August 31st

Seven swans flying

a silent glide across the grey

the sky a still pool

I was on the bus going from the airport into central Dublin and I saw the unusual sight of seven swans flying. So powerful yet effortless they drove through the sky. It made me think of the Children of Lir, enchanted by their adopted mother, cursed to spend nine hundred years as swans. When their curse was lifted and they became human again, no one they knew was still alive, the world had changed. Such a sad tale.

In the evening I heard this song live. I felt introspective and reflective. I was listening to this album around the time my mum died.

August 30th

agitated wait

bloodshot pacing, night walking

depart in darkness

 

I should be in bed. Early early flight in the morning. Off to Ireland for Electric Picnic.

August 29th

birds decorate the

walls of the rowan cottage

welcome the new guests

Got a limited ed’ print from my great friend Bossman, very grateful for the gift, haven’t seen him or his family in ages. It’s wonderful. It’s now added to our collection of bird related art all over our house! it’s by Cole Gerst, simply called Blackbirds.

August 28th

 

the light retreating

days curl up in pink sunsets

summer hibernates

a pic I took from our bedroom window

August 27th

dew drenched raven flight

dawn sprung from salt cold longboats

follow the sky path

I actually wrote this one on the 28th, but it was dawn as I was dropping off D at the airport, so it was so early in my mind it counts as one for the 27th! I saw the silhouette of a crow flying. I thought of the Vikings, how they used ravens to help them find land. They’d release one from their longboat, if it didn’t see land from its high vantage, it would go back to the ship, but if it did, it would fly direct to it. The vikings would then follow the path the raven had laid for them.

August 26th

 

crab apples flourish

sullen copper swirls of leaves

Autumn encroaches

It’s getting colder, the wind is picking up. On our walk through the moors we noticed the crab apples had really grown. The other day on a drive I saw wind fall leaves swirling in the wind. Tree’s are shedding their summer coats. Autumn is on her way.

photo I took of a crab apple tree. Apples, Apples everywhere

August 25th

 

a jagged spite sting

devil fork dragged from the ground

to strike at heaven

Thunder and fork lightning in London today, they had to close the Cabinet War Rooms because water was cascading in like a waterfall. Tourists were taking photos of it through the glass firedoor, whilst their canvas shoes were getting soaked. The water level was rising. All this talk of floods made me think of biblical themes.

Anyway… Remember lightning goes from the ground into the clouds, not the other way round.

August 24th

 

golden stems yielding

remnants of the wheat harvest

standing on the sun

One of the fields on the edge of Flitton moor, where the footpath runs through, a right of way, has had it’s wheat cut down for harvest. Golden stems of wheat line the path, running over it gives a soft comforting feeling, a slight bounce to the step. And all is bright yellow. Not quite a yellow brick road, but definitely beautiful.

August 23rd

among beasts and fowl

I feel the happy rising

of love in my breast

A simple Haiku which tries to capture the feeling of joy I get from just being around animals, we went to Stratford-upon-Avon and did the Shakespeare trail. My favourite part was Mary Arden’s Farm. So many gorgeous farm animals, such fun just watching them. The goats were my favourite. I’m pleased to announce that I didn’t shove the children out of the way so I could cuddle a guinea pig, even though I wanted to.

August 22nd

 

an aspiration

to ascend on angel wings

carried to the stars

Went to a great exhibition at Compton Verney, called Flight and the Artistic Imagination.

It captures the spirit of humanity’s longing to fly, from the earliest times, in antiquity, to the modern day. And how flight has been an influence.

There are works on display by diverse artists, among the great and the good, Goya, Da Vinci, Paul Nash, Delacroix to name but a few. The beautiful piece below, a paper collage, is by Matisse. It depicts Icarus. Perhaps flying, perhaps falling into the sea. His heart glows red, a nod to our mortality when faced with such lofty ambitions as wanting to fly. Icarus didn’t listen to his master craftsman father Daedalus. He took the wings his father made for him and flew too close to the sun. The wax on the wings melted and he crashed into the sea and died.

August 21st

your frail orange tree

stands atop the wind thrashed bluff

I rush to protect

the little beacon

of a love lost complacent

short lived joy broken

the glow fades to dark

dream endings and tired eyes stare

another mourning

August 20th

running through woodland

a sheen on once supple limbs

in cooling drizzle

August 19th

in the dusk half light

ghost moths flutter like wishes

as yet unfulfilled

August 18th

slender chimney stacks

gothic fume blackened brickthroats

parched in the star blaze

It was too hot to get the train, so me and D walked back from Arsenal to St Pancras, down the Caledonian Road, towards Pentonville. This was the area my parents first lived in when they came to England.

It was a relief when we finally saw the myriad chimneys of St Pancras station over the rooftops. What a building. So glad it’s still there, such a landmark, so beautiful.

