February Randoms.

(The following are as yet unconnected, raw jottings)

Keep the Beat.

The resonance of the drums bouncing off the stones,

inducing the hypnotic beat until oscillations merge,

stones and drums are one.

The great malleability of human amplifiers lifting

The Beat to the sun on the solstice,

making The Stones speak.

Drum channeling voices from earth, humans, wind,

into a great funnel upwards to Sky Father,

not to desert the land, to re fertilise and make her

live again.

Taking blood, always The Blood, Life Giver, and

returning it to the Earth Guardians,

fecund in its falling, spilling, seeping.

The Drum synchronises brain, heart,

with Earth Throb,

creating an unbreakable force.

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Last night out of my window a curved sliver of moon

finally faded over a crusted earth.

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Do Robots Converse While Working?

Painting robots like shrouded, jerky ghosts,

bending, dipping as the spray bursts,

the armature turns and twists.

And the dance of the synchronised welders.

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A Bruegel for today.

Men in hoodies, various types of woolly hats,

in overalls, with pinched winter noses and cheeks,

looking earthy, workmanlike, unadorned -

warmth the priority.

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On the field.

Four cock pheasants on the morning rime.

One, still, in a furrow,

One circling,

Two heading for the cover of the hedge.

A short "man-run" with bobbing head that

fizzles out to a stroll and peck.

Boldly bouncing hare bolts through them

like a bowl through skittles.

In the field today a morning workout.

Four hares racing back and forth

like a rugby scrum without a referee,

(Four seems to be this field's number)

then over the crest and out of sight.

Singleton sitting in silhouette against the sky,

long back legs able to tip the body forward,

pushing nose to the ground,

or tilting it up to test the air.

They race in synchronised, apparently aimless,

circles sometimes stopping to spar.

Along the boundary hedge a chopper streaks,

and undaunted hares lap the field,

athletes limbering up.

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Last night the wind howled with the ferocity

and rhythm of breakers on the shore,

whooshing, then silence, until the next heave.

So we keep trying

The month has flown, been and gone,

and My Dear Blog I haven't visited you.

So today, which hasn't perhaps been

particularly exciting, I sit here in my corner

watching the sunshine and fighter jets

going over, and determine to write,

even if only a few lines.

My mind drifts back to the early morning

promenade by four cock pheasants in

the adjoining field.

Ambling and pecking,

aimlessly wandering,

until Number One decides to sit in a furrow,

Number Two slowly circling him,

while Three and Four suddenly break into

a run and make for the hedge.

Through them all, like a bowling ball aimed

at skittles, boldly bounces a hare, bolting.

Number one gets up, breaks into that man-run

thing which fizzles out into a casual stroll of

no fixed purpose

A chinless wonder who either doesn't know

what to do next

Or

wants it to seem like something else.

Another Resolution

Here we are again, Dear Blog, at the end,

And beginning, of another year,

Ready to make a new commitment to each other.

My head is telling me that if I were a serious writer

It wouldn't be necessary to keep resolving,

To keep saying "This time, come hell or high water..."

You and I both know that truthfully if I hit a snag

Or my stress levels go through the roof,

Paralysis sets in and writing is the last thing

I am capable of.

However, one can't give up hope

And so again I promise to keep you company

On a regular basis, with my unimportant thoughts.

Winter in the drove

Dawn light comes muffled,

cloying and lilac tinged

with a chill edge.

There are chevrons of beating wings

above blanketed fields,

Rippled clouds like sand

as the tide recedes.

Ebb and flow of dawn mist

making remoteness more so.

Pheasants strut,

confront each other,

feathers erect.

Spar, circle combatively, play act,

then retreat,amiably,

back to their bush together.

Today's performance complete.

There's a tree,

by my bedroom window,

without a straight line,

twisted and gnarled.

It's foliage bends and hangs

like feather boas.

At the top is an

inescapable shape made

by a clump of boa-like

twisting,forking limbs.

It forms a silhouette

of a 50s "New Look" model,

haughty,nose in the air,

however much the wind blows.

Her hat a "Moulin Rouge" headdress,

breeze ruffled, arched swan's neck

atop a stick body, thin,swathed in

moulting foliage.

Veins of filigree twigs criss cross

the alabaster skin sky.

