I confess I am not a great fan of autobiographies that begin at the beginning and follow a temporal path up to the present day – not that the person might not have some interesting stories, facts and opinions strung on their necklace, but it just doesn’t appeal as a structure. On the other hand, in my last, extra year at school in Oxford, retaking an A-level and adding a couple more, I was allowed out of school on my recognisance and saw a fascinating Exhibition at the Modern Art Gallery. The Artist had laid out and photographed every single possession of a single person – for example, all the cutlery was laid out in one shot, all the shoes in another. This more thematic approach appeals more and although I am not arranging the objects which I have chosen to tell my story in chronological order, I hope that my writing will be sufficiently interesting to keep your interest Dear Reader, and that on the journey from A to Z, you will assemble an impression of my life and who I am…
Marmite has become a word that is shorthand for “Love it or Hate it” since the strong-tasting, quintessential British contribution to spreads/food ingredients divides the room. It is yeast extract and is made from the yeast that accumulates at the bottom of beer brewing tanks and if you ever have the good fortune to smell a Marmite, collection tanker passing, you will know the truth of this! As well as eating it on toast, I like to spread it on the toast for baked beans which can be bland but is transformed by the addition of marmite…
Music
Music pervades and has always pervaded my life to such an extent that I am not aware of its centrality but from the few records that my parents possessed (including a 78 rpm record of Elvis Presley’s Blue Suede Shoes), to learning the violin at school, to progressively listening to Radio Luxembourg and Radio Caroline on a valve radio to the ease of access that Spotify and You Tube give us to much of all recorded music, I love not just the music but the musicology – the family tree and genetics of music. I gave up the violin for the guitar and the guitar for the ukulele (more of that later), I have sung in choirs from Mozart’s requiem to Dylan – I can’t imagine living without music. On the days when I go to work, I listen to the morning news radio but on the way home I listen to music…
Two musical games of my own invention that you might enjoy… 1. Music Associations Ideal on a long journey – you play word association but with the title or a line from a song and anyone can challenge a player to explain the connection and if all the other players agree that the connection is valid, the challenged gains a point but if the challenge fails then the challenger loses a point. an example of the chain might be:- Heart like a Wheel – Little Red Corvette (cars have wheels) – Little Red Rooster – Wake up in the Morning etc. Connections could be word associations but they could be deeper – composer, covered by the previous singer – the possibilities are endless…
2. Hit or a Miss(Juke Box Jury) Juke Box Jury was an early panel show on British TV in which the host, David Jacobs, played the latest pop songs to a panel of guests who were then invited to vote it – Hit or a Miss! With a group of friends, two people at a time play three random songs from a playlist of their own favourites one at a time and everybody else votes on each song as Hit or Miss and the winner is the one with the most hits. Each person may choose the starting song, but then the playlist must be set to Shuffle for the next two songs. My music choices are so eclectic, I couldn’t possibly choose favourite music but to give you a taste, here are three pieces from my largest playlist on Spotify chosen according to the rules of the game…
Sweet Dreams – Bettye Swanne Breath Again – Åsa You Do Something To Me – Sinead O’Connor
Well, with 71 hours and 9 minutes of music to choose from – those surprised me too, especially the second choice but that’s the fun of the game!
Murals
This mural was designed by the Irish designer of religious art Desmond Kyne for whom I executed several commissions – since he was in his eighties, he could never have painted this. St. Joesph’s Church, Keelogues, Ireland, had been completely refurbished and Desmond designed the mural and the altar inset which he made with a secret technique that has sadly disappeared with the late artist.
