Cool Spoons

Leaf 391 – Looking Back

 

Looking back on life, I sometimes find a strange sort of contentment in not knowing …

 

 

COOL SPOONS

 

A few photographs and old postcards –

two cigarettes, smouldering 

memories of younger days:

 

Kettle clicks –

tinkling two mugs

in the kitchen.

 

Tight-laced lovers laugh together –

drinking tea, eating biscuits,

in bed.

 

My shabby old flat

on the High Street –

long since flattened and gone.

 

Half-a-lifetime:

the mystery

of who you were,

and,

who you went on to be?

 

 

Photograph Credit: IMDb

Comet Hale-Bopp, 1997

Leaf 349 – Looking Back

 

Craig Linde - Hale-Bopp (March, 1997) Sky & Telescope

On the 1^st of April 1997, the Comet Hale-Bopp reached perihelion – the nearest point to the sun in the course of its orbit. That orbit itself has been calculated to take around 4,200 years. It is thought that the last time the comet passed so close to Earth was around 2215 BC, when it might have been recorded by ancient Egyptian astronomers in a text found at Saqqara, which described it as a “long-haired star.” It was a genuinely spectacular sight in the night sky, and was clearly visible to the naked eye for many months. Hale- Bopp is the brightest comet (to date) to pass through our solar system since the Great Comet of 1811; unlike the return of Halley’s Comet in 1986, which somewhat disappointingly was very much over-hyped at the time, as I recall. I have very fond memories of seeing Hale-Bopp framed in the night sky at the end of our road, hanging over Harrow-on-the-Hill in the suburbs of London, throughout the early part of that year. At the time, and even now, I find it a fascinating phenomenon to contemplate.

 

 

COMET HALE-BOPP, 1997

 

Rocks, gases, dust –

compassing the void

scribing an ellipse

between the finite

and the infinite.

 

 

 

Question Unanswered

Leaf 297 – Looking Back

 

Archibald George Barnes - The Red Lacquer Cabinet

How many of us are forever haunted by a single moment of indecision?

 

 

9^th FEBRUARY 1995

 

Asking a question

I never answered

that could have

changed the course

of both our lives.

 

 

 

 

“Qui de nous n’a eu sa terre promise, son jour d’extase et sa fin en exil?” – Amiel.

Making A Day Of It

Leaf 274 – Looking Back

 

Ronald Lampitt - August (1958)

I have always loved watching birds. This linked verse poem (of twenty haiku, and one closing tanka) is an attempt to distil a day of avian activity in an English suburban back garden, hopefully incorporating a subtle feel for the seasons progressing from Spring to Autumn as well.

 

 

MAKING A DAY OF IT

 

Making a symphony

of the early morning sun

– dawn chorus awakes.

 

Making a grub

wriggle in its beak –

a wren checks its route.

 

Making a big splash

in the bird bath –

house sparrows.

 

Making an ungainly mess

under the bird feeder

– a wood pigeon.

 

Making a quick sortie

down to the lawn –

a blue tit bobs.

 

Making a menace –

a couple of shady crows,

calling to collect.

 

Making a dash

across an empty patio

– a pied wagtail passes.

 

Making quiet progress

amid the leafy hedge –

a dunnock on the hop.

 

Making its song heard,

top of the apple tree –

a great tit hollerin’ the blues.

 

Making a clean sweep

a couple of swifts –

scything the sky.

 

Making a blackbird

lose its mind –

ginger tom, unfussed.

 

Making the gardener’s fork

turn its advantage –

cock robin.

John Leigh-Pemberton - Bullfinches (1967)

  

Making a royal review

in plum-hued plumage

– a pair of bullfinches.

 

Making its descent

upside down –

a nuthatch knows.

 

Making a kaleidoscope

take wing – goldfinches

flocking through.

 

Making a racket

at the top of the conifers

– magpies conferring.

 

C.F. Tunnicliffe - Magpies and Larch

 

Making a flurry –

dust bathing

sparrows.

 

Making a stately visit –

two collared doves,

cooing.

 

Making a melody

crisp ‘n’ cleanly clear –

a chaffinch conducts.

 

Making the laundry line sway

– long tailed tits

simply passing through.

 

Making a runway

for Mr & Mrs Mallard –

the river over the fence.

 

Making a snail

come out to dinner –

a song thrush shells out.

 

Making a flash of colour,

quickly catching an eye –

a jay, fast moving.

 

Making no sound at all

– an owl (eyes shut)

awaits the moon.

 

Making light and dark

ripples through the air –

starlings moving as one.

 

Making all aware

of evening’s onset –

a blackbird clucks

again and again

again and again.

 

 

 

C.F. Tunnicliffe - Yellow Catkins

 

Watching a Warbler

Leaf 271 – Looking Back

 

This poem was actually prompted by seeing a firecrest, rather than a warbler. I saw it startlingly close-up, flitting about the bushes and then disappearing up a tree in my old hometown, and at the time it stopped and seemed to look up at me with as much curiosity as I must have been looking back at it. I changed the species in the poem partly for phonetic reasons, but also because – well, “firecrest.” – Listen to it! – Firecrest is quite a striking name for such a small species of bird, and so I feared, in this instance at least, ornithological authenticity might derail the poem.

