Monday Wash

This rain washed Monday's
Laundry drying on the line
Has a chilling draught,
Pulling at the shirt and vest.
Sheets and towels
Flagging ensigns
Of the housewife's trials
Do their level best
To rip the pegs  from
Sleeve and hem.
But then,
Once a time ago, I saw
Pure white sheets 
Set upon a hedge to dry
What kept them there
I will never know.
No wind to snatch perhaps 
Just the sun
To bleach them, white as snow.


JL April 30. 11:40

Good Shepherd Sunday

The wind whirls
Tears down 
The window pane

Gentle blossom
Dashed to ground
Along the lane

The early lamb
Is by the shepherd
Gathered into fold

May the lord 
Protect our souls
From darkness and the cold.

JL April 29 13:44

Update

Update

Autobiographical update: this week has been eventful. I have had a visit to the dentist, not usually a happy event. I was however  most moved by the kindness shown to me and the care and solicitude for my needs. The dentist even offered to come to my home if I needed such. I still have teeth, though largely unoccupied.

Then the visit to the optician which was not as scary as it could have been. I was all prepared for some small difference owing to my  condition which was not treatable. There were however no problems. My fears and emotional response  to the thought of these two excursions proved to be unfounded.

Then came the visit of the physiotherapist. She brought a machine to assist my coughing. Coughing is a problem because my lung capacity is reduced because the muscles which allow the inflation and deflation do not work efficiently. I already have a ventilator for use when I am asleep to enable carbon dioxide to be blown out. This  new machine delivers a powerful blast of air, as I breathe in and then, a vacuum to suck the air out. This assists my ability to cough and clear foreign material from my lungs. It seems to work so far.

So after all that, I can see and breathe and so

writing this I permit myself a rueful smile and remember: sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything and of course, all the worlds a stage. Thank you Jaques! and now I will go and watch the cricket.

JL April 28. 11:39

Half mast flags here today

Here now
Now the rain has cleared
A quiet Friday-rises
Through the cherry blossom

A shiny bit of spit and polish
Gunfire crackle shown on TV
The slow step return
The mutilation of the I.E.D.

Soldiers' boots gleam 
On the home turf
Here today 
The passing of another
Son. 

JL
St Anne's on Sea, April 27 2001

Through the window

Through my window
The fat plumed
Collared dove
Is by the finches' feeder
Foiled

A dawn drenched starling
All bedraggled
Furiously preens
And splutters into flight.

A brief end
To this morning's rain
The air is filled
With flying creatures once again

And I am stuck here
Out of sight

JL 26 April 14:19

Wish

Do you wish with me
It all to be over
Sail towards the end of day
A softness and a sip of wine?

I would love to feel
Your presence in the twilight
Your love a sable coat
Against the cold.

I could frame your features
Smile on smile, the place
Once visited, a summer past
From this old photograph

Which formed the bookmark
of a well thumbed page
I came across
While looking for a quote

That when once found
The book was closed
Satisfied to find
Its once familiar place


What was it that I said
About your sable coat?

JL April 25 11:08

He Turned And Looked

I knew you hadn't long
As I saw the Autumn leaves
Over your shoulder.

Sweet chestnuts shine,
Half hidden in the husk
As your eyes gleam in the dark.

I have you as my own
The mystic shining presence
Of your sidelong glance.

You were there in the lane
Receding in the shadows
Watching for me at sunset.

So many times have I turned away.

This appeared on 23 April and the new design blogger lost it

Quiet Tuesday

Here
Now the rain has cleared

A quiet Tuesday rises

Through the cherry blossom


I remember bluebells 

Beneath the trees at dawn

Violets by the stony brook.

And damp green  moss

Springing under foot

Just from the many springs

Of blossom long ago

Where once I could,

In freedom, come and go.


Here

Now the rain has cleared

A quiet Tuesday slips

Into a sunlit afternoon.


JL April 24 12:58

Freedom

Comb my hair 
With the wind
As through a  field of barley.

