September 30th

 

sweet bird song ventured

unsure from flagging branches

farewell till the thaw

Birds seem to be singing over the last few days. Unusual for this time of year, maybe they are migrating, saying goodbye. We’ll hear them again in the Spring.

September 29th

 

I am five again

walking to school and kicking

the dry leaves skywards

September 28th

 

newspaper tumbles

betwixt the trees breaking from

the cracked paving slabs

coming to rest on

black painted railings, a sail

fluttering helpless

------

the damp chill dissolved

by the sun rising, singing

then again the rain

London on an Autumn morning. Two poems, one a two Haiku composition and another standalone. Sometimes I think that I’ve written something similar on a previous day this year. The second especially seems to remind me of something I’ve previously written, but at least there’s another original offering for today.

September 27th

Cleopatra eyes

jump suits, disaffected youth

flowers of romance

Trying to capture (cheesily!) the spirit of the late 70s/ early 80s. Some great bands around then. Siouxsie and the Banshees, PIL (whom I quote in the final line), The Stranglers, Joy Division, Depeche Mode, Tubeway Army and many more. I wasn’t old enough to see those bands then, but with this trend in bands reforming, I’ve had many opportunities to catch up for some of them.

Tonight I saw Ultravox live at Hammersmith, they’re a bit older, greyer, but were still fantastic. This was the second incarnation, fronted by Midge Ure of course, although I love the John Foxx stuff too and saw him live recently (check my other blog).

Shame some nutter lady smashed a trifle/custard pie on Midge’s head during the encore!

Anyway, here is one of the tracks from their 1980 Vienna album. “Mr X”. Not a single, but crazily dystopian with great synth and drum work, not forgetting Billy Currie’s Viola.

September 26th

 

the wood mouse pulls his

dried red onion peel blankets

over his slim back

settled and warm in

his cosy borrower bed

whisker twitch – goodnight!

 

Two Haikus squished together today.

Our cat Katie had brought in a mouse, got bored and let it go. She’s so fickle, like an Roman Emperor, she normally revels in bloodshed, but she just gave up on this one. No idea how long it was living behind the chest under the stairs, but it seemed to be building an extension. The bed was lovely. Lots of onion peels. Looked quite cosy. We tried to catch it (to let it go) but it escaped into the bathroom and we think it’s squeezed into a tiny gap under the bath.

There’s only one thing for it, non-lethal traps! Filled with peanut butter!

September 25th

determination

the fierce stare into sunset

instinct, confidence

Nothing exciting, just a Haiku about playing football! Quite enjoyed it tonight, competitive. Not all my Haikus are about nature, love or the seasons. Well, ok, this one is a little bit about the seasons, as the pitch is orientated East-West, which means one side stares into the setting sun. But for me that celestial glow produced a god like performance :)

September 24th

dark swathe of starlings

just a small murmur swirling

drift in the wind squall

Starling numbers are declining. Theories suggest modern farming methods, chemicals and the reduction in natural hedgerows are limiting the starlings ability to breed and feed.

When I was young and not so interested in birds, the Starling was pretty common, even where I lived in London, it was recognisable through the dark iridescent coat, catching the sun and reflecting rainbow hues. Year on year their numbers have noticeably declined.

Occasionally you’ll still catch one, chattering away, they are great mimics and have an incredible range of calls and song.

I’d love to see a murmuration, where up to one hundred thousand birds would gather and create and incredible scene in the sky. But today I settled for just a little murmur, there were perhaps forty birds, which landed in a tree outside of my window at work. Haven’t seen that many in years. It cheered me up on a grim rainy day.

(pic from the telegraph)

September 23rd

 

Night circles the Day

shears the edges with winter

blades and rain soaked chill

I heard on the weather report that the day is now officially shorter than night, the autumn solstice has passed. Of course it’s an inevitability with the change in the seasons. But to hear it brought it home. The weather is gloomy and wet. I think I’ve had my last day of the year without needing a jacket. As they say in Game of Thrones, Winter is Coming.

September 22nd

 

long dead flowers bow

etched names on your rotten cross

no one visits now

September 21st

A penitent stag

the huntress fixed him, cursed him

run mute to your dogs

Yesterday I briefly visited the National Gallery, I wrote a one tweet poem for their competition relating to the Ovid / Metamorphoses exhibition they have there at the moment. The original poem I wrote is below. The above is the abridged Haiku version!

Of the Titian artworks on display, I chose the scene relating to Diana and Actaeon, the hunter meeting his match when he spies on the Goddess of the hunt Diana, who by way of punishment, turns him into a stag. He then gets stalked, run down and devoured by his own dogs.

