A cricket match at Birkenhead Park.
North of the dark boards,
the big hand slips down the dial,
contented.
The hours, the minutes,
the overs are happily
segmented;
the men in white are pegged out,
sundial hands with strip shadows
at square or forty-five.
Skating swallows,
day-bats,
flit to the oaks.
Under the pavilion tents,
calm and creosote seep
from the dark boards.
Out there, Matty cries
'C'mon boys, one more push.'
Sparse handclaps
from the parchment palms
of old men echo their lives thinly now,
rising faintly, sweetly from the field.
Reedy encouragements are
scattered to the boundary.
The ball squirts away from the line.
The tide of men advances, recedes.
The constellation is reset
to shimmer, unwavering
on the field.
Friday, November 5, 2010
A Carmarthenshire holiday April 2010.
A Carmarthenshire Holiday, April, 2010.
We swept through Mid-Wales, Jane and I, sucked down through three-lane and four-lane carriageways with stern, sculpted roundabouts as pauses for breath. This side, then that of Oswestry, Welshpool, Newtown. Which Newtown was this? The saddened Newtown of the Valleys fame, all grey-faced and holed up, holding itself up. Or the Newtown of market Mid-Wales where once all drovers paths met, the cattle clusters of Herefords and Welsh Blacks shifted, wayward? This was the Newtown now corralling the industrial cattle on Fridays; cattle pumped up with ballooning udders, delivering eight gallons a shot, twice a day to be routinely siphoned off by Tesco. Down the Wye Valley, Red Kites turn across the top left of the windscreen. Jane is implacable as the temperature guage swoops and soars. She calms me. 'We'll get there ' she tells me, telepathically.
At 'The Old Granary', there is no 'welcome pack' as promised, no tea or coffee, biscuits, milk as the website had gayly advertised. The converted slate barn is shaded by the big house where the hosts live. LLangrannog is the village it belongs to, whose grim Welsh greystones are always just a bit further down the stifling drop to the coast. The coast, you feel is about to reveal itself around the next bend, or perhaps the next bend but one.
The hosts, Judy and Erhardt Jungmayer were hard-nosed, well-off, fussing but producing no warmth. Mr Jungmayer stumblingly asked us for a shopping list, dutifully motored out to the mini-market petrol station we had passed three miles ago, had decided to ignore as we pictured the hot meal that we would be regaled with. He returned an hour later with the list, presenting us with a bill to the letter.
Hostess Judy, meanwhile had picked up that it was someone's birthday, had left a cheerless card on the small, wooden dining table in the galley kitchen. The card was meant to be meaningful but the meaning is poor. It's our birthday not my birthday.
In a small earthenware jar there were a few floor-swept tea bags. The TV control malfunctioned. The shower, with its miserable curtain blew hot and cold (lukewarm mostly).
The Cardiganshire coast is grey-strangled with dramatic and oppressive drops where the river flow has been cut off by something akin to glacial action. There's not much action around here, only that of brighly coloured humans screaming, plashing, dog-doodling, idling, licking the ice-cream upwards, pushing out the mini-boards on dying wavelets. I see the crumpled sedimentary rocks, see the herring gull settle herself, breast-first and brave on a chimney cowl, settle to her eggs, her task. She calls, gulling and this simple call humbles me.
We swept through Mid-Wales, Jane and I, sucked down through three-lane and four-lane carriageways with stern, sculpted roundabouts as pauses for breath. This side, then that of Oswestry, Welshpool, Newtown. Which Newtown was this? The saddened Newtown of the Valleys fame, all grey-faced and holed up, holding itself up. Or the Newtown of market Mid-Wales where once all drovers paths met, the cattle clusters of Herefords and Welsh Blacks shifted, wayward? This was the Newtown now corralling the industrial cattle on Fridays; cattle pumped up with ballooning udders, delivering eight gallons a shot, twice a day to be routinely siphoned off by Tesco. Down the Wye Valley, Red Kites turn across the top left of the windscreen. Jane is implacable as the temperature guage swoops and soars. She calms me. 'We'll get there ' she tells me, telepathically.
At 'The Old Granary', there is no 'welcome pack' as promised, no tea or coffee, biscuits, milk as the website had gayly advertised. The converted slate barn is shaded by the big house where the hosts live. LLangrannog is the village it belongs to, whose grim Welsh greystones are always just a bit further down the stifling drop to the coast. The coast, you feel is about to reveal itself around the next bend, or perhaps the next bend but one.
