First of three photos from Oundle, at Christmas. Three and a half hours south, by Metro, train and car-lift.
Wednesday, 13 January 2010
743 - Due South: St Peter's Church, Oundle, 1/3
First of three photos from Oundle, at Christmas. Three and a half hours south, by Metro, train and car-lift.
Tuesday, 12 January 2010
744 - This Green and Soggy Land
I hope NASA produce another photo of GB after the snow has melted. It'd look a little like those fragments of decomposing sponge washed up on the beach from time to time.
Last such fragment I found was on Tynemouth Long Sands: an all-but-complete seat cushion kept afloat in the wellspring by Crusoe's Cafe by the water bubbling underneath it. I fished it out, feeling the rubber-watery weight of it around my hand before dropping it like whale blubber onto the shore.
As I left, I was aware of a kid behind me, fascinated, picking it up and dropping it back into the spa.
The sea is ripe for symbols, and the sealine the place they venture into consciousness. I still remember, passing the Rendezvous Cafe two or three years ago, seeing a complete copy of the Quran furled/ unfurled in the waves, whether coming in or washing away I couldn't tell.
Last such fragment I found was on Tynemouth Long Sands: an all-but-complete seat cushion kept afloat in the wellspring by Crusoe's Cafe by the water bubbling underneath it. I fished it out, feeling the rubber-watery weight of it around my hand before dropping it like whale blubber onto the shore.
As I left, I was aware of a kid behind me, fascinated, picking it up and dropping it back into the spa.
The sea is ripe for symbols, and the sealine the place they venture into consciousness. I still remember, passing the Rendezvous Cafe two or three years ago, seeing a complete copy of the Quran furled/ unfurled in the waves, whether coming in or washing away I couldn't tell.
Friday, 8 January 2010
746 - Haiku, Better?
Reading about the Haiku format, I came across this quote: "Basho [a Japanese haiku master] said that each haiku should be a thousand times on the tongue."
Yesterday's haiku tries to convey a flow of time - winter into spring - with the sense that it is a cycle that repeats, but on the first line a strong image - city - perhaps overweighs the rest of the poem. Centrally, I was hoping to convey the idea that civilisation is no more or less than a fall of snow, despite its initial sparkle and subsequent seeming permanence. But traditional haiku are about emotional states, not concepts.
By returning again to the haiku, in the spirit of Basho, and rearranging it, so that the city occupies the last thought, I lose the sense of time-flow, of state change, but correct the imbalance... oh, I don't know! what do you think?
wake my tongue, to numb
and cease me, melting away -
fall soft my city -
Yesterday's haiku tries to convey a flow of time - winter into spring - with the sense that it is a cycle that repeats, but on the first line a strong image - city - perhaps overweighs the rest of the poem. Centrally, I was hoping to convey the idea that civilisation is no more or less than a fall of snow, despite its initial sparkle and subsequent seeming permanence. But traditional haiku are about emotional states, not concepts.
By returning again to the haiku, in the spirit of Basho, and rearranging it, so that the city occupies the last thought, I lose the sense of time-flow, of state change, but correct the imbalance... oh, I don't know! what do you think?
wake my tongue, to numb
and cease me, melting away -
fall soft my city -
Thursday, 7 January 2010
Saturday, 2 January 2010
749 - As The Year Turns
By way of a late Christmas/Solstice greeting, here's a fragment from our 2009 Christmas Card.
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