Desmond Kyne and I at the installation of an earlier project where I made the Rereredos which houses Desmond’s icon. The Rererdos is a frame that allows the icon to be taken out and paraded around the parish on religious holidays. You can see some of the same religious elements as in the mural – the descending Dove motif and the flaming Holy Spirit…
My signwriting days will have to wait till the letter “S” but following the car accident which broke my hip in 1999, I was unable to work up ladders in the way I did before and although I started teaching part-time at Sligo Institute of Technology, I also got a couple of mural commissions which I did with I did with my friend Rob Forrester. They were possible to do using lifting platforms or cherry-pickers, obviating ladders. In fact one of the first important jobs I did after moving to Ireland was a mural for a bookshop called The Winding Stair after a poem by the Sligo poet, WB Yeats. The owner already had a successful shop of the same name on the banks of the Liffey in Dublin and had been waiting for some years to get suitable premises in Sligo. Kevin gave me considerable licence in designing the mural, and it served as a great advertisement for me which everybody knew. Here you can see a news item on RTE – the Irish TV, which features a much younger me painting the mural…
Memories – A Poetic Interlude
House with No Plan
The plan of my mind palace does not exist I haven’t tried to master my memories in that way but instead I wander through the corridors opening doors not quite at random and relying on my innate sense of direction to find my way back out of the labyrinth.
So sometimes I arrive in pleasant pieces of the past and sometimes in rooms I would rather not visit their contents not yet come to terms with or understood in the scheme of things
Nobody else can follow me here so I needn’t draw the map out with notes in the margin “Here be monsters!” only I need to know the rooms best avoided or put on the long finger to explore yet sometimes my mental map lets me down and I find myself lost and shivering, stuck in the darker places searching for meaning
Yellow crop top skin tone leggings a bare midriff good as bare bum but topped with a biker’s leather black bomber jacket
Cargo pants and an old guy shirt North Face jacket don’t he know that’s drug dealer gear – sitting perving…
What you looking at you old fart?
I’m sorry! Did I drop one?
No I said you are one! – An – Old – Fart! And stop perving!
A cool, grey cat may look at a queen…
What does that even mean?
In America New York, Harlem the Golden Age of the black man A cool grey cat – an old white man… may look at a woman in the prime of youth
Did I say you could look at me you old white man?
Everything about you says “Just look at me!”
Yes but not you! Why would I want you to look at me – old fool!
They do say “Only a fool wishes to be young again…” but you make me remember young – I was young once like you – you know?
I suppose but just don’t look at me – it ain’t for you I’m all dressed up! How old are you Mister-talk-like -a-dictionary?
Turned seventy just last month and can’t help but see you when you pace up and down in front of me! Where should I look?
True nuff, dude – can’t stand waiting what time’s this bus coming anyway?
Still ten minutes – could take the weight off and sit down… If the wind changes you’re stuck with that frown…
Them metal seats are far too cold – any more advice Mr Seventy
My mother would have said you’ld catch a cold – bare bellied…
And how old’s she when she’s at home – like you – cant mind her own bus’ness!
A hundred and five were she still alive…
Sorry mate I didn’t think I mean… my mother says the same…
Mothers! Who’d have ‘em?
You’re funny Mister! It’s mothers have you! Where you off to anyway, bingo!
Keighley Poets Group at the library and what about you – boyfriend? Girl’s night out?
Meeting the girls maybe to score not that it’s any of yours “old fart”
If only I was fifty younger… I might even be in with a shout I could dance then shake it all about…
In your dreams mate too posh for me too many long words you gonna write a poem about me am I your muse?
And have the world call me a perve and not just you? You are a sight for sore eyes it’s true though – but I didn’t mean to upset you – it’s hard not to see beauty when it’s there to be seen…
True nuff – I can’t expect that only fit young dudes will see me and not be seen as well by “Cool grey cats”… no Harry Potter selective cloak of invisibility… Oh look! The bus!
It has been nice to talk to you and come to see the other’s view untangle all the mixed messages which age and looks can scramble up I hope you have a good night out!
You too Mr Poet – knock ‘em dead at your poetry slam and you can write one ‘bout me too – if you want to…
I should first say that this conversation is an act of imagination lol! I have started attending a poetry group at my local library (whose construction, like many in England, was funded by Andrew Carnegie – an arch capitalist who made obscene amounts of money and ameliorated his conscience by spreading literacy through libraries) – the group are mainly people who have no online presence but only meet IRL – in the real world (an expression only used by those in the digital world!) There is a topic chosen for each meeting and the one upcoming next Tuesday, is “Mixed Messages” and I wrote this poem for the meeting.