Take frailest fawn
Of oaten straw
To plait a lady's favour.

Pluck me 
The sweetest fruit 
Your lips have savoured.

Release me 
To the sunrise
In a place of kindliness
And 
Hold my heart
Close by you
When it's time to leave.


JL April 22 10:14

The Horse and His Boy

This Saturday's post is purely fabricated from the moments of serendipity that exist inside my head. Yesterday's post concerned the moments with a horse and the image of freedom. As fortune would have it, the notion spilled over into another world. Just as I sat, channel hopping after the IPL game, I paused on a sky arts programme on El Greco. The man, sometime rich and sometime poor, all caught in a brush stroke with those long fingers. The following programme was flagged as a French art film called White Mane. Given the theme of Friday’s post, I could not resist.

The film was set in the Camargue, high contrast in black and white: "Crin Blanc" white mane, "Cheval Sauvage" wild horse. The white horses of the Camargue are famous, however when I visited the region no horses did I see. There were however cattle, bulls trained for the bullfight and thousands of flamingo, in flames across the great marsh of the Rhone delta.

The isolated walled city of Aigues Mortes, once a port from whence a crusade once embarked is now inland, its walls rising from the marsh: a magnificent landmark. Aigues Mortes, dead waters in Languedoc, the Occitan language. The nearest port now is Saintes Marie's De-La-Mer, the main city of the Camargue. It is a pilgrimage place for the Roma and they create a procession into the sea to commemorate Sara, the patron saint of the gypsies. It is certainly a place to watch your handbag. There is a hint of Spain with guitar playing gypsies on each corner. I remember it vividly.

Yet, as ever, I digress; what of this exquisite short film of Cheval Sauvage and the fisher boy. The peasant boy claims the horse from the herdsmen because they cannot tame this fiery white stallion. The French wranglers, though defeated, harry the pair to claim possession with cruel intent. The images are poignant and haunting with washed out and bleached landscapes. In the end the boy and horse are pursued, across the lagoons, the sands and the marsh. Eventually they launch themselves into the river to escape. Finally the horse and boy join the white horses rolling in from the sea and reach the place where the boy and his horse can be forever friends.

The ultimate freedom is gained as they sink beneath the waves.

JL April 21 12:13

Stunned

She came to me
All nose nuzzle and pant,
No fences to jump
Just a heart thunder
From the dark tree
In the three acre.

Above us
A falcon hovers
Along the greening
Of the thorn hedge
A tail swish away
To the corner
Of the long meadow.

Now she is flown
All mane shake and ripple
Tasting the sweetness
Of freedom,
In the springing dawn.

JL April 20 11:55

Mood Indigo

The sun is on the lavender  
As the day changes
Brings patches of blue 
Swimming  on the tide.

In a quiet corner
A  blue anemone
Softly sways
Almost out of sight
A song out of the blue.

Nothing so lonely
As The Prelude to a Kiss.


JL April 19 15:18

The 64 Bus

Even in the fastness
Of the castle  keep
Where now I stand,
Look at the future
And brave the ice 
Of the north wind,
I see my breath
Drift through cold air
As a child 
In cap and shorts,
My blazer clasped
Elbow to elbow
Where the bus stops
To wait alone,
Looking back
Longing for you
Waiting by the corner 
Trembling for your smile.

Just a dream 
Of immeasurable loss.
Repeated repeated
Time and time again
Because it would never happen.

JL APRIL 18. 10:15

Unintended Consequence

When I called up yesterday's blog "A Slight Ache" the following string attached itself to my e mail. I add it here for your amusement and note its linkage to the poem. The fruit should have been raspberry.




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I had to smile.

JL April 17 12:56

A Slight Ache

Do you remember
Those Laburnham  summers
Of golden mornings
And the tensioned heat
Of drawn out afternoons.

Raspberries 
Unsugared from the cane,
Vanilla tasting,
Home made,
Longs ice cream
Jam faced children
Tucking in to tea?

