tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31999902534714349482024-02-08T06:12:42.541-08:00walking in wordspoems by the solitary walkerThe Solitary Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141621627122899641noreply@blogger.comBlogger121125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3199990253471434948.post-67775011100961560022015-04-22T10:19:00.000-07:002015-04-22T10:19:02.297-07:00The VisionaryHe is not like us. He reads strange books<br />
Of mystic poetry, mythology.<br />
He walks the beach alone, pausing to look<br />
Beyond the black horizon of the sea<br />
<br />
For hidden prizes. (An esoteric script<br />
Revealed to him that all the world's contained<br />
Within one word; yet all the words of men<br />
In the whole world cannot explain the moon,<br />
<br />
Heavily hanging above the indifferent ocean,<br />
Which hugs its secrets like an octopus.)<br />
Knowledge of visions, the mind's unreasoning ways<br />
Cram his frail shell of silence till it shatters,<br />
<br />
And the volcano of his crazed response<br />
Erupts; its lava fills the darkening air<br />
With symbols, gestures conjuring Atlantis.<br />
He scrawls with seaweed his biography<br />
<br />
Elliptically upon the watery rocks<br />
Until the waves erase it; then retreats<br />
From the sea's lacy edge as delicately<br />
As any wader. He hesitates to view<br />
<br />
The white-eyed moon; his wild and frenzied face<br />
Avoids her haunting gaze; he cannot bear<br />
Her intimacy and her dreadful distance.<br />
Silent once more, shocked still, he is afraid<br />
<br />
Nothing is out there but infinite space,<br />
Dead as driftwood, speechless as the stars.<br />
He fears that he can hear no sound at all<br />
But the incessant clamour in his tight skull.The Solitary Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141621627122899641noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3199990253471434948.post-60093373835590960042015-04-22T10:13:00.001-07:002015-04-22T10:13:25.046-07:00Buried Deep in Your WorkBuried deep in your work<br />
you are inaccessible to me.<br />
I lie at your feet like a book<br />
discarded for the moment<br />
to be used later. Now time<br />
is paragraphed and space<br />
comes in pages. Distracted<br />
you look right through me<br />
and into your mind, feeling<br />
for a certain <i>mot juste</i><br />
at the tip of your tongue.<br />
Your tongue is small<br />
and pink. Enraptured by your<br />
tongue, I turn over a new leaf.<br />
I can be inaccessible too.<br />
But no, not now, for you<br />
are far away, beyond me,<br />
in a world of capital letters<br />
and full stops. My cold hand<br />
on your leg surprises you.The Solitary Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141621627122899641noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3199990253471434948.post-1677593017224484512014-12-01T21:49:00.002-08:002014-12-01T21:49:34.305-08:00SelfieTaking a selfie’s a breeze.<br />
Just look at your phone and say cheese.<br />
You smile, then you click.<br />
Every Tom, every Dick,<br />
Every Harry can do this with ease.<br />
<br />
But the skill’s in the whole composition<br />
If you want a snap with more ambition.<br />
Think panning, perspective —<br />
It’s a whole new directive —<br />
Think parallax, pose and position.<br />
<br />
Yet if you dilly-dally too long<br />
The spontaneous moment has gone.<br />
That’s why none of us<br />
Are Diane Arbus<br />
Or Henri Cartier-Bresson.<br />
<br />
But I’m no photography snob.<br />
Point and shoot is for me just the job.<br />
It’s so democratic,<br />
Instant, automatic —<br />
Even though my face turns out a blob.<br />
<br />
Yes, taking a selfie’s a doddle.<br />
We all have an ego to coddle.<br />
So give us a break<br />
For vanity’s sake —<br />
Can’t you see I’m a glamorous model?The Solitary Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141621627122899641noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3199990253471434948.post-79757547518442754032014-10-26T02:15:00.000-07:002014-10-26T10:03:32.998-07:00A Chance Encounter in Frasne-le-ChâteauThe old man with the kind face<br />
came from Sardinia. He lived alone now,<br />
stacking the logs for winter,<br />
