Icarus skywriting # 50

A friend sent me a copy of the poem of the year and it feels like a good way to wind the year down. I really like the conceit of this, the place, 'Where the sidewalk ends' it has a nice feel to to it - a place of anticipation. But it is followed by a wee picture because the coming end of this 2012 allows us to reflect on what we lost, Robert Juniper being one such, and I so like his work. This piece is about life as a balancing act which is where the sidewalk ends, as we walk on the wild side:

Shel Silverstein, 'Where the sidewalk ends'

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.

Balancing Act

Icarus skywriting # 49

Getting another new guitar seems an extravagance I know but there is an irresistible pull to the loveliness of this one. How can I describe it when it needs to be played and heard not just viewed. It has that very distinct dobro sound which resonates a particular slide technique - I love it. And I like the authenticity of the sound it produces. But I was also thinking about authenticity too. Phillips in referring to the poet John Clare says, 'We don't have to believe in authenticity, we just have to remember and believe in what we thought authenticity was like.' And Clare is saying that 'what we value most about ourselves - pleasure, pain and surprise - is made possible by our belief in authenticity.' I'm not sure. I guess my feeling on this is, as long as I continue to seek authenticity, whether it does or does not exist is an irrelevance. Indeed Pablo Neruda takes us that way when he said the Future is Space:

The future is space,

earth-coloured space,

cloud-coloured,

colour of water, air,

black space with room for all snow,

for all music..

and now in this discovered space 

let's fly to a pure solitude

As our old friend Walter Benjamin might have said, had he met Pablo, 'To thinking belongs not only the movement of thoughts, but likewise their standstill.' And there we go again, flying Icarus-like to the solitude of the discovered, standstill place. I am practising those Walking Blues:

Icarus skywriting # 48

New Guitar

Getting a new guitar is a wondrous thing especially when it has a new hat to wear too. An Ozark guitar and an Oklahoma hat, it reads like a poem.

An Ozark guitar
an Oklahoma hat
and a new orange jumper
how could any of these bring out the best of the blues?

And yesterday I wrote a new chorus on my new guitar that went something like:

I dream like a stranger

who doesn't know where he is going

or where he's been

But you know songs - it could mean anything at all when you are playing a new Ozark Guitar, wearing an Oklahoma hat,  a bright new orange jumper and singing the best of the blues when the sun is shining in your heart because your baby is home from the USA - but many a good tune is played on an old guitar, this is a great version of a great Hank Williams song - but it ain't about me.

Icarus skywriting # 47

Happy genius? Moi?

I was sent this wonderful poem which I had never come across before and its great for self image. Is it not great being the 'happy genius'? I post it here as a reminder - and I almost forgot to remember, since this bog is called 55@55 it means it has been running for 3 years - belated happy blog-day to me.

William Carlos Williams, 'Danse Russe'

If when my wife is sleeping
and the baby and Kathleen
are sleeping
and the sun is a flame-white disc
in silken mists
above shining trees,-
if I in my north room
dance naked, grotesquely
before my mirror
waving my shirt round my head
and singing softly to myself:
'I am lonely, lonely,
I was born to be lonely,
I am best so!'
If I admire my arms, my face,
my shoulders, flanks, buttocks
against the yellow drawn shades,-

Who shall say I am not
the happy genius of my household?

This track is from my new LP - 'am I really who I used to be?

Icarus skywriting # 46

My bad

Sometimes I am ashamed of this picture (right). What do I have to hide from? But life can be the most horrendous Homeric simile, at once a wee word, that says 'pissed' which becomes 'pissed off' then it carries itself into meanings beyond comprehension. A guy gets pissed at his mama, so he shoots her, then another 27 people including 20 kids who never signed the sanity clause but waited for Christmas with songs about being Away in a Manger, and the simile is extended beyond this meaning. Its easy to jump into the gun lobby debate (well overdue) but where does it sit in prioritising the USA's horrendous health care, mental health care, deprivation, the whole of New Orleans being washed out while the Bush-man fiddled from his ivory tower, designing a foreign policy, sheriff  in a hick town mentality. God and country has a lot to answer for when a country's allegiance is assembled around a flag and a gun, and then the simile extends itself across the country and around the world, napalm, cluster bombs and the evil drones that can be piloted 2000 miles away - its very far - our hearts were singing, it felt like Christmas time (but last night it wasn't and this song of longing will resonate):

Icarus skywriting # 45

Och!

From the sky, Edinburgh unfolded like a Christmas card, all white and glistening, scotch pines catching the low slung sunlight which sparkled through the needles like fairy lights and yellow glitter. From the air it looks like a city at peace and good will oozed from every street corner as the ground came clearer into view, saying, welcome back, you have been a long time gone and we have missed you - here, have a dram to warm yourself. Paul Auster wrote the great first line, 'I was looking for a quiet place to die. Someone recommended Brooklyn and so the next morning I travelled down there...'' I might write, 'I was looking for a place to stay alive. Edinburgh suggested itself...' Ah, nostalgia, the return to a place that never existed, except as the stories we tell ourselves. Scotland you are in my bones!

Icarus skywriting # 44

Ol' Blue Eyes

I am sitting at the kitchen table, drinking early gray tea and ruminating, which is different from guddling. Earlier I was playing guitar and just for the hell of it I worked out the chords and then sang the old Elvis hit, You Were Always on my Mind just because I could. I like that kind of riffing and as I sit here pondering another song seems to be calling, I can hear the line slipping through my head, 'I wish I had a river, I could skate away on...' That's an old fave of course, I can play that just for fun. But this is the important thing, its Saturday and thereby an I can do anything day. I don't have to teach or talk or walk the academic walk I can just fiddle around if I like. Indeed right now I am off to the gym, then I will buy a Christmas tree so we have it when Abbi gets home, and then who knows I may have a Christmas coffee, Gingerbread and Mulled Wine flavour, or whatever, see if I can get Starbucks into profit in the UK. But that is the length and breadth of this post - its going to be a flippant day (with a wee bit football in the middle) - oh yay, oh yay, oh yay.

Icarus skywriting # 43

Blue eyes and assorted over the shoulder art

Brrrr... what a day yesterday, up at 5, showered and a short hike to the station for a wee trip to Hendon, only to get to East Croydon to hear the announcement, 'apologies for the delay - there's snow on the tracks...' Yikes, snow, and me stranded without a St Bernard with its cask of brandy, isn't it always the same. I have had one of those days today, getting over freezing my bollies off yesterday I am taking today to catch up, read An American Trilogy and generally guddle around. Guddling, its a good word, oh and I have been reading this from Rainer Marie Rilke:

Someday, emerging at last from the violent insight, let me sing out jubilation and praise to assenting angels.Let not even one of the clearly-struck hammers of my heartfail to sound because of a slack, a doubtful,or a broken string.

Isn't it great, and it goes on:

But how alien, alas, are the streets of the city of grief,where, in the false silence formed of continual uproar,the figure cast from the mold of emptiness stoutly swaggers:

But I am not thinking abstruser musings, I am just guddling - why worry.