The GU poetry blog is asking for poems about cities this week. If you don't feel reckless enough to post a poem on there, why not send one to me and I'll post it on here? This is the one I did:
The morning after the storm of 1987
Having to be somewhere
I set out early
and coming out of Regent’s Park tube
was astonished
not by the few uprooted trees
not by the absence of traffic
but by the air
the air
clean clean clean
fresh damp
fresh smelling of bruised leaves
smelling of broken branches
and earth
smelling of wet earth
the air of Country
I was seeing London
and smelling forest
walking the pavement
crossing the asphalt street
littered with twigs
and stray leaves
looking at office buildings
stucco frontages
brass plate front doors
feeling the damp breath
of woodland on my face
the grey rocky dirty exhaust-fumed city
swept clean
by some great green broom
despite the destruction
it was strangely wonderful
in all my time in this city
the morning that sticks in my mind
is when it became
city and country both
.
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61 comments:
"On devrait construire les villes à la campagne car l'air y est plus pur."
Alphonse Allais
Nice one, Zeph, I can nearly smell it from here.
Thanks Offie, not sure it's very good as a poem but it's an attempt to capture the experience anyway.
You certainly capture the smell, Zeph. And the strange peacefulness that came after the storm, but before most people woke to the clearing up.
I might have a go at this myself. But bit busy with guests just now.
this is lovely Zeph, I remember that morning well; going home from an all night party where we had watched the winds from a sheltered terrace in Swiss Cottage. How the Country (-side alliance) came to town indeed! The smells make for a powerful evocation and the beginning trochee echoes the insistence of Mother Nature who Will have her way, wish I'd have seen this sooner; it makes me think of the Sunday morning I went in to the city just after the IRA had bombed the office blocks near Liverpool St... there was still a shocked silence and the punctured eyes of offices lay as shattered reflections and splinters of hardened tear stains on the dirty cheeks of the streets... an inspiration as always Zeph! many thanks
Thanks File, I'm sure you'll get a pome out of those memories sooner or later:)
it's lovely Zeph, evangelical too because "wonderful destruction" reminds me of the bible.
There was a bit of an Old Testament feeling about it, Guitou:)
something about the book of revelation, may be like
Apocalypse before -Reference to the Bible can be made on this day of the passing of The 'Black Moses" .
rip:Isaac.
...tho wasn't he a scientologist G?
I'm late to this, but it's a really lovely poem, Zeph. London, any early morning, has a very special quality of light that I love, and that is difficult to capture. Even better when it's stormwashed.
(file, I believe he was...are you suggesting the reference should be Dianetical rather than Biblical? (intending no disrespect to the dead))
file,
he was a shaftologist.
what is Dianethical munni?
Dianetics is the central sacred text of scientology. I believe it talks about how billion-year-old aliens will save us from mental illness, or something. I only know this because I used to live in a scientologist-heavy neighbourhood, and got a lot of pamphlets thrust at me.
billion-year-old alien LIZARDS. Please get your facts straight, munni.
D'you think they'll just arrive and land with a plop! like lizards do when they drop down onto the terrace on a hot day?
Only being very ancient alien lizards, then they'll rub their back legs and say "Ouf, getting too old for this..."
But Zeph, they're here already. Who do you think wrote the "Diana Ethics" books Guitou is referring to?
Psst, have you seen file up close? The scaly skin, the darting tongue... non?
Diana's not even in this clip
offie,
Comme dit Anna; "arretes de deconner"
in french, as diana says," stop fAcking with me"
Nah, File can't be a lizard, he'd never have survived all that snow.
Enough already, no more mention of sc**ntologists or all sorts of weird people will arrive at the site via the almighty Google. We'll have Tom Cruise submitting poems about sofas.
Still I suppose I asked for it by writing about an apocalyptic storm..
zeph,
have you heard of:
"qui seme le vent recolte la tempete" translation from the book:
"he who sows the wind reaps the whirlwind"?
Zeph, I did worry about that after I posted yesterday - you are welcome to delete my comments.
he could be right Zeff, feeling about a billion years old today tho not sure I'll survive this cold
pomes about sofas, hmmm...
munni, haven't thought about V for years, at the time it seemed strangely like investigative journalism
filou, I must have been about 9 years old when V was on - I had no idea there were political nuances, I just thought it was way cool when they swallowed rats whole.
I must say I'm not too familiar with the movement, even though I was accosted and questioned by them once upon a time in Boston. Do sc**ntologists have a Dog or do they just worship the lizards?
