Summer update - July 2016

When I wrote my spring update last year I had no idea how busy a time would intervene or that there would be no new material to share until now. The hiatus was entirely unplanned and uncharacteristic. The academic year 2015 - 16 was particularly tough. Coupled with umpteen other things its seen writing take a back seat for the first time since I took up my pen and wrote in 2010. Time flies and I can hardly believe we're into the second half of 2016 already. The intervening period saw some success before everything got buried under an avalanche of mandatory reading and essays...

Getting into print for the first time in last August's edition of Writer's Forum magazine was undoubtedly the highlight and proof that hard work and persistence can pay off. It is worth exposing yourself to constructive criticism. I'd been sending in poems for several months prior, taking the optional critique along the way. I learned a lot about what makes a poem work versus common pitfalls and the dangerous lure of cliché. (Needless to say I've sailed close to these rocks on occasion).
 
I believe my work will be better from here on as a result of taking some risks. For what it's worth, my advice; don't be afraid of sticking your head above the parapet. You'll get some knockbacks along the way but nothing ventured, nothing gained. It will all be worth it in the end if you marry belief with being prepared to listen to what others have to say about your work. My long term goal is have a published collection. I'm not going to waver from that course and I believe it will happen. The steps I'm taking now will be the foundations on which I will achieve my goal. 

There has been only very limited time for performing poetry. I thoroughly enjoyed my time at the Southwold festival in Suffolk last summer. A lot of varied performances from music to poetry were to be had and it was well worth the journey. Also I got to perform at the Light Bulb Festival, Colchester, alongside Leanne Moden and Martin Newell which made for a great evening. I am one of these types that enjoy performing but it isn't the primary goal of writing for me. My favourite thing is to sit down with a poem I enjoy, read it through several times and just think about what the speaker is saying. There are collections I will return to time and again simply for the reading experience. Particular favourites are Leonard Cohen's  "Book of Longing", Pasquale Petit's "What the Water Gave Me", The collected works of Freda Downie, Kapka Kassabova's "Someone Else's Life" and of course Emily Dickinson. That's the goal.

These poets allow the reader to return again and again and still find something fresh. Push me to name a favourite and I'll say Dickinson but am acutely aware all arts are subjective and you most likely don't share my opinion. Isn't that what it's all about though? Cordial disagreement is an increasingly rare commodity. A final thought before some short poems regarding the subject of subjectivity. I'd rather be what we Brits call a "marmite poet". Marmite is a peculiar yeast extract that people either love or loathe in equal measure. There seems to be no middle ground. Surely the worst thing is for the reader or listener to sit on the fence with an uncommitted shrug of the shoulders when you've given them your best shot!

Enough rambling already, poems...

Junk Mail

I waited for the fall of your card upon the doormat

Ached to hear a sound that said you cared

Strained my ears for the fall of envelope on carpet

A hope of thoughts you might have kindly spared.

I waited through a cold grey winter morning

For those words to light me, like your smile

Daydreamed in colour of our door step conversation

When your toes playfully gripped the carpet pile.

I waited for hours slowly turning into days

Sat forgotten under a covering of dust

Motionless as spiders weaved their webs around me

Warmed only by false memories of “us”.

Do you know the pain your omission brought me?

Emotionally I’ve turned into a ghost

Silence only broken by the shattering of hope

No love, just junk mail through the post.

 

 

 

Junk Mail is the poem that made print. Its dedicated to the moment the speaker realises the "magical other" is not going to send them a birthday card.

I referred earlier to Leonard Cohen's "Book of Longing". It had a tremendous influence on me. I'll leave you for now with some short pieces I wrote in the wake of that book, trying to reach the shore. Until next time...

 

 

Sea of Longing

Today is a day of longing

 

In a week of longing

In a year of longing

Sailing on the sea of longing.

 

There's no land in sight

 

No other ships in sight.

None pass in long nights

Spent on the sea of longing.

 

 

 

Tigress as Sexual Predator

I saw a tigress in my dream

Representing female power

Sexuality with a hint of aggression.

She was a seductress

Hiding under stripped fur

When I stroked her she purred.

