Ian Humphreys # 1 – ‘Back to where we came from’

Back to where we came from

I’m caught off guard as the train slides backwards from Bradford Interchange. That often happens here, but it jolts me every time. Fellow passengers swap anxious looks. A Polish woman asks her neighbour if this is the right train. Even though I know we’re continuing on to Leeds, I’m rattled. The urge grabs me – to stand up, address the crowd: Things don’t always move forward, sisters and brothers. Societies can stumble. Rights erode. Can’t you see we’re going backwards? Instead, I say nothing. Doze a little as the world unzips. Two seats ahead, a plugged-in suit grips his newspaper while softly crooning to the carriage. Analysing his reflection, I think I can just about make out the front-page headline: ‘The Earth is Flat.’ Of course, it’s a trick of the light. Out there looks much the same as ever from my over-heated seat. In field after field, cut outs of black and white cows line-up like target practice. Across the aisle, a young girl finger-paints a stick-man on a misted window. The figure’s hair stands straight up in comic fright. It’s my granddaddy, she tells the Polish woman. Don’t talk to strangers, the girl’s mother snaps, pretending to read a text. And we enter a tunnel.

Anne Kellas #1 - As with a mantle

As with a mantle


The cord of my life needs adjusting
like a kite-string

the long white of it
uncurling

light as cloud
easily travelling with light

serenely gentle.
Waves of peace

have banished unkind thoughts.
Do no harm, no harm.

Uncover, protect
protect, uncover.

Sunrise
and moonsink.

The moon slips
below roofs

People move about their day.
I too am leaving.

May you be wrapped in garments of healing
with no pain, no pain.

Peter Boyle #1st post 'The afterlife of a genius'

The afterlife of a genius

On the third floor

in dark suit and jester's cap

Kafka protects the family silver.

Orange and green parrots,

escaped from Paradise, pass

in and out of the veils

that flutter over the windows.

On this side

all the writings of the past

have become these floorboards

where life flows effortlessly

back and forth across

the simultaneously unfolding millennia.

The hunter Gracchus, cured,

is taking a long cool bath

after a spell in the warm summer nights of Italy.

The travelling grand Nature Theatre of Oklahoma

with its ballerinas and dancing horses

is now a music box on a small stand in the hallway.

Red Peter has moved into the bedroom

overlooking the fairy lights of the inner courtyard.

Enthroned in state, he receives the visits

of cousins and grandchildren as, one by one,

they materialize on the living room rug.

Meanwhile at the head of the dining-room table

Kafka lays out each place, apportions

the vegetarian feast and

in his delirious hands balances and pours

carafes of water that transmute to wine,

wine that transmutes to water,

perfected, completed at last,

his flawless body the other side of pain,

in the afterlife of a genius.

Andrew Burke #1 MY FIRST POST response to Kit Kelen's THE FIRST POST

I is
the First
Post-Gestation
cry in
a language
few understand

I is
for Impulse
the primary
pulse of
the intimate
systolic
diastolic

a tall
raven flies
to rest on
the upper
arms of I
and harmonises
with I's
first cry

Béatrice Machet # 1- It's an Ocean

(Béatrice Machet # 1--  It' an Ocean)     

Hi everybody! happy to be here, glad to reconnect with Magdalena and thanks to Kit who launched the exchanges !

This poem was written after visiting an art exhibition : Les mondes flottants (floating worlds), biennale d’art contemporain 2017, Lyon ; and especially inspired by Hans Haacke’s works. (pictures to be found on the internet, just google Hans Haacke biennale de lyon)

but also a kind of answer to Kit’s words:

"you have to respect yourself to get going

we'll be the music here

Day Dot

it isn't even yet

so we tend to begin" 

I wish you all a very happy New Year from the Chicago area.

Below is the text, but I also post a picture of my screen as the poem appears in my file, since the blog-format doesn't allow it to be faithfully reproduced! 

It’s an ocean

it’s about water that lets me float

                             that supports me

It’s this everlasting flow as continuity in tune with waves and their  le n  g  t   h    s

it’s a never ending stream with no stop whatever rhythm is launched

it’ s about what is contained but gives shape           about moving forms

thus it’s about being both content and container

a satisfying fulfilling feeling

 

I wear it and it                                                      wears me        the ocean                       wears me      the deep deep deep deep            inner world                                                                                      deep inner                      inner                                                                                                                                                         world

I wear it and it                                                     

and it                                                                                                                                                         wears me

the deep deep deep

inner world

I wear it

is it inside the                                                                                               b                                        inside the body or outside                                                                                                                                     experience

is it experience                                                                                                           of the body or is

life within                                                                                                                                            ithin death                                       

is there any                                                                                                                                 border any boundary between

feeling                                                                                                                                                     and thought

is it what we call the mystery of incarnation