Compasses

If you could would you go?

2011-11-06T13:27:00.001+01:00

A ball of string

"To escape Crete and its poisonous mazes,
which bend the mind and leave it empty,"
said Daedalus who survived the flight,
"such extravagant gestures are permitted."
But Icarus flew too high, some say too low.
His crafted wings, softened in the sun or soaked in spray,
lost wax and feathers
and he fell down for ever.

To explore unpredictable spaces in unfamiliar elements
is to follow the most delicate of birds, which drinks
as it skims the water, crosses oceans and continents,
feeds on flies, perches on telegraph wires
like musical notations, knows where to go, where to land
and when. Its nests are mythic architecture.
which country people do not touch
for fear the milk turn quickly sour or the hens stop laying.

One of the ape family, adept at negotiation and deals,
I hang on a tree, one hand gripping a branch, the other
in the air to catch the birds that fly overhead. Earth remains
my element. If I could I 'd dare to enter the vast intelligence
of the unsuspecting and the unaware, to navigate without compass
or chart, and challenge gravity with a careless laugh.
But, discrete and far too clever, I cannot track the swallow's flight
except with wavering and uncertain thought, the dupe of fantasy.

A ball of string would help me find the way out
through the way in. Though not alone. A forest of broken threads
testifies to other searchers who have got nowhere.
We bump into one another with apologetic grunts. It's dark.
The noise augments the sense of bafflement and loss.
Swallow, where does your thread lead?

Kite or swallow?

2011-07-30T21:34:00.000+02:00

A scarlet lozenge, a convention of a kite

-the kites we had as kids looked nothing like that when

we flew them on the chalk hill's humpbacked height

but still - a geometric diagram transected, then

an s-curved tail, a knotted row of bright

blue bows, which looked at once again

prove to be messages on paper, folded tight.

Unfolding them I see some say

"Sorry no prize, please have another go!"

With some the words break up, trickle away,

lose sense and pattern, but just a few do show

solidity and meaning, substantial forms which stay

with me, find lodging there, and grow

into companions for another day.

Seeing the world from up there where the kite

is flying, the human figure tweaking at the string

is small, expressionless, below, its movements slight,

the distant hills a convex line, the sun a thing

to conjure with, and throw another light

onto the blue-black oil-plume of the swallow's wing,

its joyous, startling, acuity of flight.

And as it flashes by the blue hills' bow

past other skylines, where the sea moves grey

and gulls and gannets plunge and swing

into the wave troughs' crackled white,

to roost in palms in lands where men

wave birdlimed brushes to and fro,

if you could follow, would you go?

What are the things which you wish that you knew?

2011-04-23T12:54:00.000+02:00

As swallows try to catch them in nets of air,
Answers are harder than questions to find.
And so, inspired by yours, here's mine, my dear,
Honest as may be and returned in kind.

A cat named Curiosity stalks in my care
But it's clear the animal's designed
To hunt with eye and claw, whatever's there
And overwhelm with trophies an overburdened mind.

With so much data stacked up everywhere,
Rather than know more, I'd like to understand
The complexities which figure
In the cries and shadows of a troubled land.

Those who look for truth must learn to care
For crops trodden down by rain and wind,
Burnt in hatred and ill will; and come to fear
What threatens to destroy them in the end.

It's not so much the structure of a star
Or particle or gene, but what lies beyond
The turbulence that swirls about us, near and far
And neither head nor heart can comprehend.

So my question curls up and settles where
You stand, your camera and eye aligned:
What's your choice? The swallows' game of dare?
Or bobbing kite tugged by a fretful wind?

What promises have you to give? Or give up on? Or break?

2011-04-08T21:35:00.000+02:00

Promises, promises. So that's what you're after

I've heard far too many and kept far too few,

forgotten, forgiven, in tears or in laughter,

it's highly unlikely I'll make any new.

The world is too fleeting and formless to count on,

the same goes for me, and I dare say for you,

oak turns into acorn and molehill to mountain,

things can turn upside-down, quite out of the blue.

The river we step in is never the same one

whether we paddle or try to swim through,

so what is the self that arrived with my name on?

Cells change and replace themselves, minds will do too.

Yet sometimes to stay put is what we require,

and loyalty and patience are powerful glue,

to hold us fast here in the warmth of the fire

our backs to the window, enjoying the view.

So here I am still trying to answer your query

without being pompous, or dour, or untrue,

or to clothe it in fake metaphysical theory,

if doggerel's what comes it'll just have to do.

So if you're still contented with fireside gazing

I'll toss you another loose line to pursue

(though spring's at the door and there's no time for lazing):

What are the things which you wish that you knew?

What I see in the flames

2011-01-10T12:35:00.003+01:00

This new year, amid the crack of ice
And unspecified threats, I look into the fire
For help and comfort, or advice,
As anxious flames leap high and higher.
They're puzzled by the elements they're in,
Crowded down by elephantine shapes
In drifts of darkness they can't contain
While in the embers a salamander slips
In and out like a promise to be given.

What promises have you to give?
Or give up on?

I think again about the phoenix
And doubt the promise of redemption
When looking at the burning sticks;
Yet think of what is going to happen,
Of leaves composting in a bin,
Of yeast cells working through the dough,
Of a spinning top's brief, trembling spin
And the crunch of frozen snow.
I promise that I'll watch the fire
Till it gives way to smoke, and the smoke
Has climbed the air and is no longer there.

What promises have you to give?
Or give up on? Or break?

How then to live in the space there is?

2010-12-23T21:06:00.000+01:00

As apples round into form, from the core
take on the heft of substance, fill then fall.
As birches turning, tall on hills, drop gold, and jays
shout at treetops, flash blue temper, caw and call.
As wax wanes, burning in pools, glows and spills,
and the lemon-scented leaf sends down
its downy messengers, unfurls, roots, grows.
As the solemn, solitary child plays.

The edge of space we touch at our finger ends,
we cast out webs, threads, spools,
hashing up space like cheese wires, cross,
form nodes. We run along them,
jump, hang in the air.

