June 30th

disturbed earth adorned

sun wilted wind flown petals

crooked cross whispers

June 29th

 

the wind drags the sky

cloud watcher rests in goose down

an empty pastime

June 28th

shadow witches perched

unblinking at the window

ragnailed and swaying

I walked into the spare bedroom in the dark the other day, before I switched on the light, I had a flashback of childhood. On windy nights, when the curtains were open, even by a tiny crack, I used to scare myself looking at the shadows of the trees breaking between the curtains, splayed on the wall. I imagined witches were out there, squatting in the trees, silently waiting for me, their long slender fingers exploring the insides of the room via their cast shadow.

And then of course I stupidly watched Salem’s Lot at one point, the Stephen King TV adaptation. Of course that was it then, it was floating vampires tapping at the window *and* tree witches from that point forward. Oh, and ghosts walking through the walls (sometimes just the dismembered floating drooling head of a ghost hovering above me) and a werewolf under the bed / in the wardrobe.

But it was all ok, as the rules were if you hid under the covers, they couldn’t touch you. Beds and blankets are the greatest ward against the supernatural. Not garlic, not silver, not holy water. A bed, with a sheet to pull over your head. Foils them every time.

Stills from Salem’s Lot below. This scene was pretty chilling. Even watching it today, this otherwise unremarkable TV horror has some great suspense and frightening moments. And David Soul is in it.

When a vampire floats up to your bedroom window and starts tapping and scratching at it, imploring you to let him in, do not, I repeat, do not invite him in. Without an invite, he’ll have to stay outside, getting bored. Just stay in bed. And pull the sheet over your head so you don’t meet his gaze, or he’ll try and beguile you to do his bidding.

Dude, what did I just say? He’s gonna mess you up now!

June 27th

timid candlelight

ivy grabs imperfection

veiled behind red brick

June 26th

a handful of earth

rose petals flutter, water

wheat sewn, plate shattered

 

the rain taps me on

the shoulder and soaks into

hidden wells of tears

June 25th

He watched them all go

dragged on deck cruelly ridden

while the piper played

 

their slow hearts unused

to the wanton weight of men

stealing ancient breath

 

It made me so sad to read about the death of Lonesome George, the last tortoise of his sub-species. His death confirms the extinction of the Galapagos La Pinta Giant Tortoise (Chelonoidis nigra abingdoni).

A combination of hunting (not that they’d have been much of a match for a foraging seaman coming ashore to grab them) and the introduction of goats to La Pinta meant George was the last of his kind, hence his evocative and sad name.

Despite attempts to get him to breed with females from other sub species, it never happened for him. He was around 100 years old.

Whenever I think of giant tortoises, I always think of a book I read Selkirk’s Island by Diana Souhami. Alexander Selkirk was the real life castaway who Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe was based on.

Part of the book really stuck with me, it struck me at the depths of cruelty people can inflict. When giant tortoises were gathered in the galapagos by sailors (for food), to pass the time, the sailors used to ride them and race them whilst playing music. So they weren’t just food, they were used as entertainment prior to the time they were deemed ready to eat. It really hit me and depressed me, that these poor ancient beasts were so cruelly traumatised and tortured prior to their death. Their slow beating hearts punished to beat so fast. The terror they must have felt.

I was going to write a bit about Charles Darwin, and the elegance of his theory of natural selection, his work informed by his discoveries in the Galapagos, the subtle differences between similar species on different islands, about adaptation to natural surroundings, but the thought of those poor gentle tortoises has sapped the energy from me.

So anyway, two Haiku’s on the same subject today.

Lonesome George, pic from the Guardian

June 24th

 

innocent bullfinch

red rusty gate sighs close by

calls his mate and flies

A bullfinch landed right near me in the garden today. It’s quite rare to see one up close. It was oblivious to me as I was sitting so still, so it sat on a low branch in one of the rowan trees and cooed it’s sad rusty gate song very quietly. I think it saw the cat after a few seconds when her ears pricked up in curiosity. The bullfinch and his mate, which was perched in the willow, then flew together into the eucalyptus, where he sang for a bit more, then they both flew off. Lovely colourful birds.

pic from rspb website

June 23rd

numb hands, facial glaze

hunched staring into the void

fake worlds dull the pain 

June 22nd

 

wedding crowns a wreath

pinned names hushed under satin

love’s final journey

June 21st

 

take joy in the dawn

hold hands and watch the clouds drift

tell her you love her

Last night was the summer solstice, the longest day of the year of course. Often synonymous with eccentric hirsute druids performing rites at Stonehenge :)

From antiquity to the present it has been celebrated, as a high point of the year, but being the misery I am, I always feel sad at midsummer.

