head,
Flick switch, blast tycoon said :

"!"

Instant combustible sprites,
Burn now and then, for foreign pupils,
And leave
No waxy trace,
No bones or wings of steel.

Steal my head
From flower show garden lovers,
Frequently absent.

"In absentia"

Gorn, forget the visiting troops,
Forget 'Home Rule !'


Never before, never again.

I will love you as much as you need.

Just Thinking a Bit

This first one is from waaaay back in the late 80s, but a conversation I just had brought it to mind.....

Fish and Chip Love.

The rain dripping off my nose,

Off your hair, and off my clothes.

"These chips are hot "

"Yes" You say,

"You should have had some-

The other day."

The slogans written above our heads,

Poets all, with brains of lead,

I tell you how I really feel,

St Pauls' bells begin to peel,

Off there in the distance,

The moon's hidden, by mischance.

The vinegar leaks from the paper,

I'm really too old for this caper.

Soggy chips in a soggy bag,

I offer you my last fag,

The sky pours out the rain,

Will our fish & chip love

Ever be the same ?

 

 

It's been a funny old couple of weeks.

Farmed

Before I retired last night I had one of those moments of clarity, where I saw, though not for the first time, just in a frame of clarity that ran in dozens, if not hundreds of directions, that en masse, humans are being farmed.

It really doesn't matter which "party" is in "charge" or "in power" as the "power" is not theirs to wield. It's not in the monarchy, or the state, or really the banks, though they are pretty obvious conduits to its manifestation, conduits that are plied by whom? I don't have that answer. I'm not being all "conspiracy theorist" about this. Really I'm not.

I will endeavour to come up with an essay on the subject, just not now. The latest incarnation of this line of thought was probably initiated by the theft from my van last week....

I will leave that there, but if you work, how much of the fruits of your labour are actually yours? Unless you are totally off-grid, then a fraction of every single thing that you spend money on, goods, food, services, fuel, etc just goes around in a cycle, and that cycle is simply the hydroponic system that keeps the whole things going, including those thieves, as the black market is a vital part of the economy, believe it or not, and their benefits, and everything....it's all propped up to keep the farm running.... To try to keep us from realising what's going on, you get mass media manipulation, clever stuff really.

Scary stuff if you think too much about it, but then you can't, because you're being fed everything you need, entertainment, "politics", ha, as if we actually "have a say" in it all. It doesn't blooming matter if we're "in Europe" and being run by unelected commissioners, like the Kinnocks, or not, as the global corporations are technically "above" them anyway, and will find a way to get what they want regardless of Brussels, or London, or  Washington. Work it out.... The mass military actions these days are overseen by private "security" companies, rather than states, although clearly states do play their role....Keeping the oil, diamonds, people, flowing where they're needed......The amount of salary/income you can seriously call your own is already spoken for, it pays debt, banks, governments, business, utilities, mortgages, and so on. The list is far too long for this little rant. Even if you squirrel a good bit away for that rainy day, it's then being used to make money for the banks anyway.....it's part of the farming process.

Mammon is in charge, and while he was a long term presence, now he really is the parasite, and cares nothing for love, or life-affirmation, apart from where they lead to more people to maintain the farm.... Think of any single aspect of life, and it will be only a stone's throw away from worshipping the beast.

Best take simple pleasures where you can find them, before they find another way to tax them.

There was one of David Attenborough's pieces on ants farming caterpillars, and various other insects harvesting their prey, and the analogy was there for everyone to see. Someone somewhere is getting more than a slice of you, and there is pretty much nothing you can do about it.

Rant put on hold....for now.... Here's a picture I took earlier....

Various Walks Around Here

It's yet another damp grey Sunday. Cold, but it's been a lot colder in March, so I shouldn't complain....

This was the week that I had the majority of my work-gear stolen out of my van. My locked van. My undamaged post-event locked van. To the tune of about £1000...... a nice way to get the week started.

It seems that you can buy a device on Amazon called a "Tibbe", that allows you to simply pick a Ford lock easily. Thanks Amazon, that's helpful!

There's an even easier device out there for a similar price. See Guardian article and I thought, naievely that such things would not only be illegal, but certainly not for sale on the open market.... 

There's no point in having decent stuff if people can just take it without any repercussions. To say I am livid would be an understatement, but the worst thing is how helpless I feel as to what anyone can do about it.

Best just to get your head down and keep on keeping on.

Cavewaters.

This my secret labyrinthine centre,

Painfully echoes non-sound-sense of the cool

Dripping of ice-cold

Cave water.

Drip, silent hours, drip,

Then silence for another drip,

Ripples of unlit nonsense sears.

