September 26th 2007

Wet road wiped across my windscreen
Sprayed on, wiped off, sprayed on, wiped off,
The scene changing with each cycle
As the car in front leaves its churned up memories
In dirty droplets full of rain
And tyre rubber and tarmac
And countless specks and smuts
From wherever it has travelled
And also those it followed:
History hidden in a dirty film,
Sprayed on, wiped off, sprayed on, wiped off.

September 24th 2007

This is the woman whom I love,

Who taught me that I too can love with all my heart,

That one person can be all that I need,

And all that I desire.

September 23rd 2007

The Ridgeway,
The Icknield Way
Swan's Way
Chinnor Barrows:
Ancient routes trod by legions,
Wode wearers,
And load bearers.
Sign-posted better than ever now,
To exercise the leisured classes.

September 22nd 2007

Fall-out from the car break-in mitigates against my posting photographs and devours my time.

It has been a week of financial and criminal mayhem for me - mostly computer-related. Selling another laptop on ebay, I was subject to a Nigerian scam, which I rumbled before it could cause more damage than time-wasting. Hint: look twice at ALL e-mails from any financial institution - their Paypal counterfeit was very persuasive.

The laptop is back on ebay.

Following yesterday's thread, I spend too much time on computers (except right now, which is valuable to me at this moment...?). And the bigger picture is that the rapid and inexorable advance of computer technologies has a very big and serious down-side. I am writing this on a 24 inch Macintosh computer which runs Mac and Windows systems, and is now also a better TV than my television (which I've given to my son, Matt). It's all amazing.

I have been seduced by the wiry arms of the glowing screen and the ersatz exploration it enables. But what I really love is the natural world where time is the journey of the sun.

I want time to think.

September 20th 2007

My laptop was stolen from my car on Friday 14th September (the picture is of a few of the shards of glass), so I haven't been able to post since then. Now I'm almost up and running with all the software paraphernalia in place so that I can start posting once more.

As ever, the cost of repairing my car (insured, apart from £150 excess) plus the loss of other stuff in the ruck sack containing the computer, and most painfully, the loss of my time is far, far higher than the thieves' gains.

Buddhists would have it that all this mayhem is the product of my desires - get rid of the desires and the problems and worry wouldn't exist. And we do spend a huge amount of time, in fact almost all of our time, on day-to-day things and materialism. This is what our governments want - it keeps the wheels turning and feeds economic growth.

What gives pause for thought is that it is the fall-out of economic growth that is destroying our planet - the bigger the desires, the bigger the problems.

In the meantime, we may moan about being too busy and too many hassles, but we must like behaving this way or surely we wouldn't do it so persistently?

September 13th 2007

Peacock posing,
Perched high on a wall
Throat puffed with air
To squawk his raucous call,
Magnificently clothed
Plumped-up, primped and preened
There's not a lot upstairs:
Oh dear,
Type casting's SO unfair.

September 12th 2007

Moving through a tube,
Deep below the city
A journey without
daylight
scenery
conversation.
It isn't always better to travel
Than to arrive.

September 11th 2007

Everyday boredom
Turning the tap on
Water to wash in
Shave shower and bathe in.
What if...
The taps went dry?

September 10th 2007

Let there be light in the darkness
For fear and hate fester and flourish
Where the truth is hidden or ignored
And bogey-men wait to pounce.

September 9th 2007

The fence is a barrier
The stile gives access
The footpath leads
Past the lake and over that hill
To the landscape beyond
And every corner of the country.
An enormous and democratic benefit
For which I give thanks
To the ones who fought
So this stile could exist.

September 8th 2007

Sunshine
That warmed the soil
Where grew the trees
That bore the blossom
For the bees
That blessed it
With Fertility
Now shines on fruit
That's ripe to eat
A wholesome vibrant
Juicy treat.

September 7th 2007

You have a rainbow,
Conjoured from light
And water
And air.
I have a desktop, a computer and a phone;
All grey
And plastic
And hard as cash.

(As my father would say, "Oui, c'est comme ca, la vie, pour des artistes dans les gros batiments.")

September 6th 2007

My gaze escapes the screen
And leaps the bricky walls beyond:
Houses blank like parcels, tied with baggage string
And sealed with familiarity.
High in the cold blue sky
Two red kites wheel
And take their chances.

September 5th 2007

Sheep
Eat green grass to grow white wool,
Stand out in all weathers so we can be warm,
Thought to be stupid, are numerous and do little
But sit around and eat.

September 3rd 2007

Shiny silver machines,
Sleek and clean; dirt defying,
Tidy and snug inside:
A home from home.
Judas asleep on a tarmac blanket,
Smothering the grass that grew,
Each waiting for its time to spew
A kilogram of CO2
In the next five miles.

September 2nd 2007

My Sunday ritual unfolds,
The main section first,
Genuflecting at the crossword,
Then following the litany
Of magazines, sport,
And even money.
Responses to the chants of daily life renewed:
Prejudices confirmed.

September 1st 2007

I stand for music,
I stand for practice and performance,
I stand for Bach and Beethoven,
And also for jazz, rock, roots and dance,
I stand for children and keep the score,
But mostly, I stand in the corner
And forget what I'm for.