tending his garden. This summer<br />
his Roma tomatoes had mildew,<br />
but the other crops were fine,<br />
and the gooseberries — such a harvest!<br />
Smiling, he filled my water bottles —<br />
his eyes moist as two green pools —<br />
and pointed the way to Grachaux.The Solitary Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141621627122899641noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3199990253471434948.post-75362081680335002112014-10-15T18:36:00.001-07:002014-10-23T09:45:19.574-07:00SuspicionWe make assumptions:<br />
Cary Grant — lazy and selfish<br />
man-child or manipulative murderer?<br />
<br />
We’re swayed this way and that<br />
by a manipulative film director.<br />
What do we know that we’re not made to know?<br />
<br />
As innocent as Joan Fontaine,<br />
we judge according to confused desires,<br />
to what we’re led to think<br />
<br />
from clues scattered deliberately<br />
like broken headstones,<br />
the letters half-obliterated,<br />
<br />
from strengths or defects in our character<br />
and reasoning, from standpoints<br />
as subjective as painterly perspectives.<br />
<br />
We don’t need the corpse,<br />
for it’s already there —<br />
rotting in our imaginations.<br />
<br />
<i>Suspicion is a 1941 film directed by Alfred Hitchcock.</i>The Solitary Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141621627122899641noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3199990253471434948.post-15443824317666972192014-04-20T03:46:00.001-07:002014-04-20T03:46:07.360-07:0057 ChannelsOh what sad creatures we would be<br />
without the Shopping Channel!<br />
Or game shows where C-list celebrities<br />
make up the panel!<br />
<br />
My dear, how could we ever cope<br />
without those docu-dramas!<br />
Those film star interviews from Guadeloupe<br />
or the Bahamas!<br />
<br />
<i>Eastenders</i> helps the hours pass;<br />
to <i>Corrie </i>we’re addicted.<br />
The medium is our message, as<br />
Marshall McLuhan predicted.<br />
<br />
And what glum boredom would we feel<br />
without our sitcom fix!<br />
Our wired brains would soon congeal<br />
without those moving pix.<br />
<br />
Our life would end up dull and dry<br />
without the News and Weather.<br />
If our TV curled up and died<br />
we’d never stay together.<br />
<br />
But just one thought: if plague or blight<br />
attacked that magic screen;<br />
when we’d recovered from the fright,<br />
a blessing it might seem.<br />
<br />
We’d turn to cards and chess again,<br />
pick up the violin,<br />
unpack the keyboard, practise Zen<br />
and find a world within.<br />
<br />
We could train ferrets, master French —<br />
a thousand more projects.<br />
With any luck we’d read a book.<br />
We might even have sex.<br />
<br />
Sometimes you gotta do like Elvis:<br />
shoot the damn thing out.<br />
Then you’d be free eternally<br />
to dance and muck about.<br />
<br />
What happy creatures we would be!<br />
<i>Le monde serait si beau!</i><br />
We’d be the unrecorded stars<br />
of our own reality show!The Solitary Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141621627122899641noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3199990253471434948.post-61526090862137051882014-03-13T10:04:00.002-07:002014-03-13T10:05:18.921-07:00InsomniacsPyjama’d and dressing-gowned<br />
we step outside at 5 am<br />
into the crisp dark.<br />
<br />
The lawn<br />
crackles with frost<br />
beneath our slippered feet.<br />
<br />
No northern lights, only pink streaks of cloud,<br />
pinpricks of stars,<br />
and the bruised bauble of a three-quarter moon.<br />
<br />
The neighbour’s larch-tip<br />
tickles Orion’s belt; his three-starred sword<br />
points to our empty bedrooms.<br />
<br />
You shiver by the black hole of the pond,<br />
distant as Venus; then return indoors<br />
for tea and Oprah, leaving me to hear<br />
<br />
a blackbird’s clink, an early morning bus.<br />
Just we two. And a home too big for us.The Solitary Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141621627122899641noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3199990253471434948.post-1473519792561877782014-02-04T03:45:00.003-08:002014-02-04T03:45:49.656-08:00Whatever You DesireWhatever you desire, he said, is yours —<br />