How then to live? As if the moon
were always over snow-lined fields
where crows walk, and the dull blue
glowing curve of evening cloud, so
the leaves snap with cold at the road's edge
and you know that pheasants hunch
amongst the spikes of sedge and bone yellow
umbels of the winter weeds, but let them be,
coming home as you are to the hiss of the fire.

And what do you see in the flames?

Where would you be if not in this place?

2010-11-07T13:09:00.001+01:00

The hydra-headed question, its fangs deep
In wrist and ankle, burns in the cage of bone.
No response of grace or wit, no cry, no leap
Of inspiration can release its grip.
Instead it breeds another question
And another, twisting to escape.

How to be in two places at one moment,
In adjacent, unconnected universes?
Or here, at this given moment,
The watcher and the watched,
The force that thought represses
And the flood dispatched?

How to be in Babylon in time?
Spinning beyond light and shade,
In time for lunch or the end of time?
Yes, a one-way ticket is a tease,
Sharp and fatal as a Samurai blade,
Dressed with oil of cloves; and promises?

On The Bullet, now, from Tokyo
To Kyoto. The country hurries past
Too fast to know it,
Or to know, beside me
The suited man who quietly reads.
He rises and bows, Goodbye," he says.
I rise, I bow, Goodbye," I say.

A conversation never had.
But, in a fine rain, instead,
Among manicured trees, I hear,
Repeated, the same hollow note.
A bamboo tube, pivoted
In the stream, fills and tips and falls,

And knocks a stone at intervals
Long enough to forget, and short
Enough to recall its repetition -
A lonely sound, hollow as a bone,
That, coming back, takes you by surprise.
I'm still waiting for it to return.

How then to live in the space there is?

What's in the box?

2010-03-01T20:47:00.001+01:00

Perhaps if I open it, let me see... Crack!
Leering and swaying and squeaking with glee
spiked on a bedspring, out will jump Jack.

Or is there a cat there, fluidly
slipping out, purring and curving - unless
it's dead, poisoned and rigid? Or might there be

a dog which has learned to be helpless
shuttled and shocked, carefully tortured
by a peer-reviewed high-priest of happiness?

If I turned out the box, perhaps I could
still find hope there, a rattling, lone
remainder, a tarnished coin, good

currency, tender still, though very much down
in value. But soft. You've already told
of a perfume of citrus-peel, blown

from the lands of spices, of lemon trees, old,
brittle, but fragrant still, contained inside bright
glossy red lacquer patterned with gold,

a tiny, dried wonder. And something so slight
can, for a moment, by alchemical grace
cast out all evils, put them to flight.

So cup your hands round it, and hold it to your face...
Where would you be, if not in this place?

What on earth shall I draw to day?

2010-01-09T12:57:00.003+01:00

Imagine, when you look, how the eyes
Of Rembrandt and Picasso widen,
Their bleak gaze, hard and black,
Your book open like a laugh,
Pencil sharp as an angel's foot,
Your eyes on the scrounge.
Watch fissures in walls and faces,
Narrow and wry, where lenses
Cannot go, where in the dark in the skull
Or in a spiral shell, particles
Dance at one time in different places,
Or in "the infinite spaces
Between the stars" which terrified
Pascal; or in the spaces
Between the head and heart
Where animals watch for prey ...
A line will do, just a line
To wire the air, connect the thought,
Lead from one thing to another,
Hang an apple on a tree,
Place a loaf on a table.
Answer if you can on the way
The questions that come up:
What is hidden in this jar
Or in that lacquered Chinese box,
Where, hard and dry, curled segments
Of tangerine peel are stored
(To perfume ice cream or soup),
Faded but aromatic still.

Cool in the bright air?

2009-11-11T19:54:00.000+01:00

You, there in the bright air, are you cool?

I would be, right up there
among the glass-sharp crystals
of ice and octane fuel, dust and minerals,
jet trails, comet tails and blue-white angels
of the upper air,

with earth and all its mess
far off below, its mucky pigments,
bones and hides and dung and sweat,
and self-preserving urgent flesh, invisible
to my frozen, naked eyes.

But no.
I'm still here, on the ground,
just blood-heat, thank you, midway,
contained within an ambient landscape
(grassland and some scattered trees...)
my dampened, stubby-fingered hands
filled with red ochre, and charcoal from the fire,

wondering

'What on earth shall I draw today?'

Just what have you been doing with yourself?

2009-10-13T14:59:00.003+02:00

Sheltering by day from the sun I sit
In the cave, in the cool cave, watching the walls
For cracks and crevices to stretch and fit

The shapes of leaping animals that live outside,
Where nothing stands still for a moment
And the mouth of the sky is open wide.

The dust with which my mouth is full,
I spit on the wall, and shape with my thumb
A creature, half man half animal.

It's cool in the shadows in the cave.
The gods who live here are asleep.
I'll wake them with the din they crave.

I'll beat with a bone this tight stretched skin
Till it trembles. I'm not primitive; I know
It's the 21st century I'm in.

And I won't be here for long
To spit pigment on the crumbling wall,
Hoping the picture won't go wrong.

Most of us are waiting for a bus
If not an angel with a blinding light,
Until the screwers come to unscrew us.

The words with which my mouth is full,
I spit on the wall and paint in my head,
A creature half man half animal.
You there, in the bright air, are you cool?

All the lonely people, where do they all come from?

2009-08-22T14:52:00.002+02:00

They're sewn from motley, so it seems, threadbare, thin
patches, tattered clothes from shabby, faded scraps
which sag, or don't meet at the seams, show leering gaps
embarrass us with sight of unaccustomed, light-starved skin.

Or else they're sown from serpent's teeth, pulled from the grin
of the reptile's skull, and scattered in the dust,
fleshless and clattering bones who only know they must
hurt, fight and kill, burn rankly from the emptiness within.

