I would love to have a muse, I think faced with a blank page or a knotty prompt she would be there in a blink with ideas and inspiration chewing the cud, I imagine her gifts to me quite gratis she would require no acknowledgement of our collaboration a relationship too good to be true
Why are muses generally “she” or is it in opposition to the poet’s gender – opposites attract and all that can I pay to go on a course to get my gal is there an Agency for muses that pairs you up like speed dating could AI write me the perfect letter of application – guaranteed to find the perfect match a muse for life – no shallow fling here today abandoned to blank page tomorrow
Instead, if I choose to accept this prompt or if I wake with an itch that only the laying down of poetry can sooth I face each piece of poesie on my own, flying solo never knowing where the words will take me on today’s adventure but within a moment the idea arrives the point of departure then buckle up for the ride here goes blue sky thinking…
1. – We managed a day out to Hebden Bridge where we stopped at our regular coffee shop and managed to fill in all the obvious words in the Daily Mail Saturday mega crossword whic h required ongoing coaxing and focus to achieve. the Daily Mail is an obnoxious tabloid rag but we buy it only for the crossword – the rest goes straight to the outside lavatory for toilet paper ) or would if we had one…) I didn’t take any pictures except this one to illustrate how steep the town is at its fringes – follow that road up – it must reach 1:3…
2.- I have been preparing for two new hobbies bookbinding – I have some volumes that are precious but in need of some repairs – and cyanotrope print making – as always, as soon a s you watch one video of something on Facebook, your feed is flooded with them! I sent for a book on bookbinding and as my friend Akua is running a Mini-book exchange of Speculative Poetry books, my first attempt is a concertina fold miniature book containing a single poem…
Everything is miniature except for the bow since I can’t tie one smaller than this!
One down – two to go…
3.- Cyanotropes prints are made by coating paper or fabric with special chemicals (which I have now ordered) – placing plants, feathers, stencils or negatives onto the prepared sheet and exposing it to sunlight (ultra-violet) and once washed, the exposed areas turn dark blue. As a young teen, our neighbour’s son, who was doing a PhD in chemistry, made up a chemistry set although he didn’t follow through with any experiments to do! I managed to spill on e clear liquid on my bedroom carpet and to my horror, it turned into an ever darkening stain – I have reason to believe that this was one and the same chemical… I used to have a large flower press when we lived in Ireland but abandonded the wooden bits when we moved back, but kept the threaded rods and so to furnish materials for the cyanotrope prints, I have cut some new pieces of wood and on the way back from Hebden Bridge, picked some bits and pieces to press – watch this space…
4.- In one of the living room (upstairs) windows, is a Yucca plant which has grown evermore contorted as it fills the available space and last year, I had to remove a branch which was growing into the room, spindily from lack of light. I cut it up and planted the lengths in pots from which I got two successful takes.
The two babies are shown below, however, growing in the foreground pot, is a vigorous “weed” called Creeping Wood Sorrel. I showed you some of my windowsill gardens before and in one of them, which my late sister planted, was this self same plant. It has trefoil leaves like clover and whilst the plants in the office are spindly from lack of water (the rest of the garden are drought tolerant succulents) nevertheless, it not only returns each year but displays an astonishing trick. Once the minute seed pods are ready. the fling out their seeds – explosively – and we find them not only coating the windowsill but stuck to the paintwork 2 and a half feet above.
The wonders of Nature know no bounds…
5.- Evidence of our English eccentricity, below is a scooter belonging to a neighbour just around the corner. If you are English, you will recognise this pimped up scooter as as the preferred mode of transport of the “Mods” – “celebrated” in the film Quadrophenia which features the music of The Who…
Apparently the Mods are still alive and well and at least one lives round the corner…
6.- Our run of rainy weather has been replaced with another heatwave – it will reach 30°C on Wednesday…
7. My beloved New Jersey based writing group is taking its Summer break after tomorrow but that will let me type up some of the pieces before the Autumn as well as have time to do the Poetry Postcard Festival in August – if you are interested in sending 31 spontaneous postcard poems to strangers (and receiving 31 back) you can sign up here.
8.- Glad to see the numbers at this here TToT are rising and enjoying the new contributors of gratitude…
9.- Glad for my health…
10.- Glad to feel, as my friend Akua says by way of a signature expression “Joy in the Making”…
If only I had been born Catholic a Saint for every occasion Saint Anthony would have been on speed-dial since I was always losing things I was well known for it—that and forgetting what I was going to the shop for but now I have acquired the habit of carrying a little black notebook sadly not for the phone numbers of paramours but that I might return from the shops with what I went for, amongst other things and when, as a vicarious observer of the sainted folks, I heard of Saint Jude, Patron Saint of Lost Causes I had a sneaking affection for him I bet he would know how to help a serial forgetter of shopping.
