Our first bedroom was a work of art where I bought my profession and my painting to bear like a Bower Bird building a nest to attract and cement a relationship with a mate. I always preferred to make my own Valentine cards Christmas and birthday offerings and even the gifts if possible and that room was my gift to you – on the ceiling a giant Chinese prawn painted paper parasol which I surprised you with on a date in London and as we walked, giddy along Oxford Street we gathered a crowd of people seeking shelter from the torrential rain the painted prawns in their element stopped from swimming off only by varnish.
The wall at the head of the bed swam with myriad shoals of tiny fishes gleaming like Neon Tetras where I over sprayed the stencil with spatters of silver and the other wall moved subtly from undersea azure to misty morning blue where an undergrowth of real plants pressed and stencilled emerged from the mist at the foot of the wall a perpetual daybreak to greet us each morning.
I will not say that all our intimacies took place in that love nest for in those days, any room would do for us before the clouds settled down on us dampening ardour except for brilliant sunbeams occasionally breaking through that bedroom was always but our happy place beneath the prawns amongst the fishes and flowering weeds of late summer.
Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Dora in Poetics invetes us to “write a poem that conjures a view (whether from our travels or everyday life, whether from desire or experience) that is colored by the emotion of the moment“
Krisis does not always come with a bang a storm heralded by a clap of thunder or even a whimper, a cry for help krisis can come like a big cat creeping, camouflaged the colour of golden grass until so close to it’s prey escape is impossible
Pity the partner who too, close by has failed to spot the marauder – to sound the alarm until too late and krisis has sprung, jaws locked on to suffocate – flight impossible, frozen still
For something that arrives so quietly depression nevertheless rules the roost changes more lives than the victim’s spreads it’s blight to partners children, siblings, friends and moments of freedom are hard won – the result of planning, cajoling caring persuasion and often a short reprieve results in a reactive tightening of the snare that binds – would have the victim knaw off their own leg if only they had the energy
The only hope – to roll back the malaise in the same way it came a single step at a time hoping a habit will take hold and the novel become the norm once more…
Over at dVerse Poets Pub, paeansunplugged in Poetics asks us to “write a poem about any pivotal moment in your life that left you with gnawing regrets or you could cover the entire gamut from anger to forgiveness and reconciliation. In short, you will be writing about a krisis in your personal life.”
My mother fought in the war, not hand to hand of course, but she ran the switchboard at the underground fortress on the Isle of Portland where the D-Day invasion was planned. She was a target of a spiteful fighter who strafed her landlady’s garden and had to dive under the hedge with the children. She alerted her base to a spy who was subsequently caught and she said there were six men, any one of which she might have married if they had not gone off to fight and never came back. Her tears on Remembrance Day taught us to tear up…
each Autumn brought tears of Remembrance for lost loves fallen in the war
My mother sitting at the back of her landlady’s house on the Island of Portland where she was managing the switchboard at the fortress where the invasion was being planned. She looks calm and happy here but just a few feet away, she had to grab the landlady’s two sons and dive for cover when a German fighter strafed the back gardens for no good reason…
Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Frank J. Tassone in Haibun Monday, invites us, on America’s Memorial Day, when those who have fallen in service of their country are remembered, to write a a Haibun recalling those whom we lost. This is about my mther’s Remembrance but from her example, we learned the meaning of loss and the response of tears. I wrote a longer poem about Remembrance and an exploration of my mother’s story in the memoir I wrote in this year’s A to Z Challenge here.
Walking back along the ledges from a fruitless fishing expedition fruitless but for the pleasure of sunshine on tons of lazy swelling clear Atlantic water shifting glassy at my feet – I encountered an otter.
Seeing me first it fled across my path and slipped into the sea I searched the swells for it and when our eyes met – it dived again. We played this game several times until I turned the tables – dropping to my knees I crawled crouched low over the serpent stone snake fashion for ten yards until carefully lifting my head I saw the otter now searching for me!
We could have played all day but the knobbly fossils of solitary corral were hard on my knees and so we parted with a final interspecies gamers salute!
Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Lisa or Li in Poetics, invites us to write a poem about an intimate moment. This encounter with the “other”, a sea-otter, on the West coast of Ireland where I lived for ten years, took place on ledges of “serpent stone” fossil solitary corals, solitary corals that with horizontally across the plane of the rocks…
You told me your schoolfriends called you little frog because of your slightly bulging eyes, amiga hermana and like an amphibian, you emerged from the river into a new land without meeting those who would have called you “Wet back” and sent you whence you came which is why to me, querido, you are Amfibio for you brought me the gift of insights of one who has travelled between borders you are Alebrije – your travel has given you wings wings that brought you and your fantastic colours into my life, querida.
What Divina Providencia brought you to my door querida? What spirit guided your path, melded our destinies? You asked for work as a live-in ama de casa to support your family back in Mexico and you fulfilled a need I didn’t even know I had and our relationship became hardly that of employer and employed
Then came the Orange Chupacabrón the devil who demands all the attention consumes all the oxygen and sucks all the blood – this trickster wants to send your kind back to Mexico and elsewhere as if you are una cifra insignificante he would make you an apachurrado a hat run over by a truck but he did not reckon with me
At first you shrugged “ Ni modo…” but I was encabronada well and trulypissed-off but also I had Susto – fear down to my very soul fear for me, for you, for your family, for my country I would not see you become Un pobre infeliz and so We sealed off the entrance to the cellar concealed a new entrance behind the mirror made a safe refuge for you and others told the shop where you used to shop for us not without irony, that you had been swept up and disappeared by the orange one’s minions and I arranged for a Mexican run shop with simpática, to deliver discretely enough food for whomsoever we hid…
Now we have an underground railway – not to escape victims of the orange one but to hold them until safe houses can be found – we did not need the magic of shamans to defeat the Chupacabrón we did not need to pick poisonous Toloache or summon the Cenzontle to do battle on our behalf because, after all we are hermanas bajo la piel
Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Dora in Poetics, invites us to write a poem using one or more of the poetically interpreted Spanish words in a poem by Sandra Cisneros…
Sandra Cisneros (b. 1954), in Chicago, the only daughter in a family of six brothers. In her stories and poems, she deals with the formation of Chicana identity, exploring the challenges of being caught between Mexican and Anglo-American cultures, facing the misogynist attitudes present in both these cultures, and the constant migration of her family between Mexico and the United States, “always straddling two countries but not belonging to either culture.” In “I Have No Word in English For,” Cisneros lists twenty-five Spanish words dictionary-like but non-alphabetically, yet seemingly objectively. You soon discover that each definition appropriates a keenly personal shade of meaning.
Apachurrado. Hat run over by a truck. Heart run over by unrequited love. Estrenar. To show off what’s new gloriously. Engentada. People-overdose malaise. A estas alturas. Superb vista with age. Encabronada/o. A volatile, combustible rage. Susto. Fear that spooks the soul away. Ni modo. Wise acceptance of what fate doles. Aguante. Miraculous Mexican power to endure conquest, tragedy, politicos. Ánimo. A joyous zap of fire. Divina Providencia. Destiny with choices and spiritual interventions. Nagual. Animal twin assigned at birth. Amfibio. Person with the gift of global perspective due to living between borders. Alebrije. Amfibio with wings from geographical travel. Ombligo. Buried umbilical. Center of the universe. Toloache. Love concoction made with moonflower and menstrual blood. Tocaya/o. Name double. Automatic friend. Amiga hermana. Heart sister closer than kin. Un pobre infeliz. The walking wounded maimed by land mines of life. Un inocente. Mind askew since birth; blameless. Chupacabrón/a. Energy vampire disguised in human form. Cenzontle. Tranquillity transmitter in bird or human form. Friolenta/o. Tropical blood. Vulnerable to chills. Chípil. Melancholia due to an unborn sibling en route. Desamor. Heart bleeding like xoconostle fruit. Xoconostle. Must I explain everything for you?
I have used some of Cisneros’ words, sometimes with her poetic meaning and sometimes their literal meanings, given below.