Mis-shapen, sad or savage then they seem,
and alien. But who's that kidding? I'll not deny the fact,
the face kept in the jar is also on my shelf.

Love (tra-la-la-la!) proposes that we're not alone, and may redeem,
we hope - if losing it won't kill us first - the act
of living. So tell me now, just what have you been doing with yourself?

Who is it who can tell me who I am?

2009-07-26T16:17:00.005+02:00

Why is it that I need to ask the question? Why
Should anyone who cares, be there to know,
On stage or in the wings, which actors throw
Their costumes off, tired of pretence and try,

From shame, to bring themselves to say, " I'm true"?
For actors may stop acting, and not just pretend to fall.
More likely then, that this doolally king can call
No longer for the respect and recognition due

To one who knew so many tricks and scams,
(As you have to, who struggle in the driving seat),
Who now must see the truth, its heart and hands and feet,
And discover routes worn through endless rooms,

The tables, chairs and beds inside his head,
Their range and content and arrangement,
The sadness of the tools eroded worn and bent,
Discarded in corners where the dust has fed.

From the lake of mud that steams and bubbles in the sun,
Rises this old boy, with one foot in the future.
He gazes desperate and bewildered at the questioner
And in a mirror catches sight of a person unknown

Leering back at him with a dark and ancient guile:
Someone else, elsewhere, in a hurricane lost?
Or the shreds of another, carved out of mist,
Who nurses in his skull an angel or a crocodile?

For many selves crowd through the enfilade
Of rooms with doors that open wide for them and close behind,
Where they search through time for others of their kind,
And with a tra-la-la, find joy sometimes before they fade.

All the lonely people, where do they all come from?

Who do you think you are?

2009-07-09T21:29:00.000+02:00

Who? is hard. What? less so:
A bundle, a ganglion of fears
and hopes; a reptile brain
binary switching, snip-snap, between
life and the other; an eye, an ear,
a mouth, a nose... who knows?

A memory, mimic, mirror, though
speckled, smeared, unclear,
it gives back little; then again
perhaps you think you've seen
a shape something like yours here,
or heard familiar echoes, you suppose...

There is, they say, nobody in the driving seat
at all; no me, no you, no discrete
self to be, for self itself's a sham,
forms, fluid and dissolving, are our complete
story. Yet, still, we hear ourselves repeat,

'Who is it who can tell me who I am?'

What do you fear? What do you hope for?

2009-06-20T15:08:00.004+02:00

Hope and fear in one immense flash gone,
The switch tripped, the end lost in the beginning,
The question on the road, knocked down, unanswered.
Worst of all, I fear not to know what's going to happen
Next, or ever after in the story, when it won't matter
If Jack and Jill are drowned and love is lost for good,
And the dragon and St George fall down together in a heap,
And a straight white line and a single note declare
Every hope and speculation out of court.
Lips, I fear, closed tight to greet the question,
The blank page, the cold eye, the hollow fruit.
I fear the click as the clock springs tighten,
And hands, with nowhere else to go, go round and round,
Empty railways stations and the shudder of rock and roll.
I fear that no room may be left in the heart for fear.
Yet I can still hope in place of fear, on waking up, to hear
The cold song of blackbirds who know the sun will rise, and when.

Who do you think you are?

What are you waiting for?

2009-06-02T21:54:00.001+02:00

I'm waiting for the fire to catch, and for the freeze;
for the embers to fade and for the thaw.

I'm waiting for the drifting log to turn,
to feel the crunch of teeth shearing
through flesh and bone, to flail, limbless
haemorrhaging, sinking, lost.

I'm waiting for lunch, for the show to start,
I'm waiting for it all to be over.
I'm waiting for all good things
to come to an end, I'm waiting for all things
to come to those who wait.

I'm waiting for the warm south wind to blow
the scent of lemon flowers over silver
fish-scaled seas, and incense smoke
of smouldering phoenix feathers.

You may as well ask
'What do you fear?'
or equally
'What do you long for'?

You can take your pick...

What have you heard?

2009-05-17T16:37:00.002+02:00

What have I heard?
That people talk to keep the unknown out.
I've heard their voices,
Low and monotonous,
Nervous in the dark; heard a woman sing
Of love as cruel and old as tigers;
Heard the shingle shift beneath my feet
As each wave breaks;
Heard empty cans kicked down the street;
Heard the waters flowing past
The unblinking eye of the crocodile
Fast contained in silence.
Today, I heard the new year break
Out from the old with a cry;
Heard a door open and close.
What are you waiting for?

Where's my lunch?

2009-05-04T14:51:00.000+02:00

Where's my lunch? Well now, I fear the cupboard's bare!

Time to fall back on scavenging for scraps,
through rubbish heaps and dustbins to survive
or find a meal, and even those yield slender pickings.
Once you'd have found immaculate fish-heads,
-tails and -bones like ichthyosaurs, for cartoon cats
to steal, potato peel and chips gone cold
in papers old as yesterday, and ash and cinders,
the residue of forests, fossilised or live.
Now it's mostly plastic shards and shreds,
old cat food tins and wrappers from fish-fingers.

I've heard we'll burn or bury ourselves yet.
What have you heard?

Whence comest thou?

2009-04-27T10:53:00.002+02:00

Out of a cracker, me! A bouncing plastic toy
With a joke inside is my progenitor.
From the bottom of a bottle, it pops up -
A story as likely as any other.
Fish-like, I view the world through glass,
Could spend a lifetime on the answer,
While pulsing screens regurgitate
Equations, theories, prophecies.
Note, in the the margin of the script,
This man - the grandson of a trilobite,
Friend of every plant and animal that's fit to eat,
Of elephant herds and starling swarms, the shark,
The python and the goat -
Is puzzled by the noise he makes,
The ferment in his vat.
"Hey, you!" he shouts at the mirror
Which is shouting back at him:
"Hey, you! Where's my lunch?"

Who will police the policemen?

2009-04-16T18:27:00.003+02:00

Grinning like a nutcracker, hell's bells
jangling on his cap, he knows
just how to deal with them
- takes more than a bungling cop
to keep him down!