Why? The days are getting shorter now. The sun’s arc will diminish over the next two seasons, we’ll see less and less of her, till late December, when the Winter solstice will signal the time the days will get longer again. That time is of course associated with our modern Christmas, adopted from the pagan tradition. I’ve always loved Christmas, they were happy times as a kid. The excitement of getting one or two presents, which I would cherish. I feel sorry for modern kids, I’m not sure they feel the same wonderment of receiving a gift, don’t get the same emotional rush and the appreciation that someone has sacrificed and saved to buy you something (of course I hope they do). It’s not their fault of course, it’s just where our society’s path has taken us. Presents aren’t something special now, they’ve moved into a consumable space.

After Christmas, there is the let down and harsh months of January and February, a penance for the excitement of the festive time. And March, when the birds return, the flowers blossom and the trees deck themselves in green. It’s also my birthday in March. And that’s when my dormant happiness stirs again.

Amongst other things, I thought of Nick Drake today. And his beautiful song From the Morning. What lovely lyrics. Sad and Happy. Loss and Life. Wonder and Reflection. It says so much to me at the moment.

 

From the Morning (Nick Drake)

A day once dawned, and it was beautiful
A day once dawned from the ground
Then the night she fell
And the air was beautiful
The night she fell all around.
So look see the days
The endless coloured ways
And go play the game that you learnt
From the morning.
And now we rise
We are everywhere
And now we rise from the ground
See she flies
And she is everywhere
See she flies all around
So look see the sights
The endless summer nights
And go play the game that you learnt
From the morning

June 20th

mock orange cradle

rock me to sleep, tuck me in

curled up in your arms

As I said yesterday, there is a simple solace, a healing in the garden. The mock orange is blooming, at the same time as our rambling rose. The garden is a fragrant paradise at the moment. Whilst I’m sad, I feel fortunate too.

June 19th

Edgar Allan Poe

skull and pirate treasure trail

gold-bug cipher bite

We had the washing carousel out, which made a kind of tent like secluded wind break, but still allowed the sun to filter through. It was kind of like how I imagined a medina in Marrakesh would be like, with a nice patch to sit on outdoors and drink mint tea / smoke shisha, behind thin curtains, except with our bed linen hanging out to dry instead of un-dyed natural cotton billowing.

It was nice, hadn’t had much time to think of late, the day was warm as well. So I just sat down, then lay down and looked at the sky. Listened to the birds. A blackbird and a song thrush had a competition. One was in the oak, the other in the Eucalyptus tree, but it might have been in the Willow, it was hard to tell.

I felt safe being surrounded by our flowers. One should not underestimate the therapeutic and reviving qualities of a loved garden.

D then noticed something, a small golden beetle near the herbs. It looked amazing, neither of us had seen anything like it. It reminded me of Edgar Allan Poe’s (conveniently his name is 5 syllables) short story, The Gold-Bug, from Tales of Mystery and Imagination.

Except with a bit of research, we confirmed they’d be no buried treasure to dig up. The offending critter was a Rosemary Beetle, yes, they love Rosemary and their larva can destroy it, they are a non native pest. We have tons of Rosemary growing. Neither of us like to kill any animal, no matter how small, so we’re going to try to reason with him!

(all photos by me)

other stuff happening. A bee on the knapweed.

A bee in the foxgloves (an action shot – woooo)

June 18th

 

black white shades of grey

little boxes filled with youth

fledglings come to life

The death notice archive of photos kept by the Greek newspaper is huge. The photo used in the death notices is also used in subsequent remembrance notices, where family and friends are invited to remember loved ones after 40 days, 3 months, 6 months, then every year.