(pic from wikipedia)

My original “one tweet” poem below, less than 140 characters of course.

#titianpoem He gasped, she turned, her fierce wisdom fixed him, froze him, a penitent stag, the huntress cursed him, run mute to your dogs

Co-incidentally I’d bought a second hand copy of Ted Hughes’ adaptation of Ovid’s work a couple of months ago. Before I visited I’d read a few passages. It’s steeped in Hughes’ descriptions of nature, of the wild. So vivid and powerful. My favourite passage from Diana and Actaeon was actually on the wall.

I copy an extract here (from the national gallery website), the late Ted Hughes is a wonderful poet.

……Actaeon
Stared at the goddess, who stared at him.
She twisted her breasts away, showing him her back.

Glaring at him over her shoulder
She blushed like a dawn cloud
In that twilit grotto of winking reflections,

And raged for a weapon – for her arrows
To drive through his body.
No weapon was to hand – only water.

So she scooped up a handful and dashed it
Into his astonished eyes, as she shouted:
'Now, if you can, tell how you saw me naked.'

That was all she said, but as she said it
Out of his forehead burst a rack of antlers.
His neck lengthened, narrowed, and his ears

Folded to whiskery points, his hands were hooves,
His arms long slender legs. His hunter's tunic
Slid from his dappled hide. With all this

The goddess
Poured a shocking stream of panic terror
Through his heart like blood. Actaeon

Bounded out across the cave's pool
In plunging leaps, amazed at his own lightness.
And there

Clear in the bulging mirror of his bow-wave
He glimpsed his antlered head,
And cried: 'What has happened to me?'

No words came. No sound came but a groan.
His only voice was a groan.
Human tears shone on his stag's face

……..

September 20th

tense long limbs twitch feel

one eye open seven shut

a hunter waiting

Spiders everywhere. it’s definitely Autumn, there’s a chill in the air. This big wolf spider was claiming my £1 off Tesco voucher. I let him keep it. Not sure what he’d spend it on though.

September 19th

white dove and old stone

above the city chatter

somewhere south the sea

(took this pic in Montpellier’s old town, it might actually be a pigeon, but hey ho)

September 18th

at first a feeble

whisper from the tufts of grass

cicadas singing

I hadn’t heard them sing for years. It always reminds me of the Mediterranean, only a few miles away.

September 17th

The cathedral dome

bauble sunk, cupped and smothered

by a fell beast’s hands

Flying over London, I was astonished to see just how small St Paul’s Cathedral is amongst the towers of the city. The Shard is an ugly dagger, sharp and brutal. That it can make Wren’s masterpiece look so small shocked me. St Paul’s still carries a strength, from the river, crossing from Bankside and Tate Modern, it still imposes. But from the air, it looks feeble, a toy.

The journey took us along the path of the Thames into the estuary, the mud flats splayed for hundreds of metres, the hairpin curves of the tributaries, snaking in and out till they reached the brackish water that is neither sea or river.

We then cut south and flew over the alien territory round Dungeness, so barren and lonely looking. A nature sanctuary. Then over the Channel to France.

September 16th

strewn along the path

bloody nosed beetle corpses

dismantled by ants

This time of year we seem to see an abundance of bloody nosed beetles on the moors. It must be they get disturbed when the harvests happen, so they end up more visible when the crops they normally hide in get shorn. Invariably a lot of them get stomped on. I’ve not picked one up yet (a live one), but apparently they spit a red liquid on you when disturbed, hence the bloody nose.

A pic I took of a live one above.

September 15th

 

scarlet seamstress works

from the beating heart outward

hare formed from fine twine

It was the last weekend of Animals Inside Out at the Natural History Museum. I popped down early on Saturday to check it out.

I’d previously been to see Gunther von Hagens' Body Worlds exhibition many years ago when it first toured London. I have a both an admiration, yet a certain ambivalence to his work. I guess, and preposterous as it sounds, despite my love and support of science, there is still some deep seated superstition within me which makes me uneasy around death. Especially when the corpses (plastinised or not) are playing flippin’ tennis or something equally mundane.

Luckily, there wasn’t a giant squid playing tennis against a bull in this exhibition. It was educational, with a real art aesthetic that made you gasp and look deeply. The animals all had died of natural causes, but it still made me sad to see such magnificent animals displayed in this way. The elephant seemed especially haunting somehow. Not because von Hagens had done anything wrong, it just seems sad that so many animals are at threat of extinction and soon our knowledge of them will be driven from travelling sideshows such as these.

