Sea Air

One moon, many shapes
nightly changing through August
many moons, one self.

The holiday air
is cool, like flasked juice - I walk
the sea-wall again:

gulls on warm air-drafts
glide still in stretch-winged ballet,
banner trailing plane.

Headlines in black and white, news -
a rasped flute happening -

the thermal cameras needed
for hidden earthquake victims.

***

This writing, a phase,
waxing lyrical, waning,
breathing in and out -

a tin-whistle player flauts
for copper and silver coins;
his breath makes music.

The miniature railway
is a great way to travel.

Camera Trouble

Camera Trouble

It was a piece of plastic heaven,
My Kodak Brownie 127,
A ten-year-old’s quite grown-up toy
To bring delight and to annoy.
I loved to hold it, point and shoot
At everything from head to boot.
It was my I-pod and my air-guitar,
Without a film, I could click thin air.

And then one day I pointed it
Towards a stranger’s open door,
As we climbed the little seaside street.
Exploding like a keg of powder,
Out came the outraged occupant
With every right to rage and rant.
My father joined in to tell me off:
The opposite of Muzzeltov!

I’d stumbled at a tender age
On danger. Though all the rage,
The tempting trinkets of technology,
Seeming the perfect boredom remedy –
Those natty things will do you harm
Unless you stay completely calm:
No quicker way to burst your bubble
Than get yourself in camera trouble!

***

Pussy-Paws

Pussy-Paws
Dreamt 02 - 3/07/08



In this flat that I do not own
yet feel at home in nonetheless
with a garden whose sound and scents
the old sash cords unveil,

She dives in from the night,
Skids on the window-seat;
fur: colour of the black
window thrust up to night.

She pirouettes and jive-arches,
turns, all tale and neck:
I stroke her from the neck back
in the way I know she likes.

All quick, sudden and pulsating,
with the energy of night life,
in a living room that’s better
than the one from the life I know,

taller and swishier, creamier,
with this one fine-tuned cat.
What can this mean?
What can it, save –

Pussy-Paws loves you.

SYPHON

SYPHON


Long-ago, through
night and day
linked to now,
film-frame by frame:

a car door slams,
an engine runs,
sometimes there are voices,
sometimes none,

the long rumbling
of a train,
the almost-no-noise
of a drawer opening.

Silence like water-drops
suspended through walls
or ceilings, a click,
a throat cleared.

Summer is staying awake,
nightly responding;
Summer is opening
the lens of your eyes.

Second by second,
where rail-yards meet
the estates and part-buys,
the city’s pulse fades fast:

light is beginning
all over again
in a kiss, an embrace
that never stops.

Ballad of Lost Objects 2

Ballads of lost objects
(ii)

With a roll of Kodak Tri-X in my Praktika,
camera concealed and disguised in canvas rucksack,
I came to the Café Nero on that Autumn day
When the sun drenched the plate glass window in light and heat.
We talked of illnesses and work and what retirement
could mean with low spending, Arts, London and Freedom Pass.
We stopped with the coffee drinkers and newspaper readers
for less than an hour, walked up towards the Tube,
the young fashion-wearers in their old high heels looking good,
and parted on the corner of Flask Walk, to walk
further into the fine day, I to shoot my roll of film.

Gingerly at first, framing the shops and then the Flask,
my shoot got bolder, quicker, aiming for contrast and shape.
Go for the cool word “Ginsberg” on the name of a close,
get down close to the cobbles for texture, low f-number.
Walk up, turn left, circle back to the Tube and fire off
the rest of the film at the branches of dusty trees
by the bus shelter; “ride” the 46 back home.

Rewinding on the couch with curtains drawn, there’s a snag:
Tri-X is ASA 400 – I’d forgotten
about the ISO settings, so used to automatic!
Back in the’70s you had to set the beast.
I’m 4 stops out and, disgusted, bin the film:
those bleached out prints would be money down the
drain.
Later, the nagging thought appears and won’t go away –
Those 4 stops out could well have been the key, a door opening..

+++

N.B. Kodak Tri-X is a black and white film still favoured by some photographers over digital. Some great B&W photos have succeeded precisely because of their high contrast “burned in” through aberrant exposures.

German Poem

German Poem


Recently I came across this German poem. It was printed on an end-of-term exam paper from 40 years ago, in that type-written Roneo system, that made 25-30 copies before the copies became so faint they were of no further use.

There is no title and it seems to be identified by its first line which is underlined. The exam question asked us to read the poem and offer a prose translation of it. I vaguely remember that someone in our class foolishly and facetiously translated “grungolden”(umlaut on “u”) as Golders Green. The German teacher was not amused.

I can’t imagine why I kept this old paper. Perhaps the poem moved me in a way I did not grasp fully at the time. Or perhaps it is just my archaeological filing system which preserves and conceals at the same time. Now, re-reading it after the long interval, I hope the translation I offer - with the help of my Collins German Dictionary - is better than the one I did for the exam.

The name at the bottom of the poem is H.Heinze, which I assume is a typo for Heine. I’m not sure. There is a Helmut Heinze, who wrote novels and plays – perhaps it is him.


Grungolden und goldfarben leuchten die Blitzen auf…


Green-yellow, yellow-green
The lightening flashes
Suddenly across the sky:

I can’t be sure
Whether that’s you across the street,
As out of a charged cloud,
Heavy rain splashes down.

The heavy rain
Makes people run for cover –
Anywhere to find
An awning or a doorway.

While, I stand stock still
Alone on the pavement,
My Summer shirt stuck close,
The rivulets washing my back.

I saw you there,
From two Summers ago:
The love I lost.

I saw you
With your dark blue eyes
And pale smooth skin,
As the lightening flashed
Yellow-green, green-yellow,

And the rain,
In rivulets, anoints me
With your blessings
From two Summers ago.

German Poem

German Poem


Recently I came across this German poem. It was printed on an end-of-term exam paper from 40 years ago, in that type-written Roneo system, that made 25-30 copies before the copies became so faint they were of no further use.

There is no title and it seems to be identified by its first line which is underlined. The exam question asked us to read the poem and offer a prose translation of it. I vaguely remember that someone in our class foolishly and facetiously translated “grungolden”(umlaut on “u”) as Golders Green. The German teacher was not amused.

I can’t imagine why I kept this old paper. Perhaps the poem moved me in a way I did not grasp fully at the time. Or perhaps it is just my archaeological filing system which preserves and conceals at the same time. Now, re-reading it after the long interval, I hope the translation I offer - with the help of my Collins German Dictionary - is better than the one I did for the exam.

The name at the bottom of the poem is H.Heinze, which I assume is a typo for Heine. I’m not sure. There is a Helmut Heinze, who wrote novels and plays – perhaps it is him.


Grungolden und goldfarben leuchten die Blitzen auf…


Green-yellow, yellow-green
The lightening flashes
Suddenly across the sky:

I can’t be sure
Whether that’s you across the street,
As out of a charged cloud,
Heavy rain splashes down.

The heavy rain
Makes people run for cover –
Anywhere to find
An awning or a doorway.

While, I stand stock still
Alone on the pavement,
My Summer shirt stuck close,
The rivulets washing my back.

I saw you there,
From two Summers ago:
The love I lost.

I saw you
With your dark blue eyes
And pale smooth skin,
As the lightening flashed
Yellow-green, green-yellow,

And the rain,
In rivulets, anoints me
With your blessings
From two Summers ago.