Daily run

Now that I rise at the ungodly hour of 6.10 am because public transport does not allow my partner to get to work for 7.00 am and I have to act as a grudging taxi service - it means that I get to the pool for my daily swim just at the time that it opens to the public.  Indeed, once or twice I have been, engine running, waiting at the gate for it to be opened!  It also means that I have 'done' my daily exercise by just after 8.00 am and the rest of the day, therefore, is mine and open to do interesting and creative things.

Some of those things should be poetry, and, although the gap of time between this post and the last is large, I have (honestly) been filling it with writing, I simply have not been posting.  And if you think that is some sort of "saving lie" then you could be partially correct.

However, here is a poem.  Freshly written and partially edited, it is at least ready to be laid to one side allowing it to mature, so that I can come to it later and read it with fresh eyes!  That, at least, is the theory.

After my swim, I go to the cafe that adjoins the pool and have a tortilla bocadillo and a cup of tea.  And I take out my little notebook and make notes.  Usually these are mundane to the point of weariness, but occasionally they contain a kernel of something that gradually mutates into a poem.

The seat that I usually claim in the cafe is not my usual summer seat that is in one particular spot outside.  In less clement times I take a seat facing the large floor to ceiling windows giving a view of the car park and the building work beyond.  this view also takes in the pathway to the door of the centre and, at the time that I am usually sitting there, I am able to witness the steady stream of parents who try (and usually fail) to find a parking space to deposit their children so that they can go to the British School of Barcelona (the BSB) that is next to the pool.

As with any Tesco's car park, you can tell a lot about people when they are presented with the need for a parking space that is not there, or at least not where they want it to be.

You can also tell a lot by the way that the deposited children leave the car and begin their walk to school.  As I do not know these people, it is easy to make sweeping assumptions about their attitudes and their home backgrounds.  It is very tempting to pontificate (at least in the privacy of your notebook) about what a scruffily dressed, slow-stepping, head down to mobile phone, earphones plugged in, no coat wearing, not backward looking child leaving a large people carrying Mercedes might represent!  And, yes, I am aware that it might well say more about me than about the 'victimes' of my observation!

This poem, however, was provoked by a child's smile as he accompanied his mum.  It was the sort of smile that said that all was well with his world and that indeed, it was the best possible or all possible worlds and that he was well prepared to go and cultivate his garden!

Added to the observation of the child was the serendipity of hearing part of a  a podcast from Classic FM by Tony Blackadder (his real surname will come to me) that mentioned a musician I had heard of and someone of the same name who I hadn't.  Within 24 hours I had visited an excellent exhibition in the Caixa Forum in Barcelona "Toulouse Lautrec and the spirit of Montmartre" that had a poster for a musical production of the composer that I had heard about the day before.  From that it was an easy step in my mind to remember times when a new piece of information had been given to one of my classes only to have the kids stop me and say that, amazingly, they had heard the word or idea or whatever spoken by someone on the television or on the radio or heard another teacher use it or whatever.  What they took as coincidence I recognized as the normal process of highlighting something so that you become sensitive to its repetition - a repetition that you have previously ignored!

Anyway, here is the poem, in its partially edited form.  I expect it to change before it makes it to a book, but I am pleased with the shape that it has taken so far.

As I always say (and always mean) I welcome any thoughts or responses - good, bad or indifferent!

Daily run

Hand held firmly in his mother’s hand,

the blond-haired boy is smiling

on his way to school.

Why does he smile?

Most children, mobile-eyed,

traipse sullenly

towards day-time captivity.

But he?  He smiles.

How often did I do the same

along the minutes’ walk from

Dogfield Street to Whitchurch Road and

Gladstone Infants/Junior School?

I tolerated school, accepting process

as a means to something

that the years of schooling were a ticket for,

for me, for years & years & years

of schooling more.

But now, with time to muse,

I like to tell myself that smile

on that boy’s face is one

anticipating something new

on offer, or at least could be,

from each fresh part of the curriculum.

The hackneyed, clichéd, everyday -

all are reborn in growing minds.

In all our minds?  Not so?

Three days ago I heard a programme clip;

caught, by chance, a surname that I knew –

but given name Gustave, not Marc-Antoine.

Another man, a  different time, composer too.

Within a day: a poster on an exhibition wall;

“Louise” a ‘roman musical’ four acts (with five tableaux)

Charpentier, the same Gustave I’d heard about the day before!