I have been absent from my usual online haunt – dVerse Poets Pub for the last month as I am participating in the A to Z Challenge and each post takes a lot of research, illustrating and writing which you can find, starting here. However, I thought this poem might fit Dora’s prompt in Poetics but missed the deadline and so I am posting it for the Open Link Night…
I confess I am not a great fan of auto-biographies that begin at the beginning and follow a temporal path up to the present day – not that the person might not have some interesting stories, facts and opinions strung on their necklace but it just doesn’t appeal as a structure. On the other hand, in my last, extra year at school in Oxford, retaking an A-level and adding a couple more, I was allowed out of school on my recognisance and saw a fascinating Exhibition at the Modern Art Gallery. The Artist had laid out and photographed every single possession of a single person – for example, all the cutlery was laid out in one shot, all the shoes in another. This more thematic approach appeals more and although I am not arranging the objects which I have chosen to tell my story in chronological order, I hope that my writing will be sufficiently interesting to keep your interest Dear Reader, and that on the journey from A to Z, you will assemble an impression of my life and who I am…
This recent addition to the street architecture of Oxford’s main shopping street, Carfax, adorns the entrance to an alleyway sandwiched between two department stores and leads to the back entrance of Frewin Hall.
If you have ever received a comment from me on WordPress, you may have wondered about my username Frewin55 – short story, Frewin is my middle name and 1955 the year I was born and so I turned 70 just last month. The more interesting and turbulent story of why I was named Frewin is told in a recent poetry post I made for dVerse Poets Pub – Whats in a Name.
Fossils
A selection of fossils garnered over the year which I keep not just for their intrinsic interest but also because they remind me of the places and times they were found…
Fossils and thus Geology, are another interest that I got from my mother. We used to holiday in Charmouth, Dorset – part of what is now (since Jurassic Park popularised dinosaurs) called The Jurassic Coast although the same feature occurs in East Yorkshire where the same rocks appear having snaked their way up through the geology of England. I wrote about my mother, Charmouth and fossils in a poem called Cast in Gold here,
In the picture (top row from left) you can make out a Turritella in a cross-section, a section of a bed of bivalve fossils, a colonial coral from the Middle Carboniferous at Rathlee, Ireland where we used to live, ditto the one below. Left hand column – Various Ammonite fragments from Charmouth, the top one is made from Iron Pyrites – Fool’s Gold. Second column – a “Devil’s Toenail from Runswick Bay, East Yorkshire and below, two fragments of Crinoid beds. Third Column, the two white fossils are coral that my stepson brought back from Mexico – they are much closer to modern corals than the Carboniferous examples. Below them, three Rhynconella fossils which by corrugating their shell shape, could maximise their intake of water to filter for food whilst only opening a tiny amount and thus keeping safe from predators. Fourth column, Belumnites so called because of their resemblance to bullets – from Charmouth, just this year when I introduced my partner to the joys of fossil hunting. Bottom right, a recent (geologically speaking) piece of Bog Oak – a very fragile piece of wood preserved in the bog that formed when the climate became much wetter five thousand years ago – first drowning the trees and then growing five feet of peat bog to bury and preserve the base of the trees. Five thousand years is a mere moment in geological time and it is unlikely that the bogs and bog oaks will survive as fossils in the long term – most likely, the current climate change will stop the process of peat bog formation and the bogs and their fossilised trees will be eroded away…
Film
My love of Film began with a book -a Pelican, from the publishers Penguin and like all Penguin books, Film, by Roger Manvell, wore the “utility” style cover from the immediate postwar period which became so iconic. My father had a little bookcase exclusively full of these Penguin and Pelican books which I guess he had bought before he married my mother. “Film” contained sections of B/W stills from films such as Battleship Potemkin (the woman shot in the eye on the Odessa Steps), Buñuel’s L’Age d’Or (the eye and the razor-blade) and The Seventh Seal – all images so intriguing that they lit a fire in my young brain even though it would be years before I would have a chance of seeing these films.