Apachurrado – squashed, down Encabronada – pissed off (slang) angry Susto – fright Ni modo – “that’s life”, “oh well”, or “what can you do” Divina Providencia – divine providence Amfibio – amphibian Alebrije – a type of Mexican folk art sculpture, typically a brightly colored, fantastical creature made from paper-mâché or wood Toloache – literally – the plant with nodding head – Datura, a highly poisonous flower Amiga hermana – friend sister Un pobre infeliz – a poor unfortunate Chupacabrón – a legendary creature, or cryptid, in the folklore of parts of the Americas. The name comes from the animal’s purported vampirism. Cenzontle – the mockingbird, a bird known for its ability to mimic the songs of other birds
I also used some other Spanish phrases
Querida – Dear (one) hermanas bajo la piel – Sisters under the skin ama de casa – housekeeper una cifra insignificant – an insignificant person simpática – sympathetichermanas bajo la piel – Sisters under the skin simpática – sympathetic
I have no skills for flight, or wings to skim the waves effortlessly, like the wind itself unaided, but I have flown in man-made machines, looped the loop in a Tiger Moth, watched men practise dropping food-sacks from inside a low flying Hercules. I have circled and landed in a glider and watched kite-boarders risk life and limb lifting off from Elounda Bay where once Imperial Airways flying boats landed on their way to India. Recently I saw a replica of the Wright brothers first flyer, one which is occasionally towed up to fly, briefly, perilously and from that to the climate polluting jets that crisscross our skies with contrails, from which I have had my share of gazing with wonder at the Earth below whilst transported unimaginably far, I have most certainly flown even though I have no skills for flight…
America I would still like to visit you perhaps even more urgently – the rough beast slouched towards Bethlehem now born – a second coming the world thought impossible now come to pass mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.
How long before those Great Lakes are poisoned by polluters set free to do their dirty work and national parks still safe from the graffiti of the poor but not from the mineral mining gutting of once again empowered rich cost corner-cutting pipelines fracture and spill their black gold on sacred reservations and beyond.
To appease his base your President has pulled your role as policeman to the world citing the cost but alongside military might your soft power saved lives now already doomed as vaccinations, retrovirals and simply food are withdrawn allies against oppression abandoned in favour of the oppressors and that is without the chaos of world markets disarrayed the world order disrupted by a thoughtless human hand grenade.
We British cannot talk – we also had a Prime Minister unelected, full of hubris, who made leader by her party with no electoral mandate fancied herself a disruptor and lasted less time than a lettuce but whose damage lives on
– small fry compared to POTUS whose power, mandated, he claims has already hurt the whole world in ways no magic reset can reverse and in truth, his mandate was less than half of “We the people…” his vandals slashing government to smash the laws that hold them back from moving money – poor to rich once more…
The “Land of Opportunity” that favoured my grandfather’s brother and many another immigrant now demonises the souls who would make their way too to share the possibilities of a bright future for their families even as the undocumented labour that oils the wheels of the American economy, – fentanyl and the war on drugs a fig leaf to the injustice of forced repatriation of those already embedded in America their dreams and families shattered by the spurious scourge of anti-immigrant sentiment pitting the poor against the poorer still.
So America I would still like to visit you but I am not sure you would let me in with my opinions here on record – sewn into the worldwide web where creepy billionaires now rule the roost and spread the lies that fooled America’s poor into electing their nemesis by inflaming the emotion of their abandoned sensibilities with false promises wrapped up in fake news – how long before you see the truth and can Americans, as they have before revolt against the white minority who would install Gilead the billionaires bent on plunder the bigoted descendants of the slave-owning South.