All vanished now
But still a glow,
That memory remains
So long ago.

JL April 16 09:35

Hilltop

Come with me
To look upon 
The mountains

Remember 
The voice 
Of the high wind

That sings
Through heather
And the cotton grass

Gathering heat
To your heart
And gold 
To your soul.

JL April 15 10:39

Lily of the Valley

Hitting the Saturday blog obliquely after all the tobacco related posts, this will be a little more challenging. It all concerns Lily of the Valley. This could, of course be a person but experience tells us that it is in fact a pale white perennial flower.

Metaphysics is an underlying aspect of philosophy through which we perceive ourselves in relation to our own being and the fundamentals of being in the world. That is one definition. It does not lend itself to definitions. It would be best if I referred you to the greatest of metaphysical philosophers: Emmanuel Kant who laid out his ideas in the monumental "Critique of Pure Reason".

Our relation to the world is analytic and synthetic. There is analysis where being is viewed in essence as of its constituent parts and in synthesis as a whole existing being, which we find ourself in relation to. As I understand it, " sisters are female" female is of the essence . "The bride wore white" . Female here is of the existence in place and time, in fact an event. Lily of the Valley, a factual plant, the lady in the vale a different existence.

It was this basic idea that made it possible for Kant to separate fact from belief. Facts demand to be grasped in one independent reality and belief is another, and more personal reality and the two are not on the same plane of being. To the individual they are both valid in their own way as an individual take on reality. Others may read Kant differently. Well that is their take on reality.

Here I am with Lily of the Valley, (a lady or a flower). Being a cradle catholic, taught by nuns, brothers and priests I have a particular take on reality. It could be called a belief, and it is this belief which colours my view, just like a rose coloured ophthalmic instrument. Spectacle would lead us in the wrong direction altogether or would it?

Let us take the spectacle of that springtime leaning of the Christian church, the May Procession. Many Catholics, even those long ago deserters from the fight, will remember the following verse.

"Oh Mary we crown thee with blossoms today,
Queen of the angels and queen of the May."

I can even hear the tune in my head, can you?

This ceremony was awash with lilies and among them Lily of the Valley with their heady, almost suffocating scent, when amassed in great banks around the statue of the Virgin Mary and of course in the posy of the chosen May Queen, a young girl, all clad in white, the existential femininity of the springtime festival.

In the Greek culture May was dedicated to Artemis goddess of growth. In Roman culture the festival of Flora the day of the blossoms, a welcoming ceremony after winter. We can see a syncretisation taking place here: a fusing of different belief systems and it is said this one was promulgated by the Jesuits in the Jesuit colleges. ( yet to be proved).

I have always looked upon it as a Christianisation of the changing seasons of the year and with Mary within the context of new life, it seems most appropriate after Easter.

This has come about because of my noticing some early Lily of the Valley, just coming into flower this week. It will always remain as one of my favourite spring flowers together with that wild hyacinth, the bluebell. The Lily of the Valley is symbolic of the return to happiness, and is much favoured in bridal posies. It has been called Eve's tears; the tears shed by Eve as she was banished from the garden of Eden.

"There are more things in heaven and earth Horatio".

Heaven scent.

JL April 14 10:14

Blossom

Here where blossom blossoms
And full feathers fly
Territorial twitters
Dance across the sky.

In this small corner
Of the springtime world
Leaves shake loose
And crosiate ferns unfurl.

And still the doubt remains
Will I see it all again?

JL 13 April 16:07

Today

I think and pray for those
Dashed upon hard rocks,
Caught on sharp hooks,
With the devil's fingers
In their brain,
Or hanging on the edge
Of despair.

Here in the shadows
I whisper a prayer,
For I have love's fingers
About my heart
and kindly people
Hold my hand.
Being blessed
I offer a blessing 
And if I could
Text you my love.

JL April 12 11:52

Forest of Dean

Hail to the majesty
The red kite brings,
Ascends in spiral,
On the cloud's dark wing
While here
Upon a sunlit bank,
Pale lemon eyed,
A panoply of primrose
mocks the sky
For here's
An Easter morning
Decked in Marian blue
Where all creation
Can but spring anew.