The pedestals with the small animals, such as the Hare below were beautiful. Every capillary captured. The tiny tracks of where blood once flowed.

Pic from the Sun

I also popped next door, to the Science Museum, where they had an Alan Turing exhibition. This is Alan Turing year, it would have been his 100th birthday. What a genius. What a sad story.

September 14th

tan, pale gold and black
a tortoiseshell collective
the wonder of cows
I like cows, they have a wet nosed dignity about them. On the moors there are a number of them, wandering as they please, some of them have young, who occasionally skip into a playful gallop. I noticed today, that the young are getting bigger, almost as big as their mothers. They are beautifully coloured, a damp sheen on their smooth coats, a mix of pale gold, brown, tan and black.
When I was younger, growing up in London, I had more chance of seeing an elephant than a cow, as trips to the zoo seemed more frequent than trips outside of London. Occasionally, and by that I mean every other year, my dad would drive us on a day trip to Southend, Face pressed against the glass of his sea green Austin I’d be excited if I saw a cow in the distance as he would drive to the coast.
Even today, there is a sense of wonder I get from domesticated animals, but I’m a bit more used to them now I live in the country!

September 13th

 

sparrow hop skip jump

skidding under the hedgerow

too lazy to fly

I wonder why there aren’t so many sparrows any more? This one couldn’t be bothered about flying off when it saw me coming, so she sort of scuttled under a bush and waited for me to pass.

(rspb image – female)

(rspb image – male)

September 12th

At dusk weary crows

drag their long wings through the air

shadows departing

I drove past two crows, who took off and loped away, blots of night on the remnants of the day.

September 11th

 

The last butterflies

have given up on summer

frayed silk on the wing

The butterfly numbers are dwindling, went for a run on the moors earlier, they look pretty much finished. They’ll lay their eggs and die.

September 10th

 

I remembered the

long shadows racing across

the shingle shoreline

faded photographs

the certainty of old age

disenchanted hearts

September 9th

bindweed chokes the bay

smothers the fig, rose and plum

trees of my childhood

September 8th

in bramble havens

the fierce stares of blackbirds curse

blackberry brigands

The brambles on the moors are already heaving with fruit. I’m not that fussed about blackberries though, the pips always get stuck in my teeth. The blackbirds are welcome to them all.

September 7th

 

tandem ploughs drag lines

cut and fold the fertile muck

slowly turn return

September 6th

eyes closed in Eden

a freedom in solitude

rainbow melts deceit

Went to a gig with an old friend Alex. We saw various acts pay tribute to Talk Talk. For me their two last albums, Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock are just sublime/seminal.

Frontman Mark Hollis’ solo album was also beautifully melancholy. Although we weren’t overly enthused with all of the acts playing live, the double covers album of Talk Talk/Hollis songs which was being played sounded amazing.

Although the original albums didn’t do well commercially, the amount of musicians who cite them as influences is impressive, hence the array of talents who have dropped a cover version for the covers album.

I draw on Hollis’ writing themes in today’s Haiku, although I’d never claim to be as good of course.

For your listening pleasure, the incredible Laughing Stock. Stick with its strange mix of rock, jazz, noise and silence. It’s incredibly rewarding. A little known masterpiece.

September 5th

green naked rosehips

stripped of petals windfallen

too early to blush

 

a pinch of angels

float, take root on chalk hills

as hardy thistles

 

Meadow Browns busy

along the sheltered old road

late summer blessings

 

Some pictures from my walk on Pegsdon Hills today. This is a beautiful time of year especially on days like this where the sun isn’t too hot and the breeze is gentle.

Wild Rose

A barren tree

Hawthorn berries, I took a photo of these trees when they were smothered in blossom back in the Spring.

ploughed fields

Sheep

September 4th

you lit a candle

when the fledgling breathed its last

now the flame’s for you

September 3rd

hooded crows scatter

as distant shotgun echoes

a puff of smoke drifts

They were scaring birds away from the runway at Dublin airport.

September 2nd

the mud finally

relents when the baking sun

toughens the earth skin

The sun shone, it was glorious. A great final day to the festival.

September 1st

One by one they come

swift sorties tight to the hedge

insect gathering

So I’m at Electric Picnic, a great music festival, but I’m inspired by birds again. Swifts loading up for their massive migration to Africa by acrobatically flying against the hedges, elegant twists and turns in mid air to catch unknowing flies or spiders floating on gossamer.