a psalter circa 1397,<br />
a smorgasbord of sweetbreads and a tapir,<br />
a bucketful of eels, a smarter phone, <br />
a pool of moonlight and a star’s<br />
bright insubstantiality,<br />
a beech tree of one’s own, its copper leaves<br />
swirling like woodsmoke in the autumn wind,<br />
the hot and agile tongue of Cleopatra,<br />
her slippery skin slick with exotic oils . . .<br />
<br />
Though tempted by his offerings —<br />
Christmas in every month, a cure for cancer,<br />
pure opium on a drip, an apple tree<br />
ripe with the knowledge of both good and evil, <br />
a gaudy frangipani and an orchid,<br />
sweet madrigals, the music of the spheres,<br />
a panoply of peacocks, rainbows, angels,<br />
a Lotto mega-win, eternal life —<br />
I skipped away, a nobody with nothing,<br />
and felt as light as dust and free as air.The Solitary Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141621627122899641noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3199990253471434948.post-16718456487720165392014-01-22T13:00:00.004-08:002014-01-22T13:00:59.703-08:00Love Is an Absence<i>Love is an absence much more than a fullness. Love is a fullness of absence.</i> Christian Bobin<br />
<br />
Love is not the presence of man-made gods and angels<br />
Love is not (to quote Dylan) ‘flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark’<br />
<br />
Love is not the comfort of ritual<br />
the stroking of romance<br />
the safety net of marriage<br />
the golden ring with which you pledged the world<br />
the silver chalice you dug up by accident in the garden<br />
or discovered after a dedicated lifelong search<br />
<br />
or the heart you embalmed<br />
or the hidden spring you dowsed<br />
or the madman you calmed<br />
or the rabble you roused<br />
<br />
or the self-control you exercised<br />
or the serenity you cultivated<br />
or the disciplines you practised<br />
or the game plans you activated<br />
<br />
or the duty you did<br />
or the pain that you hid<br />
or the disciples you led<br />
or the vices you shed<br />
<br />
or the virtues you upheld<br />
or the views you withheld<br />
or the thresholds you crossed<br />
or the paths that you lost<br />
<br />
or the friends you invited<br />
or the enemies you indicted<br />
or the sutras you recited<br />
or the candles you lighted<br />
<br />
Love is not happiness sadness or blind indifference<br />
Love is not approbation reprobation confrontation or perturbation<br />
Love is not cunning or svelte words<br />
or transient feelings and emotions<br />
<br />
Love is beyond the moaning of the sea<br />
the passionate fervour of the ocean<br />
the land’s hard embrace<br />
the salty kiss of the waves on the shore<br />
<br />
Love is not any of these things<br />
yet Love is all of these things<br />
<br />
for Love is all there is<br />
and Love is all there is not<br />
<br />
yes Love is all there is<br />
yes Love is all<br />
yes Love is<br />
yes Love<br />
yes<br />
<br />
Love is an absence<br />
Love is a fullness of absenceThe Solitary Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141621627122899641noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3199990253471434948.post-18915234216255870702014-01-15T01:38:00.000-08:002014-01-15T01:40:47.501-08:00In Search of Lost Time<i>With apologies to Marcel Proust</i><br />
<br />
I only have to dunk a Jammie Dodger<br />
In PG Tips and I’m transported back<br />
To Lincolnshire and the old railway track<br />
<br />
I mooched along in melancholy youth,<br />
The line long gone; now flowers grew between<br />
Abandoned sleepers: eyebright, eglantine,<br />
<br />
Foxglove, selfheal, Good King Henry, poppy,<br />
Dock, dandelion, mayweed, bryony,<br />
Vetch, viper’s bugloss, mallow, ox-eye daisy.<br />
<br />
I’d read somewhere the smell of hawthorn flowers<br />
Evoked the musky tang of randy girls,<br />
A hint of almond and vanilla twirls;<br />
<br />
So I breathed long and deep, imagining<br />
A girl beside me lying on the grass<br />
Resembling Odette in Montparnasse,<br />
<br />
Though what I’d do with her was rather vague.<br />
Recite <i>Le Cyne</i>? Tickle her with a frond?<br />
I wasn’t yet <i>au fait</i> with <i>demi-monde</i>.<br />
