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Showing posts with label Poems in Holy Week. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poems in Holy Week. Show all posts

Sunday, April 05, 2015

Holiday end

Sequence

I have finished the last of the Poems in Holy Week, written an introduction and published a single copy as a chapbook!  It now exists electronically and in a single unique printed copy.  I used a rather abstract photograph I took from a hotel window of a wall, railings and frames which was the rather unlovely, but satisfyingly abstract view that I had.  Toni hated the picture and so I have replaced it with something which I think is more acceptably picturesque.
            If anyone would like an electronic copy of the poem sequence you only have to let me have your email address and I will send a copy to you.
            The poems, or versions of them are also available at http://smrnewpoems.blogspot.com.es and, as I always say, I welcome comments either on the site or to me via email.
            I am still not quite sure what to make of what I have written, and I think that the poems will be further revised in the next few months.
            I have found writing them challenging and stimulating – and they have kept me away from my essay on body art which has to be completed in the next couple of weeks!

Easter Day

Apart from writing the final poem, there has been nothing about this day which makes it more distinctive than any other.  I think that tomorrow stands more chance of being festive, as we are going to Terrassa for a family meal in which we will consume the traditional cake or mona de Pascua which I hope has been made by Toni’s sister.
            If you are foolish enough to buy one of these constructions in the shops it can cost you ridiculous sums of money.  One edifice, cake hardly described the fantasy in chocolate and frippery, cost over €80!  And that was in a local shop just waiting for a buyer, as if people just popped in off the street and handed over the money.  Which they did!
            Our version will be home made and almost certainly having a theme of Barça.  I will attempt to remember to take a photograph before the kids get stuck into it and then try the even greater task of getting the damn thing on the site and the almost impossible effort of getting it to stay there.
            Still, Toni’s mum is an ex-cook and her meals are always worth eating.  It is just unfortunate that the whole of Spain seems to be going somewhere on Easter Monday so the roads are likely to be nightmares.
            One particular nightmare concerns our local motorway.  During periods of high volume, the police in this area have been known to cone off one lane on one side of the motorway and have traffic going against the flow of the other two lanes.
And yes, it is quite as horrific as it sounds!
            And the police will have been prised out of the bars that they frequent and will descend on roads main, side and motor to collect untold wealth in fines.  So one small glass of Cava is going to be my limit – with plenty of Earl Grey.

Exercise

I am not a great believer in exercise for the sake of exercise.  I quite enjoyed playing squash and badminton – but those were sports and competitive and therefore there was a point to them.  Swimming is OK because it uses a different medium and that makes the ‘exercise’ element a necessary part of an otherworldly experiment.  No, it’s the treadmill and gym stuff that I can’t stand.  And cycling.
            And therein lies the rub.  I have been cycling for the past few weeks because the car part in the leisure centre is being redone and is therefore closed.
            As it has gone from being a piece of tree shaded, gravel covered dirt to polished, drained concrete, you will appreciate that this is no afternoon with the lorries type of transformation.  The car park is out of commission for a month and since parking in the area is a nightmare the bike will have to do.
            But I have quite taken to it.  I have bought (always a good sign) a rather swish new helmet which is more comfortable, more adjustable and more stylish than the old one.  And, and this is the killer, it has a little red LED flashing light on the back as added protection against blind drivers in killer cars.  The dynamo on my bike has never really worked, as so I have bought a two-intensity front light and a cute red, programmable flashing LED light for the rear wheel.  I do not of course go out on the bike when it is dark or when it is raining, I am after all, no fanatic, but as the sun shines, so I ride.
            It seems more and more likely that, even when the car park reopens, I might continue to ride the bike.  As long as the sun shines.  And I feel so self-congratulatory as I lock the thing up after having navigated quite a nasty mountainous bridge over the motorway!

Exodus


Monday is a holiday and Tuesday should find most of the population of this country going back to work.  The Easter Holiday in Spain barely deserves the word as it is so short.  But on the positive side all of our visitors from Barcelona (which seems to come here en mass during any holiday) will go home and gather strength for the long haul of the summer.  And we have to prepare as well.