Pierce these cave walled thoughts

And dispatch another, in your wake,

Dripping intense caved

Longings.

Lust for your gods,

And skin.

For the caves of love.

Cool deep pitch dark pool,

Holding the self deep within,

Reflects black light on black,

But echoes silently these dripping secrets,

As I died a little intensely

Momentarily.

Sinking in short ecstacy pools,

Waking in sober pain,

And dead lust gone, leaves,

These caves.

Secretive maze walking cave diving

Glad hanging and lustful cavefish,

Seek out the cool centre.

Garden Love

The lawn-mower told me to do it.

To change the plane, twist a set degree,

And to cut right over the edge,

To neaten the edge first

Was my own idea.

The moss lay at your feet,

Twigs in our hair,

And love in our grass boxes.

As I compost in your cool moist darkness,

With wood-lice, worms, leatherjackets and ants,

Spiders, grubs, and deep tidal motions,

My love exponents the moment,

And brings dissembly, of a sort.

Like a ladder of windows,

I live through one, seven, two, ten,

And still am the ladder,

The metaphysical pull-cord,

To the rotary dictator of….

My redisturbed passion for wholeness,

So much closer than I knew,

But hell no, never two-stroke.

Hell aye, I merely exist to,

Make you whole.

All he asked was to let the old me out,

Handing me your key,

As I hand you mine.

 

Nonsensical Trees.

Steel ice blue flash of armour,

Kingfisher shoots trhough this conversation,

Where Ring Ousel meets Goldfinch,

And Jenny Wren lends a wing.

Warily watching the lady in waiting,

Hands heavy on shoulders, repetitive straining,

To keyboards for typing the words of another,

Dear sir, my sister, my father, or brother.

Interruption from weathered faces that enter,

Repent with the telephone and then at the window,

Horrible visions of dreams long forgotten,

With fast cars, and dead trees, last summers pollen.

Broken down on the ring road, the kestrel above,

Dodging myriad starlings, and recreational love,

Leaves bitter residues in taste buds like these,

Notional climbing, nonsensical trees.

 

Square Peg.

Is this the place to stand and wait for rain ?

How can you get the speaker to explain ?

Just which of those jolly old fools,

Spends days fitting square pegs into round holes ?

The telephone rings and the shower curtain flaps,

Under breath cursing and the folds of old maps,

A planned journey to a view from a hill,

Deserted by fools now so move in for the kill.

The place is deserted yes, but we are still here,

Expecting the footsteps to wind ever near,

The actions of panic are unreliably safe,

But this moment is passing, everso brief.

The rain is late coming so we abandon the game,

The speakers gone home now, so we'll do the same,

The old fool's voice on the telephone line,

Stinks of t'baccy and musty old wine.

Running on illegal grass and stamping on flowers,

That lie dead in these clean april showers,

As the storm breaks now well high above me,

We kiss in the shelter of the gnarly old tree.

This is the place to stand, and have fun,

But how can you tell when loving's begun ?

We'll pretend that we're just the jolly old fools,

Hitting at square pegs with nonsensical tools.

Flockprinter: Buddy Wakefield

Ignore the video.

I don't know a lot about Buddy Wakefield. 

I have listened to some of his stuff, and some works for me, and some not so much, that is true of a lot of things out there I guess. The Flockprinter track I came across on a music blog I used to follow a few years back, and stumbled across it again just today while listening to the "misc" folder, and culling out some of the old dead-wood.

Wiki/Bio 

Have a look/listen. There's a whole load on YouTube.....

Night Thoughts.

 

Black Ribbons

Her eyes, black ribbons,

Tendrils of unspeakable regret,

Ooze and drift through the driver's window,

Will O'the Wisp like, negative though,

Unspeakable sadness, dead angels,

Waft on hidden breezes,

Trail, scent-like, fractured, odd moves,

Inner maelstroms, pale dead face,

Dried tears, long long long dried,

Ghosts trail through from her car,

Driver's glass through my driver's glass,

And unexpectedly, I see the void.

 

Dry

Deep dark cool woodland airs

Hidden business

Life and not, an absence of thought

Of place and hour, invisible joins

Secrets

Lies

Nothing but innocence, cool shady truth

As the trees enter your heart

Revealed

With coarse lush bracken, and birdsong reality....

There should be water

 

Shadowfish.

Depth of reflected torchlight,

Reveals little on dark liquid shallows,

Hidden shadowfish sleep, wary.

Step back from the water's edge,

Swim deeper in perfect mind-stream,

Eyes lit in exposed high branches,

And shadowbirds start to sudden applause.