Coming to the surface

She was a repressed feeling

An erotic fantasy coiled to strike

And we knew

As she opened like a flower

She could eat me at any moment.

We also knew

The secret of the jungle

It was a feast we both wanted.

 

 

 

Monk’s Eye View

In penitence I will shave my head

Clad myself in sunset’s orange robes

And sit in the crook of a crescent moon

Painting love across the canvass of your sky.

 

 

 

Dead Line

It was all a pointless exercise

Trying to mend broken thoughts

Repair hopes which died long ago

Sat waiting, by a silent phone.

 

 

 

I Neutrino

 

Falling through the earth

Streaming through your eyes

Hollow, disembodied

I pass right through you

A massless ghost particle

You do not interact with me at all.

 

 

Three Phases of the Moon

"Three Phases of the Moon" is a three part poem about longing for the “magical other” expressed as the moon. The speaker begins by losing their identity in the “magical other”, becoming indivisible from them. When they try to join with the other in any meaningful sense the object of their affections is as elusive as the moon in water. When they try to reach out and touch the other it proves impossible to connect. The final phase sees the speaker trapped by their own desire.

 

Possessing the Moon

I was over the moon in my dreams

Ready to enter the sea of tranquillity.

Raw desire threatened to drown me

Until I became the man in the moon.

 

 

Reflections of the Moon

Looking at the moon is akin to longing

I yearn to lasso the silver disk, tie it to a stick,

Wander around basking in its glow

I’ve seen its likeness in many different faces

Seen it mirrored in many different eyes

Heard its echo in many different voices

You are the source of the moon

Waves of you bridge the gulf between us

Cut though my heart with the speed of sound

It reminds me of fishing for your favour

Elusive, like a reflection in a puddle

I tried to connect, you dissolved at my touch

Still you stubbornly coalesce 

Flooding me with an intangible smile.

 

How many more times must I return?

How many more times try to lasso the moon?

 

 

 

Under the Moon

 

You’re still there, shining above me

I realised as much in twenty seconds

Spent longing over a doorstep.

The moon I worship will never change.

 

_______________________________

 

 

Well, that's it for this time. I hope you enjoy the update and I promise not to leave it quite so long again, God willing!

Kind regards
Mark

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spring update - 2015

Hello and Welcome to the first update of 2015! 

It's been a funny old year so far and I've certainly had all the writing time one could wish for as I convalesce from surgery. After eight weeks laid up I'm well and truly on the mend. The plus side being all that time to make use of (and another six weeks yet by the looks of things)! 

So what have I been up to? 

Firstly I've had time to thoroughly revise the whole back catalogue, right back to the first work from 2010. A little judicious pruning here and there, getting rid of that word I was never quite happy with and more drastic revisions of poems where I had a sound idea but it really needed more work. 

I've also been updating the individual pages for each poetry "collection" to give some explanation at to what each is about starting with Minutiae. 

End result: 

Reasonably happy with everything going forwards and determined to do something with this writing bug in the future. I'll try to push the work "out there" much more in 2015 and we'll see what happens. It won't push itself, so I need to be prepared to take a few knocks and be brave! 

Meanwhile as I psyche myself up for the "great out there" how about a few poems to be going on with?

Firstly here's where it all began, where the writing journey started. I didn't have the words to say what I needed to convey to a family that lost a full term baby on the day of his birth and wrote this, April 2010. 

I removed the dedication as I never sent it to the intended recipient, circumstances and a more appropriate consolation won the day (and beat me to it). But I realised the power of words, how they can express and heal, articulating what would otherwise remain trapped within. The floodgates opened and the rest as they say...

From Minutiae  

The Mayfly Baby

And love held so loosely in the arms

As life it fades and shades of darkness dawn

Who shall know the fresh born babe

And where shall rejoice his form forlorn?