How many times when dealing with vocab. in class

I’d have the kids excitedly tell me next time

that they had heard “that word you talked about”

Amazed at the ‘coincidence’.  

What we don’t know, we may not sense,

until a word, a gesture, thought

shows up a this & that or these & those

as things together, not apart.

So we, like that young child, should smile

expecting unexpected truth.

As always, I am endebted to my little notebook for the inspiration for the following poem.  Each time I have my post swim cup of tea I write something, anything in the notebook in the (sometimes) vain hope that I will produce ideas that can be taken further.

     This poem's day's notes started with a diatribe aginast a free-loading past neighbour; went on to berate myself for not writing up my impressions of the firework-crowded evening and night and early morning of Sant Joan, and from there a musing about the necessity I sometimes find to write a little signed and dated note to myself to prompt action.

     As soon as I had mocked myself for needing such a stimulus, I thought to myself that there might be a poem somewhere in the concept!  And so I started makeing more directed notes - and six (small) pages later I had drafted out what I thought might be key ideas towards a final poem.

     As is often the case with something which seems to be flowing in the notes, the actual writing of the poem was much more difficult: and it is always a warning sign when I use a word like 'eschew' in my primary thoughts!

     Anyway, I set to and eventually produced a draft which was essentially like a burning candle: the grease was dripping down the sides all around the central flame, but was not forming a coherent single statement of poetic purpose.  Whatever that might mean!

     The essential idea was one of writing to oneself, and signing and dating that writing to give it more significance and force.  As if a mere desire by itself was insufficient to make something happen, in spite of the fact that you had decided that it was worth doing.  This led on to the idea of 'signficance' - what is or might be important.  I was then taken back to an actual changing of the lino in the kitchen where, when it was taken up, a whole series of newspapers was revealed acting as a sort of crude underlay.  As a child, I was very impressed with the ancient quality of the newsprint (even though, given my age, it didn't need to be very old for me to think it antique) and I can remember looking at adverts and reading news that had absolutely no significance for me at all - it could just as well have been about the Neolithic as far as I was concerned: it was years old, when I had not reached anything like double figures!

     I suppose (I hope) that if I went through the same experience now, I would be able to relate the historic newspapers to my concept of time and I would be able to place things and wonder at the contemporary approach which might not have been substantiated by history.

     I was then taken by the ways in which we try and get outside history and time, by using a date and signature to transcend transcience.

     Essentially, I suppose that I consider myself slightly childish (childlike?) in thinking that a mere date and signature is any more meaningful than a simple scribbled note, but the motivation for this poem was also a concern for truth - which involves belief and faith and also, make believe.

     I'm not sure if this is a positive or negative poem; and I'm not sure what that might mean anyway.  But I am pleased with how the poem has turned out and I am still reading it to discover what I might have meant.

     As always I welcome any participatory response!

Promise

Time was, when, finally,

the lino in the kitchen’d had its day.

As it was taken up

(before the use of underlay)

a cache of newspapers would be disclosed;

brittle as crisps and prone to crumble

into ochre dust, as long past news

became its own grave dirt.

Narratives of those found leaves?

Fleet urgency, now lost and gone

through life’s rolled relevance.

Outside pages - faded wraiths

of Yesterday’s significant events;

unpunchlined jests, that can’t endure

inside the world-big goldfish bowl.

Then . . . passing stories after all?

We live within the social now,

a physical that’s selfie stamped:

what can be pictured - is a truth.

What image should intention make?

That move beyond the present-past

to sculpt the chaos from the dark?

Gestures can pretend to faith:

a shake of hands, or one raised up;

a spit and grasp - time honoured modes

that hold no more significance

than air.

But set it down & sign & date,

on paper cheap or vellum dear,

and it becomes a part of time

and quite apart from it as well.

So, all those (signed & dated) notes

I write to me (to finish work; to send it off;

to contact friends; to get things done!)

among the lines where poems lie;

the scribbled contracts I take on -

are really my jejune attempts

to nudge belief beyond the now

and make believe the future’s real.

Any responses most welcome!

Having a small notebook improves your eyesight.  True!  When you force yourself to write something, anything - then you look around with greater attention.  Or, at least I like to think so.  Whenever you write (or at least, whenever I write) there is a nagging devil's advocate voice asking if anything of what you are writing is worthwhile.