Slapstick's the way to do it;
leaving mayhem and murder, infanticide,
stolen sausages and the crocodile, all
behind him, with the hangman's noose
still dangling up ahead, he goes
to and fro in the earth,
and up and down in it.
Pleased as Punch.

Whence comest thou?

Are you smiling?

2009-04-13T11:47:00.006+02:00

It comes and goes, the smile:
Involuntary, a sign of grace
But forced, becomes a scowl,
Or the fixed grin of a crocodile,
The sneer on a camel's lips.

It's what's inside the head that counts
Yet hard to know, of all that's there, what
To show; and when to check a quiver
At the corner of the mouth, or the light
That builds up in the eyes,
Alive with pleasure or surprise.
But when the gaoler turns his back,
Breaks for lunch, or for a nap,
With no one guarding it,
A memory rises, like the sun in mist.

Yes, I guess I'm smiling now... and yet...
Qui custodiet ipsos custodes?

What do you know of crocodiles?

2009-04-07T13:08:00.001+02:00

In sluggish, yeasty rivers, they glide like logs;
time laden. They sleep in mud, clogged
with a cruel sacredness. They lie and weep,
weep and lie, showing that grief's for fools,
and tears are trickery.

Dense and old, but moving fast to kill,
their only wisdom's stony memory. Still
cold and glassy eyes reproach
from long before we were us,
and other monsters were.

They swallow time, and, to keep them safe
their children too, so that their jaws
are cradles, and their mouths disgorge
the future. Their smile knows this.
And more, which you don't want to know.

Are you smiling?

What do you know that I don't know?

2009-04-06T12:34:00.003+02:00

"I know how, on the inside of my long, thin wrists,
The oils of lemon and verbena smell.
Where my bangles measure the days of exile,
And the English words you told me how to use
Turn in my mind like spokes in a wheel."

Her story came to me from your memory,
Drawn out through time, and from the order
Of words and places, shuffled like playing cards.
She says: " I have such clever hands.
And memories, that nudge and natter,
Of shopping precincts and motorways,
And swamps that steam in every heart."

What do you know of crocodiles?
Of the wisdom of crocodiles?
Of their hooded eyes, live and greedy,
But still as stones, and their sullen patience?

Handbook for Explorers 46 to 50

2007-11-11T14:44:00.001+01:00

46.

Being wrong has formed your plans of travel

As often as being right. The unforeseen

Explains, in part, how hard it was to tell

Useful signs from those of superstition.

You could blame limited intelligence

For errors of judgement and perception;

Admit that when, at last you arrived, chance

Played its part; that what you claimed as reason

Was wild surmise; that the choir, that captured

Your ear, was the wind buffeting the wire

That follows the road; that what you'd endured

Was for nothing, a worm wriggling in the fire;

That what you took to be the Holy Grail

Turned out to be just rags and scrap metal.

47.

The screens that show you, point by point, the track

Of you time and trouble across the globe,

Tell you where you were right and wrong, and stack

Up all your hopes into a flashing strobe.

Yet, if you believe the technology

That enters into every corner

Of your experience and geography,

You will have nothing left to call your own.

Better to look for faults there, too, which race

To reach an unexpected conclusion;

Ambiguities, which suggest one face

For another, challenge beliefs and strain

To restore to a healthy, fractious state

The near chaos you movements generate.

48.

To sum it up neatly, is to close it down:

The story of your travels doesn't end,

And you can't be certain where it began.

The daft voices of your forebears, behind

Your striding shadow, chatter in your brain,

Say: "Keep on this way; one day you'll learn to fly;

The Pleiades will be your destination."

You have the gift of curiosity,

And nothing you meet on the road is less

Than significant; if you look close enough,

Written on each stone you pass is "press"

Or "open";...

...you hear "come in" in each puff

Of wind; a door's half open, always set

To halve the gap, halve that, and halve, half that.

49.

There were things you ahd to dig for on sites

By the road. ...

... No reason to excavate,

Except an inborn sympathy for rites

Practised long before your time, private,

Magical, no longer comprehensible,

But prompted by urges bred in desert,

Forest, cave - the birthplaces of evil,

And of what was good, also, from the start,

Original virtue; this collect too,

Should be Adam's banner, Eve's song of joy -

Not to neglect the animal in you.

The falcon on your gauntlet, thoughts of prey,

Memories of scales and fur, bones piled up,

Strike you with a rhythm that just won't stop.

50.

To look back at all the faults and failures,

Which have led you to this curious place,

Might keep you occupied for years;

Or else be worth a quick laugh, without trace

Of regret or homily, and no text

Drawn from stale notes, no sums or stately sermon.

At best, you can admit you were perplexed,

Still are, by the meagre spread of reason

In the country you know best. Facts are scarce,

Too, in these parts and hard to verify;

The noise of opinion is continuous.

You think, now you're back, it was worth a try;

You say, " I've moved, not far from where I was,

But enough to see how the distance grows."

Handbook for Explorers 41 to 45

2007-10-21T12:07:00.000+02:00

41.

Sometimes you'll wake and won't know where you are,

Or why you're there, or who is sleeping by your side;

Your feet, not used to rest, will pound the air

Your arms battle with an imagined tide.

Smells of leaves, beer, petrol, piss, newsprint, tea

Will come to filter England back: "cheers, mate;

Where've you fucking been? Long time no see.

It's just like you to be so fucking late."

Round the world in eighty years is close to it.

The need to say as little as you can

Returns : you suppose you got held up a bit.

And in fact, it's much easier to move on

With a joke or two, sit beside a pint,

And ask what else in the world you'd want.

42.

It may take years to shift the ideas

You had on a high plateau or by the frayed

Edge of seas, longer than your span allows

Perhaps, but it's the nature of your trade

Not to know exactly what is what and why,

Though you may try; surprise is its own reward

As you top a ridge and hear the sharp cry

Of monkeys give warning of a leopard

Stalking in jungle shadows, sly and lithe;

You recognise the hunter, don't you,

As a creature, ruthless, of your kith

And kin, which does what it knows how to do?