Ascend on wings of innocence

Fresh skin with bitter tears adorn

Of such loss a struggled sense to make 

A mother’s beating heart remains…

With pain it breaks 


Interestingly this poem also represents my first rejection (2010) from a group that welcomed input from all comers for their web site. The words were something like:

"Thank you for submitting The Mayfly Baby, it is obviously a very heartfelt and emotional poem. We are sorry not to be using it"


Secondly three updates from The Body Curio;


Anima

She inhales a swirling flock of words

From the soiled roost of the past

That rises, circling far above us

Before alighting in startling patterns

Her eyes roll back in their sockets

Until only their whites show

As she rescues reality from chaos 

Lassoing prophesy from black holes

Slowly she exhales filling the future

With vapours from the Kerna spring

Birthing herself from a crack in time

Poems breaking over her lips.  

Many Summer's Past

If I have ten thousand lovers

You’ll always be the first

The fragrance of youth

Framed by fading memories

I try to recapture the moment

Experience the elusive perfume

See you reflected in someone else

Always failing to connect

You fall across my thoughts

Like passing summer rain

Unfolding yourself

Like the petals of a flower

Genie in a Bottle

Spin the bottle; see what personality emerges

What kind of character climbs out of its neck? 

As the snow falls and the hands numb

As the sun shines and the flowers grow

The “bon viveur”, the maudlin bore

The fool, the cheat, the whining boy

Spin the bottle; see what personality emerges

What kind of character climbs out of its neck? 

As days become months and years

As dice roll and words flow

As the spider spins its habit web

As deceit becomes our daily bread

Spin the bottle; see what personality emerges

What kind of character climbs out of its neck? 

Until I can look you in the eye

Pleading honesty, telling lies



A couple of updates from Venus Veins;

Gone

I’m skating on blades again, sharp steel blades, gliding over ice

Like glass, a window pane, a droplet like a tear, shed when friendship dies

Running slowly down the liquid in suspension, fired mind and crystal

Walking on blades of grass, a green baize called lawn, it’s raining hard

This late summer’s day, the droplets cold, run down my cheeks

The back of my neck, I’m shivering now, I think of you, as if you were here

Hugging your black cardigan, damp, it clinging to your fragile frame

Your soft pink toes, sinking in the grass, mown cuttings on your soles.

I nuzzle the scene, imagine your taste, your smell, the tang of salt

Is just rain mixing with my tears, near silence, the swifts have gone. 

Singularity 

I was happily dreaming, when you interrupted me, shooting words into my ear

You pulled me to the event horizon, where everything, even time slowed

I looked over a shoulder and saw life bustling in the cosmos

I looked before me and remembered your smile

I watched your mouth rhythmically opening

As you engulfed me, crushing me

Into a dense cube of matter

Reducing me to a

Singularity 

And newbies in the preparatory phase for a project I call "Jackelope"

Jackelope

Rot ridden flesh stitch-sown

Festering at the seams

Odd ears and tail

My legs like springs

Speak to me

To the ears in my chest

The mouth in my groin

Cross fertilising

My hermaphrodite bones

That rattle in your dreams

Head held low

Stooping down

As I fill you with fear

Garlanded with the stench

Of taxidermy
My formaldehyde eyes

Occasionally I pause

Savouring you

On the barb of my tongue

For the sheer thrill of it

Yolk

Blood-red heart exposed

I fall before her

Clasping her knees 

In supplication

Praying she will 

Part herself for me

But it is she that eats

Cracking me open

Greedily lapping up the yolk

Kingdom of the Saguaro

When you have finished your sojourn

In the distant lands of summer rain

I will be here waiting, an ageing sentinel

Presiding over a thorn strewn kingdom

When you eventually decide to return

Use the old familiar opening in my chest

Lodge in the space where sap once rose

In the deepest emptiness of my being

I will be here with my arms outstretched

Myriad spines clawing at the desert air

Uncertain roots grasping at shifting sand

That slips between them as once you did

Whenever you need a safe haven

I will always welcome you home

I am become an echo chamber for love

You are become an unslakabe thirst

Parody of the Self

The monster in the mirror

Leaking anger

That old thing staring back

Glass eyed and hollow

A war of words raging

Inside a ransacked skull

Slack jawed with excess

Both sides of the argument

Struggle, die, re-birthing

Every empty morning

Looking for a rope to climb

And leave this face

On the outside looking in

While the foolish heart

Paints a picture of itself

I christen “parody”