And if you, the people of America find your voice and strength again quell the krisis reassert the values that had America support the world order the rule of law, the equality of man then perhaps I will yet get to visit America…
This poem was written for the dVerse Poets Pub call for submission for a soon-to-be-published real world anthology of poems to be entitled, provisionally, Krisis: Poetry at the Crossroads. It is also a sequel to a poem I wrote in my writing group back in 2023 “America (I Would Like to Visit You)” which in turn was a response to “America (Superstorm)” by Kathleen Graber. I read the previous poem at the dVerse OLN in July 2023 and I am sharing it for the current OLN #383 which is being hosted by Grace . Since 2023, President Trump has been re-elected for a second term…
Georgia O’Keeffe, Three Women (1918), watercolour and graphite on paper, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, gift of Gerald & Kathleen Peters
Widows’ weeds is what we wear Stiflingly hot in midday air Houses usurped by eldest sons Post-husbands, post-menopause, we Convene daily, really to see That we still live, it’s hardly fun But beneath each blackened shell Bright colours of our glory days Belie this ghastly latter phase We dream of Heaven, live in Hell Gossip our only consolation The fauve follies of the young Who’s deserving, who should be hung Judgment brings but scant elation…
Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Melissa Lemay in Poetics, invites us to write an ekphrastic poem inspired by a selection of paintings by Georgia O’Keeffe…
Melissa also gave us a selection of art terms to incorporate into our poem and I chose just one fauve, the French word for “wild animal” that gave it’s name to the Fauvists who painted in very bright colours…
I confess I am not a great fan of autobiographiesthat 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…
My camera setup – my Canon SLR, telephoto/macro lens, mini tripods, cable to connect to computer, a pen to record details and my camera bag which has three sections that can be joined together, middle row:- charger, my Samsung phone whose camera I now use far more than all the rest you see here, a phone to tripod mount, a clockwork camera turner (never yet used in anger. Bootom row:- Flash, with batteries, flash/camera controller, lens filter set.
One area of photography I don’t often do is Street Photography, mainly because I don’t want to intrude on people’s privacy – even if, as some photographers assert, if it is in the public domain, it’s fair game. This lady agreed to be photographed on Clacton promenade, and the result is what I think of as my Diane Arbus moment… As a teenager, I kept articles from the Sunday Times colour supplement on art and photography and an article on Diane Arbus obviously had a great effect on me…
Photography and Poetry
If you like either poetry or pictures, then this might be a feast day! I suppose there was no avoiding the fact that the two most frequent creative acts I practice would fall in the same post of this A to Z memoir – there will be photos aplenty, and poems and poems which are illustrated with my own photos – not ekphrastic poems – poems based on a photo, though I do write those from prompts by dVerse Poets Pub. There are also a couple of poems illustrated by Genrative AI – but more of that later.
It is so easy to take photographs these days compared to my first efforts with an 828 film (35mm wide with no sprocket holes so big negative/slide images) and it was cheaper to take slides than colour prints back then, so my pocket money for several weeks (I got 1 penny for each year of my age per week) went to send a film of 12 slides off for development.
Nowadays most children’s first photos are taken on a mobile phone and cost nothing to take and often little to print if they have access to an ink-jet printer but it is not the same as the thrill of getting a carton of slides or an envelope of prints and negatives back from the pharmacy/ photo company. When I got those 12 slides or, later, prints, back, there were rarely wasted shots (though accidents could happen) because each shot had been carefully considered and framed before pressing the shutter. Digital pictures, and even professional photographers on a shoot, will acknowledge this, you can, and must, take hundreds of shots to get “just the right one”, and even then, it’s not guaranteed…
People are rediscovering the joy of real film photography and here are two girls so excited to see the results that they literally sat on the kerb outside the only shop in Bradford, Yorkshire, that develops film – ironically snapped by me on my mobile phone.
I have another blog on which I occasionally post where I explore my relation to photography – Photography & Me – A History, if you want to read more but for now here are just some of my favourites and the reasons why – because one of the problems with the plethora of pictures I now have, is what to do with them, how to exhibit them – even for oneself. For my recent 70th birthday, my daughter bought me a digital picture frame – so a growing number of treasures (more of sentimental than aesthetic value) are now on rotation…
With a background in painting landscapes, landscape photography remains key to me – this was taken on a day trip to Blackpool where taking into the sun (a thing you are told not to do) has washed out much of the colour around the iconic pier.
I used to travel to work across the moors, taking backroads to avoid being stuck in traffic. At the top of the moors, you can see for miles without seeing a single human habitation – empty or, as in this early Summer shot, filled with Buttercups and Bog Cotton…
Just a little further along the road, descending once more into civilisation, a large old farmhouse on a misty morning…
Modern camera phones excel at what I like to call Plant Portraits, especially close ups and the camera is always in your pocket – I did not know that the jade tree (see also my “C” post) had flowers as I never saw them in England but over the Winter of 2020, locked down in Crete, I watched these flower buds open into tiny flower on big bushes of Jade Tree…
I don’t have many photos of me because I am usually the one taking the photos at family events but here, in one of the last of my era of slide taking, I am simultaneously the joint subject and the photographer with two lovely friends with whom I shared a squat in Brixton, London and who have sadly disappeared from my life… BTW – check out my full head of 70’s hair!