<br />
I wandered on, entered the secret wood<br />
Which reeked of foxes, made for the hollow tree<br />
Where I'd concealed <i>Health and Efficiency</i>.<br />
<br />
I thumbed its pages. Naked bodies romped<br />
In games of tennis, beach ball and croquet;<br />
<i>Pas érotique</i>, I really have to say.<br />
<br />
What would I do with women anyway?<br />
Especially those healthy, sporty dykes<br />
On pedalos or pedalling their bikes?<br />
<br />
No, it was better to admire from far,<br />
And not immerse myself in the corporeal,<br />
But rusticate myself in the arboreal<br />
<br />
Railway embankment and its <i>milieu</i>.<br />
My back against a tree, my mind in haste<br />
Returned to former loves both pure and chaste:<br />
<br />
A cuddly toy, a hoop, a spinning top,<br />
A sailor suit, glass marbles in a jar — <br />
And, best of all, a kiss from dear mama.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
The Solitary Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141621627122899641noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3199990253471434948.post-28298617103953763302014-01-15T01:35:00.002-08:002014-01-15T01:35:27.042-08:00Romantic AnticsSaid Romeo to Juliet:<br />
‘Jump off that balcony, my pet!’<br />
<br />
Said Juliet to Romeo:<br />
‘What’s waiting for me there below?’<br />
<br />
Said Romeo to Juliet:<br />
‘What you desire, you shall get!’<br />
<br />
Said Juliet to Romeo:<br />
‘Ok, I’m jumping! Here we go!’<br />
<br />
Said Romeo to Juliet:<br />
‘You’ll land upon my head, I bet!’<br />
<br />
Said Juliet to Romeo:<br />
‘No, I’ll be landing on your toe!’<br />
<br />
Said Romeo to Juliet:<br />
‘No, on my head! My mind is set!’<br />
<br />
Said Juliet to Romeo:<br />
‘My heart’s aflutter and aglow!’<br />
<br />
Said Romeo to Juliet:<br />
‘I think you are a trifle wet!’<br />
<br />
Said Juliet to Romeo:<br />
‘I fear I’ve knocked you out, my beau!’<br />
<br />
Said Romeo to Juliet:<br />
‘. . . . . . . . . . . . .'<br />
<br />
Said Juliet to Romeo:<br />
‘You’re out stone cold. Where shall I go?’<br />
<br />
She left the stage. Oh, what a chance<br />
to flee the prison of romance!<br />
<br />
********************<br />
<br />
Now, tell the story, if you please,<br />
of Abelard and Héloïse,<br />
<br />
of Ferdinand and Isabella,<br />
that Spanish princess and her fella,<br />
<br />
King Arthur and his Guinevere,<br />
who held Sir Lancelot so dear,<br />
<br />
Napoleon and Josephine,<br />
whose love life bordered the obscene,<br />
<br />
of Richard Burton and Liz Taylor,<br />
he tried time and again to nail her,<br />
<br />
of Antony and Cleopatra,<br />
et cetera, et cetera . . .<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
The Solitary Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141621627122899641noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3199990253471434948.post-18399693705507233092014-01-15T00:50:00.000-08:002014-01-15T00:50:55.312-08:00Day Offdear boss<br />
<br />
because the world is plural multiple and various<br />
and because walt whitman said ‘resist much obey little’<br />
and because allen ginsberg said ‘follow your inner moonlight don’t hide the madness’<br />
and because philip larkin said ‘how little our careers express what lies in us and yet how much time they take up’<br />
and because the bright day beckons with its birds and insects and rivers and rocks all doing what comes naturally to them<br />
and because i want to hear the sound of woodland silence<br />
and because the snaking track through the forest is irresistible<br />
and because i want to test the mystical powers of orchid asphodel and mandrake root<br />
and because i want to sit under a yew tree and get high<br />
and because i want to follow a stream unto its source and a canal unto its basin and a mountain path unto its apex<br />
and because i want to embrace praise and celebrate the unbelievable truth (if it is the truth) that god is love<br />
and because life is short and death is long and work is annoying . . .<br />
<br />
because of all these reasons and more i will not be going in to the office today<br />
and taking my usual place between the water cooler and the yucca plant<br />