 

 

Watching a warbler

watching me –

eyes flit silently,

short hops jumping

from bush to bush.

 

 

 

 

Photograph credits: Alexis Lours/Wikipedia & RSPB

Something To Do

Leaf 253 – Reflections

 

Ramon Casas - After the Dance (1899) Museu de Montserrat

I’m getting old. – Alas, it comes to all of us in time.

 

 

There was something

I was gonna do,

but –

I've forgotten what

I was gonna do.

 

 

Together

Leaf 212 – Reflections

 

Dmitry Levin - Winter River (2015)

A series of linked verse, marking the slow passage of time.

 

 

TOGETHER

 

Autumn chill

slips quietly into

winter’s gloom.

 

Low hum –

electric heater,

slowly

turning and

returning.

 

The room

where we work

without words.

 

The gentle slap

of pages turned,

papers shuffled,

pens picked up

and put down.

 

All the hours

unspoken –

we spend together:

 

Winter’s gloom

looms long –

silvered and grey,

beyond the windows

the leafless trees.

 

The white glow

of sunless days –

warmed within.

 

 

Dmitry Levin - Snow Thaws (2010)

 

White Cottage

Leaf 197 – Looking Back

 

Edith & Rowland Hilder - Tansy and Chicory (Wild Flowers, 1957)

This is a poem from the sweltering hot summer of 2003 – written when I was living in rural Bedfordshire.

 

 

Looking from the window,

that small white cottage

on the horizon,

                             she says

– was once her home.

 

Pulp Fictions

Leaf 182 – Looking Back

 

Pulp Fiction (1994)

It’s true. You often don’t realise how good things are until they’re gone …

 

 

Longing to escape

without realizing

we were already

living in the best

of all possible worlds.

 

 

Trainspotting (1996)

 

Eating Toast with Tori

Leaf 172 – Art Inspired

 

Tori Amos - Under the Pink (1994)

Tori Amos’s ‘Under the Pink’ (1994) was one of those albums which I played over and over when it first came out. That and her first album, ‘Little Earthquakes’ (1992), were among my favourites – along with other contemporary albums by Pearl Jam, REM, INXS, U2, Crowded House, Suede, and James. These were the bands who defined my teenage years during the 1990s. I must have bought the single, ‘Cornflake Girl’, before I bought the album. It featured the song, ‘Sister Janet’, as its b-side. The lyrics of ‘Cornflake Girl’ reminded me of my own primary school; in the playground of which, aged around five years old, we all wanted to be in the Bee Gang. Eventually I got to be in the Bee Gang, and was supremely disappointed to find out that there was little more to being in the Bee Gang than simply being able to say you were in the Bee Gang. An early bathetic awakening of sorts in the manifold mysteries of human life exposed for the fraud-like shams which they always essentially are, perhaps? – Hence, the cryptic lyrics of Amos’s songs appealed to me. One critic in the NME at the time described listening to ‘Under the Pink’ as like “being locked inside a semantic castle.” Enchanting, obscure, dark and light, sinister and yet playful – it seemed to me to glint like a poetic mirror ball slowly turning in my mind. One line from ‘Sister Janet’ though always pops into my mind whenever I am making breakfast and always makes me smile, because I still don’t fully fathom what it might actually mean …

 

 

TOAST

 

Every morning –

I hum in my head

a Tori Amos tune,

while slipping a buttered

blade in the marmalade.

 

 

The Rose Bush

Leaf 170 – Looking Back

 

Like my mother and my grandparents before me, I’ve always been fond of gardening.

 

 

Alas, the rose bush

that followed us from

grandmother’s garden

to mother’s garden –

unable to emigrate with me.

 

 

 

Photograph by Tim Chamberlain

In the Olive Grove

Leaf 162 – Art Inspired

 

This tanka was originally written and posted on Bluesky as a response to a #vssdaily poetry prompt to write a poem incorporating the word ‘olive.’ For some reason, unknown to me, the first thing that sprang to mind was an image of the ancient Greek poet, Homer:

 

 

An old man sits unseeing

in the sacred olive grove,

telling tales of war and travel;

his voice seeing all, vividly

echoing down the ages still.

 

 

 

Photograph credits: The British Museum & Pixabay

Still Waters

Leaf 152 – Art Inspired

 

Claude Monet - Bridge over a Pond of Water Lilies (1899) The Met

There is a little-known connection between this famous painting and Japan. It’s a relatively recent connection, which can be found in the grounds of an art gallery in Atami on the Izu peninsula, not far from Tokyo, where there is a pond which contains lilies and lily pads brought from Monet’s garden in France.

 

 

Leap-frogging lily pads,

leafy stepping stones 

– painted and real.

Bulrushes standing tall

like paintbrushes in a jar,

their bristles daubed

with the bright colours

of perched dragonflies.