The iconic scene of playing Chess with Death from The Seventh Seal – Ingmar Bergman’s monochrome masterpiece.
When I first dipped into this book, we didn’t even have a TV and when we did, the only films shown were in my father’s words “American rubbish” and it would not be until I lived in London, post-university, and got a job at the Ritzy Cinema in Brixton, that I finally saw some of these “arthouse” movies. I started as a general helper, selling tickets, ushering, clearing up between films and serving cakes, quiche and coffee but not sweets and popcorn – an innovation in Cinema fare for those days. The Ritzy showed at least 10 different films over the course of a week and since it had a single projector, that meant the projectionist had to combine an average of seven “cans” of film into one large and heavy reel – cutting off the header and footer from each can’s contents and splicing the sections together and then reversing the process when the film was finished with. This was so much work for the projectionist, one of three founding members of the cinema, that when I asked if I could help (nothing venture nothing gain) he jumped at the chance. I can truly say that this was one of the most enjoyable jobs I have ever had and by the measure that when you find something you love, it doesn’t feel like work.
The Ritxy Cinema as it was when I worked there around 1980.
Nowadays, cinemas, even small ones, have digital projectors and cans of film are a thing of the past and many great works are to be found on streaming services so much of the romance of the physical cinema has been lost for most people, the lights going down, the audience hushing, the ads, the previews and finally the film itself…There is one thing which is particularly magical about a real film projector and which only projectionists get to see… You can open the “gate” which is where the film passes through the beam of light which projects it onto the screen. To create the illusion that our eyes and brains see as moving images, it is necessary that the projection is broken up into individually illuminated frames, so when you open the gate, the synchronised flashes of light illuminating the fast-moving film, make it appear that the film is stationary, that is magical enough, but look more closely at the frames in the gate and you can see the characters moving in miniature just as they are doing on the cinema screen…
I confess I am not a great fan of autobiographies that begin at the beginning and follow a temporal path up to the present day – not that the person might not have some interesting stories, facts and opinions strung on their necklace. It just doesn’t appeal as a structure. On the other hand, in my last, extra year at school in Oxford, retaking an A-level and adding a couple more, I was allowed out of school on my recognisance and saw a fascinating Exhibition at the Modern Art Gallery. The Artist had laid out and photographed every single possession of a single person – for example, all the cutlery was laid out in one shot, all the shoes in another. There is now a term for this type of image – “Knolling” or “Flatlay” and you can find the fascinating origin of this nomenclature here. The memory of this Exhibition (or Exhibit if you are American) has never left me and in addition, the BBC produced a series of programmes (now available as a podcast) A History of the World in 100 Objects, or in book form if you are not able to download from the BBC.
This more thematic approach appeals more and although I am not arranging the objects which I have chosen to tell my story in chronological order, I hope that my writing will be sufficiently interesting to keep your interest Dear Reader, and that on the journey from A to Z, you will assemble an impression of my life and who I am…
Boredom Box
I have a love of miniature worlds and also of gadgets (more of that under G) and I put this tiny box together to carry in my jacket pocket so that I might never be found at a loose end… It contains a Codewords puzzle, a Sudoku set from a Christmas Cracker, some wool and a miniature crochet hook so that I might practise or demonstrate Tunisian crochet, an IKEA pencil, plus the tools from a cheap Swiss Army card whose cheapness was revealed when the casing broke – consisting of a pen, a nail file, tweezers, a toothpick and a pair of scissors. I have never had to use the boredom box in anger but it is as well to be porepared
Business
I realise that this is not strictly an object apart from the fact that every picture exists as a print, a slide or just a digital collection of 1’s and 0’s… This is the factory where I work 2.5 days a week (semi-retired)… Myself (centre) with some of the staff of the bakery in the factory in Bradford, England. We make Gelato, Puddings and Gateaux for our own Restaurants and also Wholesale. The thing that stood out (pardon the pun) for me in this picture, was how much taller I am ( at 6′ 2″) than my colleagues apart from Adam who is from Sudan – a country noted for tall thin people!
