Flowers in Interlaken
How delicious it is to wake up in a place where no one, no one in the world, guesses where you are. Rilke He takes time mounting the stairs. The years are heavy in his lungs. Peaking out of his small backpack, a bunch of three yellow roses, a gift for the woman he’s summiting. Over the last week, many middle aged and old men have rung our bell, asked for ‘Jason’, looked lost, mis- reading our confusion as confession. Then sigh with relief and head up. We joked about it being a brothel, not the home of an ‘American family’, as our holiday rental landlord told us. No American voices, just shuffling at night. Today unmistakably squeaky percussion. No joke anymore. Disgust mingled with awe that you could be so old and still desire minutes of conquest. Perhaps he goes there for the company, gives roses, talk lovingly of a dead wife. Time Traveller in Sion For the creative artist, there is no impoverishment and no worthless place. Rilke Outside the Grand Cafe in Sion he rests, a Victorian artist from a Vallais art school, just up - afternoon coffee and custard pastry crumbs in his jaundiced beard, scattering down into his pyjamas, greying slippers. Dressed in questions, he has pan-pipes strung around his neck, and a Peruvian woven bag from which he fishes a notebook and pen to write or sketch in a shaking veined hand. He debates with himself, waves his hands at invisible members of his retinue, mumbles. Suddenly summoned by Rilke’s angels, he gets up and leaves, stumbling back into the artwork he was trying to create out of his shadows. Not Forgotten Find perfect tiny blue alpine flowers forget-me-nots, Wald-Vergissmeinnicht I am reminded of being a little boy when flowers were everything beautiful and right about the world. We collected them, made chains, pressed and painted them. Plato would be smiling. But not the German knight who, wanting to pick the blue winks for his lady, falls into a river, drowned by the weight of affection, ‘Vergiss mein nicht!’ Forget me not! Remember, yes, but no loss can be recovered in flowers, however wished. Writer's Block at Murren Most experiences are unsayable; they come to fullness in a realm that words do not inhabit. Rilke. Words fail me. No, I fail words. Empty dictionary. All synonyms are cliches. Every time I pick an adjective to describe the mountains as they rise thousands of metres above the unparalleled U-shape valley of Lauterbrunnen my dumb pen is left sterile. I am not the poet, the mountains are. Monch, Eiger, Jungfrau - your names are words enough. No stanza here can capture this vista of monumental stone and glaciers, pristine alpine meadows, tiny towns perched at drunken angles. I keep following the line of the cliffs, plunging down with the waterfalls, and all I can is fall and accept the inadequacy of flesh and ink. Published in Ginosko Literary Journal, #28, June 2022.
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Poetry Biography:I have had over 70 poems published in the following worldwide magazines and literary journals: A Handful of Stones, Acta Victoriana (Canada), All the Sins (UK), The Amethyst Review (USA), Amsterdam Quarterly (NL) The Blue Nib (Ireland), Bolts of Silk, Borderless Journal, The Brasilia Review (Brazil), Bushfire Literature & Arts Review (US), Cadenza, Cake Magazine, Carillon, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal (Hong Kong), DASH (USA), Clackamas Literary Review (USA), Cooch Behar Anthology, Dawntreader, Dreamcatcher, The Dillydoun Review, Earth Love, The Ear (US), Eastlit (East Asia), Erbacce, Envoi, Finger Dance Festival, Ginosko, Gloom Cupboard, Hidden Channel, Inlandia Journal, IS&T (Ink, Sweat & Tears), Into the Void (Canada), The Journal, The Lakeview Journal (India), Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Lunch Ticket (USA) The New Writer, One Hand Clapping, Orbis, Oregon English Journal (USA), The Passage Between, Prole, Sentinel Literary Quarterly, Sonic Boom (India), Third Wednesday (USA), Of Nepalese Clay (Nepal), New Contrast (South Africa), One Hand Clapping, Opportunity Publishing, The Oregon English Journal (USA) Origami Poems Project (USA), The Paddock Review (USA), Panoplyzine (USA), Paper Swan Press, The Passage Between, The Peacock Journal (USA), Pens on Fire, Poetry Salzburg (Austria), Potomac Review, (USA) Prole, Pulsar Poetry, Rear View Poetry, Queen Mob's Teahouse, Qutub Minar Review (India), Red Ink, Shiela-Na-Gig (USA), South Bank Poetry Magazine, Stand, Waterford Teachers Centre, (Ireland) We Are a Website New Literary Journal (Singapore), Weber - The Contemporary West Review (USA), Windfall (USA), Writing Magazine, Words for the Wild and Verbal Art (India). Archives
March 2024
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