Years of speculation bring you to that;

So much comes in and very little out.

43.

Sometimes you'll want to keep your mind empty;

Thought may be circular and unproductive,

Seditious, disloyal, a travesty

Of the model by which you're supposed to live;

For rules apply here, which you could ignore

On the road. Soldiers collect in a crowd

Here, to check your credentials. " It's the war,"

They say, "on terrorists, and you could

Be one." And you might just be if you knew

Your potential in this interesting time.

A blank mind's the best way through,

For you can find in it a sort of calm.

Yet subversive seeds lie there still, and wait

For the rain to help them germinate.

44.

A thought you had, long ago, far away,

Will catch up with you, greet you as an old friend

One day: whatever you had meant to say -

The words themselves, and what caused them to end

In mid-sentence, without graft or traction -

Have left a hiatus, which has lasted

All your life, drew you to exploration

And led you to paths no one else trusted.

And now, a hand on the shoulder, a voice,

Unexpected and unlooked for, brings you back.

It was not that it was a difficult choice

To stop where you did, and to come unstuck;

Rather your attention wandered elsewhere,

When you just had to look ahead and dare.

45.

You forgot what you were going to say,

And nearly said; the thought turned to vapour,

The surplus words went back to their hide-away,

Waited till they were called upon to score

A point in an argument or convert

A doubter to a cause, to come to grips

With what was going to happen and start

From somewhere else. So when you kissed the lips

Of one you'd fallen for, explored her thought

And her terrain, trekked across her kingdom,

The pace changed, the past was not appropriate.

What was now then, became the past again.

You ask: will the words you were about to speak

Come back and call you liar, trickster, freak?

Handbook for Explorers 36 to 40

2007-09-23T08:03:00.001+02:00

36.

For lack of companions you will talk

To yourself; ask how a thought started -

With needs or words? Which was the first to stalk

The other?

Lonely in this search you'll tread

Paths, which go where you can't predict,

Where crowds thump out slogan after slogan

In squares where the same posters are stacked

Sky high, and flash and flicker in the brain

Images of horror and suspicion;

Where you hear your own voice on the phone

Attempt to find out when you might be free;

Where you'll see advace towards you someone

You thought you knew, and look again to see

That it's you, in a mirror, moving on.

37.

You will say, in the middle of a city,

One day, among friends you've not met for years,

"The best part is always what you don't see -

The imagined, the hoped for, the missed chances."

Like the moment long ago when you heard

Someone sing, in a room across the street,

A song you didn't know, and wondered

Who the singer was, and why you could not greet

Her when you saw her face at the window.

Worst is a nightmare, never yet explained,

That travel has only caused to grow -

A roulette wheel, from which you cannot descend,

Where, like a silver ball, you bounce and spin,

Never to settle, neither out nor in.

38.

You may tell your story when there's no one

To listen. No need to look for a laugh

Or exaggerate in aid of fashion

Or art; and if you manage to convey half

Of what you believe happened, you may

Have helped history.

Back from your journey

The hardest thing is to know how to pay

Tribute to the best you met on the way;

They will stand in your memory, hands

Raised in greeting or farewell, dignity

And reserve masking the natural kindness,

Which is the root and custome of their lands.

They'll be the heroes of your adventures;

From them your hope and inspiration grows.

39.

Bold shifts of emphasis have swept

The place you left; and your ideas, lost

Under the feet of new regimes, have crept

Away, uncertain of their worth, and cost

Nothing on the market now; your return goes

Unnoticed; and your discoveries

Seem common place; while those, who can discern

Something of strength and value in your journeys,

Fear they might lose face, if they protested

The plants and creatures you brought back.

Yet, why should you, who never contested

For applause or trophies, regret a lack

Of fame? For close your eyes, instead you'll hear

The triumphant shriek of monkeys in your ear.

40.

The changes that have occurred in the place,

Where you first drew up your plans to travel,

Will make you think you've come back somewhere else,

And that you'll have a new story to tell

About people, who like to shout a slogan

To make it clear they know they're right,

Prove it true by endless repetition,

And finding an excuse to pick a fight.

When you approach these proud strangers, take care

Not to look at them too closely, or try

To work out what kind of men they are,

Who are your brothers, yet chalk "no entry"

On their foreheads. They are explorers too

But can they know that what they've found is you?

Handbook for Explorers 31 to 35

2007-09-02T07:33:00.000+02:00

31.

These are the clues some travellers look for:

Clay tablets, papyrus and bone; coins

Minted in the name of kings and scattered

Like birds; ornaments of gold and copper,

Once fastened at the breast of priestesses,

Who had the answers that were wanted then.

You'll make of such clues, some sort of sense,

As, looking for connections to decipher,

You'll weave through narrow streets and boulevards

To places every traveller visits,

And hope that, behind the picture-postcards,

You'll catch sight of something not seen before,

An artefact that time alone has made

From stains, which spread out wide from then to now.

32.

Take no flags to raise above a planet

Or a tract of countryside, where olive trees,

With twisted trunks distil civilisation

From a terrain; where, by a lean-to hut,

A woman, her face as hard as the stone

Of an olive, watches a string of goats;

And fails to quarrel with poverty,

Or with someone like you, without roots and free

To cross seas, and be able to reflect

On the otherness of other people.

No photos please. Theres nothing you can take

From here, no sword or bangle from a grave:

Except the fruit, cheese, bread she's offered you;

And her blessing, once she sees you go.

33.

You'll wait a long time for the words to come

To describe the conflicts that you've seen,

The routes you've taken, the research you've done,

What you have discovered.

But they'll turn out

Not as you intended; and instead

Of the sentences you'd meditated,

Grunts and whistles will astound

The audience. Would numbers or music

Better convey the story of your life -

The howling of a saxophone, murmur

Of a drum?