JL April 11 12:09

Away Day

Let us have peace
From all the turmoil
And disease

And let us bless
The onetime gift
Of kindliness 

Set aside the fears
The footfall
Of advancing years

Off to the forest today.

JL April 10 9:55

Salvage

Though it rains
Such a dry day
On the vacant plain

The not know
Of words unsaid
Field fallow

The comic strip
Without a smile
Nondescript

The faltered step
The dusty road
Dead set

The tearful eye
Wiped away
The curlew's cry

Then the open door
A smile of sun
Across the moor

After the rain 
I breathe again.

JL April 9 12:06

Quem Quaeritis

And whom do you seek.
Down the days
And down the years?
The reason
And the blessing
The fulfilment
Of dreams
The being here
Present and alive
Full sentient
And joyful
In the risen Lord?
Having found him here
You will become
One of the Easter people.

JL Easter Day April 8 11:57

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

Yesterday they banned all sight of cigarettes. Shops will be denuded of the vast and colourful panoply behind the counter, a long way away from the time when cigarettes really took a hold in England being popular with the soldiers who brought them back after the Crimean war.

In the Great War cigarettes were sent to the troops in tins at Christmas. The tin which we have is the standard issue. In November 1914 a fund was set up to provide a Christmas gift for the troops. It was done under the auspices or trust of the young princess Mary the daughter of King George V and Queen Mary. The aim was to provide a Christmas gift for all serving members of the forces. The response was overwhelming and so much money was collected that a brass tin was designed and made which bore an impression of Princess Mary's head with a scrolled M on either side. This tin was filled with a lighter, some light tobacco and a small packet of cigarettes.

A famous music hall song of the day: Pack Up Your Troubles became a morale boosting marching song of the troops. It featured a line,
While you've a lucifer to light you fag,
Smile boys that's the style.

The lucifer was a type of match sold by children in the street at the time. Of course the name, meaning bearer of light from the Latin, was, in the Christian tradition the name given to the fallen angel. So did the bearer of light, having fallen from grace became The Dark Lord.

Staying on the war theme, a poem of WW II ; All Day It Has Rained by Alun Lewis, features the line
"All day it has rained and we on the edge of the moors
Have sprawled in our bell tents moody dull as boors
...................smoking a woodbine, darning dirty socks.

The woodbine was the Wild Woodbine cigarette made by WD&HO Wills in Bristol. Bristol was one of the first ports to receive tobacco leaves from the colonies and was the leading port engaged in the slave triangle, receiving rum sugar and tobacco. It remained so until Liverpool took the title at the end of the 18th century. Wills was engaged in the tobacco and snuff trade from the 1870s.

The first cigarette made by Wills was the the Bristol brand, closely followed by the oval “ Passing Clouds” in their distinctive illustrated pink packet with a picture of a contented cavalier puffing away. The Three Castles, the next in line unashamedly featured a sailing ship in dock with a relaxing tricorn hatted sailor to one side. The ship was too small to be a slaver and bore the name "Young Rachel". What could be further from the truth? Wills other brands with a nautical theme were Capstan Medium and Capstan full strength. There was also Gold Flake, hearking back to the Gold Virginia leaf.

The other maker of cigarettes in England was John Players. They also had a nautical touch with their Players Navy Cut and they were made in the Castle Tobacco Factory in Nottingham. They were the first to sell packaged tobacco, rather than loose. Their Players No I cigarette was sold by weight when it was first introduced and so later they were named Players Weights. It was a smaller cigarette like the Wills Woodbine, Gallahers Park Drive and Ogdens Robin. I think Ogden was linked to Churchman in some way. It is but a vague memory.