The eyes of the fox, the rabbits and

The points of light that see for my dog.

The deeps of the wood are remembering,

The ancient living memory of tree witnessed events,

And at midnight, plus some, we are far from alone,

In the cold of the night you can easy be.

Ukrainian Brides

Christ on a bike, I am NOT actually advertising them. It's random.

I can't see the ads on my pc, but they show up on the phone.

The first couple were fairly innocuous, all stocks & shares stuff....but just now, when I checked, I am suddenly invited to check out a list of Ukrainian Brides.

NO thanks.

Apologies.

Ad-sense is supposed to adapt to your content, and there is absolutely no adult content on here, so how come they throw that crap up?

Ignore it. It's just a trial I'm doing, for a month or two, none of the ad content is from me, just so's you know that.............

Upbeat

 

 

 

Couldn't resist doing just one more before I go see what I can find on TV.....

Thank you for reading.

Got to be More Cheerful Than of Late.

The last post wasn't too bad, I guess, but the one before it was so bleak and dark, I thought I'd better try to reflect the fact that, believe it or not, I can do "cheerful".

Not many of the pieces are all that upbeat to be honest. It's a well turned out line that misery begets creativity, and conversely that when you actually are "happy" the incentive to record the fact just isn't the same, as you're too busy just enjoying the feeling.... Writing is cathartic, as in, it helps to bleed the demons out of you, it's a silent way of venting the inner pains, and torments, and so on. When you're having a good time, there isn't anything to actually get out, you don't want to, you want to hold on to the positivity, not blurt it onto a keyboard, or page in your notebook....

 

Black Hill

On the Edge Of Black Hill.

The black moors rise, still and ignored,

Fey and, not quite timeless, sleeping races,

Beneath these stiff boots, treading memory trods,

Dried heather flowers and loose black sods.

Crumbling, we sit, and our eyes trace these lines,

Delivered and executed by a thin spidery hand.

To lost pools, and pleasure gardens, what jubilee.

Will deep lethargy discover us on the seat of angels,

And cast us from these dour dark dank heights,

To poor pastures below, with the sorry sheep,

And sorrier autumn meadow weed, long husky

Desiccation of this memory, salty tears on cracking lips.

Come inspiration and rescue these dogs, this sorry man,

Pluck us high from this forgotten forbidden edge,

Where skies and moors meet and these elements,

Find roost in dark execution, lost heathered places.

Crumbling black heart, dogs and spidery intention,

Fey, but not quite crumbling, or pleasureless,

As often before, now delivered and with stiff boots,

We stand, shake a little, deep sniff and try.

Burst this shell, from around black and heavy thoughts,

Fill this dry heart with jubilee pastures,

Walking with positive dogs, timeless angels,

Downhill now, to autumn valleys on old sorry sheep trods,

With newly woken dreams, inspiration of sleeping places.

Admittedly that was written after a long walk on the opposite end of the main hill, but it's close enough.....

Both of the pictures above were taken on Saturday, and I have only one person to thank for my being able to. Discretion forbids that I give a name though, but they know who they are....

When I said in another recent post, that I wanted to avoid repetitions, Black Hill above was the one that won me the Complete Ted Hughes collection, a WW1 collection, and a nice voucher....In Ottakers, which is long gone now. We went and had a few drinks, and maybe a toke, before attending the evening readings in the shop. When I got short-listed in the adult category, I was amazed, but then to be called out as the winner, whereby I had to go to the front of those there assembled and read it out, was one of those odd moments that I'll never forget....even in the state of mind I was at the time...!

I know I've written some total dross, but every now and then I come up with one that I find works, at least for me...

It's funny though, how many work if you read them in either a Scots or Irish accent....

Chaos

Given how chaotic my thinking is at the moment, I am trying to order and categorise things, to get back some sense of framework.

For example, and the most pertinent one, when I relatively recently decided to reinvigorate this blog, and use it to embarrass myself with exposing my "poems"to the world, I never gave a thought to repetitions and so on. Unless I ever write another competition quality piece, and want to post it again and again out of some perverse conceit, then I'd rather not waste effort, yours or mine in re-reading the same pieces again.

Hence I created a folder to move things to, to help avoid inflicting things unnecessarily.....and studiously went back and moved everything, up to the "can't be arsed point". Hence I apologise for the odd repetition until the new system works its way through....

I posted this ages ago, but love it still.....

 

I hope, in time, to be able to do some similar exercise on the pictures, but in the meantime, I apologise in advance for the odd duplicate.....

(I've just realised it's actually quite a recent duplicate.....Oops! So am adding one more, the pebbles one as compensation.....)

"Monkey Nick pebbles"