The hosts, Judy and Erhardt Jungmayer were hard-nosed, well-off, fussing but producing no warmth. Mr Jungmayer stumblingly asked us for a shopping list, dutifully motored out to the mini-market petrol station we had passed three miles ago, had decided to ignore as we pictured the hot meal that we would be regaled with. He returned an hour later with the list, presenting us with a bill to the letter.
Hostess Judy, meanwhile had picked up that it was someone's birthday, had left a cheerless card on the small, wooden dining table in the galley kitchen. The card was meant to be meaningful but the meaning is poor. It's our birthday not my birthday.
In a small earthenware jar there were a few floor-swept tea bags. The TV control malfunctioned. The shower, with its miserable curtain blew hot and cold (lukewarm mostly).
The Cardiganshire coast is grey-strangled with dramatic and oppressive drops where the river flow has been cut off by something akin to glacial action. There's not much action around here, only that of brighly coloured humans screaming, plashing, dog-doodling, idling, licking the ice-cream upwards, pushing out the mini-boards on dying wavelets. I see the crumpled sedimentary rocks, see the herring gull settle herself, breast-first and brave on a chimney cowl, settle to her eggs, her task. She calls, gulling and this simple call humbles me.
Friday, August 20, 2010
15th august. Milk plan spilled.
Anne Milton, who proposed to remove the provision of free milk (half a pint for each child) in state-run nurseries, had her proposition quashed. The plan,remniscent of Margaret Thatcher's 'milk-snatching' which would have saved 50 million, was spared from spending cuts by David Cameron.
Milton's plan confined
to strerilizing unit
(cutting free tot's milk)
Pint-sized tot's ration
plan is whipped away and milk
is spilled, cried over.
Milton's plan confined
to strerilizing unit
(cutting free tot's milk)
Pint-sized tot's ration
plan is whipped away and milk
is spilled, cried over.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Spilled secrets embarass White House
27.07.2010.
Leaks of thousands of documents from the White House show that the U.S. and Allied Command, under a 'newspeak' of euphemism often knowingly hit civilian targets in Iraq and Afghanistan, killing thousands of innocent people.
The Times ran a headline about the release by Wikileaks of the 92,000 documents (containing evidence of war crimes by U.S. death squads).
White House embarrassed
by its spills, not by B.P.'s
filthy oil torrents.
Leaks of thousands of documents from the White House show that the U.S. and Allied Command, under a 'newspeak' of euphemism often knowingly hit civilian targets in Iraq and Afghanistan, killing thousands of innocent people.
The Times ran a headline about the release by Wikileaks of the 92,000 documents (containing evidence of war crimes by U.S. death squads).
White House embarrassed
by its spills, not by B.P.'s
filthy oil torrents.
Olympic balls. 26.07.2010.
26.07.2010.
On the 27th July, 2010, the first Olympic souvenir shop will open, selling all kinds of tat in an effort to start paying for the truly Olympian London Games building project which has risen from 2.4 bn to 9.3 bn and includes things like a special plant to generate power, security staffing, housing with internet access and all mod cons. for the athletes, Paralympic facailities and decontamination of the site. It's all VATeable, too.
Bridging The Gap, a massive recruitment drive, has been launched by LOCOG for 100,000 private security guards.
Souvenir shop may
sell record amounts of crap
like Olympic keyrings.
On the 27th July, 2010, the first Olympic souvenir shop will open, selling all kinds of tat in an effort to start paying for the truly Olympian London Games building project which has risen from 2.4 bn to 9.3 bn and includes things like a special plant to generate power, security staffing, housing with internet access and all mod cons. for the athletes, Paralympic facailities and decontamination of the site. It's all VATeable, too.
Bridging The Gap, a massive recruitment drive, has been launched by LOCOG for 100,000 private security guards.
Souvenir shop may
sell record amounts of crap
like Olympic keyrings.
Colossal star 22.07.2010.
Chile's Very Large Telescope has found a colossal star, 265 times the mass of the sun and 165,000 light years away.
There are other large stars within the Milky Way, 22,000 light years from the sun.
The Europen Extremely Large Telescope, to be completed in 2018 will be almost half the length of a football field and will gather 15 times as much light as those operating today.
Celebrities are as
dust compared to the biggest
star of the whole show.
Huge telescope and
stars put our nothingness in
perspective and light.
There are other large stars within the Milky Way, 22,000 light years from the sun.
The Europen Extremely Large Telescope, to be completed in 2018 will be almost half the length of a football field and will gather 15 times as much light as those operating today.
Celebrities are as
dust compared to the biggest
star of the whole show.
Huge telescope and
stars put our nothingness in
perspective and light.
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