Grateful to keep my hand in with surveying and drawing up buildings. My boss met a fellow Pakistani entrepreneur whilst on a recent business trip to China (Its a small world) and we went to Bolton for me to draw it up with a view to creating a self-storage warehouse…
I had to take Barbara for a blood-test in Skipton and thefar bank of the stream which runs past the surgery, was lined with Angelica. I love the sweet, herbal taste of Angelica. I once infused some stem and some Fennel heads in gin – a great success… Angelica, whilst not rare, is rarely seen in such profusion hereabouts…
And also at the peak of its blossom this week, is Elderflower. I remember my parents attempting to make Elderflower Champagne but every bottle exploded…
I have not shared a texture photo for a while but I happened upon a sleeping dragon and quietly photographed its scales!
Truthfully, it was a car front grille that caught my eye in the supermarket car park and an amuse buoche, as I crouched to take the phote, a woman leaped out of the driver’s door asking what was wrong – I hadn’t noticed the two women sitting chatting inside lol…
After the blood test, Barbara and I drove to our son’s house in Leeds to deliver an important medical letter (he is still registered at our surgery so his post comes here) – it was raining as it has all month and so harly suitable for an outdoor coffee (outside for smoking unfortunately) but unwilling to drive staight home, we made ourselves post-men. It was a two-hour round trip so I put mt Spotify on to entertain us, and more than once, i found myself tearing up at the tracks that shuffled on. The first time I found myself unable to sing a song (accompanied by my ukulele), was Elvis Presley’s In the Ghetto – both the sincerity of Elvis’ delivery and the nature of the song made it impossible for me to sing it. On our trip to Leeds, on e tearing up was The Walking Song – paean to friendship by the late Kate McGarrigle and her sister Anna. The other was Strange Fruit – the Nina Simone cover, although Billie Holiday’s original is equally if not more powerful.
It occurred to me, that this tearing up is a form of gratitude – for the life and musical contribution of a singer no longer with us, or for a deep sentiment painfully articulated…
A pen-pal of mine wrote a poem for her acquaintance, the late, great Sonny Rollins which you can find here…
On which note I wish you all a safe and happy week…
At the eleventh hour we stop for tea biscuits – bourbons, custard creams and digestives birthday cakes for birthday boys and girls we see abstemious or decadent their choice lives or dies, pointer to their personality but cake is cake, no judgement do we give anything that elevates the office day is most welcome so we always like to say a merry office band forged in this routine so that whatever friction there has been dissolves in tea, lasting discord seldom seen…
Is poetry a written form or is it meant to be read aloud if only by the voice in your head Concrete poems would convey nothing of their shape by recitation whilst Limericks demand reading aloud their ribald rhymes no hesitation and if as poet you hope for someone else to do the honours consider giving a little guidance in the matter of delivery a comma gives the slightest pause especially midline for line breaks require not the little tadpole or even a period’s emphatic end I like a space hyphen space to indicate a slightly Longer pause or see line three for a positive gap a dramatic pause a pause for effect
In Ulysses James Joyce gives us a manifesto for stream of consciousness but Virginia Woolf in Mrs Dalloway reads so much easier the stream guided with a modicum of punctuation
Unlike composers of music we poets are not tyrants issuing cryptic instructions in superscript for volume and speed forte and piano andante and lente leaving limited room for conductors’ interpretation we poets trust our readers to read and rehearse to infuse the best intonation
The semicolon has no place in poetry or fiction that tadpole crowned with a dot and do all questions require a question mark I’ll let you be the judge
And so to round off poems stories and comments my addiction is to the ellipsis whose merits I have debated with tonight’s muse and I think she is persuaded that it means so much more than duh duh duh for me the ellipsis leaves a little open forgoes finality invites contemplation if not response and so I give you an imaginary ellipsis
Misky’s series of poems The Old Woman With No Cat which always makes me smile if not laugh out loud – the entire series is available to read here: The Old Woman With No Cat.
I have come to the top of the waiting list for a partial lower denture courtesy of the student dentists at Leeds Dental Hospital. I have been a volunteer patient for the students on and off since 2015 and have passed through the hands of about 5 or 6 generations of studnts. Treatment is free bar your dedication to turning up every other week for a whole morning or afternoon. I enjoy the contact with this age group, the free treatment up to and including, crowns, bridges, and now a denture. I also enjoy popping into the Leeds Art Gallery and taking a look at som favourite paintings.
I hope I haven’t shown you this before, but it is a large painting (c 9′ x 5′) of a Norwegian fiord and both the painting and the subject are stupendous…
4. I am grateful that before the age of photography, painters recorded scenes of historical significance – even if they had to employ considerable imagination. The painting below tells a sad tale form the days of the infamous British Empire and yet another ill-fated attempt to control Afghanistan. You can read the story below…
5. Summer is the time for nature in all ots fecundity and I offer a selection of “weeds” which have caught my eye this week…
I don’t know what these purple “weeds” are but one man’s weeds are another man’s flowers…
Albrecht Durer painted a littlr watercolour of a “foot of grass” and in this tribute, you can see how many plants have colonised what began as planted grass – clover, dandelions, buttercups, and I can see at least two species of grass and i don’t know what else…
This is no weed except by virtue of its growing in the wrong place – it is, I think, Wheat!
