In The Gutter

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars OSCAR WILDE Lady Windermere’s Fan

Heard the sound of a poet who died in the gutter BOB DYLAN A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall

Nostalgie De La Boue

Today give me no elegant literature:
No Eliza Bennet spurning Darcy at the dance,
No plotted intrigue, no fine romance,
No courtly love, no jousting knights, no maids
Distressed and pining in sylvan glades.

Today give me no hearts and flowers:
No wuthering heights, no blethering flights
Of fancy, no sweet sights
Of dresses sweeping over manicured lawns,
No rose metaphors, no rosy-fingered dawns.

Today I woke delirious from dreams.
So give me mad, bad books for a bitter mood:
Dorian Gray, Jude, Sexus, Edwin Drood,
Give me the twisted, bilious and obscene:
Gangantua and Pantagruel, Spleen.

Today I feel that decadence is virtue.
So give me the sins of Rimbaud and Verlaine,
De Sade for pain, Stevenson for cocaine,
Carver and Scott Fitzgerald for a booze-up,
Bukowski if there’s still more drink to use up.

Today just let me crawl along the pavement
Like Baudelaire, nostalgic in the mud,
Misheard, misread, misled, misunderstood.
Though didn’t Oscar Wilde at one time utter
You see the stars from lying in the gutter?

A Living Sacrifice

She seems a nice enough girl - but who in their right mind would want to walk willingly into a prison cell of continual public scrutiny and tedious royal duties? No, this is definitely no fairy tale, despite the attempts of the media to construct one. What I came away with, after the admittedly beautiful wedding service, was not the sight of the frocks and the fascinators, the pop stars and the football stars, the waistcoated diplomats and the louche aristocrats, the stunning bride and her nervous, royal groom - but the sound of Archbishop Rowan Williams's richly reverberating voice and the message of Kate's brother's reading from Romans Chapter 12:

I APPEAL to you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God - what is good and acceptable and perfect. Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honour. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

I'm not a royalist, but I'm sure others are wiser than me in such constitutional matters. 

Love's A Rocky Road

I have a confession to make. I've been having a passionate love affair for many years and it looks like continuing for a long time yet. What is more, I rather fear it's been going on with the full knowledge of my wife. Sometimes I hardly get to see the object of my desire from one year to the next; yet she's always tucked away somewhere in my heart. Though shapely and rounded, curvaceously bosomy even, she can also, at times, be rough, spiky and a wee bit dangerous. But mostly she welcomes you with open arms, and is as soft and playful as a spring lamb gambolling on new spring turf. I'm talking, of course, about the English Lake District and her fells.

These peaks have not the awe-inspiring height and grandeur and hazardousness of the Alps, or even the Pyrenees. They are friendlier and generally more accessible than the mountains of Scotland and Wales. In fact, never were hills more 'doable' and forgiving. Yet they must not be underestimated: each icy winter there's a toll of hillwalking injuries, even deaths; and there are certain loose gullies and steeply-inclined rakes which are interesting to say the least.

I was visiting Lakeland in my imagination long before I ever went there in person, and  did this mainly through A Pictorial Guide To The Lakeland Fells: that immortal seven-volume work by the retiring English accountant, felllwalker, guidebook writer and curmudgeon, Alfred Wainwright, known affectionately by the fellwalking fraternity as simply 'AW'. AW worked on his painstakingly detailed manuscripts from the early 1950s until the mid 1960s, completing one page a night. These manuscripts were reproduced in book form just as he'd created them: pen and ink drawings of the fells and their paths, executed with outstanding draughtsmanship and accompanied by a quirkily beguiling text written in a tiny hand.

There are two hundred and fourteen fells lovingly listed, described and illustrated in AW's masterwork - all except one (Castle Crag in Borrowdale) over a thousand feet in height. These fells are now known eponymously as the 'Wainwrights', and it's the ambition of many high level ramblers to climb each and every one, myself included. Although I wouldn't call myself an assiduous peak bagger, I calculated the other day how many peaks I'd already bagged, and decided I would make it a lifetime goal to do the lot. My total so far is thirty-eight. By my reckoning that makes one hundred and seventy six to go. So, if I suddenly start writing starry-eyed and giddily romantic posts from Kendal or Keswick or Crummock Water in the near future, you'll know what I'm up to ...

(The first photo was taken a few years ago on Scafell  - at 3163 ft the second highest fell in the Lake District. The second  is of Pillar Rock, which lies just below the 2927 ft summit of Pillar. Pillar Rock is really a climbers-only ascent. It was far too scary for me to attempt.)

Riding The Ox

More great advice from the Zenrin, a classic collection of Buddhist wisdom -quoted in David Brazier's inspirational book The Feeling Buddha, which I've just finished reading:

In life, seek no heaven;

In death, fear no hell.