and occupying myself with my normal business at the computer<br />
but instead i will be unravelling the mysteries of existence<br />
and discovering the boundaries (if there are any boundaries) between man and tree and man and stone and man and god and man and wild animal<br />
and walking as far as i can without feeling tired or guilty . . .<br />
<br />
so i do beg your understanding compassion and forgiveness<br />
and i’ll see you tomorrow in my usual place<br />
between the yucca plant and the water cooler amen<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
The Solitary Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141621627122899641noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3199990253471434948.post-14445206782132621222013-11-30T23:35:00.002-08:002015-04-22T08:16:44.576-07:00AlcoholWithout it<br />
light is harsh<br />
and blindingly real.<br />
<br />
You feel<br />
you’ve one skin less,<br />
shed like a snake.<br />
<br />
Jittery<br />
as a jumping bug,<br />
you make<br />
<br />
words leap<br />
in your throat —<br />
<i>it’s easy!</i><br />
<br />
You’re not remote<br />
but calm now,<br />
rational, unfogged,<br />
<br />
your thoughts<br />
more linear<br />
than labyrinthine,<br />
<br />
your black dog<br />
chained and kennelled<br />
but still in the backyard.<br />
<br />
It’s hard<br />
to give up everything.<br />
Cigarette smoke<br />
<br />
mediates your day<br />
which dazzles<br />
blue on blue<br />
<br />
till you<br />
retreat inside<br />
for tea and promises<br />
<br />
and lies. Your eyes<br />
look at me sideways<br />
but so clearly.The Solitary Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141621627122899641noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3199990253471434948.post-43610756660463399042013-11-28T04:40:00.000-08:002013-11-28T04:40:10.137-08:00Autumn GardenNothing much happens.<br />
Life's gone underground.<br />
Absence of butterfly and bee.<br />
<br />
On the pond — brimful of rain —<br />
whirligig beetles ever decrease<br />
in ever-decreasing circles.<br />
<br />
One last water lily<br />
fails to open<br />
yet refuses to die.<br />
<br />
Earthworm casts<br />
stipple the lawn<br />
like cairns —<br />
<br />
portals into a nether world.<br />
Fungi are alien invaders.<br />
Toadstool parasols wave<br />
<br />
in the woody air.<br />
Trees shrug and shiver off<br />
their leaves, paring back<br />
<br />
to the bare bones of things.<br />
Each brittle leaf<br />
drifts down, goes limp.<br />
<br />
The plum tree's bark —<br />
ploughed and ridged<br />
as a strip lynchet.<br />
<div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Leaf litter </div>
<div>
rustles with blackbirds — </div>
<div>
every bill a golden promise —</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
and a slanting sun </div>
<div>
slices a blue </div>
<div>
parabola of sky.</div>
</div>
The Solitary Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141621627122899641noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3199990253471434948.post-35556671970119061012013-11-14T05:56:00.000-08:002013-11-14T05:56:04.609-08:00TomorrowTomorrow I am going to give up<br />
Scotch whisky and the pursuit of knowledge,<br />
sex, sour wine, peanut butter,<br />
all beliefs, religions and philosophies,<br />
arguments, Gardeners’ Question Time,<br />
overindulging in oranges,<br />
<br />
and I’ll throw off<br />
my torn blue Levi’s and my poet’s hat,<br />
do something so mad and different that<br />
I’ll leave my old ideas and habits<br />
in my wake like yesterday’s clothes,<br />
and whoop, and hardly know myself.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
The Solitary Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141621627122899641noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3199990253471434948.post-54832947933129659912013-11-12T04:16:00.003-08:002013-11-12T04:17:34.114-08:00The Future Is OrangeJeanette Winterson once wrote<br />
that oranges were not the only fruit.<br />
But what if they <i>were</i> the only fruit?<br />
What a boring world <i>that</i> would be.<br />
<br />
‘What’s for dessert, dear?’<br />
‘Oranges.’<br />
‘Something with them?’<br />
‘Just more oranges.’<br />
<br />
No fruit would rhyme with anything<br />
