aww impossible not to love the lewes bonfire bedlam! the annual stripey jumpered cacophony swirling smoke, teeming rain burning brands shoved in your face, all is hubbub, a riot of fire, of clamour… explosions 2 feet away, absorbed in the body visceral, a somatic nightmare brass bands vye with samba ensembles, psychotic drummers provide a skeletal backbone beat effigies are lugged, everything exploded… yes, everything exploded a jostle, pomp of costume, melee down medieval streets beauty glimpsed, forever fleeting people are glamourous, astonishing. WE are beautiful with the madness, fresh of fire, flourished on our faces… shining, tumbling forth from eyes… ha! anyway, hyperbole aside, i’m enjoying the blurry out of focus unreality of the smaps good natured, in your face, ritualised anarchy PANDE-f***kin’-MONIUM
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endless endless rain, spent the rest of the day marooned in bed… even getting to lewes is a palaver, like your breaking into the town… a drive and a crazy pedal for me… all part of the adventure
hmm skimming thru recent posts looks like i live in a shower cap… probs truer than i’d care to imagine
i haven’t read much of her work, only wolf hall and bringing up the bodies, and never got far with the final part, yet such a beautiful writer
oh you know, historical fiction, rolls eyes, and the tudors are so over done
but, but, her Cromwell! part Machiavellian schemer, part bully boy thug, loyal, astonishingly honest and self actualised… bought to life in a style of lucid realism, interspersed with poetic reverie
one of the best drawn characters in all of fiction. genius. RIP
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read those books on the bus headed into brighton for a programming job, always 7:30 in the morning, rain, torpor, damp bodies squidged together on the top deck, groundation on in my headphones, nose in a book, happily elsewhere
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Andy: I still feel grateful that you gave me I think it was The Mirror and the Light on Audible x
Mary: Cromwell, a man of great principle, architect of our modern Parliament and villainised for his King’s marital whims. He is one of my historical heroes and I think that Hilary did a fine job of restoring his reputation. So glad she finished the trilogy even if I did struggle with the last one..
Kat: Wolf Hall is bloody brilliant!
Nicholas: Unroll thine eyes! Historical fiction is the best! Just finished all the Ken Follett Kingsbridge series and on the last Shardlake book now… Next up Mantell! Escape that broadens the mind instead of hijacking it like hot gospellers and papists (and Facebook)
photo from last winter, wish i’d taken some today!audio of text
the vicissitudes of water
down by the river Mole contemplating the reflection of trees, on the opposite bank, in the waters of the river below a mirrored green prolifferation of foilage apart from the occasional pock mark and wind ripple, the reflection is serene, calm and still… and yet, peering beneath the surface, the water races downstream hurtle and intent something astonishing, how can motion summon such stillness? like the chime, the clear gracious note from a singing bowl, this grasps me emotionally, buoyed up, then pulled slightly apart, gently rent much in the way a tree, its roots rummaging down into the earth mother below, yet branches and leaves reach to the light above, tension and stretch river of flow and stillness, realm of insight and reverie in truth but a variant on the notion ‘we can never bathe in the same river twice’, whats in the noggin, but stepped down from the lofty impregnable, turret of thought emotions, held in the body, modulated, softened through the blessings of water
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later, at the mill race, after the water has come over the drop, rebound, it surges back upwards from the depths a marbled ooze like the clouds of some gas giant planet, all mottled greens and blues 4 separate pools, between them a linked chase of bubbles, a pattern that breaks then reforms again in an identical manner a holding pattern, a frequency resonance? sense of seethe something about water welling up from below, primordial, the goddesses of springs like Sulis Minerva at Bath, each is unique we have always come to speak with, praise and parley, make offerings to, the goddess of a particular place this intimate knowledge of the divine
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i always think of dad on this stretch of the Mole, as when up visiting, just before he died, I walked here all the time, it would have been his birthday today the blue flash of the insignia of a kingfisher, this miracle irridescence… a gasp, a fleeting dazzle, yes, and he is gone ‘Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song’ the river meanders through the Eliots Wasteland dad was cremated a mile downstream, the hospice where he died 5 miles further, so much of my childhood pottering along the mole canoeing with Rich P on boxing day, in wet suits, capsizing somewhere near the weir floating down the river, cold, laughing
when shamanic journeying, in my imagination I often come to this archetypal british river, familiar, comforting alder and willow, streams of slime green water weed, dragon flies, swans and kingfishers a golden rainbow light of vision
Chutniiieeee! Tomato and Apple….. agonisingly, ecstatically yum! first time i’ve ever made it! the secret ingredient ginger (not so secret now blabbermouth) toms from the garden, a bag of apples from up the hill… the rest of the ingredients all from rummaging deep within the pantry bung EVERYTHING in the pan and gently hubble and trouble boil away… eventually all was reduced to a state of primordial gloop… that wot the first amoeba clambered out from? its texture sticky to the finger, colour kinda brown but with lashings of radioactive vermilion as you can gather i’m proud of it… it also required great poise to achieve a selfie balancing an apple on my head (William ‘kiss and’ Tell) anyway had intended to give up on facebook… horribly last decade… at least i’ve spared you my poetry… but you know. CHUTNEY! a Hindii word originally ‘to lick, or eat with appetite’… indeed!