The trail's been difficult,

And it's spiral course helps you see why

Fibonacci's numbers match the order

Of cactus prickles and of sunflower seeds.

34.

Perilous routes call for confidence;

Forecasts may turn out to be accurate,

And will rob your story of surprise.

Trust in prophets, and you'll forget to think,

And repeat their dubious promises,

And neither see nor hear awakening birds

Blast the forest with their notes of crisis.

The sun will rise, it always has.

If not, it will be hard to say goodbye

To all the places you have visited,

To music and to staring pictures;

See cities and artefacts disappear;

Civilisations, which shout "look, look at me,"

Go with a bang, and no time for a tear.

35.

Hope is important to hold in your head,

Just to keep alive the inquisitive

Urge, which fuels persistence on the road.

Though it may lead you to where dangers thrive,

It lives in trees and grass, sits in the wind;

Breeds joys, which taunt and gratify the eye,

The hand, lips tongue and curious mind;

Creates clouds like promises in the sky;

Sows ideas in your brain that will turn out

To lead their own lives, as words whispered,

Uncertain of their intent, become a shout;

Takes you to watch - alone without a word -

A house, where a slow flame trembles beside

A window, and you don't know who's inside.

Handbook for Explorers 26 to 30

2007-08-16T20:58:00.000+02:00

26.

You will never be more than half way there.

Though the space in front and the space behind

May seem the same, you'd like to be the hare

And the tortoise; and the prize, you will find,

Is by its nature of no fixed address.

Why else should it attract you, traveller,

Who loves the form and content, not the dress?

Who's drawn to what's ahead and fleeter far

Than you could ever be, a flash of light

Touching the heels of something gone for good,

Whose steps you'll follow just to catch sight

Of where they went into the trembling wood,

Where in brakes of hawthorn, sloe and yew,

The trail ends as it meant to continue.

27.

The opposite of what's true is true, too:

Mirrors may tell you lies, but to lie twice

Can bring up an image you never knew.

So as you get down from a train or bus,

You'll catch sight of yourself in someone's eye,

As you walk toward each other,

You'll wonder who's meeting whom and why,

And whether, when you first set out, you were

Who you are now and who you will be when,

Held in her arms or his, you'll remember

A scent of washed hair, an inflexion

Almost of despair, a low dove-like timbre

That gives you courage to explore again

A tree bright with starlings you'd forgotten.

28.

To start it is less hard than to end it,

No matter who you are, what it may be:

You may escape the strains of gravity;

Then find, once free, you cannot but transmit

Non-stop signals, which (you hope) may inform

People, who just don't want to listen,

Of what is about to happen and when.

You might say you took shelter from a storm

Once, when the air was heavy, moist and warm

And watched, unready to take off, winged ants,

When black sheets of rain rolled up the distance

To engulf the frail shelter and the swarm.

The flood swept on, picked up houses and trees;

So it started and has not ended yet.

29.

Rivers will have burst their banks and flooded

The routes you'll take, snatched houses up and trees,

Showed vanishing landscapes how chaos

Works; and helped you understand why ordered

Worlds connect with something deeper, more wild

Than you had thought possible from the start.

The current is so fast, you'll lose the art

Of equilibrium and, like an abandoned child,

Clutch at passing sticks; turn head-over-heels

And all but drown; until the water teaches

You about the growth of patterns - creases

In time, perhaps the incidence of petals

In a rose; how close the great is to the small;

How hard to tie the knot that grips it all.

30.

Avatars will be ready when you're lost

In a city or a desert, with directions

And advice; they'll know before you ask

Where you are going, though you will not know.

Such certainty may comfort you for years

Till you see your rear light in the mirror;

Don't ask (for they will kill you for your doubt)

How you travelled nowhere with their help.

Instead you'll get your bearings on your own,

Will nod politely, and pass quickly on,

Your step light, no parrot on your shoulder.

And when you sing, you'll sing of the path

Ahead, glad enough to step upon it,

Still eager to find out what is to come.

Handbook for Explorers 21 to 25

2007-07-31T04:46:00.000+02:00

21.

You'll need no calendar on the way:

Every season's indifferent to its myth

And can't respond to acts of faith

That try to keep flood, famine, drought at bay.

The earth's upset and is out of kilter

With the sun and moon; it's no use to ask

What's the time, or complete a simple task

Within a period you can't measure.

And if you want to know what year it is,

The reckoning varies with who was born

And when, and who you choose to love or scorn.

Now the compass needles spin, as sages

Say they will; you must play dice to get through,

And chance alone will keep you steering true.

22.

You must learn, when it's time to move on,

To leave no trace of your brief stay, no ash,

Charred wood, husk of nut, animal bone;

Let no cough escape, twig snap, no light flash.

An explorer, not one to be explored,

You'll not be prey that hunters can pursue,

Nor move, watched every square across the board,

A pawn, which knows how little it can do.

Unless you act to exercise restraint

You'll be treated as a coloniser

After wealth, by those who never learnt

The art of peace nor yet the art of war.

Better that they should look about and say:

It's clear no one's been here today.

23.

Every explorer seems an intruder

To be accused of espionage

And found, when crossing a border,

To have maps or field glasses in his charge.

A fear of strangers is a common state

Of people threatened by their own self-doubt;

So better to know what drug or opiate

They relax with or choose to knock them out.

Perhaps you'll become friends and swap clichés

Across a table, mingle politics

With sentiment; and think of ways

To ease the trade in sly half truths and tricks,

To find your way across a hostile land

With words its government will understand.

24.

When you return to maps and grubby texts

To find out where you've been and aim to go,

You'll see that stains of damp and smudged insects

Have obscured the routes you used to follow,

And made a cypher of the way ahead:

Continents have appeared among the stains

And words, not yet written down or said,

Crushed by tectonic plates, drowned by oceans.

There is too much art and literature.

That mouldy smell says, hit the road again.

If there are messages encrypted there

Or piles of smoke stacked against the sun,

No matter: it's time to pull on your boots,

Walk free; you're not a tree and need no roots.