August 17th

in the heart of the

bramble briar, it’s always

dark full of secrets

the thicket immune

to the sun demolishing

the scowling cloud walls

a body concealed

her one true love scratched and bled

by welcoming thorns

photo’s I took on the moor

Three Haikus today, aren’t you lucky…. we partook in one of our normal walks and headed off to the Pond on Flitton Moor. On the edge of it is quite a dense patch of thick briar, bristling with thorny bramble as well as other tough hardy plants. It’s dark and sheltered there, whatever the weather. It oozes night even when the sun is in full roar. It’s a shady spot, dank and damp. Almost sinister.

It reminded me of an old folk song, a murder ballad. It has three names (Bruton Town, The Merchant’s Daughter and The Bramble Briar) and variations on the lyrics, but I think my favourite is by Martin Simpson (I can’t find it on youtube, but here it is on Spotify).

It is such a sad tale, a girl falls in love with one of her father’s servants, her brothers then secretly murder him as they feel him not good enough for her. They dump his body in a ditch filled with brambles, but his ghost visits her and she sets out and finds his body and the truth. Upon discovering him, the grief stricken girl goes back and meets her brothers “stand off, stand off! you bloody butchers!”  but it seems from the lyrics she will ultimately kill herself too, in her grief. “My love and I, you have both slain”.

So next time someone writes off folk music, think of the murder ballads, they are dark, bloody, graphic and tragic.

The Bramble Briar has a powerful narrative, it’s tragic and has no happy ending, it’s not fair. Sometimes life is like that.

The Bramble Briar (traditional, from Martin Simpson’s version)

In Bruton town there lived a farmer,
Who had two sons and a daughter dear.
By day and night they were contriving
To fill their parents' heart with fear.

He told his secrets to no other,
Unto his brother this he said
'I think our servant courts our sister.
I think they has a great mind to wed.

I'll put an end to all their courtship.
I'll send him silent to his grave.'

They asked him to go out a-hunting,
Without any fear or strife,
And these two bold and wicked villains,
They took away this young man's life.

And in the ditch there was no water,
Where only bush and briars grew.
They could not hide the blood of slaughter,
So in the ditch his body they threw.

When they returned home from hunting,
She's asking for her servant-man.
"I ask because I see you whisper,
Brothers tell me if you can."

"O sister, sister, you do offend me,
Because you so examine me.
We've lost him where we've been a-hunting.
No more of him we could not see."

As she lay dreaming on her pillow,
She thought she saw her heart's delight;
By her bed side as she lay weeping,
He was dressed all in his bloody coat.

"Don't weep for me, my dearest jewel,
Don't weep for me nor care nor pine,
For your two brothers killed me cruel-
In such a place you may me find."

She early rose the very next morning,
With a heavy sigh and a bitter groan,
The only love that she admired,
She found in the ditch where he was thrown.

The blood upon his lips was drying.
Her tears were salt as any brine.
She sometimes kissed him, sometimes crying:
'Here lies the dearest friend of mine.'

Three days and nights she did sit by him,
'Till her poor heart was filled with woe,
And cruel hunger crept upon her,
And home she was obliged to go.

Sister, sister, why do you whisper,
And won't you tell me where you've been?
Stand off! Stand off, you bloody butchers!
My love and I, you have both slain.

August 16th

eyes wide reflected

nocturnal adventurer

blinks and disappears

Katie our cat isn’t spending much time in the house in these mild and balmy evenings. She’s off, hunting and gallivanting. We rarely see her.

August 15th

Ears of wheat listen

turn as one when the wind sighs

singing buff tipped fields

August 14th

poppy seeds rattle

in the contented old face

of the blind scarecrow

It had a face, not an engineered face. The poppy seed head just had a face! Most of the poppies in the garden are like this now, dry, full of seeds, rattling away when you brush past them. However there is one big fat one about to bloom! A late starter clearly.

August 13th

it’s spider season

we drape the world with our silk

riders of the void

August 12th

a hollow beauty

her dead mouth tasting nectar

sleeps on the flower

This dead bee (photo below) was still attached the flower she was gathering from. Her mouth fixed her to it, in a fragile thin bond. The breeze rocked her to and fro, but didn’t throw her off.

She may have been attacked of course, but there didn’t seem to be any damage to her, it seems she just died of exhaustion. There on the flower head in our garden.

Bee’s are so selfless. She’s another bumble bee, I’ve written about them more than once, their season is coming to an end. Her and her sisters will all die in the next few weeks. But their new queens, the queens they gave their lives for will emerge from their slumbers in the spring, to found new hives.

August 11th

 

regal vantage point

flags flutter over the green

and battle clamour

Went to the Olympic Football final. What I love about football is the tribalism. The Roman’s loved their spectator sports, with some sort of combat, we’ve just carried on that tradition, without the killing, TV gives us that now. Was great fun. Have thoroughly enjoyed the Olympics. Shame it’s coming to an end.