The photo is usually from a time when the person is young and happy, free of sickness and the shadow of Charon.

The lady who works there said they use copies for convenience / size, these copies are all filed, but the originals are all kept in boxes / storage. Unfortunately they are not in any order as they’d moved premises. If I’d wanted to collect my dad’s original photo, I was welcome to book a time to look through them and pick through the photos till I found him. I can just imagine each box of original photos being opened, brimming with smiles, grateful for being given the gift of light.

There’s something ever so sad about that. I’ll make sure to not damage any photo, to respect every loved one when I go back there to look for him.

June 17th

 

I thought of the owl

Athena’s wisdom watching

a soul between worlds

June 16th

Cocksure foxglove spears

fleshy poppies abundant

augmented by rain

I ventured, bleary eyed, into the garden today. It’s absolutely teeming with colour. It’s wild and beautiful. The rain has fed these giant growth spurts, the poppies are weighty, the width of saucers. The flowers are gorgeous. And the smell of the rambling roses drifts in the air.

It helped to warm up my heart a little and inspired me to write a happy longer poem, which you can read on my other blog here.

June 15th

 

your love letters glow

with the same intensity

as when you first met

June 14th

I wish I believed

then I’d tell you I love you

and hope you might hear

June 13th

Cloud peak horizon

another coastline melting

rays of regret rise

I stayed up all night and watched the sunrise.

Two of the photos I took.

June 12th

 

Νερατζούλα μου

ο πόνος ε περάσε

τώρα κοιμάσαι

June 11th

Loyal familiar

rope creaks, body twists in breeze

an angry rain comes

There was a small display about Matthew Hopkins, Witchfinder General in the Aldeburgh Museum / Moot Hall. It was a dreadful, rainy cold day.

For every innocent woman hanged, I wondered if there was ever a malevolent witch who wreaked revenge in her death. Hopkins seemed like a deeply unpleasant character.

Note the names of the familiars in the pic below (from Hopkins book), fascinating. “My imps names are…. Pyewackett, Ilemauzer, Griezzell Greedigutt, Vinegar Tom etc… (the last of which looks like a cross between a greyhound and a bull).

Dreadful weather… view from our window.

June 10th

Even cloud angels

fall to earth to bathe in dust

trilling in pleasure

Skylarks fly so high and sing so beautifully, seemingly never taking a breath. It was lovely to see a pair on the ground, having a dust bath. Here is a pic I took of one of them. This was near Snape maltings in suffolk.

June 9th

The marshland echoes

with the screams of the gull mob

a heron’s fish lost

We took an evening stroll along the beach, inland, behind the beach, over the high shingle slope, between Aldeburgh and Thorpeness is a wetland. We saw a heron, it had what looked like a fish in its beak. The gulls mustered and harried the hunter in mid air.

June 8th

flatland fringes end

reassured by cold stone weight

the ninth wave crashes

The Ninth Wave is lifted from Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s Idylls of the King*. I used to love Tennyson when I was younger. Sod knows why a north London working class lad was so much into the Arthurian romances, but I read about them voraciously. I also read Le Morte D’Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory. The modern English translation was, from memory, still very challenging for someone of my competence (and no doubt it would also be today). I then got into the art of the Pre-Raphaelites, the tragic realism of their depictions of myth, history and romance. And the gorgeous laydeez they painted of course. (I think that was the appropriate ‘street’ spelling of ‘ladies’ there).

Below is the Lady of Shallot by John William Waterhouse (1888), another Arthurian subject of Tennyson, although like most things Arthurian, the poem’s story was cobbled together from a number of sources/legends/historical facts, who knows who the true Arthur was, let alone what he and his peers got up to.

(pic from wikipedia)

Despite my above average academic abilities, I got cut from taking English Literature at school. This was from a time when you just stoically accepted that teachers knew best. What it meant was I was shut out from some wonderful books, which although I might not necessarily have appreciated at the time, would have given me a different outlook and set me up in some small way for the future. It’s a small moan, I admit, but it’s not borne of a deep seated rage, more of an observation. People must still take responsibilities for themselves so I have no gripe or simmering regret to this incident. I think I’ve turned out alright! But who knows, I might have been given an honorary doctorate for some reason or other (much like Mike Tyson) had I taken English Literature at school.