for there would only be oranges,<br />
and oranges only rhyme with oranges.<br />
<br />
There would not even be lemons,<br />
or songs about lemons.<br />
Try this:<br />
<i>Oranges and oranges say the bells of St Clement’s</i>.<br />
Not the same, huh?<br />
<br />
As the advert goes, the future’s orange.<br />
Not blackberry or gooseberry or passion fruit or pomegranate<br />
or red or purple or lime green.<br />
Just orange.<br />
<br />
And imagine if this monoculture spread<br />
to other genera?<br />
I’ve heard that 95% of species<br />
are dying out —<br />
the fish, the flowers, the trees,<br />
the larger mammals —<br />
<br />
so, could it be possible one day<br />
that just one type of each remains? —<br />
the armoured catfish representing fish,<br />
the dark-red helleborine the flowers,<br />
the scrubby juniper the trees,<br />
one single struggling mammal —<br />
perhaps the meerkat (cute)<br />
or jackal (not so cute)?<br />
<br />
But, dear God, help us all<br />
if the last vestiges of human beings<br />
are estate agents or politicians.<br />
<br />
I'd rather forget the orange future<br />
and cling on to the rainbow present,<br />
celebrating cooks and circus clowns,<br />
postmen, poets, pop stars, pharmacists,<br />
town criers and chimney sweeps,<br />
traffic wardens, archivists, accountants —<br />
while they last.The Solitary Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141621627122899641noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3199990253471434948.post-61452744722911614622013-11-12T04:14:00.001-08:002013-11-12T04:14:20.810-08:0021st-century Romance<i>Had we but world enough, and time,</i><br />
<i>This coyness, lady, were no crime.</i><br />
<br />
Andrew Marvell<i> To His Coy Mistress</i><br />
<br />
Darling, switch off your tablet for a sec.<br />
I want to touch the swan-curve of your neck.<br />
<br />
My love, turn softly from your phone’s embrace.<br />
I want to feel the landscape of your face.<br />
<br />
Had we but world and time enough, my dear,<br />
I’d like to kiss the conch shell of your ear.<br />
<br />
Had we but world and time enough, dear heart,<br />
I’d like to fondle every body part.<br />
<br />
Had you but world and time to look at me,<br />
You’d find a big fan of your corsetry.<br />
<br />
Release your fingers from those tiny keys.<br />
I want to sit upon your perfect knees.<br />
<br />
Sweet lady, lift your eyes up from the screen.<br />
My thoughts about you verge on the obscene.<br />
<br />
Your constant blogging fills me with despair.<br />
I fantasise about your underwear.<br />
<br />
Is all that cyber-hugging so fantastic?<br />
I want to test the tug of your elastic.<br />
<br />
But now I see you’re otherwise engaged —<br />
Texted, tweeted, skyped and pinged and paged —<br />
<div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I’ll simply dream about you nude in bed</div>
<div>
And message you and email you instead.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Are you available another day?</div>
<div>
That’s all for now. (I love you, by the way.)</div>
</div>
The Solitary Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141621627122899641noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3199990253471434948.post-11468933587894015512013-11-12T04:11:00.001-08:002013-11-12T04:11:20.159-08:00ChilliSome think it incredibly silly<br />
To eat a bowl full of raw chilli<br />
When tradition agrees<br />
It's best roasted with cheese —<br />
Rocamadour, Reblechon or Caerphilly.The Solitary Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141621627122899641noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3199990253471434948.post-77482648805443251552013-10-27T02:28:00.001-07:002013-10-27T02:30:22.095-07:00The News and Weather ForecastGood evening. Here is the news<br />
and weather forecast. Before long<br />
an iceberg the size of a small country<br />
will break off from the Arctic ice sheet<br />
and, due to a combination of freak winds<br />
and fey currents, drift towards Britain.<br />
<br />
When it encounters the warmer Gulf Stream<br />
it will melt quickly; sea levels will rise<br />
by several metres, flooding major rivers,<br />
coastal plains and marshes, sea ports, harbours,<br />