Or sofas?
Munnini, were there political nuances? I was just a bit older than you and I thought it was part of the news till episode 9 or so (if the Sci-fientologists are right, perhaps it was...)
Offle, Sofa Worship, Setteeism, Couchianity; you're preaching to the converted masses but is right to sit on what you pray to?
Why not? Catholics eat and drink what they pray to, so...
Offie, as usual I direct you towards Wikipedia, which has a good page though it doesn't mention the lizards (too risky perhaps).
fyle, i dunno, were there?
offie, and if you subscribe to the "dog is present in everything" school of thought, then...
Zeph, thanks but I don't think I will. Last time you did that to me, I spent a week lost in the cricket section of wikipedia. Pretty traumatising. I eventually came out but with the impression that cricket too is a religion of sorts.
Speaking of which, I quite fancy myself as the world guru of sofaism. I think I'll start working on that over the weekend.
sofas guru?
I am so fascinated by gurus.
Guitou,
sofa, so good.
offie,
sofa me liar
sofaism or sophism?
munni,
both are very compatible, a sophist may use a sofa.
But I never heard of sofaist before, probably a french-polynesian word.
Is a sofaist the same as a couch potato?
Friends of OtherStuff will be pleased to know that work by the poet File now appears in a long-established online poetry magazine:
Poetry Life and Times
He appears trebly disguised, as Ofile, Max Janis, and a Canadian, but then as we know he is a man of mystery:)
Duh, that link doesn't work, sorry, try here:
http://www.poetrylifeandtimes.com/current.html
Quel filou, ce filou.
il File du mauvais coton.
nice one, file.
Zeph, re: couch potato, please don't confuse that American phenomenon (which consists in stuffing oneself with snacks and TV shows) with my spiritual movement.
Be at one with the Sofa.
Offie, looking forward to publishing The Way of the Sofa when your spiritual path leads you to seek a wider audience...
Sofa Sufi, what is the sound of one couch clapping?
thanks for the announcement Zeff, and continued support y'all, it seems like the page where I've been 'featured' has been banned, la plus ca change eh!
guitou, 'file du mauvais coton', I had to look that one up!
The Poetry Life and Times site seems to be working better now, and there's stuff by File all over the place:)
Chapeau, Filou!
Zeph,
I checked filou's whereabout on the poetry blog:
Time-lock-
green hand:it's about offie
multi color=gg, the blue it's obvious but I am embarassed to say-
Never mind Filou is a Traitor.
Oh la la Guitou, such an accusation.... but the hand poems were on here first. And one must encourage the poet File to reach a wider public, no?
That site is kind of strange though, each time I go back I find one of File's poems seems to have moved... The drowning man one was there last time, can't find it today. Nicer here, you can find your way around:)
I need some more writers for this site, shall I encourage some over from the Guardian poetry pages, or do we prefer it to stay intimate here as a mini tape-rheume?
(or maybe the 15 people who read the site and don't comment would like to write something huh?)
Other Stuff it's such an exclusive and private club with
a selected audience-don't complain filou will be back
with more hands...on :)
Or you could insist that the rest of the regulars start pulling our weight, instead of waiting for you and File to post things for us to comment on.
Insist, moi?
Just a little encouragement, maybe..
What? We have to write stuff now? I thought reading poetry was work enough.
Still waiting for 'Reflections While Paddling a Mauve-and-White Canoe', Offie...
Very flattering of you to suggest that I can paddle AND reflect at the same time. Alas...
I just finished my last book" les memoires d'un escargot et sa traversee du desert" I am exhausted.
That's the one that took an eternity to write and takes even longer to read.
"Les cargos et la traversée du désert salé" is also a favourite around here.
Snail literature is an acquired taste, I find.
Have you tried it with garlic?
I now feel guilty. I have been reading and enjoying, but haven't contributed anything for ages. Will try harder.
Will also try to encourage a contribution from another regular reader. Travelling in South America is an excuse? Psshwar! We should be allowed to read a poetic recounting of adventures along with a picture of a llama. I think.
mimi,
como se llama el lama mama?
I am languelisshy challenged!
Not that that's a word but I guess those of us less linguistically ept that I would understand!
El llama mama se llama Rosita Chiquita Llama y Llama.
A travel piece with llama or non-llama photos would be fine, it doesn't have to be a poem.
I wasn't meaning to complain about people not writing, blogs are spare-time activities after all, it's just that when File's busy and I have a lot of other writing to do, it gets a bit tumbleweedy round here...
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