Utrecht in a Suitcase

An origami week

Folded into neat

Regular shapes

Dreams replaced by

Mundane considerations
Sadness still

Bubbles inside

As summer fragrances

Fill my lungs

Barren years removed

From a musty memory

That lingers in my mind

I still wait patiently

For your exquisite finger

To press the rotting doorbell

Without Hope

I honey the hemlock chalice

Drink a bitter distilment

That numbs my feet

Climbs the ladder of my spine

Completing the work

Capturing on canvas

The raiment of my pain

Brush-bristle rough

I smear bright pigments

Into a raw retablo

Whilst the Sybil sings

Days of future past

Driftwood Crowns

A bell tolls, a seagull cries

For an audience of one

Grey and melancholic clouds

Roll down to restless seas

Summer has long flown his nest

I've no flowers left to bring

Our golden beach is empty now

Wearing driftwood crowns

If moments could be lived again

What different paths we’d take

The sun has set on Shangrila

Across your cold and empty bed


That's enough to be going on with for now. An important lesson I've learned is not to worry too much about writing, about acceptance from others. It is a personal journey we make and if we enjoy the process and it heals us, putting things that might otherwise remain internalised, contextualises them, giving them a relatable form, the work is done. If it helps anyone else, if others like it, that, for me, is a bonus. 

Writing can touch us in a unique way. It seems appropriate to leave off with one final poem written as a tribute to someone who's writing and story touched me. 

Daughter of the Beat

At first, like everyone we ever see, she’s an image, an assumption

Gazing from the page at me, from a time before I’d even heard

Her name, let alone stood on the cusp of these innermost thoughts

Lain bare as words for all to read.

I know my walk in this garden of candid prose will be unique

Seeking more than others seek, I'm following a path only

Mine to find, revelations from between the lines leading to

Appreciation.

On the day the photograph was taken, if I’m not wrong, her eyes

Reflected more than a cameras lens. An energy reaching out

Decades on – a fragile being, aware of her mortality

Knowing she’ll soon be gone.

Smiling, I'm enjoying alternating shades of light and dark

Finding depth beyond a perfect face, colour beyond

Black and white, happy knowing words can endure death

Making more than fitting epitaphs – they tell a story.

It’s through her words the beat goes on, she herself

Has gone but if eyes are indeed the gateway to a soul

I wasn’t wrong.  Turning the final page I also offer words

Hoping she’s found the peace that she deserved.


Until next time

Kind regards
Mark

   

Mark Harris has asserted his right under

Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

To be identified as the author of this work.

Autumn update 2014

After a long absence from the blog I'm back with an update of what has been going on in my poetry world. The break has been spent re-writing material from Testimony which I "completed" in mid 2010. Rather than making radical changes it has been a case of refining what was there and then testing the same out at meetings of our local poetry group SKOPT before putting together a set of material for performance.

The opportunity finally came on 26th October at the Sunday Matinee held at Slack Space in Colchester. My thanks to those concerned for the chance to read and making the whole event happen. I've appended the set below; if you were there you'll have a chance to revisit the material if you wish and if you weren't you can have a read  if you'd like to. Going forwards I aim to complete the Testimony re-write, some sixty poems in all and work on some new material that I've got typed up in "rough form" at the moment. 

I don't think a poem necessarily gets "frozen" for ever, an ossified work set in tablets of stone that can never be revised but some are at a point where I can't do much more than tweak them here and there. I guess I'm happy with them as they stand and in the final analysis that is enough for me going forwards. Poetry is a very personal thing. 

I hope you like the set, in the end it is all about the poems, they articulate what I want and need to say..... 

Matryoshka

Do you remember when we started our journey, took off that first brittle outer shell and bared a second layer of ourselves?

My sweet Matryoshka, did you think I would reveal myself all at once?

You were guarded the same as me after all.

It was like diving in the beginning, swooping to a different level and getting a glimpse before

Soaring back up again.

Do you remember those first kisses, the delicate touches of reverent explorers?

 

When we opened another level like a brightly wrapped present and I felt your intimate touch.