Let me say at the outset – I am not a good businessman – at least when pursuing business on my own account… You may have gleaned from the A for Art and Architecture, that I had some difficulty deciding what course to pursue in life although I prefer not to think of this as indecision but rather as having too many options to choose from. For many years, if asked what I did, I would say “Designer”, and that covered a lot of activities – Signwriter, Draughtsman, Architectural dabbler and these are all creative roles though within the confines of a brief or practical application. There has also been another quite different string to my bow – working in business, which I came to enjoy – and although I frequently got to employ my design skills in the service of those businesses I worked for or set up, I would say that there has never been a perfect balance between creativity and business skills – except perhaps my restaurant, but that will come under R…
A 1970’s bottle of Liquid Gumption from the time I worked at the factory producing it. This bottle feature in a website called “Rubbish Walks” which collects and displays a museum of rubbish…
Actually, the first business I worked in was a factory making Liquid Gumption (cream cleanser), Woodwards Gripe Water, and Wrights Coal Tar Soap and they were made by Sanitas located quite near to where I was living in London at the time. I had just left my first job after University, working for The Greater London Council under “Red” Ken Livingston where I had spent a year as a Trainee Administrator (learned how to write reports) and a year in the Print and Design Section (learned how to produce artwork for print by paste-up) but since these roles had either not suited or proved dead-ends, I needed a job to pay the rent and went to a work agency. After a week digging out huge tanks full of dried silica slurry, and having proved myself as a hard worker, the company took me on to work on Liquid Gumption kitchen and bathroom cream cleanser which was swapping silica(hazardous to the worker’s health) for chalk as the “scouring” agent.
A bottle of Woodwards Gripe Water similar to the one produced in the 70’s but probably lacking that alcohol used to extract the ginger flavouring…
The department making this very old soap, had the worst smell I have ever smelled during the manufacture – we had to go through this department to reach the canteen and you took a deep breath and tried to make it through to the other end without taking another…
The factory also made Wrights Coal Tar Soap and Woodwards Gripe Water which in those days, in addition to the active ingredient, Bicarbonate of Soda (to make the babies burp) and Dillseed oil (flavouring and slight anaesthetic), it also contained an extract of Ginger made by steeping dried kibbled (raked apart) ginger in pure alcohol. The finished product thus contained an appreciable amount of alcohol which no doubt helped to soothe the babies but was later deemed a health hazard and removed… We used to obtain sample bottles of the concentrated ginger tincture that had been kept by the lab for sufficient time and dilute them with water and sugar to make ginger wine/liqueur!
The Sanitas factory in Brockwell, also housed some regional offices of the company and from the factory floor you could see people moving around behind frosted glass that delivered “borrowed” light into the factory and yet we had nothing to do with those office workers. The only individual who moved between the world of management and the shopfloor was the Factory Manager, whose name I have long forgotten, but who wore a white coat – little did I think that I would one day also wear a white coat and occupy that very same role… It says something about the industrial relations of the 1970’s that such stratification existed and I like to think that it is a little better today…
The next business I worked for was called The Good Food Shop and was in Lamb’s Conduit Street in London and was run by one, Tony Page who sadly I have lost touch with. It was here that I blagged my way into cooking at weekends to take a little pressure off the chef. I was a reasonable though enthusiastic cook but here I learned to make 6 buckets of salad each morning, six quiches, ratatouille, chilli-con-carne, beef-in-beer, and other staple dishes of the time which stood me in good stead when I eventually opened my own restaurant. I later went to work full-time for Tony when he acquired the shop next door and wanted to open a Wholefood Shop about which I knew a little more than him. After The Good Food Shop closed due to losing half it’s lunchtime trade when the newspaper industry moved from Fleet Street to Wapping, I worked in several businesses with Tony. I will forever be indebted to Tony for introducing me to the spreadsheet which in those pre-PC days, he produced on graph paper, in pencil with lots of rubbing out. Excel spreadsheets form a large part of my work today – chiefly monitoring prices and profitability of products in the factory where I work.