Some people take no care of their front urban “gardens” except to clear all vegetation from them periodically, but here, Blackberry runners are eagerly racing out in all directions from a tiny diamond of bare earth…
6. My weather app says expect Saturday to be the first rain-free day – AND ITS SUNDAY!!! Still, gratefull not to have to be watering the garden.
7. Grateful that biting the bullet and paying for a continuous blood monitoring device has brought my diabetes under better control…
8. Ten Things of Thankful…
9. The sun has just come out…
10. Something that is on the tip of my tongue…
Have a great week, everybody – stay safe and healthy!
I sometimes wonder if the internet was made for people to share their 101’s with others first came porn, stimulating the medium just as it had with home cine film then the cat lovers started sharing cats doing the strangest things long before AI allowed you to craft such behaviours to order
Companies got in on the act and no firm was complete without its website schilling its wares in better or worse fashion after all, you get what you pay for with advertising and websites
Steadily, though, in the background the democracy of individuals shared their passions in ever more sophisticated 101’s. How to make kombucha, kimchi, and sauerkraut How to do Tunisian Crochet and Why You Should 4 Ingredient Low-Carb Bread seedy crackers, cottage-cheese cheesecake recipes from every culinary tradition and country liberally seasoned with adverts As 101’ers try to monetize their craft
But where is Break-up 101: 50 Ways To Tell If Your Relationship Is On the Point of Collapse – is this too negative for jaunty bloggers will it fail to garner followers and accrue comments old-timey newspapers and women’s mags had Agony Aunts who responded to readers’ letters “Dear Joyce how will I know If he loves me so…?” And songs dispense wisdom “There must be 50 ways to leave your lover” “Should I stay or should I go now If I go there will be trouble And if I stay it will be double”
Did the meme of inevitable collapse fail to make the grade on the World Wide Web or am I just stuck in the wrong silos…
Over at dVerse Poets Pub, paeansunplugged in OpenLinkNight, Uncategorized, invites us to submit a poem of our choice… I wrote this in my writing group in the shadow of “My Mother’s Love” by James Allen Hall to the prompt, “Write about a time when collapse was inevitable…”
Something old, something new Something borrowed, something blue And a sixpence in her shoe.
Something blue blue notes? Blue Moon full twice in a month Singing the Blues but not today – getting married in the morning! this morning no more Harvest Moon fear and fumbling stripping off something borrowed – for the hope of fertility Making Whoopee though we know how that ended up will you still love me When I’m Sixty-four? – there may be trouble ahead Stormy Weather Life is an ocean Love is a boat put a sixpence in my shoe here goes nothing…
I started writing and preparing for my chosen subject of “Fabrics and Fibres We Wear” months in advance of the Theme Reveal, so by the time of the launch, i had done a lot of work and I also knew that I had bitten off more than I had ever done before for the A to Z!
The choice of subject came from my own curiosity about fabrics – especially those with strange names you only come across in historical novels and as well, I dabble in fibre crafts such as knitting and Tunisian crochet. In this respect, I more than satisfied my itch, uncovering all sorts of nuggets of knowledge that gratified me, but the question is, as always, will it hold the interest of readers of the A to Z? Well the pages received 300 views over the course of April, a good few regulars came, read and commented and showed as much delight as I did at the various topics – which is all that one can hope for! I expect that the posts may gather an organic growth of readers in the future as I feel it is quite the resource in the end – anyway, i shall keep an eye on the stats…
I didn’t finish all the posts ahead of time so there was a good week of pantsing it at the end and once that starts, there is no time to anything other than answer comments, so I did not achieve as much visiting as I would have liked but heigh ho – the posts are still there to be visited! Blogs I did manage to read and enjoy up to the point of pantsing, include The Multicoloured Diary, with her wonderful collection of Hungarian Folktales, Uniquely maladjusted but fun, where Jamie ran a scavenger/crossword hunt, Li gave us Artwork and Poetry Forms at The Versesmith, whilst Tamara of Part-time Working Hockey Mom transported us back to the 80’s! The A to Z would not be the same without Anne M Bray’s Pattern Recognition in which she celebrates the shoe designs of the Canadian firm Fluevog by first sketching one of the shoes and then turning it into a fabric repeat print. Another printmaker is Anne E.G. Nydam – a lino/rubber print maker who this year gave us extracts of her new self-illustrated book of reworked fairytales over at Black and White (Words and Pictures) and lastly Josna Rege of Tell Me Another.
In answer to the team’s questions
1. I am in favour of the Theme Reveal – it gets the ball rolling…
2. Its good to focus on the experience for a moment and review the other people who have contributed to your experience
3. The graphics this year have been great as always!
4. I did largely meet my goals but I am definitely going to choose something a little more modest next year so I can spend more time bloghopping…
5. See above for favourites…
6. I did have comments from co-hosts thank you
7. Favourite comment:- “So much great information! It makes me want to return to sewing – Ronel at Ronel the Mythmaker” (My job is done!)
8. Cai crossed over from my Ten Things of Thankful postings and visited regularly and obviously enjoyed the whole challenge even though she was not participating.