London, Lincolnshire, the whole of Essex.<br />
<br />
The advice of the Government, the BBC,<br />
the Daily Mail, Nigel Farage and Michael Fish<br />
is to move at once to higher ground,<br />
remembering to take your family with you,<br />
also your smartphones and your laptops,<br />
your tablets and other digital devices,<br />
so that you may continue twitting, tweeting,<br />
bragging and blogging as usual.<br />
Oh, and don’t forget a few essential books<br />
on lateral thinking, micro-economics,<br />
the Kabbalah, Japanese cuisine<br />
and how to build a simple shelter.<br />
<br />
This will be a bad time for river meadows,<br />
lowland wild flowers, fenland rhubarb fields<br />
and valley-dwelling human beings;<br />
but cetaceans, cod, coral and naval warfare<br />
could make a comeback.<br />
<div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I must also warn you that</div>
<div>
it’s probable at some point in the future</div>
<div>
an asteroid will crash into the Earth,</div>
<div>
causing extinction of the larger mammals</div>
<div>
but, eventually, a dinosaur revival.</div>
<div>
Then, as the sun burns out,</div>
<div>
the polar ice will freeze again</div>
<div>
and glaciers grind and carve up the UK</div>
<div>
so implacably, even the dinosaurs</div>
<div>
will find it hard going.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
However, the immediate prospect</div>
<div>
for tomorrow and the next few days</div>
<div>
is an unsettled week of sun and showers</div>
<div>
with the occasional volcanic rumble</div>
<div>
in Milton Keynes, not ruling out</div>
<div>
the possibility of seismic shocks</div>
<div>
in Sheffield, tornadoes in Tunbridge Wells</div>
<div>
and a tsunami at Bognor Regis.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
That’s all for now. I wish you all</div>
<div>
good night. And I look forward</div>
<div>
to seeing those of you who are still here</div>
<div>
tomorrow evening, when I’ll be wearing</div>
<div>
a figure-hugging, sexy little number</div>
<div>
barely containing my ample contours.</div>
<div>
So, gentlemen, take note, and keep an eye</div>
<div>
upon your barometric pressure.</div>
</div>
The Solitary Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141621627122899641noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3199990253471434948.post-16762869282439981032013-10-27T02:26:00.001-07:002013-10-27T02:26:17.773-07:00FreeFree, I cried, free at last,<br />
As I jumped the prison ship of the past.<br />
<br />
But, like a fool, I had no notion<br />
I'd soon be drowning in the ocean.The Solitary Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141621627122899641noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3199990253471434948.post-89686324133022254442013-10-12T10:27:00.002-07:002014-04-02T23:24:53.290-07:00England, My EnglandEngland, my England, you bore the pants off me.<br />
Your nightingale in Berkeley Square is silent as a tree.<br />
Your fish and chips have lost their battered loveliness for me.<br />
<br />
England, my England, now not so proud and free.<br />
Your British bulldog’s lost its bark, it whines interminably.<br />
Your fiery chariot’s lost its spark, I think you would agree.<br />
<br />
England, my England, and your split identity,<br />
half turned towards the USA, half facing Germany,<br />
an overtaxed and overcrowded island in the sea.<br />
<br />
England, my England, God save democracy!<br />
Jerusalem was never built upon a monarchy,<br />
and William Blake and all his works were sent to buggery.<br />
<br />
England, my England, the New Austerity.<br />
You’re dumbing down the broadsheets, not to mention Radio Three.<br />
You’re battening down the hatches in your new thugocracy.<br />
<br />
England, my England, I hope it’s plain to see<br />
that clutching Ukip to your breast is sheer insanity,<br />
and for the love of Jove, M Gove is not your cup of tea.<br />
<br />
England, my England, with your garden gnomes so twee,<br />
your Wetherspoons, wet afternoons, your bloody history.<br />
My England, I still love you, though you bore the pants off me.The Solitary Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141621627122899641noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3199990253471434948.post-73614394086331795772013-08-31T07:14:00.003-07:002014-01-15T01:14:22.405-08:00Two Haiku<div style="text-align: center;">