But.. Back to Arthurian Romances. Why? I think they played into the moral values I loved. People who wanted to do good, but were in some way flawed (Lancelot). People who wanted to do good, often did, but were flawed and let down by those they loved (Arthur). People who could achieve great things from humble origins (Percival).

They are archetypes. Whether they appear in comic books, Arthurian romance or mythology, they pull levers deep set in our psyche somewhere. Or at least in mine! Especially comic books!

So here I was, standing on Aldeburgh beach at dusk, holding a beautiful two tone pebble. Listening to the sea, thinking how wonderful the moment was. How it couldn’t last. How in a few years, the very spot I was standing on might well be under those waves as East Anglia is always at risk of the sea reclaiming it. But we live for moments like that, most of life is a flatline, with small peaks of wonder and light. This was one of those moments.

Extract from Idylls of the King, The Coming of Arthur

It seemed in heaven, a ship, the shape thereof
A dragon winged, and all from stern to stern
Bright with a shining people on the decks,
And gone as soon as seen. And then the two
Dropt to the cove, and watched the great sea fall,
Wave after wave, each mightier than the last,
Till last, a ninth one, gathering half the deep
And full of voices, slowly rose and plunged
Roaring, and all the wave was in a flame:
And down the wave and in the flame was borne
A naked babe, and rode to Merlin's feet,
Who stoopt and caught the babe, and cried "The King!

My pebble and the ninth wave -

* – Kate Bush, someone who is significantly more famous and talented than me, also used The Ninth Wave as a concept for her Hounds of Love album. And what an album it is too. Side one is the commercial side, magnificent, a pinnacle of her talents, but side two is just immense, so out there, beguiling, mysterious, almost frightening. Just thought I’d mention that.

June 7th

North sea winds squalling

the transience of the coast

chatter of shingle

Going to Aldeburgh in Suffolk tomorrow. I love Suffolk, the coast line forever being eroded, the coast changing shape over the years such that houses near the sea are under threat. There’s something about that, that reassures me. It should frighten me but it doesn’t. Nothing lasts forever.

June 6th

Dark Carnival masques

cease their work and look skywards

as fire balloons rise

Goodbye Ray Bradbury, you were always and will remain an inspiration to me.

(photo credit from la times website)

June 5th

Song interrupted

yellowhammer gets no bread

never mind the cheese

Just a silly Haiku today. I was running on the moors and I could hear a Yellowhammer sing its distinctive “A little bit of bread and no cheeeese” song. When I got near him, he shut up mid song. I’m always blundering into bird territories and annoying them, you’d think they’d be used to me by now.

June 4th

Automaton schemes

thoughts born in brass gears turning

metal regicide

Don’t worry, I haven’t invented a Blade Runner style android with the sole purpose of murdering the Royal Family on this diamond jubilee weekend. Rather, I speak of a fantastic hoax, a clever folly of the 18th and 19th centuries, The Mechanical Turk. A chess playing automaton, which fooled the great and the good for several decades.

Secreting a top class chess player, the Turk appeared to be able to play a marvellous game, but also displayed flourishes of temper or humour, depending on the mood and imagination of his controller.

He must’ve captivated and terrified his audiences. And although many suspected something fishy, he wasn’t exposed for several decades.

How did I find out about all this? I watched Horrible Histories for the first time of course. Brilliant TV! Educational and very funny. It also taught me Napoleon (incidentally one of the Turk’s defeated celebrity opponents, along with Benjamin Franklin and Catherine the Great) had piles. A haemorrhoid factoid.

With a bit of googling I found a couple of very interesting articles. This one (linked here - from which I also credit the pic I use of the inner machinations of The Turk) discusses the links between Chess, Sentiency, Consciousness and Artificial Intelligence. Chess is often an entry level bridge into the testing the intelligence of computers. Although the Turk was a hoax, it must’ve provided fuel to the imaginations of early pioneers in computing. What if you could build a machine which could play a decent game of Chess? Chess has set strict rules, but also allows for some level of creativity which goes a little way beyond the ability to compute several million combinations of moves ahead (which is basically what modern chess computers can do, taking the fun away from the important ability to learn and improve).

