A Few Sprinkled Words
'How far is between the stars, how much farther is what’s right here.' Rilke Late August evening, light pollution a pastel scum fronging the pre-Alps around Lugano. I watch stars spell themselves. The Big Dipper points its paw to Polaris. Under Cassiopeia, the tail end of the Perseid meteor show, the dusty trail of the Swift-Tuttle comet on its 34 year love loop of the sun. I see only the last sparks as small as grains of sand, spluttering kisses of the final flares. I’m not putting words in a god’s gaping mouth; no sprung mechanisms in mysterious workings. I only have, as Einstein said, a vague idea about that highest truth, the radiant beauty of the unsearchable and a sudden awareness at how fantastically miniscule my part is. A few sprinkled words. Hurry On Drifting the promenade of Desenzano Del Garda, admiring freshly fallen snow on the mountains that crown the pointed head of the Alpine lake. A building north wind promises in waves. Here is October tightening its chilling dress. We look down at the orange rock under our feet. Spun in the dark matter web of irregular lines a curling ammonite galaxy with ghostly white shell, a reminder of time flattened in plain sight. The shell spins and I hear the clocks ticking trillions of divisions, turning rock into sand, caterpillars into butterflies, the first hydrogen atoms into atomic bombs, my young parents into elderly people remembering their own parents this age, and me a once immortal boy now a middle-aged facsimile, puzzled at how quickly the sand runs. Now back on the promenade, marvelling at the fossil, pointing it out to friends who want to hurry on - aperitivo calling, snow falling, wine to be drunk, the absolute-zero of it all. The Trout I see you sliding over the muddy gold bed of the shallow river as it slips into Lake Lugano. You follow a flittering shoal of hope, gliding the thin layers between the different forms of air. I’m surprised by your size as you snuggle into the sheets of river and light. Lord of the muddier moments, king-sized in a peasant course, you draw me down the line of the green-grey water until merging with the unseen. Published in Borderless Journal, February 2022.
0 Comments
After visiting Rilke’s grave in Raron,
I haunt a shaded path, companion to the Rhone and green-grey memory of minerals and ice, tiny waves tumbling with an urgency of a glacier unfolding, another freshly fallen artery blending too soon blue-grey. Rilke reassures me: everything is related through the spirit of the river, always welcoming listeners, urging them on, challenging stamina, fueling imagination. So too the trees, mountains, the flowing swifts in the air - all friends to mirror you on your journey, merging to become you, become me. Published in the Cooch Behar Anthology, India, February 2022. Marble Constant
He was my Anthony for most of my salad days, supporting my cause, to adore Eng. Lit., awarding A’s, the occasional disappointed Bs making me work harder to keep his support. His great soliloquy was announcing my candidacy for a scholarship to Oxford or Cambridge. Hardly the heroic general, this grey bearded, ruffle-haired, one eyed squinter who spoke with excited scuffs out of the side of his mouth, glass eye fixed forward, same tweed jacket. Rarely moved to anger or discipline. His love for the subject, for us, was his sword and eagle. Until one day, he turned Octavius, held up my essay on the play, and threw asps into my eyes in the form of stinging condemnation. My essay had Anthony spelt wrong. Three times. He spat out onion tears and stabbed: such stupid mistakes barred me from being an Oxford or Cambridge boy. Saw him when I was an usher at Epsom playhouse. He shambled down the aisle and mumbled recognition, unaware of my scars. I should have been in Oxford or Cambridge but instead I was helping this former demi-Atlas see Am Dram, a year away from being diagnosed dyslexic, marble-constant. Kaleidoscope I think I was four when I first picked up a kaleidoscope, carefully - it was a cheap one. Same family car for eighteen years. Like most children, I was awed numb by the cutting collision of colours, sliding, shattering, reforming with just a turn. It was more than colour. It was looking down the rabbit hole of the universe seconds after the Big Bang, everything rushing. It was the first hint that the life ahead of me was one to be filled with hues of light cut by the rotation of darkness. Published in January 2022 in Verbal Art vol.5 #1. Catalonia, 1931. Maria is four years old. Mother selling everything for train tickets out of Spain. One day to get it done. Pappa’s gone ahead. He and Granny accused of being spies by local police looking for promotion. Granny hiding. The whispered rumour: police coming, here by nightfall. Maria remembers frantic packing, rushing tears, green stares of neighbours, sighs of relief boarding the last train out of Spain before Civil War breaks every family. Chockerty-choo, chockerty-choo, lucky old you, lucky old you. ‘Where’s Granny gone?’ wonders Maria. Mother raises a finger to her lips, flicks her eyes to the bulging suitcase. Maria creeps