beyond human sight</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
in the reeds a bittern booms;</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
i feel my heart beat</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
your cheeks and lips are</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
salty with tears; far away</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
the moan of the sea</div>
The Solitary Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141621627122899641noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3199990253471434948.post-82140930259125603502013-08-27T06:01:00.001-07:002013-08-27T06:01:25.668-07:00SerpentineJade, green emerald or malachite<br />
are no match for the mystery<br />
of this sea-green mineral stone<br />
buffed smooth as snakeskin<br />
and laced with thin rivulets of yellow fire.<br />
<br />
Its oily, olivaceous surface<br />
is mottled like a lizard.<br />
<br />
Forged by slow alchemies<br />
of fire and water,<br />
part of the ocean's crust made visible<br />
through the immensity of deep time,<br />
this druid's ceremonial disc<br />
is magic amulet, a shining<br />
quern of healing power.<br />
<br />
I wear it round my neck<br />
as talisman, encouraging<br />
the marvellous, also protecting<br />
against the dreadful;<br />
<br />
though everything we fear<br />
may not be quite as dreadful<br />
as we think; may even contain<br />
<br />
mysteries and little marvels.The Solitary Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141621627122899641noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3199990253471434948.post-12178029305245171002013-08-24T02:44:00.001-07:002013-08-24T02:44:06.952-07:00The Longest DayYou’ve reached your zenith. Now it’s my turn to shine,<br />
Smudging your halo, nudging you to a fall.<br />
Please don’t begrudge this swelling heart of mine<br />
Harvesting darkness. This is my time.<br />
<br />
I stretch my sinews like an alley cat.<br />
Flexing my claws, I stalk the empty streets<br />
In growing shadows under a Hunter’s Moon.<br />
This is my time. Your time will return soon.<br />
<br />
Look at it this way. You’re the loyal wife,<br />
And I’m the necessary concubine.<br />
Brother and sister, we. The yang and yin.<br />
A chiaroscuro painting by design.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
The Solitary Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141621627122899641noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3199990253471434948.post-13919669236211196412013-06-26T11:35:00.000-07:002013-06-26T11:36:39.774-07:00Poem Written on the Eve of Richard Wagner's Two-hundredth BirthdayIt’s funny how we celebrate<br />
on blogs, Facebook<br />
and other media<br />
the things we love –<br />
Bach, Beethoven,<br />
the Beatles,<br />
spaghetti bolognese,<br />
Sancerre,<br />
Dickens, Dostoyevsky,<br />
Delacroix –<br />
and hardly ever headline<br />
what we hate.<br />
<br />
Not that being positive<br />
is wrong:<br />
far from it.<br />
Positive is good.<br />
It’s good to praise<br />
the things we love<br />
which give us succour<br />
and delight.<br />
<br />
Nonetheless,<br />
I think it does<br />
no harm, occasionally,<br />
to reveal<br />
what gives us gyp,<br />
the flip<br />
side of the coin,<br />
the dark<br />
side of the moon,<br />
admit our blind spots,<br />
say what makes<br />
our flesh creep,<br />
makes us weep.<br />
<div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
And so</div>
<div>
instead of pro</div>
<div>
here’s con:</div>
<div>
I give you</div>
<div>
Bill Bryson.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I’d never raise a bet</div>
<div>
on saucisse andouillette.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Also, can’t take a shine</div>
<div>
to New World wine.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
And cursed,</div>
<div>
the very worst,</div>
<div>
are Damien Hirst</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
and Wagner.</div>
</div>
The Solitary Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141621627122899641noreply@blogger.com0