What I am forced to admit, is that whilst I have not succeeded in my own businesses, I have been “a useful engine” in other people’s businesses (more of that later). Creativity exercises one part of my brain and business skills another – I have never found a position or activity in which the balance is quite right…
Unlike my partner Barbara, who grew up with no books in the house, I have always been surrounded by books, my father’s collection of post-war economy cover Penguins and Pelicans sat outside his bedroom door in their now iconic orange (fiction), azure (non-fiction) with other colours for biography and crime. My parents bought the complete Encyclopedia Britannica which was for us what the internet is today. Other bookshops contained all of Dickens unabridged, wrist-wearying hardbacks – and then there was the local library. At four books each a week, my youngest sister, Helen, would choose the Enid Blyton books she had not yet read and immediately begin reading in the corner of the library, carry on in the car going home and by tea-time she was finished the first of her four picks – the result – she became a speed-reader which was confirmed when her school in Australia (more of that later) tested all the pupils to determine their reading level.
This bookcase, the one beside the desk where I am writing from, represents about two-ninths of the books in the house. These particular ones contain reference books, but also poetry, plays, design, art, music to play and some novels. Elsewhere there are cookery books, therapy and a lot more novels and at least a third of all the shelves are double stacked…
I read once, that everyone, by the time they become an adult, has picked a character from a book they’ve read, on which to model themselves. I wonder if that means that in an age where children read fewer books, characters from film and tv are now role models – Elon Musk certainly seems to have imagined himself as some kind of super-hero though sadly appears to have become a super-villain… After reading this theory, I searched my soul for clues as to who I might have picked and came to the conclusion that it might have been “Doc” in John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row. He was a real-life Marine Biologist who lived in Cannery Row and as well as being a close friend of Steinbeck, Doc seems to have been able to mix with everyone in Cannery Row from the “bums” in the Palace Flophouse to the girls in the whorehouse (though he was not a client). Doc was known to entertain “high-class dames” when he would fire up classical music on his gramophone. Doc and Steinbeck wrote up a marine biology expedition which Doc invited Steinbeck along on and the result was The Log from the Sea of Cortez. My mother was proud to say that she raised us to be able to speak with anyone from a tramp to the queen so it is perhaps not surprising that I should have identified with and modelled myself on such an egalitarian and kind polymath…
I am addicted to books and goodness knows what my children will do with them all if we are not forced to downsize before departing this mortal coil – then all the special books that have associations none but I or Barbara know, will stand on a level playing field and if they are not chosen to be kept, will suffer the indignity of the market place or worse – the charity shop – perhaps I need to think about that…
Barbara
A photograph of Barbara during lockdown when we were lucky enough to spend 6 months locked down in Crete. We shouldn’t have been at this beach where the cafe was of course closed and we had the place to ourselves. Though it was Winter in Crete, there were many sunny days like this…
I am not going to say too much about my partner and love of my life Barbara, partly for her privacy and because this is not her story but there were many times when I counted on her support just as she receives from me. We have been together, with a couple of brief hiatus’ for 42+ years. The picture above featured in a poetry post I made called One Day which will tell you all you need to know…
I lament the loss of peace in our time Stolen, destroyed, blown up on a whim The new generation of despots craves The last generation turn in their graves
Craves wealth and power and influence Acting without thought or sense No thought at all of how to behave The last generation turn in their graves
I lament the loss of knowing what’s true Endless fact checking we must do Block our ears to he who raves The last generation turn in their graves
Nothing around us now seems safe When dogs of war at their leads chafe Bully boys beat up on the brave The last generation turn in their graves
I lament their sacrifice laid waste Blood and death’s most bitter taste But given for to freedom save The last generation turn in their graves
Two wars supposed to end all wars (Bar those in places far, of course) The sacrifice of those lost brave The last generation turn in their graves
I lament their struggle was in vain As fascists come around again Ask will Democracy be saved The last generation turn in their graves
To be remembered as the best not worst In reality, they’ll be roundly cursed Become the very byword for a knave The last generation turn in their graves
10 lines Even lines are just 2 syllables Odd lines are longer but without syllable restriction The even lines make their own mini-poem if read separately The meter and rhyme are unspecified
And the theme of your poem should be
The history/meaning of your name or one you wish you had or an imaginary one
I was born in the gatehouse of Frewin Hall, Oxford which is part of Brasenose College of which my father was then a don. In return for this subsidised college house, part of his duties was to lock the gates at 9pm each night as the students were curfewed in those days – imagine! My Grandfather on my Father’s side died during my Mother’s pregnancy with me and this poem tells the result of the conflict between my domineering Grandmother and my parents… There is a Frewin family who presumably built Frewin Hall but as far as I know, I am the only person to have Frewin as a middle name, so if you have ever wondered about my “handle” Frewin55, now you know. (I was born 8th March 1955.)