25.

It's best, when hard-pressed, always to go slow,

Sharpen your knife with care, know where to stop,

Just where to cut, and where the buds will grow;

There is no hurry in the rising sap.

And you need not hurry to get somewhere,

(Whatever your strategy or the lack of it)

Which is just a step on a moving stair,

Past which fleeting images fit,

Or not, templates of what you most desire.

Slowly raise your wineglass to your lips

As though nothing else mattered; slowly light

A cigarette; slowly place your footsteps

In the uneasy maze of wrong and right.

Though you walk just from A to B, you'll see

The whole alphabet spread out like a tree

Handbook for Explorers 16 to 20

2007-07-18T17:43:00.000+02:00

16.

Sometimes you may be surprised to have lived

In the times you have; to find yourself where

You are; and not more than halfway to where

You want to be. You have, by chance, survived

The guns and bombs of those, who have been sent

To enforce rules, which you know nothing of,

And bring bland messages disguised as love -

The teeth which gnaw the fabric of your tent.

If you have time to reflect a little

You'll see what's to come is a hazard still.

Helped just by experience and skill,

Free of both dread and hope, you'll stand or fall,

Moved by no evangelical belief,

But by the strength that brings the tree to leaf.

17.

There are places, where you'll want to rest for days

Months, even years, which you will come to love,

Where in deep grass, you'll watch calm cattle graze;

And this will only strengthen your resolve

To be off; though someone may linger on

Beside you, stroke the edges of your spine,

Help you lift potatoes, and bring children

Round your knees to command your attention.

But when bluebells and anemones appear

You'll remember what you've long forgotten;

That, before you breathe again, you must move on:

Home isn't where you are or where you were,

But a place where you know you've never been,

And must, again, be ready to begin.

18.

As often as you've come safe through the mist

And brushed the sunlight from your startled eyes,

You'll have tumbled from a precipice

And all you've gained will have been lost;

Though just to have survived evens the score;

And there'll be more to do; languages

To learn; instructions and maps, for ages

Forgotten, to spread out and decipher;

Yet by the time you've made sense of them, found

Words of guidance for the route you'll take next,

You'll begin to ask if you can trust the text,

And then look down to see the shifting ground

And your brave policy admit defeat,

As rocks begin to slip beneath your feet.

19.

And yet, you must keep saying, "and yet",

To preserve your mind from loss of balance

And keep on thinking that there's still a chance

To find a route, which you can safely bet

Will lead to an unlikely country

Where people have learned the art of kindness,

With no rules of play and no blind duress,

No referee to insist how you must be.

But if they tell such stories to keep up hope;

And if you choose to sing as you trudge on,

Valiant hymns of love and salvation,

You'll feel better; and feeling better stop

To reflect: that no end is more worthwhile

Than, when it comes, you can't hold back a smile.

20.

There'll be no one to talk to where you are,

Just horses galloping away from you,

And towards you, savage flesh made air,

And people scarcely ever passing through,

And when they do, not to communicate

Except with lowered eyes and expletives.

Though you'll have words of careful thought and wit

To share with others about their lives

And yours; or so you'll think, but cannot tell

If they're worth the trouble, till there's a note

Of recognition, a murmur or a yell:

"That's what I felt, but couldn't hit the spot".

So, on endless prairies burned by sun,

You'll tell the long, white skyline what you've done.

Handbook for Explorers 11 to 15

2007-07-05T15:18:00.000+02:00

11.

When in time, you come down from the mountain,

You may seem to people to be a god

Or his prophet, gifted to relieve pain;

Or else the vanguard of a horde

Of preachers, who scatter their convictions

Like viruses. You'll want just a few friends

To exchange views with, or find reasons

For another drink. But understanding ends

Before it has begun. They'll bring you gifts,

Not from kindness, but to compensate

You for the poisonous air that shifts

Across a land, where all are bred to hate.

There's nothing to be done that can deter

Their frantic genius for guile and war.

12.

You'll wonder in time, if it's been worthwhile:

The search for gentians in rocky crevices

Or epiphytic orchids beneath high jungle

Canopies, where jaguars hunt; species

After species, that have to be defined,

Listed in tables, signed and countersigned,

Reduced to figures you must square or cube

To reach conclusions, which seem to make sense.

But amid the reckoning and statistics

(Shadows on surfaces where nothing sticks),

You'll want to turn back to the present tense,

To find new co-ordinates and refrain

From doing what you did before, again.

13.

You may think you should begin again

Where you first set out; start on a new track,

Make new mistakes, go from now to then;

But you'll trip on footsteps if you turn back.

Better, the world being round, to go on,

To complete the circle; and if you're late,

Who knows if the continuous curve of space

Could lead you back to an earlier date,

The starting line for a different race?

In the end you'll reject the status quo,

Choose a status of your own creation

As the best of many lines to toe,

While you can't know what has been lost or won,

And doubt everyting that has been said or done.

14.

Soon, you'll think, there'll be nothing left to find

That's new or surprising; and then you'll end up

In a city, from which there's no escape,

No sweet dreams in the corner of your mind,

And all that you thought you had discovered -

Sea anemone, elephant, chimpanzee,

Mayfly, humming bird, porcupine, leopard -

You'll need to see a second time, and try

Again to grasp the complex business

Of their origins and nature,

and, in each cell

Find a ticking universe as full of stress

As when you hear the hammer hit the bell;

Leave home; lose sight of land, of love and lust;

Get lost, just for the sake of being lost.

15.

Water was the beginning of your journey;

You floated and grew limber in warm pools,

Found resonances in the moving sea,

Pull of tides and clamour of waterfalls.

In time you'll cross deserts, take to the skies;

And the scent of water will be the lure,

That leads you from mapped to unmapped places,

And, for most known ills, will promise a cure.

For in the new country, through which you'll roam,

You will discover a black, cold lake

Cupped in mountains, where you may drink and swim,

And where, in every bubble, new worlds break,

And you may find clues to the start of things,

A hope and reason for your wanderings.

