Stanley Spencer’s War

Tags

Burghclere, Ekiphrastic, Home Front, John Greening, Macedonia, quennet, Raymond Queneau, Sandham Memorial Chapel, Stanley Spencer, Ware Poetry Competition

A quennet- a form invented by Raymond

Queneau in 1975.

This is an Ekiphrastic poem, dealing with the

discussion of a visual work of art.  It was commended

in the Ware Poetry Competition, judged by John Greening

and appears (ed) in the subsequent anthology.

It was inspired by a visit to The Sandham Memorial

Chapel at Burghclere, near Basingstoke, which Stanley

Spencer decorated with murals, depicting the

ordinariness of war, on The Home Front and in

Macedonia, where he served as a medical orderly.

The formatting is not quite right as WordPress

doesn’t allow me to centre and retain the spacing,

with the short noun phrases being centred beneath

the long line of 3 noun phrases.  The 5 line interlude

with the syllable counts of  2-5 should also be centred….

Nevertheless, you’ll get the idea!

 

 

 

precious horses   scavenging boar   tortoise company

mosquito nets

protective firebelt   unravelled puttee   distant Christ

Kalinova katharsis

Macedonian map   heavenly tea   wounded convoy

smuggled kitten

hotwater bottle

frostbitten foot

jam sandwiches

magenta bathtubs

traumatised scrubbing

iodine painting

bilberry feast

unravelled company  Macedonian mosquito  precious kitten

wounded Christ

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Inspiration for Artistic Types

Tags

organic tea, poetic inspiration, quatrain

I’ll drink to that!  (As seen in Canberra)

Photo candiacomesclean.wordpress.com

Summer Solstice – a Roundel

Tags

Buddleia, Painted Ladies, roundel, Summer solstice

A re-blog from my past!

 

Now welcome Summer with its clear blue sky,

its dim green tunnels with enticing shade –

the humid air buzzing with insect life.

At last our favourite footpaths are quite dry;

we quench our thirst with home-made lemonade.

 

Now welcome Summer with its clear blue sky,

its dim green tunnels with enticing shade.

Buddleia blossoms to the ground are weighed,

where Peacocks, Painted Ladies are arrayed.

Now welcome Summer with its clear blue sky,

its dim green tunnels with enticing shade;

the humid air buzzing with insect life.

Blanche Parry, Keeper of The Queen’s Jewels.

Tags

altarcloth, avoirdupois, Bacton, Blanche Parry, Elizabeth I, Keeper of the Queen's Jewels, Lady Troy, Marcus Gheerearts, salve pot, St Foy, Tudors, Welsh Marches

Blanche Parry- Wikipedia image.

Painting possibly by Marcus Gheerearts

 

 

Elizabeth I

 

I had her from her aunt, The Lady Troy.

She was to prove her weight in gold to me –

not troy weight- I jest- but avoirdupois.

That’s what she had: a certain gravitas,

so that I trusted her with all my jewels.

Whether a rainbow surrounded my throne,

or no, she sacrificed her life to mine,

seeeing in me a pearl of rarest price.

 

She that rocked my cradle, cradled my throne,

as confidante; mistress of our muskcat.

Two maidens: both preserving the jewels

of our virginity; joking in Welsh

at the frivolity of flatterers.

 

She deserved better than backwoods Bacton.

She did her bit for them with that Bible.

I’ve seen the funerary monument,

with me decked out as Gloriana and

she twice my stature, kneeling prayerfully.

Well, I paid for her to have Westminster

and sent them one of my cast off dresses.

They’ll make a stunning altarcloth from it.

 

As the eyes of a handmaiden look to…

She never lost her focus, even once,

unless it was to supplicate St Foy.

There she was, clutching that little salve pot,

looking for an ocular anointing,

so she could detect once more loose settings

and not have to feel under beds and chairs

for a stray gem which rolled from my casket.

I’d found a virtuous woman, whose price

was proverbially above rubies.

 

Eighty two years: of sound Welsh Marches’ stock…

The Tudors liked to trace their line from such.

You can’t replace staff like her any more.

She was my staff – further, she was my friend

and now that she is gone, who will rock me?

I feel I’ve lost a mother once again.

She’ll be His when He makes up his jewels.

She was the brightest and best in my crown.