The view through the gateway of Frein Hall – the cottage where I was born at home is on the left and you can find out more about it here
In the beginning, there was just gas hydrogen drifting in nebulous clouds assuming fantastic shapes within which gravity began to group the atoms into clumps flocculating into formless blobs that swarm and meld together until the weakest of fundamental forces is magnified by unimaginable volumes temperature rising with such pressure that eventually combustion spontaneously ignites the first generation of stars
A star is a balancing act between the explosive force of the burn versus the constant collapsing pull of gravity but fire consumes the star and gravity always wins and the star is blown to bits to dust in fact – stardust brings new elements to the feast for the greedy, next generation growing in the nursery of new nebulae
The new stars have more complex deaths with a series of alternating explosions and collapses each one concentrating and crushing new elements into existence before blasting them into ever more varied stardust which will one day make the flesh and bones of a big-brained hominid who will gaze back through generations of galaxies let alone stars – back towards where it all began…
Our love, equality’s blood now spills and foams Stabbed by fantasists and dictators with loud fuss We mourn the loss of freedom taken from us
Supporters held in thrall, dismayed as truth hits home Democracy is murdered as those fools stand by – witless Our love, equality’s blood now spills and foams Stabbed by fantasists and dictators with loud fuss
We poets must respond and fight with sharp-edged poems Not just to mourn our lost love, blazon our distress But as a call to arms for all to rise and seek redress Our love, equality’s blood now spills and foams Stabbed by fantasists and dictators with loud fuss We mourn the loss of freedom taken from us…
Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Grace in Poetry Forms invites us to try the English Madrigal – a complex form which was often a song and often too, referring to love. This is a somewhat different love song for the dark times we live in – not just in America but across many countries around the world that will nevertheless be made worse by what is happening there.
Key Features of the English Madrigal
Content: Often includes a theme of love
Structure of an English madrigal
*Usually written in iambic pentameter. *Comprised of three stanzas: a tercet, quatrain, and sestet. *All three of the lines in the opening tercet are refrains.
Form: A thirteen-line form in three stanzas: Stanza 1] Tercet -Three lines Stanza 2] Quatrain – Four lines Stanza 3] Sestet – Six lines
Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Melissa Lemay in Poetics invites us to write an Ekphrastic poem selecting from a number of paintings (unidentified as yet) before revealing who the artist was and something about his career. Emil Nolde, it turns out, was an ardent Nazi who attempted to climb the ladder of art success at a time when the tide was turning against his expressionist style in favour of the insipid efforts to which all propaganda are likely to produce.
Melissa asks us whether, upon learning about Emil Nolde’s unpleasant politics, we feel differently about his art. I think a man’s politics are separate from his art unless he is using his art as propaganda and then as I say above, the quality will suffer because it doesn’t come from the heart. Nevertheless, I can think of people, still alive today, whose work and life I don’t want to support because their politics are abhorrent. Emil Nolde no longer needs our support and I feel no different about the work – only the man…
I kept seeing the kid in the parka at random times and in random places about the city but it was only when I went on a trip out of town and there was the kid standing on the train station platform opposite where I was awaiting my train home. I say a kid, but in truth I never really saw his face – lost in the halo of the fur around the hood. Was it even a he or a kid and not an old man – I just had an impression from the general build and demeanour. It was that time at the station that I knew the manifestation was mine alone – a spirit guide, if you will. There was a comfort then, in the vision, it salved my soul which let’s face it, in these end times needed salving…