Twisted aorta forks, branches

to capillaries.

An armature stripped back.

Still proud and elegant.

Hares bounce boldly,

with invisible pursuers.

No hiding place until their coats change.

Against the white canvas the

secret world of hedgerows

and acres revealed.

Low morning sun emphasizes

furrows old and new.

Undulations of the past revealed

and the model's hat is

ermine edged.

I struggle with mine and

everyone else's anxiety.

The ice in my fingertips reflecting

arctic chill in head and heart.

I'm wanting to hide again,

frozen by fear,

not acting on my own advice,

afraid for the future.

Not living by my creed,

ashamed, guilty, powerless,

alone, inadequate.

Response to "Shadow Play"

Gentle understatement,

Haunting Bartok,

Silhouettes in slow motion.

Rebuilt Chain Bridge,

Testimony to renewal.

Shadow feet walks city street,

To haunting boots, shoes,

At river's edge,

Tramp to oblivion,

Memorial to an obscene last act

by Danube's chill waters,

An end and beginning.

Deeply ironic resurrection,

Of those whose elimination took them

into the water-of-life for the perpetrators.

(or: from death to life-giving

in the enemy's midst.)

Poet with his life reduced

To darkness, certain death,

Still wrote verses on scraps

Shoved in his pocket.

Future exhumation made them

Identifiers after his disintegration.

Immortalised in words and bronze.

Statues transmuted from oppression,

Super-human inaccessibility,

To relaxed, human proportions.

Powerful in their informality,

None-threatening but always challenging.

Edward Petherbridge's Budapest.

An iphone production of montage,

Shadows and ripples.

Gentle voice alliterating,

Rhythmically playing with

Language, light.

Expanding pathos, drama.

Exposing fundamental paradoxes.

Another moving, revelatory gem.

New technology performance art

Provoking irresistible response.

Child -poem

Almost Soho

Once the decision was made that we couldn't go on

and get into Soho, which like Brigadoon seemed

to have become an illusion with all roads closed

into the enclave due to the Lord Mayor's Show,

we would people watch, take photographs,

comment, sometimes waspishly,

on the passing scene.

I'd missed the meeting despite being in London a

good one and a half hours before starting time.

My stress levels were through the roof with

exasperation.

After an hour in static traffic on London Bridge,

with an effort the levels subsided and I

succumbed to sense, deciding to make the

best we could of the situation.

Looking beyond the cones and no entry signs,

we glimpsed portly men in antique uniforms

raggedly making their way back to wherever

their incongruous transport was parked.

Standing at a bus stop, an Air Cadet with

cymbals clasped under his armpit,

hands still white gloved and pristine,

making his way home.

Theatre and the prosaic meeting.

At 3.30pm as we waited in more grid locked

traffic, a figure lurched to a standstill, at a corner,

steadied himself and his can of Special Brew

against a wall, and surveyed the scene,

taking stock through eyes, that even at a

distance, looked unfocused.

It was a rubbery,Hogarthian countenance,

and equally booze soaked.

The camera clicked randomly and with

my usual abandon, hoping that out of

the indiscriminate might come something

interesting.

Like the figure sitting by the roadside,

hood up, eyeing passers by and, surprised,

acknowledging the lone donation dropped

onto his blanket.

In the viewer the figure was blurred,

all the focus on the outline of wing mirror

and car window sill.

I was going to discard it when No.1 son

stopped me and saw potential.

"Do we really see the homeless?"

The picture spoke and remained.

Stepping out of a taxi an African woman

stopped to look about her before ascending

a flight of stairs to her maisonette.

A cloud of silver tissue gracefully swathed,

folds draped, crisply angled at the shoulders,

a toque pleated into a cockade.

Lusciously exotic against a seedy,limp

background.

Another episode of gridlock gave me

the opportunity to snap boys on bikes,

casually gliding in decreasing circles,

then suddenly pirouetting,

with rising back wheels,

weaving in, out, of columns and

each other.

In an unchoreographed barn dance,

people advanced, retreated, with

suppressed hysteria into and out of

tube stations.

They sashayed out into the road making

for the safety of the isles at the base of

traffic lights.

Making shapes where real life lies.

Crawling in traffic gives time to look

down alleyways and glimpse

another London, and dimension,

behind the hi tech facades.