The article discusses the great Alan Turing and his paper 'Digital computers applied to games' (seemingly incorrectly labelled “Chess” on the website). He talked of a computers ability to learn, from mistakes, from previous games, to become better through it’s own experience, much like an infant learning through life experience.

I quote (from the web article, which quotes Turing’s paper – available in original form on the Turing Archive).

When one is asked, “Could one make a machine to play chess?” there are several possible meanings which might be given to the words. Here are a few–

a) Could one make a machine which would obey the rules of chess, i.e. one which would play random legal moves, or which could tell one whether a given move is a legal one?

(b) Could one make a machine which would solve chess problems, e.g. tell one whether, in a given position, white has a forced mate in three?

(c) Could one make a machine which would play a reasonably good game of chess, i.e. which, confronted with an ordinary (that is, not particularly unusual) chess position, would after two or three minutes of calculation, indicate a passably good legal move?

(d) Could one make a machine to play chess, and to improve its play, game by game, profiting from its experience?

To these we may add two further questions, unconnected with chess, which are likely to be on the tip of the reader’s tongue.

e) Could one make a machine which would answer questions put to it, in such a way that it would not be possible to distinguish its answers from those of a man?

f) Could one make a machine which would have feelings like you and I do? (Alan Turing “Chess”)

End of quote… Back again. e) and f) are the most fascinating and take a real jump from just playing Chess. e) describes the Turing Test. Can you have a conversation with a machine and not realise you are talking to a machine? (I’ve distilled this description down to a basic level, but there are plenty of online resources if you want to read more). This Turing Test was loosely employed when Blade Runners were interrogating potential replicants in Philip K Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep”, later turned into the film Blade Runner of course.

But f) describes feelings, can this ever be possible for a machine or computer?… Turing considered issues and concepts way beyond the technology available to him, this is from a man who was active more than 50 years ago. It’s teasing and evocative and a theme often employed in Science Fiction, you often see these powerful robots or androids, sensitive and emotionally fragile characters, “born” as adults, endowed with emotion and feeling their way into the world and interacting with these horrible flawed humans with all their needy selfish ways. Poor android bastards. At least give them a chance before exposing them to humans! No wonder they end up killing everyone in these stories!

What’s even more intriguing, to me anyway, is that Turing designed a Chess algorithm. There wasn’t a computer powerful enough for him to programme this algorithm into, but what he was able to do was play a game against a friend where he employed his algorithm, it probably took hours. He lost, but the game was a decent one, a good show. You can follow the first ever “computer vs human” chess game, blow by blow here!

June 3rd

Matted shaggy fur
sly eyes narrowed in the rain
the patient monster
There’s a bold cat that beats up all of the neighbourhood cats. He was sitting outside our back door waiting today. He was such a lovely boy when he was a kitten, now he needs an asbo!

June 2nd

light splatters the walls

wildebeest throng grunt and grind

flesh pressed in the swill

Maybe I’m just getting old. As designated driver, I could watch the pub fill up with cold sober detachment and observe the behaviours of human wildlife, much like David Attenborough would be, commenting on migratory wildebeest on the savannah. It was bloody carnage just trying to get to the loo. These smooth dance music places just aren’t for me! Glad I had a seat!

June 1st

 

the scent of jasmine

cicadas sing in the yard 

shooting stars kind smiles

This one talks of memories of Cyprus. Sitting out late, talking, happy times, watching the sky and being so excited as a little boy, when I saw a shooting star for the first time.

One of my aunts died. She was a lovely generous giving lady. Though she had no children of her own, she looked after everyone else with an uncomplaining unconditional duty of love. A refugee (like almost all of my family) who never returned to her home village. Behind the happiness, there was always a deep melancholy, a sense of yearning for the familiar, for even happier times, for old neighbours now scattered by war, for home, for the mountains meeting the sea and the village nestled on the coast. Sadly, my parents generation is slowly getting ill, passing on. As the youngest of all my cousins by far it throws mortality at me, the transience of our time on earth stark and ugly.