Handbook for Explorers 6 to 10

2007-06-24T12:53:00.000+02:00

It's difficult to explain who you are,

To explain the people and the stories

That made you leave home and impelled you where,

In these far, intractable territories,

With no warning, a stranger's eyes decide

To let you in deeper to discover,

Where blinding spotlights swing and trace inside,

The trail of questions asked over and over

Again: how and why are you here with us?

It was so long ago that you set out,

That you'll not know, lover or incubus,

How you stand, whether to whisper or shout

That you had, in a probing, brief embrace,

Found love's secret; then lost it without trace.

You've travelled far, and heard wild parrots call;

Lived among people who shoot monkeys down

From trees, their darts smeared with poison,

Who hear, a mile away, the least footfall.

You've made signs of peace, risked their angry spears,

And danced and drunk, with them, fermented juice;

Repeated words that set your dull brain loose,

Shared rhythms of a hundred thousand years.

But now, your diaries destroyed by damp,

You'll wonder if your journey had a reason,

If you remember what year or season

You left behind; if it's time to decamp

Again, to get back to your starting place;

Although it will, by now, be somewhere else.

Here, there'll surely be a fresh obstacle:

A beckoning mountain face, bleak and sheer

That will leave you no option but a frontal

Assault; and the need both to be there

And to have climbed it, and find a place to love

Beyond it, where beans and potatoes grow,

Such as all fucked up explorers dream of,

But which few of them will ever know.

For you there is no choice; you must move on,

Over mountains and through clouds, with just one

Consolation: everything you've known

Or possessed (when, warmed by the rising sun,

You step lightly upon your chosen track)

Is either in your head or on your back.

Each foot's a mile, each minute's a day;

In each harsh breath you feel and hear shingle

Heaving up the shore; at each crest you stay

A while, look back to see nothing at all

But mist close in around you, like a valve

You've come through; each crest a peak, peak a crest

Above it. And above that the sky's black cave

Spewing from its mouth long skeins of mist.

Best not to think much about getting there

Just to keep climbing, your mind empty,

Expecting no reward but the joy and rush of fear

As you get closer to the ever widening sky.

Then at the true summit, you stop at last

Lost in the clouds till, curtains drawn apart,

You see, as though in the future of the past,

A glimpse of light and somewhere else to start.

10.

Getting lost's the better part of getting there;

The other half's not knowing where you were

At first; or what you may discover -

God's word, or a herb that'll provide a cure

For broken bones or dislocated minds -

As darkness wraps up the mountain face

Where you flounder, and contrary winds

Give loose advice; and confused, you tread space

And falling, wonder how long until

You land;

... find, not oblivion but snow

To cushion you, and then guess you're still

Alive in a dead world of ice and rock,

At whose heart lurk new secrets to unlock.

Epigraph: Handbook for Explorers. Handbook for Explorers 1 to 5

2007-06-14T16:40:00.000+02:00

Old men ought to be explorers
Here and there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, and a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and porpoise …

East Coker T S Eliot

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time…

Little Gidding T S Eliot

Le vrais voyageurs sont ceux-là seuls qui partent
Pour partir; coeurs légers semblables aux ballons,
De leur fatalité jamais ils ne s’écartent,
Et, sans savoir pourquoi, dissent toujours: Allons!

Charles Beaudelaire

Here's a place to leave, where you prepare

For hardship, discard surplus provisions,

And strain your eyes to see the horizon's

Continuous path, to catch, in its long stare,

The lure of one, parting, who looks over

A shoulder at you; and who you must follow,

If only to touch what's fleeting and know

What comes next; and before you get older

Embrace what you are not. For curiosity's

A virtue, source of energy and love, and travellers

Are lovers, unmoved without a star that dares

Them, with its light and distant promises,

To say goodbye to what they understand,

Good morning to an undiscovered land.

Poised upon this vantage point or that, you

Can expect to see only to the edge

Of what you count as true. And there, an age

Away, breaks a sea, where it seems a new

World starts, or, if not new, where old stories

Cease to be in charge, and every certainty

Drowns in the moving water and the sky

Rises downwards, fades, and past thoughts freeze.

Yet, don't think the case is closed: what happens

Next is full of wonder, and what you'll find

May seem to have no use, yet shines and runs

Like water in the gullies of the mind,

Once dry and untenanted like the moon's

Seas, now potent as a new book opened.

Best not to think too much once plans are made.

Leave without goodbyes. Discard the text

Other travellers use; keep little in your head

Except the need to know what happens next

In the story you make up as you go.

Prudence is the first thing to jettison,

Then take your leave of habit and say "no"

To every comfort you have ever known.

New patterns in chaos to discover,

First lose your way, see the needle spin,

Take moon for sun, not know what world your in,

Till, the first stage of your journey over,

You glimpse a path that seems impossible,

And know, at once, where your next step must fall.

Now it's too late to turn back; the passes

Behind you are blocked with fallen rocks; the plains,

Drowned; and on the sands you crossed, no traces

Of footsteps stay, templates of future plans.

Now figures appear like dots, spare, remote,

That will grow large and strange when they get close,

Till, human eye to human eye, they note

In you, a thing without sense or purpose,

A mushroom person sprung up over night.

You make signs and speak of food or water.

They lead, you follow, nothing to sell or barter,

Bewildered, ready, if needs be, to fight

For survival; for surely you cannot tell

If it's fear or hate their cold greetings spell.

The people here are hard to understand;

Nothing you brought could have eased the way:

As they draw wider circles in the sand

The less you know what they are trying to say.

Expect the unexpected at each step:

Customs that turn yours upside down; language

Without roots you recognise.

You're in deep; curiosity roused, you want to gauge

If there is any interest or hope

In the way they greet you; for you're alone;

Their projects seem to be beyond your scope

And their slogans, chanted in a passion,

Whose source - love, hate or religious belief -

You judge a well of unquenchable grief.