August 10th

 

a weary fist made

skin hidden blood relentless

heart’s dull thud homing

 

I’m no good at giving blood. I write about blood and gore a lot in my short stories, but when it comes to my own, I feel feint and go pale. Silly really.

August 9th

orchestra soundcheck

cockerel wren dove and blackbird

a dawn performance

Up early as feel over hot, listened to the world, it’s a bit late in the year for a proper dawn chorus, most birds have nested, their young have fledged, but I heard a distant cockerel, an agitated wren chirping, doves cooing and a blackbird’s warning call. If you listen carefully to the silence, it’s deafening.

August 8th

a leaping fish breaks

through the ceiling of heaven

and gasps at his world

Was at Box End Lake near Bedford. Beautiful warm evening. Watched Deb and Neil swim, then just watched the stillness of the lake at sunset when they disappeared to the far end. I noticed fish were leaping out of the water, twisting in mid air then flopping back in.

I know, I know, more lazy anthropomorphism. I’m giving a fish a concept of self, world and desire for adventure in this Haiku, but have you ever interviewed a fish? You might be surprised.

However, a more plausible explanation for this behaviour is they might have been trying to escape from the alpha hunter in the lake, big bruising Pike live in it. Mind your toes!

My pic from Box End.

August 7th

someone else’s dreams

follies chiselled out of ice

Icarus falling

August 6th

blackbird tugs and pulls

at rowan berry bunches

sun ripened, rain fed

D took this photo in our cottage garden, we’ve got two rowans providing shade from the evening sun. It’s a lovely sheltered spot our decking at the end of the garden as they provide a bit of a wind break too.

August 5th

hammer swings wind sings

clouds billow devour the blue

burst and roar downpour 

I like it when the world goes dark when thunder is imminent. Thor’s giving it large in the sky again.

August 4th

smog choked chestnut trees

blurred in the grainy drizzle

shelter tiny hearts

wretched bird song stirs

toothless smiles from old grey cowls

pausing to listen

I went to Tate Britain yesterday, to check out the Another London exhibition of photography from 1930-1980. I loved the social history of it, familiar yet wholly unfamiliar through the passage of time, fashion, bomb damage and new architecture. And all the more interesting because the esteemed photographers on show were foreign visitors to London, hence they took photos of what they found interesting. Perhaps things that locals might have considered mundane.

A silly irrational part of me though what a wonderful stroke of luck it would be if I saw one of my parents in some old photo, of course I didn’t, but there was something intimate to me about the whole exhibition.

As a Londoner it felt personal to me, I walked round it with a slight smile, or a sad sense of something lost, when an old memory was revived by an image. London can be cruel and ugly, but also beautiful and inspiring. It is one of my favourite places on Earth.

So, two Haiku’s today, in honour of old London and old photographs. All photo credits to Tate website and Another London Exhibition. Associated exhibition book linked here by Helen Delaney.

August 3rd

touch gold for luck at

the sight of the full moon bright

her warm wedding ring

August 2nd

Gooseberry picking

plump translucent green bodies

ready to make jam

We’ve got a small gooseberry bush in the garden. D picked our crop, I was pretty impressed. Will she make jam? I have no idea. She might just eat them. I’m not fussed about gooseberries myself, they are kind of hairy and make my skin crawl. I think they are my kryptonite.

A pic of our crop.

August 1st

 

the claw foot flexes

scoring stone as the flames lick

on Mithras’ altar

This photo is from the Altar of Mithras at the recently restored Wrest Park where we went today. We joined English Heritage, so we can go in free for a year. Seeing as it’s round the corner we’ll be regulars. It’s only around three miles from our house. An enormous country house with beautiful gardens, dotted with outbuildings, classically influenced sculpture and smile inducing follies. You can get lost in the grounds, but the Altar is marked on the map and it seemed alluring, so we found it, deep in the woodlands, an imposing stone block. I should have got a pic of the whole thing, it had a brazier on top (rather, I assume it did but it was around 10 feet up so couldn’t see) with Greek and Persian inscriptions. But the four claw foot stands appealed to me the most.

Who was Mithras? He was worshipped around the time Christianity was picking up. There seem to be many parallels and similarities between Mithras and Jesus, they were contemporary developing religions. Also, Mithraism was a secretive religion, which would, I believe, appeal to the gentry already soaked with classical teaching. Mystery stokes interest. I can imagine this altar was built in the woods as a kind of naughty folly, fires probably burned on it and I can imagine tongue in cheek summer parties lasting well into the night with everyone in Roman fancy dress. “Roman Priests” would conduct rites and the wine would flow. Do I have any evidence for this? Of course not, but if I built a great big altar in honour of a mysterious deity, I would certainly use it for fun historical reconstructions!