 

 

 

In Praise of Dragonflies

Tags

Akitsushimai, demoiselle, dragonflies, emperor Jimmu, iridescence, Ix chel, Mayan, motion camouflage, ocelli, Parthenopes, samurai, Venetian glass

Photo by Daderot.  Wikipedia

 

Chasers, Caerulae, Club-Tails, Elegans

and Parthenopes, Mercuriales, Skimmers,

Ear Cutters, Devil’s Needles, Adderbolts,

Horse-Stingers, Eye-Pokers – your varied names.

You’ve hung around three hundred million years;

you can move in six directions; hover;

fly backwards and you switch from side to side.

Motion camouflage paralyses prey.

Your ocelli are attracted to bling:

even to a shiny, granite graveslab,

Emperors, Blue-eyed Darners, Globe-Skimmers,

Freeline Emeralds, Dropwings, Brown Hawkers

and even Common Whitetails – your females

(dimorphic) are deceptively like males.

You live most of your brief life as a nymph,

mating in tandem, you create heart rings,

like suave, romantic nicotine addicts.

Your adolescents breathe through their recta,

propelling themselves by the expulsion

of water from the anus.  Cannibals,

you can eat one fifth of your weight a day.

Your obelisk posture avoids solar

radiation, yet before you are named,

you can become extinct, though ancestors

can return on your winged frames,

as the Samurai believed, adopting

your form on lacquered and gilded helmets,

in homage to the hovering rice gods.

In Wales you follow snakes and stitch up wounds;

in Sweden, sneak up on lying children;

your songs revived Mayan goddess, Ix chel.

And, when a mosquito tried to steal blood

from Emperor Jimmu, a demoiselle

zapped it.  Henceforth, the lands below were called

Akitsushimai: Dragonfly Islands.

Today you shimmer round me and I know

your shy presence is a volt from the blue;

your iridescence a magical gift

like a glass goblet brought back from Venice;

given to one who may never go there.

 

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Mata Ninos

Tags

abortion, Assumption, El Salvador, Las 17, Mata Ninos, miscarriage, premature birth, stillbirth

My friend suggested that I write a poem addressing the

subject of the women in El Salvador who have been imprisoned

after being accused of self-terminations- sometimes when they

allegedly have just had stillbirths. I was unaware of this until I

researched the topic and discovered material on the group Las 17.

The prison terms are in the region of decades.

MATA NINOS

In El Salvador, there’s an assumption,

in many cases, that a miscarriage

is the consequence of an abortion.

Girls who have been raped can lose their freedom.

A premature, or unviable birth

can result in a forty year sentence.

How can a country of that name sentence

women when it reveres the Assumption

of a Virgin? Supernatural birth

protected Mary from a miscarriage

when she experienced threats to her freedom:

state infanticide, worse than abortion?

Las 17, accused of abortion –

each subjected to a lengthy sentence,

in a land whose motto includes ‘Freedom.’

Youngsters, trafficked, can face an assumption

which might lead to judicial miscarriage,

as ‘Mata Ninos.’ They’re victims from birth.

After civil war there should be re-birth,

with an enlightened view of abortion

and understanding that a miscarriage

is, for women, a kind of life sentence.

And why should the state make an assumption

that stillbirth expresses woman’s freedom?

Accused of homicide, denied freedom,

because of complications to a birth –

to disregard is to make assumption

and logic itself suffers abortion.

The powerful deliver the sentence

and fear itself can induce miscarriage.

There’s no calculation in miscarriage.

It’s spontaneous – there is no freedom

expressed. Those women uttered no sentence:

I now intend to sabotage this birth,

nor ‘Drinking this will promote abortion.’

Blame’s an ignorant assumption.

Restricting freedom; pronouncing sentence

on those who endure miscarriage, stillbirth:

abortion of innocence assumption.

The Pangolin

Tags

gizzard, keratin, pangolin, pangopups, Prince William, stenophagy

 

Pangolin – nothing to do with penguin,

porcupine, furniture polish, mandolin.

It’s got no fur, feather, wingspan, or fin.

 

So, you’ve never heard of a pangolin?

It’s a mammal, covered in keratin.

Keratin? – a protection for its skin.

 

When it sniffs food, it gives a little sneeze

and it walks just as if it’s got knock knees,

looking like a dinosaur, if you please.

 

You’ve never seen one?  Well, that is because

they scrabble at night with very sharp claws

and their tongues flick termites into their jaws.

 

You’ve never smelled a pangolin, have you?

You wouldn’t want to, ’cause they pong like poo,

but – hey! – they might not like the smell of you!