a dollop of golden honey smeared across the horizon, heatwave, early morning, down by the sea later it will be batten the hatches. bludgeoned. furnace stale air yet for now, the gentle lap lap as the sea tip toes closer… Grandmother’s Footsteps…. ‘Whats the time Mr Wolf?’ Cliff mirrored in the stillness of tide pool, the reflection has something of the wobble of water Brighton and wind turbines lurk further, distant through the haze Sea birds their sound: clatter and clamour, gobble or chunder… the gulls call has a rhythmic insistency, the throb and urgency of a police siren so different to the melodic warble tweet of woodland birds… this cry, far flung, out across the emptiness of the ocean, else harking back thru profound time to the days of dinosaurs
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chalk there is scribbleage a game of hopscotch etched out on the path… who could ever resist? toss the stone… hop jump, hop jump, hop jump, stoop, pick stone, turn, then hop jump again… a patterning of effort and limbs somebody has written ‘chalk’ in chalk from the chalk cliffs, the recursive nature pleases my programmers mind an environment you can write about with the substance of itself we too are the instruments of our own saying? ‘Chloe loves Jack’ Chloe, or Jack, for that matter, thought it worth articulating a possessive specificity? this cri de coeur… love walks the chalk? I have never written ‘I love insert name here‘ in chalk! my Romantic soul somewhat aghast forever a caveat, a complexity? yet written in chalk a cheerful ephemera, perfect for youths tender blooms of love
from the cliff flint falls… its clatter
I think of the mountains of Slovenia, Shiv and I setting out along the Triglav trail, the lush beauty of spring, we climbed higher and higher amongst a host of golden butterflies two nights camping along the shore of a snow melt lake, distant peaks lotering, crowding the valley sides nobody, nobody but us you’d think that, unobserved, nature would be silence, stillness? but each evening we sat serene in the red light of our campfire, listening to rocks, rattling down the hillside like shooting stars, turned to stone, turned to sound world creaks
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smelling salts, mind revivified by the ammonia tinged stench of seaweed
next i play with the light, shadow summoning a loch ness monster dapple, stipple these words with memories shadows … away walking up at devil’s dyke when the kids were young… daughter perched high on my shoulders… a low sunset light… Yawn stretch of shadow away over the valley and the villages clustered below Fi Fi fo fum with this thumb, this omnipotence, I obliterate Poynings! turn, reach further out with arm, vastmess ‘Now the shadow falls upon Fulking!’ chortles from up top, she too raises arms, dabbling with this power two heads are better than one
I came across some peasblossom at the end of my run today… it nearly made me cry… not for any murky sorrows, tho they are forever lurking, but just because it was so gorgeous and enchanting a vibrant pink magenta in colour, like some Thai Airways orchid… hothouse spoilt… preposterous an escaped cultivar? slumming it amongst the ruffians of ragwort and briar petals peeking out here, then THERE, far flung further along… betwixt and between the tendrils submarine submerged somewhere beneath the host bush louche and sprawled throughout the hedgerow, the flowers, like some 1920’s flapper, partied out, collapsed, draped elegantly across a chaise lounge
when we were young my older sister was peasblossom, one of the fairies in midsummers night dream she had this beautiful, frivolous, lace and tulle pink garment, topped off with a purple pixie cap i vaguely recall the performance, outdoors, it went on forever, so it seemed to the 5 year old me, i was sitting under a chair… late late late, yet still light in the sky, so must indeed have been midsummers eve solstice the endless languish of light the costume was a staple of the dressing up box throughout my childhood, that and dads old biggles-esque leather flying helmet, that he, in turn, had worn as a child, the smell rich, leathery, beautiful oh and a long blonde wig, which dad had foolishly bought for mum, she always had dark short hair, instantly BANISHED to the dressing up box… whatever her opinion of the wig, the four of us all loved it a box of possibilities?