Many cigarettes were sold in flimsy packets and to stiffen the packet a card was inserted. These cards were then illustrated and produced in sets. These became very collectible and were a distinctive selling point stiffening and advertising very effectively. Today these cigarette cards are still collectable and originals from the 1920s can command prices of £300 or more per set of 50 or 100 cards. In fact this subject is vast and would be worthy of a further post if I was so interested.
The first sets of cards were issued in the 1830s by Wills. Originals from the late 1800s command a price in excess of £700.

Returning to poetry and song, I referred last time to Robbie Burns
My Mary's asleep by the murmuring stream.
The stream being Sweet Afton, a brand name of Carrols. The brand was then purchased by Wills. The larger cigarette from this stable was Afton Major.

Following on from the stable clue we reach Turf. The packet arrived-with the emblem of the Flying Horse the motto (now called a tag line) "The Quality Wins”. The company was formed by Don Jose Carreras Ferrer, a Spanish nobleman. He supplied tobacco to the Prince of Wales and the third Earl of Craven, after whom he named his Craven Mixture. J M Barrie referred to his love of smoking in "My Lady Nicotine A Study in Smoke. There was a link here to Craven Mixture and Carreras used J M Barrie as an advertising ploy. Outside the Carreras Arcadia factory in Mornington Crescent London , built in the Egyptian style were two representations, in bronze of the Egyptian god Bastat: a black cat. Thus came the black cat on the red packet of Craven A cigarettes. The company was later taken over by Rothmans of Pall Mall. These are just a few of the stories in the cigarette narrative.

Today all these brands form a kind of family tree to the three main manufacturers : British American Tobacco; Imperial Tobacco and Phillip Morris Inc. There are many other stories. No doubt someone has, is or will be writing a Phd thesis on the rise and fall of the cigarette. The tobacco companies are still prospering even though the sales have seriously declined in the UK and North America. Asia is a growth market and is being developed.

Cigareets and whisky and wild,wild women
They drive a man crazy
They drive him insane
Or just
Smoke gets in your eyes.

JL April 7 13:24
And many more ditties to the cigarette.

Good Friday

Flectamus genua.

This day
Should be devoted
To silence

To think
Of sacrifice
And peace

Of grace
Through a sign
Redeemed

Of darkness
Patient
For the risen son

Levate.

JL April 6 11:21

A Pause for Thought

A broken up
Bits and pieces day
A sunshine
After cloud day
A going out
And buying things day
The air of 
A holiday day

Promising a weekend
Beside the seaside day.
Holy Thursday
To prepare day.


JL April 5. 17 : 29

Draught

Today the wind
Whistles and moans
The chimney
Into a great flute.

Stiff fingers
Press keys
Which open
No doors
Nor loosen
No knots.

Even the heat
Of a hearth
Reaches no heart

Time to tether
The soul
Hold close
And hibernate.

JL April 4 11:53

Candles

Sometimes 
It is enough
To light a candle.

Even though 
It only flickers
The thought 
Lingers.

By the virgin
Beneath the cross
Would it could
Assuage the pain
Again and again

It still stands
In the darkness
Helpless
Selfless.

Someone
Must have
Put a shilling
In the box.

So I join my prayer
To all those
Silently 
Standing there.

JL April 3. 11:20

Looking Up

Two buzzards
Wheel and soar
Upon twin springs
That mating brings.

More mournful
Than the curlew's cry
Their scratching squeal
Across the sky.

Beneath the thermal
Air is still
As morning sun
Slips off the chill.

And suddenly as one
They slide across the sky
Towards the church spire
And they’re gone.

When the time has come
To leave this place
I won’t forget
To shut the gate.

JL April 2nd 11:49

Blackthorn

The blackthorn
Is not slow
To show
Itself today,
Hedge white
Along the edge of fell

The gorse
Is aflame
In corners
Just before
The forest floor.

Such profusion
Of an early Spring
This Holy Week
Will bring.

Here today
The day of palms
Held together
Or on high
Strains of jubilation
In the choir

Until, in days to come
The Black thorn
Shorn of flowers
Must become a crown.

JL April 1st Palm Sunday 12:19