Little Red Riding Hood

Tags

acrylic painting, fairy tale, grandmother, Little Red Riding Hood, visiting the elderly

Acrylic painting by Candia Dixon-Stuart

Pointless Things

Tags

concrete operational, fascinators, list poem, pet hates, Pillow Book, Sei Shonagon, trout pout

I think I wrote this poem based on an entry in The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon,

which was a list of ugly things. I tried to bring it up to date with pet hates of the

20th and 21st century.

Juxtaposing hair

which is unkempt with fine clothes;

a fascinator

on a helmet-like mullet;

hand-made paper spoiled

by spidery handwriting;

low-cut brides kneeling

in front of praying vicars;

presenting logic to the

concrete operational,

who try to pretend

that they understand;

a trout-pout selfie taken

by a narcissist – tramp-stamped,

and no Spring chicken either.

 

 

 

Integrity

Tags

fourteen lines, graciousness, honour, integrity, Japanese poetry, visiting friends

About two years ago I was experimenting with using Japanese poetic

frameworks and was trying to paraphrase and utilise poetry from the Tale

of Genji etc, but attempting to re-phrase the little cameos in my own words. 

This poem seems to have been left out, so I offer it to you now.

Sometimes you visit,

unexpectedly, a friend

and you stumble on

evidence of graciousness.

No show is put on:

it is their habitual

way of doing things.

It reflects nobility.

Even if you were to spy

on them, you would find

they’d behave in the same way.

they’re true to themselves,

whether they are being watched,

or not.  It’s integrity.

Unicorn

Tags

christmas ornament, close observation, discovery, happenstance, magic, Sculpture, serendipity, simple pleasure, unicorn, value, worth

Went to a sculpture exhibition this week where some exhibits were tens of

thousands of pounds.

At the end, I wandered into the field where we had parked and saw a table

with plants, which I mistakenly thought might be for sale.

In the bushes beside the table was this little magical object- plastic- attached to

a fir branch which might have been part of an old discarded Xmas tree.

I actually had as much pleasure in serendipitously discovering and

photographing this small talisman, worth about 5p!

Photo by Candia Dixon-Stuart

‘A Mad, Unreasoning Octopus – what Proust felt about Asthma’

Tags

Alpine spa, asthma, Belladonna, death rattle, Guermantes, lime tea, Meseglise, pharmacology, Proust, revivescences, sanatorium, souffle coup, vagitus

Proust Image: Wikimedia

Yes, everything was inflammatory.

My father blamed my sensibility;

said my symptoms were imaginary.

My mother sighed at my debility,

but did not want to show complicity.

Works as hard as his affliction allows –

my teacher flagged my disability.

Meseglise might tempt with its rural airs;

lilac pollen permeate Illiers;

Guermantes might involve inhaling dust,

or powdered fumigation for its lust.

Caffeine and a mist of belladonna

might immunise from the attractive whores,

coquettes and those almond-eyed madonnas

one pursued, with breathless dedication.

Revivescences were what physicians

ordered: affective disorder cure!

Poisoning my mother’s joy

required expiation and purification.

I recalled aunt’s invalid infusion:

its scent of lime blossom, wafting to me,

unlocking sense of selfhood, combined with

distinctive whiff of pharmacology.

My anxiety about maternal

separation was supposed to have led

to an unconscious conflict of desires –

steamed from me at sanatoriums;

sucked from me at those pristine Alpine spas.

Writing as therapy?  Sublimation

through describing Albertine’s departure?

I found it a dreaded master, but a

faithful servant.  There’s no insulation from

a germ-laden world in cork-lined chambers.

I tried to avoid contamination.

Wheezing asthma is like being chained

to a mad, unreasoning octopus.

Its souffle coup punctuated my prose.

Each virgule was an expectoration.

I wrote eight hundred words in one sentence,

though I disliked the declamatory.

Nothing was going to constrict my flow –

each clause a vesicle to be expelled.

I’d emerge like a pale pupa at night,

morphing into my imaginal state

and the tabacs sold me Cigares de Joy,

my stramonium fix for each attack.

One hopes to have been an inspiration,

even for a thirty five second play,

based on the brief interval we call Life,

between vagitus and the death rattle.