It was then we lost control and first spoke of love.

The thrill of loosing ourselves to exhaustion like an ebbing tide will stay with me forever.

 

Do you remember my sweet doll, the next layer, when we became real and showed our faults?

To one another, like growth rings.

 

We sometimes cried together, always making up with tea and kind words.

The levels got smaller but more intense, deeper as each unfurled like the petals of a flower

Kissed by the sun.

Each time we split in the middle we opened ourselves anew in an intimate shrinking

Our worlds melting together like chocolate.

Still looking for the kernel of who we are, we fooled ourselves that we could ever know what one another thought.

We carried on our quest into an inner universe where everything became increasingly compressed.

It got harder to breathe then sweet Matryoshka, the very act of filling my lungs began to hurt.

 

I’m not sure who panicked first as we fell into smaller and smaller spaces, until we realised we’d gone too far, could never extricate ourselves from one another.

 

We hunted each other relentlessly to the last atom trying to satisfy our thirst to know.

 

You’d long since fused with my very life essence but my sweet doll, it was never enough, you had to possess all of me and I fell into you head first.

 

Others heard me crying and wistfully remembered who I’d been, as I span ever more quickly, caressing your inner space until I’d disappeared into you altogether and only a faint echo remained.

 

 

Curving

 

I thought by hinting hard enough you’d read me

Thought if I wished with all my soul you’d need me

Thought if I launched prayers on tears God would hear me

Thought if I could curve time I’d bring you near me

 

I hoped against all hope you’d kiss and feed me

Hoped beyond desire you’d heed my pleading

Hoped I could give all that wasn’t mine

Hoped, sincerely, I could curve time

 

I wanted to be the centre of your universe

Wanted to rapture you in sweetest verse

Wanted a magic hour when you’d be mine

And set with all my heart to curving time

 

Peacocks

 

Love has many layers, multi-coloured shades

A hundred different moods, filled with falling thoughts.

I sent my love to guard you, protect you from all ill

Life tried to turn the flame away but love keeps vigil still.

 

Some have tried to tame love, lulling it to sleep

But I gave mine to peacocks, as guardians, to keep.

When they fan their feathers on mornings clear and chill

A hundred eyes are keeping watch, a triumph of my will.

 

Songs can echo sentiments, hope be a substitute for words

Patterned thoughts make butterflies, build nests like bower birds.

Love has many aspects, will you heed the clarion call?

 

I await your only answer, before the Cherry Blossom falls.

 

Carnegiea Gigantea

Driving my car across Arizona,

 

Or somewhere, vast and empty, flat as forever

Thinking you'd be by my side

I swear I can see your face

Peeping at me from behind a saguaro.

 

It was fun whilst it lasted, giving me something to hope for,

Even to live for.

 

I remember how you tipped your head to face the sun

And when it kissed you in return, thinking I saw a halo.

You were my angel.....

 

What to do now?

An empty seat, so many miles ahead, endless hours to pass.... 

 

Perhaps I'll drive naked into the sunset, there’s nobody here to mind after all.....

You’ll see where I’ve been from the trail of clothes

Like the shirt I discarded fifty miles ago

I’m heading for the border: destination Teotihuacan.....

Once I'm there, atop of the pyramid of the sun, I’ll tip my head as you once did

Look along the avenue of the dead and allow myself a smile

Always knowing, in my heart

 

I’m walking in the footsteps

Of those who have travelled the road to the Gods.

 

Japan

In a different way of looking at things, it’s the moment of sublime perfection

Where beauty stretches its fragile fingers as cherry blossom fronds

That instant is the one to die, the passing in itself a supreme majesty.

 

Nothing is permanent and they know this, with their ancient wisdom

They celebrate the moment that the blossoms fall, flutter down

Settle on the water, thin pink droplets like fragrant tears.

 

I shed myself the same for you. Lay upon your still waters for a moment

Passing a torrent of myself, like blossom, through a needle gate

That instant is the one to die, the passing in itself a supreme majesty.

