A street in Lewisham

A farewell to armchairs

These chairs have been awaiting re-upholstery for ten years but now, thanks to the advice of my expert on fabrics and gimp, I've had the confidence to choose the material and they have departed to return renewed in a few weeks time.

At last

Relief.
The hot sun of the last week moderated.
A cool breeze.
No more pollen.

Comfort (for the time being).

One of Szymborska

Beneath one little star

My apologies to the accidental for calling it necessary.
However, apologies to necessity if I happen to be wrong.
Hope happiness won't be angry if I claim it as my own.
May the dead forget they barely smoulder in my remembrance.
Apologies to time for the abundance of the world missed every second.
Apologies to my old love for treating the new as the first.
Forgive me, distant wars, for bringing flowers home.
Forgive me, open wounds, that I prick my finger.
Apologies to those calling from the abyss for a record of a minuet.
Apologies to people catching trains for sleeping at dawn.
Pardon me, baited hope, for my sporadic laugh.
Pardon me, deserts, for not rushing with a spoonful of water;
and you too, hawk, unchanged in years, in that self-same cage,
staring motionless, always at the self-same spot,
forgive me, even if you are stuffed.
Apologies to the hewn tree for the four table-legs.
Apologies to the big questions for small replies.
Truth, don't pay me too much attention.
Seriousness — be magnanimous.
Mystery of Being — suffer me to pluck threads from your train.
Soul — don't blame me for having you but rarely.
Apologies to everyone for failing to be every him or her.
I know that while I live nothing can excuse me,
since I am my own impediment.
Speech — don't blame me for borrowing big words
and then struggling to make them light.

Wislawa Szymborska

A translation

Jist ti Let Yi No

from the American of Carlos Williams

ahv drank
thi speshlz
that wurrin
thi frij

n thit
yiwurr probbli
hodn back
furthi pahrti

awright
they wur great
thaht stroang
thaht cawld

Tom Leonard

Opening the anthology at random

The anthology this time is The new Penguin book of Scottish verse edited by Robert Crawford and Mick Imlah, a treasure-trove of poems from over 1450 years in languages including Old Norse, Old French, Latin, Welsh, Gaelic, Scots, and English. From this embarrassment of choice here's the one that met my eye when I opened the book randomly during a wakeful period last night. The translation from the Gaelic is by Derrick Thomson. I wish I could read it in Gaelic (Tha mise fo mhulad san am, / Chan olar leam dram le sunnt, / Tha durrag air ghur ann mo chail / A dh'fhioosraich do chach mo ruin ...)

Oran Eile (Another Song)

Overburdened with sorrow now
l can drink no dram with joy,
a maggot broods in my mind
telling my secrets to all:
no longer I see in the street
the girl with the gentlest eyes,
and so my spirits have fallen
like leaves from the foliage of trees.

O maiden of ringletted hair,
my longing for you is deep;
if you've chosen a pleasant lot
my blessing I give for all time;
I am sighing since you are gone
like a wounded hero who lies
on the field of battle, undone,
who will enter the fray no more.

I'm a fugitive strayed from the flock,
I can give no woman my love;
your sea-voyage under your coif
brought swift-flowing tears from my eyes.
Would I had never seen
your beauty, your sense and good name,
sweet kindness that came from your lips
more melodious than music's peal.

Every ass who hears of my plight
thinks I'm fearful by nature now,
saying I'm only a bard
who can't make a decent song -
my grandfather paid up his rent
and my father carried a pack;
they would put horses in plough –
I could shape my staves just as well.

My spirits have long been low,
music doesn't lift my heart,
in distress like one lost at sea
tossed on the waves in mist.
Missing your sportiveness now
has changed the fair face of my sky,
without joy or gladness or pride,
eagerness, virtue or strength.

No ode to beauty comes forth,
I can't put a poem in place,
I cannot pick out a tune,
I hear no young laughing cry,
no longer climb in the hills
with zest as at one time I did,
I must journey to final sleep
in the hall of the poets who are dead.

Uilleam Ros / William Ross (1762-1790)

Promoting cycling - British style (no nudity)

Gyorgy Ligeti

Born 1923. Died 12 June 2006.

He "stretched the boundaries of the musically conceivable". (Polar Prize Citation, 2004)

Suite in Green

Russell Square, 10 June 2006

Some lines of Burns Singer (1928-64)

Let my poems have bees’ blood in them,
Let them be sharp but sensitive to honey.
For I still think of life as once of mist in Cornwall
Man-high and from the sea subsiding gently
Over the ploughed fields, brown, with scarce green growth,
But hidden under field-grey all that day,
Woven in one opacity.
Then on my eyesight the slant light broke
Of a single mist-drop narrowly slung to a cobweb
And each, the mist, through which my senses travelled
Broke at the sun-reflecting signal to its own:
The watered air grew bright with single claws:
So on the fine web spun from something stronger
One man can hold, precarious, complete
His own self’s light that never is repeated
But acts as orrery to all the lights of others:
And that same web grows finer with its function,
More beautiful to praise with each drop held
In that peculiar tension once forever.

A new arrival

By the Mexican sculptor Guillermo Monroy.

A scoop?

If this headline (from the front page ot today's Sun) were true, the story would certainly be worth its place on the front page!



The evidence adduced is the possible quick recovery of an English footballer from an injury which had threatened to prevent him playing in the World Cup. I recall that the English captain made a slow recovery from a similar injury before the 2002 World Cup, so presumably there was no such deity then.

Green London