oh peasblossom unkempt amongst the hedgerow as we pass through the world, world is straggle pulled through us
away across the field, a swag uddered cow yet to be milked the gut clutch of being, churn the raft of thoughts, ego clod hopper lurches across
yet beyond this, all is golden, in its majesty, brimful, somehow swollen life is imbued by the gentle quality of our cherishing steady… with poise… toes uncurled, dear Hobbit, bask in this, the endless, endless torrent of presence
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this the bliss, the blossoming of our perpetual becoming
Lammas/Harvest blessings… right on cue the first tom to ruddy ripeness… tho this one seemingly so huge that it has, after einstein, warped the fabric of both time and space must be such a bulge full world seeing thru the eyes of a fish? apols for another veg snap… guess august is always fruit and festies yield of a different type… daughter has been moving out of her student house, a glut of clobber! where does it all come from? the trusty estate car fit to burst guess that is what being a parent to kids in their twenties is often about… i can see my dad patiently and good humouredly helping me move for the umpteenth time… lugging another lucky dip box: wizard cape, curios, futile gee gaws and a hoard of books. thanks dad! life in all its rhythms and cycles
Sarah: Oooh that’s goodMine completely failed this year no tomatoes
oh thats a shame… for me, most years, the only thing that gives a decent harvest… slugs and snails don’t seem even remotely keen on them! xx
Sarah: only thing I’ve managed so far this year is radish’s!Think it was v wet , then v hot, now v wet !
yes, sit, be soft, be kind, with these your orphaned loves
the black smoke of sorrows hangs heavy dense, acrid, cloying no single specific reason these things surface from time to time… shadows are sometimes foregrounded… rearing up, given substance beyond our imaginings often, with me, it follows a joyful, full power morning yoga melancholia seeped deep into muscles, settled, pooled in a habitual way of holding good to limber, then loosen, mbe, if possible, allow to pass?
much of it is not even our own misery some borrowed from the cloak woven by our ancestors how many times did we bury our beloved children? how often, as pastoral nomads, headed for the summer pastures, did we have to leave behind our infirm mothers, fathers, elders? in more recent days, frequently the crops would fail, else pestilence and war squat malevolently upon the land
other woe was crafted just for us… as a baby, the cries which went unheeded overwhelmed by the unknown… flinched from an imaginary blow were we held, cosseted, our needs met? gnawed by the ignore not a matter of blame, attunement is a most particular skill to master nonplussed by our sorrow
yet self more porous than we might imagine… sustained merely by the lie of its perpetual telling sadness, anger, the usual gang of neglected emotions, these with their ebb and flow, sweeping through us like a tide others borrowed from the zeitgeist (‘times ghost’), the maw of the media which chews over, spits out the myth kitty of our communal misery what the stain of trauma and abuse? climate catastrophe, how many species have thrown in the towel over the last decade? so much masked in our culture of frantic buoyancy
which of us has not poured imagination, courage and love into a project… to find it comes to naught as tho our dreams and hopes have no merit to see others flourish who has not told someone of our love for them, only to be ignored, pushed away this love, so tender, its sweet perplexed smile
yes, sit, be soft, be kind, with these your orphaned loves
no tomatoes 