Often photography is about being in the right place at the right time and seizing the moment – this picture was taken from a lorry/car ferry to Ireland as it set sail from the docks in Liverpool, next to the container port and no other vantage point would have captured it. The colour is slightly abnormal because it was taken with an HDR setting…
Sometimes the bizarre just has to be captured – I found this mutilated Barbie on a pavement in Blackheath, London and placed it on a wall, partly as a setting but also in the vain hope that somebody might reclaim her…
Another right place, right time, and this one, which looks like it might have been HDR, is not…
An abstract shot – snow on our Velux skylight…
A simple abstract snap until you know that these staples and thumbtacks mark the place where death notices are posted announcing the funeral details on the walk into Elounda, Crete, to do shopping in lockdown – ghosts of the community…
On the same walk as the previous shot. tiny Olive flowers…
Although I lugged my camera bag to Crete, where we spent 6 months during covid, I hardly used my SLR camera, taking so many photographs on my excellent phone camera, but this was one subject that the phone camera couldn’t cope with – panning and zooming simultaneously to follow the kite-boarders. They came from all over Crete despite lockdown to the bay at Elounda where at the southern end of the bay, a causeway blocks waves whilst allowing strong winds to provide perfect conditions for the sport – the SLR triumphs!
A wind sculpted rock formation from the Sahara? No! All that’s left of a rotted piece of wood from our bathroom which I had to replace. The wood around the screws had survived and I photographed it on top of our blue car…
Poetry
It was the A to Z that connected me to a couple of poets who are also attendees at dVerse Poets Pub, which drew me into writing more poetry – 208 poems in two years at the last count. dVerse post prompts 3-4 times a week, which can be subject or poetry method-based. – I highly recommend it… I also belong to an Amherst Writers writing group where we start by looking at a poem and then write in the shadow of it. The group facilitator, a retired doctor, Deborah Bayer, combines Amherst methodology with Healing Journey concepts so the poems that come from the group are often introspective or memoir in content.
Today I am going to give links to poems that I published here on the blog and illustrated with photos of my own plus a couple which I used Midjourney to illustrate. First however, this poem. It is written in the Duplex form, which I particularly like because each couplet passes on the baton of theme to the next couplet, giving a fast-moving, eclectic exploration of an idea that almost seems to write itself…
An Ode to Food Moments
Food was always the focus of family always sitting down to eat all meals together
We did not go about separate lives or help ourselves to leftovers from the fridge
Our mother refused to let my father cook though he well could, and would have enjoyed to
Christmas morning was the exception – proved the rule carving the ham, drop scones, grapefruit halves
Picnics were a chance for creative sandwiches grated apple and chopped date, cream cheese and grape
Dinner parties brought forth beef olives from a magazine my first beer next day – awful dregs at the bottom of a bottle
My Granny’s seventieth cake – a Dresden firestorm with seventy candle power of heat melting inward
A picnic by Victoria’s Murray River whilst fishing for who knows what with yabbies…
University evoked family meals where we JCR sat down together for evening meals
Then, food on film – The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie always about to eat but coitus interruptus
And the winner for Best Conflict Resolution Through Food – Babbette dissolves all community feuds with a Christmas feast!
Are not all remembered meals filmic moments salted away in the memory and aged to perfection
To be brought out on special occasions of family reminiscence or encountered in the random, channel-hopping of life…
Though it looks like a photograph, the image illustrating this poem is in fact the result of a period of experimenting with Generative AI (see the button at the top of the page) and I include it here because arriving at a good prompt turns out to be an art all of its own…
This poem is in the same vein, and I include it for the sheer beauty of the image which when it emerged from Midjourney – took my breath away… I have stopped using Midjourney to illustrate poems, partly because I feel they can overshadow the poem and partly because of the debate over the fairness to artists whose work may have been used to train LLM’s (Large Language Models).
