Concordant

The Vinyl spins on a platter in third time

Still sounds dynamic and fresh; ageless tempo
Hear ‘I feel love’ by the queen of synth disco
Giorgio’s vision given a form in Ms Summer
Concordant aurality in techno, tuneful slam
So very lucky; were we; children of the LP
We were the conduit in the creation of music
Because we got to contact its analogue heart
For me a thousand songs in a cigarette packet
Doesn’t feel like music at all; I need to contact it
When it all comes too easy; it never comes at all
So I engage and enjoy and leave iTunes in the past

 

Ninety Five Percent Chance *

So a ninety five percent chance

That we may cause a problem
The earth is not at risk
It never was
Only humanity is at risk
And we...
Traversing slug like
Across the garden of earth
Are without a prayer
Unless the makers return
And sort out the mess we made

*Last week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published its fifth assessment report on the physical science of global warming and made it clear that the continued burning of fossil fuels to run our cars, factories and electricity plants is now virtually certain (95% certainty) to induce serious alterations to our climate. These changes will appear with stealth. Nevertheless, the IPCC's report makes it clear that rising sea levels, acidifying oceans, shrinking icecaps and thawing Arctic tundra are now likely to occur with virtual certainty by the end of the present century.

Shakespeare’s Comedies

As You Like It with Measure for Measure, means All's Well That Ends Well in this Comedy of Errors for Love's Labour's Lost is within a Midsummer Night's Dream. For truly, there is Much Ado about Nothing in this Tempest created by a Merchant of Venice who with Two Gentlemen of Verona was intent on a Taming of the Shrew by the Twelfth Night helped by the Merry Wives of Windsor in this amorous Winter's Tale

Devon Sculpture

These sculptures were at Overbecks in Devon. They are titled 'Time Travellers' and they are atmospheric and challenging. I would love these in the garden and I dont think i would ever tire of looking at them. This is my idea of art. It is as though he is trying to reach her before they both dissolve in time.

The sculptures are by Melanie Deegan - some amazing works here

http://www.melaniedeegan.com/

*Overbecks which was the house of the inventor Otto Overbeck. He invented the  'rejuvenator.' The house overlooks the picturesque Salcombe estuary.

Mushroom tree

This is the most fungus I have ever seen growing upon a dying beech tree. Snow white and a typical mushroom shaped as opposed to the more common bracket type. I hope the pictures do it justice. Strange world indeed and how the mightiest is made to fall by the smallest things.

Devon Sept 2013

Devon Pictures September 2013

Nexus

Full moon stirs a noble heart

Drafts a nexus of calm spirit
Lest the walk of autumn patters
Tiny feet of doubt into a heart
Now feeling the lessening of summer

Tides

Tread soft the sands of love

They shift on a whim of tides
That ebb and flow like a song
Sung to the time of eternity
In a rhythm of beating of hearts

Learn

Revelation is truly skin deep
Even so...
It still took fifty years
To learn...
What everyone else already knew
That...
Time has touched me
Drawn a history on my face
And I can feel its strokes

Fungus

In tune with the passing equinox

Fungus rises out of the damp earth
Moulded in soft, velvet, rounded flesh
So many differing hues and textures
They break from the seal of the ground
And brood spores to throw on the wind

I dont ever remember so many differing varieties in such quantity before. It must be a good year for funghi

Yeast

Yeast would thou grow

In this cold, cold larder
Some have called my heart
Which life has kneaded
Into the dough of doubt
For within every poolish*
A culture may arise still
And rise high to greatness
 

* Poolish is a starter made from the same ingredients as the dough, but is left to develop for a long time.

Chivalrous

From out of swift sunrises
Chivalrous intent comes
It shimmers in the dawn
Rises to begin a new age
In this hallowed light
Man the soaring god of war
Battles to make of it
One last garden of Eden
And ever yet; nothing
But a disappointment of the day
Is ever left for the sunset

Four Wasps

Four wasps feeding in the liquor of summer pooled within the fading splendour of a plum. One last release from labour in a gentle intoxication before the first frost comes and their world ends.