 

They come from Africa, The Philippines,

Vietnam, Laos, Sri Lanka… it seems

bad men turn them into medicines.

 

Pangolins don’t like to be touched: not much!

They’ll try to avoid a predator’s clutch

and will hide in a hollow tree, or such.

 

 

If they are scared, they’ll roll into a ball.

They like their own company – that is all.

Big cats will just paw them and let them fall.

 

Curled up, they can look like an artichoke;

they won’t even move, if given a poke.

Fast asleep, they don’t take it as a joke.

 

Arboreal ones will hang from their tails.

Pangopups ride on the backs of females.

They’re covered in all these cute little scales.

 

 

You used to see pangolins in a zoo,

but nowadays there are only a few.

They value their freedom, the same as you!

 

They’re fussy feeders – their stenophagy*

means that they will only eat two, or three

types of termites, so it isn’t easy

 

to please a pangolin.  Yes, some have tried,

with worms and crickets and larvae, deep-fried,

but the pangolins turned up their toes and died.

 

So, if you’re offered one, do not buy it.

They only feed on their special diet.

They are not pets – so, don’t even try it!

 

I don’t want you to taste a pangolin.

You know, it would be a terrible sin

to eat animals who face extinction.

 

A pangolin has no teeth to bite you.

Its long, sticky tongue is coated with glue.

It swallows stones, which you should never do!

 

Apparently, it aids their digestion.

‘Quite how?’ would be a very good question.

Look up ‘the gizzard’ is my suggestion.

 

They’ve been around for 80 million years,

but now conservationists have raised fears

that, if we don’t help them, they’ll disappear.

 

 

Join Prince William, His Royal Highness –

try to look on all wildlife with kindness,

whether pangolin, leopard, or lioness.

 

Pangolin, we have caused you much offence.

Your armour was given you for defence;

now we pledge to protect your existence.

 

drawings and text copyright- Candia Dixon- Stuart, 2018.

 

 

 

* a narrow range of diet

The Mask of Agamemnon

Tags

Agamemnon, Ashmolean, gold mask, Mycenae, reproduction, Schliemann

 

 

Yesterday at The Ashmolean.  Magnificent repro!  Real one is in Athens.

Mansplaining Quennet

Tags

euphemism, Father of Lies, generic, mansplaining, quennet, rhetoric, smokescreen

Females also guilty – should be ‘Mankindsplaining!’ (New generic?)

 

Hot air   forked tongues   terminal inexactitudes

filthy whitewash

tranparent smokescreens   inexcusable excuses   unmitigated untruths

hollow rants

iniquitous insinuations  criminal understatements  overblown rhetoric

smooth sham

Father of Lies

sweeping evasions

Master of Deceit

euphemistic gloss

hyperbolic tirades

Hath God said?

rash incitements

hollow rhetoric   smooth tongues  transparent excuses

iniquitous inexactitudes

Guernsey Guidelines

Tags

Fishing Regulations, Full Moon, Guernsey, haliotis tuberculata, Lihou, Lissroy, New Moon, ormers, Sark, snorkelling

Poetic ordinance regarding the Fishing Guidelines for

harvesting of certain shellfish in Guernsey and, for all I

know Sark too!

 

Haliotis tuberculata (not a nice name!)

Photo by Hans Hillewaert, Creative Commons attrib.

 

You must not collect

ormers, except on days of

the Full, or New Moon

and two others between

January 1st and

April the 30th.

 

This is a mere guide.

Please contact Sea Fisheries

for further information.

Don’t take the small ones.

In your possession you may

have cooked, pickled ones,

but eschew the deep frozen

and don’t cull while snorkelling.

 

If submerged partially,

it’s still a no-no.

The onus of proof is yours

to show innocence.

If you’re dining on a boat,

you’ll have to prove that

you didn’t dive for ormers.

(What the heck is an ormer?)

Anyway, don’t shuck them.

As for exporting –

except the cultivated –

only with permission

from Sea Fisheries!

Don’t even think about it.

That goes for importing too.

 

Please return the rocks

to their original sites.

Move crabs aside and

don’t stamp on fragile creatures.

Don’t frighten roosting

birds at Lihou, or Lissroy.

 

Park where you’re told

and take your rubbish with you.

Beware of the incoming

tides.  Don’t get stranded.

Do not degrade habitats;

minimise impact.

Apart from that, try to have

a relaxing holiday!