#305 - notes towards the making maze

 

2.xi.20

305

notes towards the making maze

 

for the philosophy of table tennis

 

 

with no way

I run myself in

like come to the platform’s end

after blur journey

or walk the line because

hands dirty with the picture

(oil is poison)

no one exempt

high as the hedge you see

 

is it free will?

we are making this up

have to be

it’s stranger than

tread the mill

 

maze needs sweeping

be the broom

and is it me? is it?

must lose myself to be

just to…

 

go lean and slippered

rattle cage and chains

glimpse the other mice in the cage

and flicker bung for fun

 

must never mention

but follow a flying ball

sing after

call it

 

come clippers and trim

come streets of polished turd

down dragonfly alley

in old lattice bright

sneaky

music tricks the light

 

you’ll go on as you please in there

 

it’s from the upside-downery

the wrong way rounding

outside in

tied up

where no one’s trod

it’s slippery

 

sign here

what you cannot know

cough up

(every step’s counted on your phone

that will soon have been a thing)

 

green over grows

and fire - lick corners

maze was once paper

but since has burned

 

now it is a page like this

 

see me poking out somewhere

me again!

all ears for the heart

and run to rags

 

work the neither side

ladders all rung to high heaven

a till

 

surely these words have dreamt me up?

 

I carry a little torch

and am the usher in there

 

nevertheless climbing

in branches underleaf over

delve heaven under mulch

 

have never been subject to perfection

so opposites cannot be true

 

shake the box

see all fall

party till the end

still spins

 

drop this

take the brimming cup

 

and all this eternity’s eye

to fly would wreck the thing

 

there’s a bird full of trees

now home

 

 

 

 

#278 - when the first stick was thrown

 

i.xi.20

278

when the first stick was thrown

(a dog’s philosophy of firstness)

 

for Mirri (and Dael and Rick too)

 

 

we were running along a beach

comfortably mastered

and must have washed up

(no longer dusty having sea rolled)

 

chew on this that

what’s to hand

looking for something lost

 

it is true to acknowledge a measure of distraction

from here to as far as…

 

bone before as I believe

deep in the dog to follow

 

so yes think back to first light

the one day

breeze picks up

 

it was already a kind of belonging

the first woof might have been a fire

 

smell that!

how is it possible?

 

stretch and fetch downward facing

bowl was full and gnaw

 

then we were all by the collar

out and later off the leash

 

watch the throwing paw

hear hum

I love to fawn

 

it was an inquisition of

in the air all reach

and sometimes snap

can’t help it

must have been nipped in the litter

 

come along slowcoach

follow a track

be home

wonder how?

 

come to the matter at hand

now nuzzle

cast all irrelevance aside

 

roll over for rub

little whimper

and turn tail too

 

some of us are persistent chewers

just as with a rosary

or you will say ‘devotion’

so appetite and stim

 

bark up a tree

never know

 

of course there would be rounding up

the chase all tail

moon to howl

hot on the heel

leap fences

drive them in

 

you know it was dogs

tricked up a sun

by savage snarl

no need to have a pup

 

go on – lick this

heel, sit, etc

tricks and down

but sneak a little in

(as from the cat’s bowl –

who will know?)

 

it’s lick or be licked in this world

that’s in the DNA

and every hound to suit a self

some sly dingo planted the flag once for beginning

wolves have gone to the pack

 

are you with me?

and

where have you gone?

they have a mind of their own 

it’s something in the posture

 

show teeth

low growl

that was the business

 

panting alert

and mind your own

fetch and dig

 

such burials!

leg lift and sniff

 

stand in the air to dream the stick

 

treasure is come again and you’ll know

but I’m not ever telling 

#277 - notes towards a draft of just now

 

31.10.20

277

notes towards a draft of ‘just now’

 

lost in the moment

is live forever

 

take the traces lit

believe

 

as a camera gathers light

where I want to

 

(decisions and indecision 

differences made here)

 

there is a little village in it

where once stood the clock

and make the garden

 

louder than the light

 

comes the blinding

like the truth

and we turn the wipers on

 

insane weather just at the moment

shadow of a flutterby

it’s all appetite as well

 

stumble up all towards

sun shone out thundering

 

a grammar look about

 

how little here because

a world of accidents

 

a darkening or lightning lit

 

you wouldn’t think a thing would grow

but everywhere’s between

 

I do not appropriate

I call the rain to couch us now

 

this is the present continuous

(some will say progressive)

 

see time that was an outline only

making a world mine

grey yet – who’ll care?

 

come to me sweet trysting there –

and all to be is just as far

 

though not in language known

 

this is a first dance towards

 

a dream some say

there isn’t the outside you knew

but live forever there

#276 - colour fast - poem for the recent rainbows (plus bonus haiku)

 

30.x.20

276

colour fast

poem for the recent rainbows

 

 

doubler at Markwell just now

trill and drip gleam leaf

so sudden sun

 

 

glorious sunshone

and rain laid low

here’s how light tricks

the leaf to bright

 

a twirl and mote

 

so dust comes lit

show the song these traces

 

the catching tip

who’ll trill

dance

 

up to the highest

sing with me

let words

find us at home             

 

one bow of the rain

and another thrown

 

they too riddling

of a namelessness

fly unidentified

 

set just where

they’ve found me

only as long as we look

 

a spread of hours in weather

and have the day apart

to do

 

in my own much

such glories came unbidden

 

#275 - dead friend

 

29.x.20

275

dead friend

 

I have this friend who is dead

I/we have

indeterminate gender

lots of questions

we hang out together

every day

can report to her

what people are saying

 

at the conference

a lot of rescheduling

and first thing tell our dreams –

a childhood dictatorship

 

were testing things

pile of years still here

 

meek on the streets

and needs to be led

 

says nothing much at first

opens up with time

 

it’s pain to cut through I suppose

and you’re never surprised

 

how much silence should we read into this?