St Cuthbert

Tags

anachoresis, lammermuir, Lindisfarne, marginalia, oratory, quennet, solitude, St Cuthbert

Image from Creative Commons- 12th century ms.

Lammermuir shepherd   Aidan’s translation   earthly resignation

plague visitation

lapsed pagans   Whitby Synod   spiritual reputation

Pictish voyage

eyewitness miracles   contemplative anachoresis   preferred solitude

Lindisfarne assignation

Easter marginalia

nocturnal devotions

inner demons

remote oratory

strict denial

divine worship

incorrupt corpse

contemplative shepherd   earthly solitude   Lindisfarne miracles

spiritual voyage

 

 

Teach Me To Number My Days

Tags

insight, Isolation, meditation, pandemic, questioning, self-analysis

Image: Abacus HB Wikipedia

Weirdly I wrote this in 2019, before the pandemic. It seems appropriate now…

TEACH

Life has many lessons: what have I learned?

Maybe I should not have stayed in teaching.

Who was doing the teaching anyway?

And can one really teach old dogs new tricks?

 

ME

Too much of my life has been about me.

You might be a much better focus now.

Yesterday’s me is different from today’s.

You are a different companion too.

 

TO NUMBER

 

I decided to try and work it out.

Crusoe should have had a calculator!

They say that age is only a number.

Twenty four thousand days I have wasted.

 

MY DAYS

 

I seek forgiveness for those I have spent

in self-serving; not in others’ service.

Often I did not stand up; be counted,

but I reach out to you through poetry.

 

TEACH ME TO NUMBER MY DAYS

 

Numbering can be about gratitude –

that we are here, albeit so briefly.

Rossetti enumerated her love.

Noah counted pairs solicitously.

 

 

We count the minutes on The Doomsday Clock:

to reach midnight, we only count to two.

Teach me to number all the days I’ve left,

thus I will eke out all my time with you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Selfie Borealis, or Northern Insights

Tags

Borealis, insight, Isolation, lockdown, Northern Lights, self-analysis, self-portrait, selfie, thermal imaging

New app toy.

Solitude in Lockdown. A new way of regarding isolation.

All By Myself

Tags

Isolation, loneliness, pasture, Shetland pony, solitude

Feeling a bit ‘put out to pasture?’

Photo by Candia

Good Friday by John Donne

Tags

crucifixion, Good Friday, John Donne, Metaphysical poets, salvation, St Paul’s Cathedral, the cross

John Donne’s monument in St Paul’s Cathedral ( in his shroud)

Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward

 

By John Donne

Let mans Soule be a Spheare, and then, in this,

The intelligence that moves, devotion is,

And as the other Spheares, by being growne

Subject to forraigne motion, lose their owne,

And being by others hurried every day,

Scarce in a yeare their naturall forme obey:

Pleasure or businesse, so, our Soules admit

For their first mover, and are whirld by it.

Hence is’t, that I am carryed towards the West

This day, when my Soules forme bends toward the East.

There I should see a Sunne, by rising set,

And by that setting endlesse day beget;

But that Christ on this Crosse, did rise and fall,

Sinne had eternally benighted all.

Yet dare I’almost be glad, I do not see

That spectacle of too much weight for mee.

Who sees Gods face, that is selfe life, must dye;

What a death were it then to see God dye?

It made his owne Lieutenant Nature shrinke,

It made his footstoole crack, and the Sunne winke.

Could I behold those hands which span the Poles,

And tune all spheares at once peirc’d with those holes?

Could I behold that endlesse height which is

Zenith to us, and our Antipodes,

Humbled below us? or that blood which is

The seat of all our Soules, if not of his,

Made durt of dust, or that flesh which was worne

By God, for his apparell, rag’d, and torne?

If on these things I durst not looke, durst I

Upon his miserable mother cast mine eye,

Who was Gods partner here, and furnish’d thus

Halfe of that Sacrifice, which ransom’d us?

Though these things, as I ride, be from mine eye,

They’are present yet unto my memory,

For that looks towards them; and thou look’st towards mee,

O Saviour, as thou hang’st upon the tree;

I turne my backe to thee, but to receive

Corrections, till thy mercies bid thee leave.

O thinke mee worth thine anger, punish mee,

Burne off my rusts, and my deformity,

Restore thine Image, so much, by thy grace,

That thou may’st know mee, and I’ll turne my face.