Fragments

 

Parkinson'sUk.org

 

It's World Parkinson's Day.

Here's a short thought....

Fragments

Bits of brain fall off;

the broken parts of him,

things forgotten

memories never to be recalled.

But what is left finds other ways to work,

new thoughts appear –

not conditioned, influenced, or even informed

by what has gone before --

These are the wonderful wild ideas of him.

From the Parkinson's UK website:

World Parkinson’s Day takes place on 11 April every year to raise awareness of Parkinson's.

Living with Parkinson's is tougher than people think. But it doesn’t define you. You are still you. You can still do amazing things in spite of Parkinson’s. 

Parkinson’s is different for everyone. Different symptoms, different experiences. Diagnosis is scary and there’s currently no cure. Living with Parkinson’s can be challenging but one thing stands out. The Parkinson’s community is bright and brilliant.

 https://www.parkinsons.org.uk/get-involved/world-parkinsons-day

 

Sparrows

Just doing the Big Garden Birdwatch,which in my small garden involves many sparrows, certainly more of them than any other species here.

I wrote this poem in the last couple of weeks after reading Edna St Vincent Millay's 'Wild Swans'.

For the sparrows...

Sparrows 

(after Edna St Vincent Millay)

As the sparrows chattered

their quarrel in the hedge

their frenzy seemed to shout over me

and draw me into their gangland morning.

 

How loud! I could not hear what my heart

would say, and forgot my heart’s beating,

its own waking and sleeping ...

 

So I left it for a moment

and lived in the heart of a host

of small brown birds.

Counting down

 

Counting down

To see a world in a grain of sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand

And eternity in an hour

(William Blake, from Auguries of Innocence)

 

How many grains of sand can you hold?

That depends, of course,

on how fine the grains, how dry,

and how generous is your hand.

 

Do you know that hot sand flows faster

how quickly it slips

through your fingers?

 

How do they know how many grains

to put in the hourglass?

How much sand is there to the end of time?

That depends, of course, on us.

But the Earth is counting.

 

*Photo by Cesar Ramos on Unsplash

Something completely different ...

I wrote this poem a while ago, and was reminded of it this morning when I came downstairs to the kitchen...

The slug slime trail on the rug in the kitchen in the morning (and where it may lead you)

Nasty little mangy mucus monster

spent the night silently creeping around

spreading its sticky superhighway secretions far and wide.

Now a long twisting trail of its silvery slime

shines on the fibres of the blue kitchen rug

like jewelled frost against brilliant morning sky.

 

Except, I think ... how they sloop in the sink

slipslide across worktops

fill gaps with their sloppy gloop

slather gunk down walls

slick gory gunge over cupboard doors

and spread squishy snot over tiles, until ...

 

They sense their mate

follow the slippery scent of goo

to find each other

where they secrete their slime-cords,

 

twist and mingle mucus to hold them

 

in sexual congress.

 

Conjoined in a cosy slushy gastropod cocoon

 

they hang the night together

 

in hermaphrodite heaven.

 

Babble

'Babel' by Cildo Meireles. Tate Modern, London

This poem is a response triggered by the installation 'Babel' by Brazilian artist Cildo Meireles, which can be seen and heard at Tate Modern in London. In simple terms, it's a stack of radios, all tuned to different stations. It's eight metres high... There are links below for more info about 'Babel'. And here's my 'Babble' ...

Babble

Everyone is talking at once and

a babble spreads out across all the

universe.  Voices and songs from the whole

world echo from one room on the Earth,

random snippets telling how it was,

but there’s no conversation to speak of.

No-one listens to anyone

in this great tower of language

where words pour out and

no one understands anything of

what is said and no-one

ever really hears anyone else’s speech.

 

No-one really hears anyone else’s speech

whatever is said, and no-one,

no-one, understands anything of

what words pour out and

in this great tower of language

no one listens to anyone

and there’s no conversation to speak of,

just random snippets telling how it was

echo from one room on Earth,

just voices and songs, bits and pieces from the whole

and a babble spreads out across all the

world and everyone is talking at once,

           and no-one really ever hears anyone else.

 

The poem is actually a 'Golden Shovel', which uses the words in the following quotation from Genesis (referenced by Meireles in his talks about this artwork) at the end of each line. It's also a specular poem, the second half is a repeat of the first half, repeated backwards... !

 ‘And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech’  Genesis 11:1

More info on this artwork here:

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/meireles-babel-t14041

And there's a video description, with the all-important sound of the installation, here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYlRn64Cj4I