Enter the woods without disturbing a blade of grass;

Enter the water without making waves.

Meet the enlightened one on the street;

Do not greet him with words nor silence.

For so long, like a bird in a cage;

Now fly free like a cloud in the blue sky.

Hold the hoe with empty hands;

Ride the ox by standing on your own feet.

Brazier comments: These verses point to an innocence of mind that is yet fully mature. The enlightened person is mature enough to enjoy life as it is and by doing so liberates the creative fire within. The ox is an age old symbol for the wildness in us that is also the basis for our spiritual life. If we can catch and tame the ox, we will be in command of our power.

Brazier's book is a radical new look at Buddhism, going back to the Buddha's original words and intentions (so far as it is possible to tell them). It's a refreshingly simple, psychological, common sense approach to the subject.

These are Buddhism's Four Noble Truths as Brazier interprets them:

DUKKHA: AFFLICTION, burning, adversity, suffering, provocation, ill-being: SPARK

SAMUDAYA: RESPONSE, welling up, passion, feeling, reaction, spirit: FIRE

NIRODHA: CONTAINMENT, holding firm, harnessing, sheltering the fire, applying the energy: TENDING THE FIRE

MARGA: TRACK, making tracks, way, trace, the completed work, the undefeated life: THE COOKED MEAL

Throughout his book Brazier makes helpful analogies with the fire symbol - an image which the Buddha himself used constantly.

I quoted another poem from the Zenrin here.

Two Worlds In One

Tread lightly in this world
That you may slip more easily
Into another; step soundlessly
That you may hear the music
Of both worlds: one world seamlessly
Woven within the other by one thread.

Dip fearlessly your toe
Into the river of eternal delight
And walk in wonder through
The forests of the night; seek wordlessly
The logos in the landscape; find
Infinity in the palm of your hand.

Two worlds in one: the lily
And the rose, the worm and the dove;
One world in two, both intertwined:
A double helix of grace and love.
Tread lightly in this world that you may know
How softly steps the unicorn in snow.

(With thanks to Christina Rossetti and William Blake for the inspiration)

No Ideas But In Things

Nothing is hidden;
It has always been clear as day.

For divine wisdom: look at the old pine tree;
For eternal truth: listen to the birds sing.

Seeking the mind: there is no place to look;
Can you see the footprints of flying birds?

Above, not a single tile to shelter under;
Below, not a morsel of ground for support.

From the Zenrin, a classic collection of Buddhist wisdom, and quoted in DAVID BRAZIER's The Feeling Buddha.

Playing Many Parts: Tentative Notes Towards An Impossible Resolution

This is what I believe: That I am I. That my soul is a dark forest. That my known self will never be more than a little clearing in the forest. That gods, strange gods, come forth from the forest into the clearing of my known self, and then go back. That I must have the courage to let them come and go. That I will never let mankind put anything over me, but that I will try always to recognize and submit to the gods in me and the gods in other men and women. There is my creed. DH LAWRENCE

Who am I?

Social man: son, brother, husband, father, friend, acquaintance, colleague. Ducking and diving between these roles, and the expectations inherent in these roles, like a perch trying to outwit a pike.

Walking man: solo pedestrian, pilgrim, ambler, rambler. Gambling on good boots, true maps and fair weather. Risking the lurking terror, the dead-end-street of moribund, lonely thoughts. Oh, that way madness lies. Freedom in solitariness. But 'in solitary' means 'in prison'.

Talking man: sell, sell, sell. Don't see the problem, see the opportunity. Ten per cent inspiration, ninety per cent perspiration. Offer the sweetener, close the deal. Cost, quality, time. Motorway mania. Speed, speed, speed. Eighty, ninety, one hundred miles an hour. Crash and breakdown. (Now can we talk about something more interesting like beechwoods, God or rainbows?)

Working man: employer, employee, self-employed, unemployed, usefully employed, uselessly employed, working for money, working for pleasure, work for work's sake, digging with spade or pen. What is work, anyhow?

Cultural, philosophical, spiritual man: that highbrow, potentially pretentious triumvirate of the aesthetic, the pathetic and the ascetic. Who are these tricksters?

Child-man: the rattle may have been thrown out of the pram, but the baby was not thrown out with the bathwater. To play like a bear cub, a dolphin, or a kitten. Mindless, mindful play.

Sensual man: The profoundest of all sensualities is the sense of truth and the next deepest sensual experience is the sense of justice. DH LAWRENCE

Silent man: Ohhhh ... hhhh ... blissful silence ...

I am or have been all these and many more personae. Yet, mysteriously, none of these. Or perhaps myriad aspects of each.

Who am I?

What am I?

Where am I?

Why am I?  