Wednesday, April 01, 2015

Here & There


Weather

The glorious sunshine that I seem to remember that we were promised for the Easter holidays does not seem to be much in evidence at the moment.  OK, I was able to do a tad of light sunbathing yesterday, but the weather today is as near to rain as it can get without actual precipitation.
            And with a true sense of irony, just as I finished typing the word ‘precipitation’ the sun came out.  I swear that the irony of real life leaves the contrived irony of literature standing!  And with that the sun has disappeared again!
            As long as it is dry for my trip to the pool (to get wet, yes, irony again) I will be happy.

Family

Yesterday saw the Family descend and our routine was jolted out of place by two young children.  Being a retired teacher (ah, savour those words in the mouth like a fine wine!) children have become something of a novelty for me and I find myself observing them like some exotic species of insect.
            This time I particularly noticed their attitudes.  Not, I hasten to add, their ethical standpoints and moral positions, but rather the physical ones that they adopt naturally.
            Milton wrote of Samson that he was ‘carelessly diffused’ (if I remember rightly) encapsulating a sort of casual sprawl in a wonderful phrase.  I watched the younger brother, Marc, as he sat at the table and I fail to see how his half crouch lunged squat could have been in any way comfortable – but he seemed ridiculously at ease in what would have been excruciatingly uncomfortable for me.
            Still, I remember years ago when in secondary school, in an idle moment of speculation, I wondered if I was still able to do the ‘crab’ and move around with my arms on the floor behind my head and my body arched.  The answer was a resounding ‘No!’ and I am glad that I tried to assume the position slowly and not snap into it, as the only snapping would have been my spine if I had managed to do it!  A certain pliability is lost with age!
            I can now feel joints in a way that is entirely different from my youth when joints did not intrude upon my concern.  Those happy days when the body is just one lithe totality rather than, extremely obviously nowadays for me, composed of jointed parts.

Poems in Holy Week

This writing is obviously displacement activity as a form of writing exercise to get me into the mood to try and find a topic for the next poem in the sequence.  I am trying a mixture of casual thought and oblique contemplation to bring the subject matter to the fore.
            I have to admit that there is no easy way to write and I find the harder I work the more ‘inspiration’ I find.  At least my faithful notebook is always near to catch a fleeting perception.  Though I also have to admit that my notebook is fuller of the blindingly obvious rather than the intriguingly provocative.  But, as I pointedly observed in a previous blog about ‘Family Wisdom’, ‘anything is better than nothing’ – and I am constantly surprised by what I am able to mine from extremely unprepossessing obviousness!
            I trust that the next poem in the sequence will find its way onto http://smrnewpoems.blogspot.com.es/ before the end of the day.  With any luck the material produced in my Poetry Group this evening may even be useful for this project.  I live, as always, in hope!

United Nations Day 2015

The travel arrangements and preparations for this event are assuming a complexity which makes the actual UNO meetings in New York look simple in comparison.  I have decided to take a loft and distant approach to these things and concentrate on the ‘looking forward’ aspect of it all.
            My most pressing concern is to ensure that Flesh Can Be Bright is ready for its publication day.  At least I know that my Catalan translator has started on the task of producing a version of Autumn Trees, which is more than I can say for my Spanish translator.
            It is now April and I set a deadline for completion of the writing by the end of May.  I have written the poems and, although I still have to do the editing and the indexes, the introduction and design, I know that the really hard bits that I have to do are done.  How far my grandiose plan for the realisation of this project survives to publication will be interesting to see.  I am fairly determined, but I do have fallback plans.  Lots of them.