 

Junk Mail

 

I waited for the fall of your card upon the doormat

Ached to hear a sound that said you cared

Strained my ears for the fall of envelope on carpet

A hope of thoughts you might have kindly spared.

I waited through that cold, grey, winter morning

For those words to light me, like your smile

Daydreamed in colour of our door step conversation

When your toes playfully gripped the carpet pile.

I waited through hours that slowly turned to days

Sat forgotten under a covering of dust

Motionless as spiders weaved their webs around me

Warmed only by false memories of “us”.

Do you know the pain that your omission brought me?

As emotionally I turned into a ghost

Silence only broken by the shattering of hope

No love, just junk mail through the post.

 

Growth Rings

 

Read me with your finger tips

Trace the rings of years

Feel when I was young and strong

Wipe away my tears

Run your finger round my lips

I’ll whisper you my thoughts

Feel when I withheld myself

And when I gave my all

 

Smooth your palm across my spine

Feel when you came to me

Touch the painful curvature

Caused when you set me free

 

The ache of passing tracts of time

Have left their bitter mark

Run hands across my ageing skin

It's wrinkles feel like bark

 

A chill wind blows across the fields

And sooths the tree that weeps

Let’s relive the moments that we spent

Swap secrets that we'll keep

 

Let’s spread our arms in sunshine

Live in daylight not the dark

Place a lover’s hand upon my chest

And feel a beating heart.

 

Over

 

Walking the cold of a winter’s morning

Emulating the desolation of skeletal forms

 

I too have shed myself

Stride spindly and wind chilled

Time removes us with every pace

And sadness reins within

You have delivered

Your parting overture

What now as I walk the valley

And silence sings from the hillside?

Nothing but this:

Leafless trees and stones on the top of an icy lake

Where I tried to skip them

 

Or a word blowing through me

Like a falling leaf

Whispering it’s over

 

Over

 

Over

 

Wire Walking

 

The fibres of my heart are stretched to breaking point between twin towers forming a wire,

Taut and ready to break. Carefully I test the tension, throat tightening with anticipation. 

 

Once committed I know I can never look back, can never turn around or roll back time 

Yet I take a deep breath and step out, remembering the words of a wise man who

Said we’re born with only two fears, loud noises and tumbling into the abyss.

 

The journey is an imperative.

 

Suspended amid the clouds between earth and sky I apply the principle of moments,

Performing a delicate balancing act between East and West between love and love.

I daren't look down or allow myself to contemplate the chasm that yawns beneath me

 

High above the birds I make careful adjustments, risking it all, knowing one mistake separates

Me from spinning, helplessly, like a sycamore seed. Up here I understand the seagull’s lonely

Call, a cry birthed between loss and tension.

 

Borne on wings of sweat, I'm buffeted by the storm, shaking with the fear of love,

Until I hear gentle soothing notes, the tiny singularities of Trois Gymniopedies.

The beauty of the moment stills my wind-blown soul. Suddenly none of it matters any more. 

I lay down on the wire, smile at the sky and touch the face of God

 

Zvyozdochkin’s Children

 

The geese came early this year, covering our steppes like snow, heralds of the cold to come

First flakes falling yesterday, slowly at first, soon painting the endless fields in brilliant white

Stretching far away into a cloud kissed horizon.

 

It’s hard to imagine summer’s sea of flowers, nodding their heads in fragrant agreement

With gentle breezes
 

Now Mother Russia’s icy breath is upon us, it settles in hoar frost flakes on your eye lashes

Glistening like jewels on your furs.

 

We too had our day in the sun, lying by the lakeside, watching swifts wheeling above us

Their shrill cries of delight filled the air, mixing with our own.
 

What became of you my dearest girl?

 

We played Russian dolls you and I, each reduction revealing a different hidden personality.

How we loved losing those layers, running hand in hand through air filled with seed!

I knew your every need before you’d even asked.

 

Your voice echoes in my memory clear as ice, the white of your smile still lights my mind’s eye.

Promise you’ll return my sweet Matryoshka, light my world with the songs of spring

Paint my sunsets red again with the fire of your kisses.

 

 

Mark Harris has asserted his right under

Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

To be identified as the author of this work.