Remembrance Of Things Past

What with the little cyber-wave of interest in DH Lawrence breaking through Blogworld at the moment, and what with the recent two-part TV adaptation of The Rainbow and Women In Love (which wasn't quite as bad as I feared), and what with Mothers' Day coming round recently, I've been meaning to post this incredible poem for a few days - but haven't got round to it till now. It featured in last Saturday's Guardian Review, and forms part of a short collection called Ten Poems About Mothers edited by Jenny Swann and published by Candlestick Press.

Piano

Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;
Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see
A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings
And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.

In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song
Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong
To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside
And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide.

So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour
With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour
Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast
Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.

DH LAWRENCE

April Come She Will

O to be in England

Now that April's there,

And whoever wakes in England

Sees, some morning, unaware,

That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf

Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,

While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough

In England - now!

ROBERT BROWNING Home-Thoughts, From Abroad

As I grow older, each springtime is more splendid than the one before - or so it seems to me. This year is no exception. These past few days of mild air and blue skies have seen spring advance in leaps and bounds. Today I dawdled through the village in  temperatures which must have been over 20º C. It was certainly the warmest day of the year so far. The daffodils were fading, but new life was everywhere: pear and crab apple blossom, a hint of blue on the bluebell stalks, the heady scent of vibernum's creamy flowers. In the countryside beyond the village it was too early for daisies, but bright yellow dandelions had popped up along the grassy verges since my last walk there, and the pure-white flowers of the blackthorn - glory of the English early spring - adorned the lanes like scatterings of unseasonal snow.

It felt unreal. It was nearly all too much. My senses were giddy with the freshness, with the shocking newness, with the pristine beauty of it all - the glare of the light, the first drifting insects, the druggy scents, the glowing greens and blues. Winter had starved me of colour, and this sudden burst of it was strangely psychedelic. Its vivid assault almost had me rushing back into the familiar, dull interior of the house.

    

But not quite - for here outside, in this verdant English spring, were miracles: such as the miracles of birds and birdsong. Birds are some of my favourite living creatures. Just imagine, if you can, a world without birds. Inconceivable, I think; the countryside would be so much the poorer, even a trifle sinister, without them. Yellowhammers - there's an abundance of them in the parish - flashed from bush to bush, peewits cried plaintively over the open fields, great tits boldly sang their two-note 'teach-er' song, chiffchaffs chiffchaffed away in the trees. Chiffchaffs are some of the earliest spring migrants to fly in from the south. I'd heard them singing a couple of weeks ago, and it's always heartening when they arrive.

To Haiku Or Not To Haiku?

To haiku or not
to haiku? That's the question.
Whether 'tis nobler

and more arduous
to suffer the difficult
challenge of the ode,

ballade or aubade,
epithalamium or
terza rima, the

knotty problem of
iambic pentameter,
idyll, epigram,

sestina, carpe
diem, rondel, kyrielle,
cinquain, sestina,

tanka, triolet,
septolet, sonnet, senryn,
epic, etheree,

blank verse, villanelle,
elegy, naani, nonet,
lento, limerick,

or to take arms against a
sea of pseudo-haiku
and by opposing end them?

(Thanks to Bonnie and Shakespeare for the inspiration)

Nouvelle 55 x 2: Yorkshire Dales

Yorkshire Dales: a print by LYDIA BAUMAN

I

Two sheep are
two limestone rocks
on the scraped turf.

Bottom to top:
a pink and light blue base, a bumpy field,
a wood of witches' brooms,
a clearing of shadowed light, a denser wood
in orange leaf, a steep swept slope
with single tree, sheer scar, black fell,
bare plateau, blue strips of sky.

II

A shimmered landscape.
Do Monet's ghost and Seurat's shadow
haunt this painting?

Close up
it's formal as a theory:
opaque patterns, repetitions, strata.

But stand back, see it coalesce
(Chaos becoming Gaia)
into a Yorkshire scene:

as, from impressionistic haze,
emerge wild poppies or water lilies
or, from pointilliste dots,
Asnières or La Grande Jatte.

Argument

Already what we say is meaningless
But something more than meaning drives us on,
Some instinct from the dark heart of the past
Strikes out with a viper's terrible tongue.

Our pride is scorched. We smoulder and burn,
Heaping indignities upon the flames
Relentlessly. We slander without reason
And, without justice, apportion blame.

I stumble out of bed and stub my foot.
At once the licking flames flicker and die.
You fuss round with medicaments. A wave
Of caring floods your cooling arm and thigh.

Soft now, your eyes brim with solicitude.
Silence, shaped like a vase, unbroken
As a frozen wave, contains the pain.
Our salamander love endures, awoken,

Persisting even when the vase lies shattered,
When the wave sunders, when the flame flares again.