close and spies tiny air holes on the top. Granny’s secret breathing gives Maria permission to start singing. Later on, Maria stares out of the window surprised by the jagged teeth of mountains, the open mouth of night. Train shudders to a halt. Faces fold in fear. Just a rock slide and a dead goat - symbols of good luck, says Mother, crossing herself, eroding rosary beads, all the way to the border. The police check papers but not luggage. Maria entrances them with a dance, thoughts about children gained, wished for. Later, they bow and bundle off the train. Maria wants her audience to come back. Chockerty-choo, chockerty-choo, lucky old you, lucky old you. Instead, she sings for her missing Pappa as the moon rises into a red sky, then plays hide-and-seek with the Pyrenees. Maria orders the snoring suitcase to be quiet! Granny isn’t heard but Maria is. Angelic singing travels down the whole train packed with tongueless immigrants. The quietest of all: the royal family rattling to exile. A maid requests Maria sings for Queen Eugenie. Mother shocked. No time to teach Maria to curtsy, smile nicely, act the proper Spanish lady. Maria can never recall the royal visage, just frilly clothing, new perfume, the train grinding over mountains, the Aficionados - the Queen’s official little lady dancers - lined up and smiling politely; peering crowds piled up at the doors. An avalanche of applause, and Eugenie’s royal gift: brushing Maria’s hair afterwards. Gasps when Maria extends her hand, demands payment. Luckily the Royal We is amused. She opens her purse. Maria leans forward. ‘Dinero real, gracias, Reina.’ Real money. Aficionadas duck behind smooth hands. Queen Victoria’s granddaughter laughs. ‘Spain is proud of her future women.’ Coins are passed. Maria clumsily curtsies and scuttles back to Mother who swoons. Later, scuttling laughter from the suitcase. Chockerty-choo, chockerty-choo, lucky old you, lucky old you. Memories accelerate. A brief taste of France until another war sends her packing. More travel, settling in England where she remains, and decades later sitting up in a hospital bed in Devon telling me this entire story. Not finished. She remembers being a young woman, war over, returning to the Pyrenees to find her still missing father. Singing his name, hoping he was still hiding, hermit or a goat keeper. No answer, just the wind. She spent all her savings. No news from the Spanish authorities. Best guess: caught by Francos’s police. the gun shot ricocheting down the valleys. He lays in one, hardly resting. She returned to England and spent the rest of her life singing only for him, and loving trains. Chockerty-choo, chockerty-choo, lucky old you, lucky old you. Published in The Journal, January 2022 We find Rilke facing south on the silent side
of the St Romanus castle church, away from the tended family graves of those who lived decades longer than him. His has a rose, yes, but also a dead stick, weeds rife. Perhaps that suits the poet wondering about his place in the world, sculpting words from clouds and whispers, the dynamics of near death. I think of those wild weeks in February, 1922, Orpheus singing in wildly strung winds, the ghost of Wera dancing in snowy whirls Eurydice’s frozen cliff face beside the Rhone, that constant glacial urging of his angels and the mountains above, parting seas of clouds, then sinking back into your questions. Where better to demand a definition of life. In the castle museum, the curator is keen to assure me that five francs is worth the visit, even with one room to you, all in German. I’m glad to visit, to see your face, those sad searching eyes that looked out of towers, seeing this valley as the art of light incarnate, finding spaces between being and not being, the angel and beast, the visible and invisible. Published in Panopylzine, January 2022 Editor's Choice in Panopylzine, February 2022 Arrive at Schynige Platte by train
railway started in 1891 ahead alpine mountains still rising from continental crash course glaciers receding under an accelerated heat death sentence mineral grey glacial river surging down the Lutschental valley invisible virus moving so swiftly we need masks when pressed together Alpenhorn couple in traditional costumes saunter back to the station to greet arrivals notes bumping this vista green fields farmed for over a thousand years says a sign the constant of the cowbells blades of grass humming Alpen garden coloured gift between the snow flowers nodding in a temperamental breeze tiny smokey cloud sneaking up on the Shilthorn on way to evaporated emptiness two swifts dance and dive across the skyline following the line of depth disappearing in darkened valleys reappearing framed by crumbled peaks of summer before they return to Africa sun creeping west light now eight minutes old shadow of a lamp to my right lengthening two paragliders clip thermals as they eagle the languages of all the passing tourists from skipping children to hobbling grand parents, striding backpackers and smoking train-trippers all impatient to return all will return in the end Published in The Dillydoun Review, August 2021.