One day

One day I will live in a house

On a bleak heather clad hill
So high it will be close to the stars.
The air will be clean and warm
Carry me scents of the world
The stream that feeds the well
A crystal clear flowing mirror
And there will finally be room
For the mind to expand
To its true potential
Till it is perfection
Then I can lie down and sleep
And the soul; whatever it is?
Shall glance behind only once
Then fly away into eternity
Over all the rolling, empty spaces

I know

I thought I knew

Some of the questions
I thought I knew
Some of the answers
I know nothing
Save that the world
Is infinite and vast
Beautiful and rich
And yet we chose
To destroy it all
Rather than let
The engine of war
Come to a stop

Nobel

In a sky falling down under a Syrian sunset
The wind takes the rising spectre of peace
And blows it north, with a hot, desert wind
All the way back to the fjords of Sweden
For there a dream was given form; to birth hope
Yet Obama’s Nobel Prize sleeps in its function
It has thus far saved no one; will save no one
It gathers weary dust and diminishing kudos
It will dissemble the writ of populist vision
Till a last bird sings its farewell in the trees
Then it will fade like a wraith into the dawn
Leaching dread of night into tomorrow‘s spirit
Unleash again into innocence the engine of war

Size

Size is no guarantee of anything

In the evolution of good parenting
Equipment size science is Gonads
To work out the suitability of dads
A thesis composed on the Testes
Is not one of our science’s besties
I rather fancy it is all wordy balls
Where funding has made all the calls
I shall walk over dale and hillocks
Think to myself, this is just bollocks

Guardian nad other press  - Men's aptitude for childcare may be reflected in the size of their testes, according to a study by US scientists. Researchers found that men with smaller testes were more likely to take charge of children's bath-time, visits to the doctor, night-time comforting, and other parenting jobs than others who have larger testicles.

The same story was borne out by brain scans which showed that men with smaller gonads reacted more strongly to photographs of their own children than did men with larger ones. The findings are the strongest evidence yet that variations in male anatomy reflect competing evolutionary strategies that can be distilled down to mating as much as possible versus investing more in parenting. Both are effective ways to maximize an animal's chances of having offspring that continue their lineage.

 

Ten

One sunbeam

Two drinks
Three clouds
Four dreams
Five birds
Six sighs
Seven tapas
Eight honeybees
Nine flowers
Ten smiles

Echoes

Within the charge of this new day,
Wrapped tight in shadow falling away,
We seize the dawn and begin again
Majesty is unmade with echoes of memory,
Save not old pleasure, we must make it anew

Living wage

These new hearts

Carved...
In Thatcherite stone
Will not yield
The small cost
Of social care

These new hearts

Frozen...
In Thatcherite limbo
Will not yield
The cost of living
Only the cost of war

These new hearts

Beating...
In Thatcherite pride
Will not yield
Unto new slaves
Building their inequity

BBC – The number of UK workers earning below the so-called living wage has risen to 4.8 million, research suggests. The figure, equivalent to 20% of employees, is up from 3.4 million in 2009, the Resolution Foundation think tank said. The living wage is set at £7.45 outside London and £8.55 in the capital.

Labour said too many people were "poorly paid", but ministers said cut taxes on low incomes were helping many people's standard of living.  Although employers are obliged to pay the minimum wage, there is no legal requirement to pay the living wage.

Cull

Within the roaming heart of England

They depart from the green, green fields
Genocide calls their name in the hedgerow
The massacre of the badger has begun

BBC - A badger cull in Gloucestershire is believed to have begun - a week after the first stage of the government pilot started in Somerset.

About 5,000 badgers are expected to be killed in controlled shootings over six weeks in a bid to curb bovine TB.  Anti-cull protesters have vowed to disrupt the shootings. More than 100 campaigners gathered in Gloucestershire, with observers monitoring the cull zone for signs of shooting.

Twist

Life may turn back on its axis

Look towards a greater need
Everything hidden becomes seen
Like dew falling from a star
In a gentle weir of revelation
Sentience weeps out of instinct
Onto the cool grass of reason
And no dawn shall ever again
Be born so, so sweet

Advance

Advances in knowledge

Creep and twist sensibility
Places us more deeply into dark
With but a chink of light
Visible in blackest dreams
A star like tendril of insight
Passing radiant from behind
A door almost full closed
And to us in the gloom
The lack of illumination
We possess on the facts
When it is finally grasped
Engenders an elemental rage
That cannot ever be undone
By the long reach of truth

September

On a misty September evening

I see now the yellowing of a year
It drizzles across the senses
A flourish of time’s moment
That falters,
On the boundary of autumn

Of all my further forethought
It brings now,
Extrication into the half light
Calm acceptance comes
The world has changed
And ever we remain the same