Body Art

I have been methodical in my note making for the next essay (and last) in the OU course.  As soon as this is completed I can concentrate on the End of Module Assessment which is a mini thesis.
            The art I am studying at the moment is what I think most people would call ‘challenging’ – and the theoretical justifications even more so!
            As befits a module on modern art, we are now at the ‘cutting edge’ of what can be considered art and while sometimes I think that it has not progressed much beyond Duchamp, there are other aspects which demand an intellectual commitment that I am sometimes not prepared to make.
            Still, it is something which is beyond my comfort zone and therefore it makes me question my perceptions and who can ask for more than that from a learning experience.
            I will soon have to start putting finger to key and actually write something about what I understand rather than wondering what the hell to make of it all.

Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Hard slog works

Poems in Holy Week

With the third poem written, I think that I can claim that there is a sequence growing along this particular theme.  I like the discipline of having to produce a poem a day I further like the self-imposed necessity of trying to develop a sense of questioning that I think the Week itself demands.
            The latest poem called Life (there’s a title as a hostage to fortune!) can be found at http://smrnewpoems.blogspot.com.es and I welcome comments on the poem itself and on the developing theme – if there is one!
            Thanks to Ceri for his comments via email: I found them challenging, encouraging and stimulating.  Who can ask for more?  Me.
            I both dread and welcome tomorrow, as I am duty bound to write another poem.  At this moment I have no idea about what I might write – which is exactly the state of worried anticipation that I like!

Sun

I was able to lie out in the sun for a few short minutes.  It was probably longer than that, but the greed with which I view the sun also means that I worry about each ‘wasted’ minute that I am not out in it.  I am always trying to gain minutes to hold in reserve against those ‘brightly dull’ days that I find so antagonizing.
            It cannot be gainsaid that we are moving towards summer.  This is an article of faith for me and I echo the fatal words at the end of Ibsen’s Ghosts, ‘Mother, give me the sun!’ though I hasten to add that I say them in an altogether happier state of mind than the unfortunate young man in Scandinavia!
            I am, at present, a sickly pale colour (for me) and I look forward with glee to increasing my supply of vitamin D!

Logic

This is a week of holiday.  I know that not everyone, or even the majority of the population is able to down tools and enjoy, but it is an official holiday period.  People, as it were, go on holiday.  They visit cities, world famous cities, like, for example Barcelona.
            Then, why is it that the rate for a room just off the Ramblas in the centre of the city of Barcelona costs less than it has done for the last six months?  Where, pray, is the logic in that price?
            When, as far as I could tell, little or nothing was going on to bring people to the city, the price of the room that I usually have for the opera suddenly shot up to over sixty euros!  Now, it is twenty-five – including breakfast!
            In a similar way, when I cycled back from my swim (see Poems in Holy Week above) I had to thread my way through a system of cones which blocked roads to the beach because today, during a week of holidays when people might thing about coming to the beach, the powers that be decided to refresh the paint on the road markings.  Today?  Why today and not last week, when there were no, for example, holidays to complicate traffic flow?
            And finally and most crushingly, why do people vote for PP in Spain when it has been shown that they are demonstrably corrupt and criminal and inept?
            Perhaps the answers to these conundrums are to be found in the fact that mere logic is not enough and that we need poets to explain the world to the world!

Food, reasonably priced food!

At long last we have tried the menu del dia in my local swimming pool restaurant.  I am not sure that Toni has added it to his blog yet, but it will be there in the next few days.  Visit http://catalunyaplacetoeat.blogspot.com.es as Toni is constantly updating his blog and making it more and more exhaustive.  We still have a long, long was to go before we eat our way through the restaurants of Castelldefels, but we are enjoying doing the fieldwork.
            We are also looking forward to the ruta de tapa, when 40 or more restaurants compete to produce the best tapa in the city.  For a cost of about €3 you get the tapa and a drink of your choice.  We will have to plan this eatathon with military precision if we are to visit all the establishments.

Barcelona


Tomorrow another horrible bus ride to the city to make the meeting with my fellow members of the Barcelona Poetry Group all the more pleasant.  I must remember to take my computer with me if I am to keep up my poem-a-day approach to this week.