Published in August 2021 by Origami Poems.
Was it a golden eagle
or the hope for an eagle that divided June with it’s glacial retreat to the mountain side. I watched this unusual visitor and easily convinced myself that such wings belong to belief, that I am the blessed witness. But perhaps I am just giving a kite an inflated ego. The possible-eagle disappeared into mountain myths we make when yearning. Published in Dawntreader 55, July 2021 The sea-chewed remnants of life lay littered on the beachy gums of La Ventana beach. Toothed debris of wood and seaweed, bleached coral chunks and plastic mark the tidal smile line. Here lay scattered skeletons of fish: spinal columns, skulls agape with sharp teeth, the leathery, empty sacks of fish skins, discarded vertebrae; the resting place for tenants of the former Aquarium of the World. Always patrolling are the vultures, keen-eyed for any carrion. Two politely take turns tugging inside a fish head. Seagulls watch and snatch a lump when the vultures get bored, and take to hungry wingtips, wind spitting them up to look-out posts. Suddenly an osprey in the air, ducking a seagull trying to steal the wriggling fish in its left claw. It disappears, fish still squirming. A squadron of pelicans glide over the water, bellies touching down on gentle waves. They sit watching on the water with huge bills lowered like mourners. A few frigates arrive, painting black patient lines with forked winds and split tails. Pacific wanderers hanging on the breeze with origami wings cut like kites, above endless waves, constant hunger, smiles and grimaces.
Published in Brushfire Literature & Arts, #72, Vol 3, Spring 2021. What Boys Think About Dreams
Reading The BFG in my Grade 3 classroom in China, discussing how the giant bottles up dreams. Sensitive, overweight, shy Chinese boy asks: Do dreams die? (He dreams of fast food and being loved.) Fiery-haired ferret-fast third-culture Brit is convinced: Yes, they get used up. Simple. (He dreams of sports glory and growth spurts.) Paper slim, tree-clambering mountain Swiss boy: You can use dreams three times. (He dreams of saving endangered jungles.) Bespectacled, ill-behaved son of a female CEO states: Dreams disappear whether you like it or not. (He dreams of futuristic travel and seeing his father.) Furiously imaginative, home-work hating German boy: If you don’t use them, they become nightmares. (He dreams of speaking his mind without anger.) The debate continued but was many years ago. Boys all teenagers now, hopefully living the dreams. The Wisdom of Photons But the dark embraces everything: shapes and shadows, creatures and me – Rilke I wake up in the middle of the night. A single star winks at me. Photons fired out thousands, maybe millions of years ago, skimming space, slipping solar systems, sneaking past planets—one true beam sometimes bent by the gulp of gravity, but always adhering to its lucky destination. Looking at starlight, I feel the glaring truth: on the long road of Order to Disorder-- a journey of trillions of years uncountable in this fleeting human mind—I am just a flicker, a tiny finger of light and heat, hardly noticeable in this minuscule moment, yet a flame nonetheless, with heat and light and worth and rage. So I must try to shine, shine all the brighter for the dying light I am. I thank the photons for teaching me. What they lack in mass they make up for in wisdom. The Fireflies My wife tells me to go to the car park, to the wooded edge where the night starts. Tiny bold lights lazily carouse the air. One or two at first are amazing enough. Then a cluster. Some come to investigate me, landing on my trousers, blinking approval. I am amazed there is such magic here in the woods of Montagnola, metres from overpriced food for Ferrari drivers, rants, alcohol diffusing any wider awareness. Hesse knew this, he found the fireflies and bemoaned the shrinking of woods. Published in Lunch Ticket May 2021. |
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
|