     It is an odd thing, I do admit that.  I sit, each day after my obligatory cup of tea and write something in my little (yellow at the moment) notebook.  No one else is doing this, only me.  It does make me think!

     When I was in Cardiff ,a friend asked if all my poetry writing was "just self-indulgence" - I replied (almost) instantly that it was something that I needed to do.  Which, now I think of it, is not really a refutation of the criticism implied in his words.

     Probably the self-questioning about my writing will continue as long as I write, and will probably be a chunk of the subject matter as well.

     There is an element of irony in the title, because, after all, I am doing nothing more than moving a pen around a page and looking at my surroundings with the arrogance of someone who samples what he sees and uses it for what he hopes is a piece of writing which has an element of the "observational acuity" mentioned in the poem!  Well, you judge!

Action

Summer struggles to emerge

from hazy skies, and tries to

counter cooling drafts; it’s

almost there, but sitting ‘out’

is still a gesture rather than delight.

I’m the only one in shorts.

And sitting by myself.

Am I involved?

The curl of other people’s smoke

pricks through my space.  The kids

run-stitch the patchwork tables

into tapestry.  A single voice strand

wraps with other talk:

the hubbub weft that threads the

warp lines of the soft-crunched, stony earth

beneath the rolling needle-drag of metal boule.

And is all this the

observational acuity

I like to think,

or just an action for my pen

to hide a truth?

I am still working on the poems that will make up the sequence called, The Visit, which I hope to publish as a chapbook.  At least the cover is done, now all I have to do is write the introduction!  Work progresses!

Truth

An intimidating title, than only an arrogant fool would attempt to match with a poem!  I don't think that I am either a fool (most of the time) or arrogant (some of the time) or at least, when I think about it I try not to be.

     This poem grew from the sort of limited free-write that I do after my swim, while I am waiting for my special blend tea to brew.  Sometimes the things that I write are no more than banalities, but sometimes something grows from the ordinary words and simple observations.

     I feel it might be a sort of repressed sexism in me, but I hate seeing women smoke.  I don't like seeing anyone smoke, but women, especially young women, bring out more of a sense of disgust than I can account for.

     I have, of course, tried to account for it and I have rationalised it to "a detail of the natural nurturing aspect of maternity and a rooted objection to the perceived 'aping' of the more masculine role of aggressive smoker" - but I think that it comes down, more simply, to a memory of my mother smoking.

     I can say that my mother smoked, but, in my imagination I find it impossible to picture her putting a cigarette into her mouth and lighting up.  But she did smoke throughout my childhood, only giving up each Lent and then starting again on Easter Sunday!  She did eventually and finally give up, succumbing to my constant pleading.  But it didn't save her.  Which may also explain my loathing of the habit.

     So it was watching a young woman smoke, and smoke 'professionally' with that casual dexterity that irritates so much, that provoked the memory of my mother and then seeing my mother in my memory wearing the dress described in the beginning of the poem.

     This description develops into a sort of free association of remembered aspects of my early childhood and ends with the realisation that justifies the title.

     The last three lines are deeply felt.

Truth

When mum enters my mind

(as she so often does)

she’s always dressed

in that one dress. 

The black and white,

with floral print, with

puffed-out sleeves, and

with a texture: Crimplene?

I might be wrong.

It was a summer dress:

of Dogfield Street;

of Dando and Ducu;

of Gladstone Primary School;

of graveyard walking with my Gramp;

of singing in the choir with my own

surplice on a vestry peg;

of the Carnegie Library and its books;

of my first named a/c in Tewkesbury Street PO;

of Penny when a pup on Pendine Sands;

of sight unglazed and broken bones, cut chin;

of crew-cuts and of corner shops;

of Bon Mini and black Ford, second hand;

of running boards,

           

            with mum, athletic, still,

            but always with bad back

            and blood not right.

And knowing that I knew

two people who

would die for me,

without a second’s thought.

Reality, I’ve nursed

throughout my life.

A never-given gift.

And one that never

can be taken back.

In the same way that I believed that every city had a large park with a boating lake with islands in it and old arcades with interesting shops, just because Cardiff did, I also believed that everyone's experience of family was like mine.  It came as a shock, as I grew older and friends confided in me, that their parents did not always behave in the way that mine did.  Most people have loving parents, but I know that this is not always true.  The poem is a sort of recognition of the "knowing that I knew", the certainty of unconditional love.