Spanning space and time,

a simple wooden arch

reflected in still waters.

 

 

Reiji Hiramatsu - Monet's Pond (date unknown)

Tim Chamberlain - MOA Museum Garden, Atami, Japan (2005)

 

Night Rain

Leaf 133 – Reflections

 

One of the things I like most about living in East Asia are the humid rain showers and thunder storms, particularly those which come at night. I’ve experienced remarkable torrential downpours in Shanghai, Seoul, Singapore, and Tokyo, which have lived on long afterwards in my memory. However, I’m not such a fan of the typhoon season, which can be quite scary given their destructive potential. The following tanka is my attempt to capture the lingering echo of an intense tropical summer storm which recently passed by high overhead.

 

 

All that’s left after the rain;

the low rumble of clouds

slowly departing; hulking

shapes, barely discernible,

bearing a dark humid night.

 

 

 

 

This poem was written in response to a writing prompt posted on Bluesky: #SenseWrds Prompt 90: 'Sight, Remaining, Thunder' (inspired by, but not using these words).

Photograph credit: PickPik

Morning & Afternoon Post

Leaf 132 – Art Inspired

 

Robert Ayton - from 'The Ladybird Book of the Weather' (1962)

This tanka was partly inspired by an illustration from ‘The Ladybird Book of the Weather,’ drawn by Robert Ayton, which was first published in 1962. It reminded me of the days when I was younger, when we used to receive two postal deliveries a day. It’s hard to imagine this now in our modern digital age, but there used to be more deliveries than that. Amongst our family memorabilia, we have a small bundle of letters written between my great grandparents, several of which – as the postmarks show – were delivered back and forth in a single day, almost with the same sort of speed with which we now send emails or text messages!

 

 

Misty mornings and

sunny afternoons, each

bringing glad tidings –

borne back and forth,

in a postman’s satchel.

 

 

Windjammer

Leaf 128 – Reflections

 

The Shoal Fisher, Newlyn (Penlee House Gallery & Museum)

This poem is perhaps a coda to the triptych of poems I wrote and posted here previously, inspired by three well-known paintings: by Friedrich (Leaf 125), Turner (Leaf 126), and Waterhouse (Leaf 127). Although this poem was written without reference to any particular painting or other work of art. Instead, it took a word as its inspirational motif. 

“Windjammer” was a slightly derogatory term for a sailing ship which was predominantly used in the last days of sail as the nineteenth century transitioned into the twentieth century. I’m not sure if this short poem is necessarily any more optimistic than the self-reflective melancholy that’s characteristic of the Romanticism which certainly tinges all three of my previous poems, but it is perhaps not so pessimistic in the simple point of fact that it wonders if, at some point in the future, a return of sorts might perhaps be possible. I shall leave it up to the reader to decide …

 

 

White sails,

darkened with soot;

– one day,

the windjammers

may well return.

 

 

 

 

 

Mont Ventoux

Leaf 125 – Art Inspired

 

Caspar David Friedrich - Wanderer above the Sea of Fog (1818)
Kunsthalle Hamburg

This is the first of a loosely-linked triptych of poems, each inspired by a well-known painting (see, Leaf 126 and Leaf 127). The triptych begins with Caspar David Friedrich’s ‘Wanderer above the Sea of Fog’ (1818). But this first one is also influenced even more directly by a fascinating television documentary series which was first broadcast on British TV in the late 1980s. Written and presented by John Romer, it was a history of the Bible as viewed through the lens of Biblical archaeology. It was called ‘Testament’ (1988), and, at that time, it had a tremendous effect upon me. It still resonates in a number of different ways, and not least because of the beautiful poetry of John Romer’s words which manage to plait together the lucid threads of ordinary expression with mellifluous verbal-strands of the purest spun gold. The last episode, in which Romer describes the poet, Petrarch, as the first truly modern man – because of his reflections upon Petrarch’ s remarkable ascent of Mont Ventoux in 1336 – has always stayed with me. So much so, in fact, that some thirty years or more since first seeing and hearing Romer recount it, I found myself penning the following tanka poem about it – this trek up a mountain in a fruitless search for God, viewing the divine instead as something which is found within the soul, something which is actually reflected deep within the very heart of earthbound nature. This is the essence of the Romantic ideal: the fact that we are at one with God and the world, if only we can open our eyes and see things as they truly are.

 

 

MONT VENTOUX

 

A letter written, ink scripted

straight from the poet’s soul;

this trip up a mountain –

in search of God, finding

all that’s hidden, in our hearts.

 

 

 

 

 

Alhambra

Leaf 119 – Reflections

 

Childe Hassam - The Alhambra (1883)

This tanka poem follows on from Leaf 90, which inadvertently went somewhat awry. It’s another attempt at painting a word picture of a very beautiful place; distilling scents, sounds and sights into a short verse.

 

 

ALHAMBRA

 

Soft sound of water,

sweet scent of celinda,

under red brick arcades

– sunlight shimmering gold,

across amber and azure tiles.

 

 

 

 

Celinda (Philadelphus coronarius)