I don’t believe there’s a story

 

imagine folding down flat

case of arrested development

little devils drink up

they’re the detail

 

no one asks why are you here now

 

not the least nostalgia

but get there I’ll guess

 

my dead friend!

what times we had

may I jog you

 

s/he sees through us as well

 

the old days the good old

and death is a humbling thing all told

 

we’ll get there

we, busy with our observations

and having to look after

 

this friend is hollow

having lost a name

 

not bumping into

but hanging out together

as if on a long leash

 

measures of the good life

can see our friend’s in mourning

though I can’t recall a face

 

but draw a close circle

 

here’s hermit brought to light

death goes on

inside – we know it

can the others tell?

 

come slowly feel

 

you cannot imagine at chores

but lose the allegory shading

 

pass stethoscope through the treasured chest

a mock, no pressure in the blood at all

call me creature

 

turns out everyone can see him her

 

a Morris Minor you’re saying ‘66

seems late … odometer miles of course

 

touch feel

my friend has been before

 

I’m asleep and you’re dead

what’s the difference?

 

we’d go somewhere

if we had the licence back

s/he can see them too

what’s the difference?

 

everyone comes from goes that way

I too tell it  

a vanish into this book I am writing –

the only way to go 

#274 - my favourite words

 

28.x.20

274

my favourite words

 

come touch

cloud

stream

stone

still

 

press me sky

and take leaf from

have heart at

 

tell!

tendril it till

loose the river

in the running

 

lose tangent, arc

come

 

crossings

crossings out of course

 

call clock to beat its wings

be at it

in the drift

by book

picture this

go in

 

ink up

ant on map

misted

by streets

track grown ragged

gone to bush

bash

 

day let’s say

moon struck pale

with bluer in the after rain

then

bees fly in

dream still

mood painterly

as if

 

somewhere round

catch me climbing

ladder and hill

garden orchestral

bright!

up bubble

 

joy in this reflection

a chimney for the whales

 

but maze me

voice at it

some certain creature spun

 

play dizzies

anybeast at home!

 

and where birds breeze

a pocketful

shelter in tree

shade me

play

 

everyone’s already there

so lit !

so sing

 

never run out of tune

come blind about a phrase

 

shield sun

from every buried inkling

fade

 

did someone mention ghosts?

lest we forget

in the long rhyme

 

flesh in the deeps

swim shallow too

 

christmases of insect

thing marked with a question

yes, thing again

 

the blind machine

is never blinking

 

a breath and vanish

waves, shame, tribe

the banquet in pyjamas

the weather run out inside

 

please green

and close my eyes

imaginary country

 

heavens as well

hear tanks fill

flowers blown

a roof of

 

night!

all the parts of the house in my head

never twice

have I forgotten skin?

 

shine! sphere! toes!

my favourites

hidden and secret are home

 

danger, dismantle, wheat, loaf

air as empty as

 

there aren’t the bibles for such a fit

truth in a cauldron

here’s mud in your eye

to bother gods

 

damn it

 

must first put the finder through

#273 - two dreamworks

  

27.x.20

273

two dreamworks

 

imagine no treetops

 

(a freedom of as if)

 

tendril to slip  

follow along a plod

not that one might not soar

tremble turn

 

and someone is already home

means we are to visit

 

in binary

as with mirror lit

(the tarn in the high bole)

or come into an understanding

 

imagine no treetops

but the leafery

on up forever

touches a moon

and planets, stars

goes much further

than before or ever

takes in all heavenly bodies

 

breezes!

branch and root

and who can tell?

 

parenthetic

kind of notation you hear

 

how could it have been just the one?

 

who can say where which?

everyone’s climbing

and catch who falls

 

have often dreamt

the tunnel under

 

can only have guessed how here

 

it’s in how the forest’s wide

 

sometimes you see it

already a museum

all the one book goes round

 

there is an endlessness in creature

all against the fact

and dignity in being

 

run naked up an adulation

 

when we have left

the tree is still rising

let it

 

tangle all toes

and grip so surely

this is where we’re from

 

 

slow waltz to Neil Young’s ‘Harvest Moon’

 

like chasing a kite

holding and fixed to the Earth spun

 

it was something dropped

from I think a balloon

and managed to catch

how much was intention?

whom should I show?

 

plays all night

which is another country

 

know we salute the deep

and drink in

farty restless the embodied

little snuggle  

but off alone now gone

 

once called this a marathon

getting to light

 

in dreamscript

lost halls and turns of rooms that were

I am keeping a book of it

old dentist’s chair behind the door

and choirs along the way

a little stairway running corridors

 

keep in a drawer

and truth to tell

might rhyme

 

a phrase

if I miss

it never matters

 

dropped a bucket

for miracle to catch

and did

but if I missed just

wait till the world comes round