Platinum

I had a very short dream, one of those ones you have just before you wake up; actually all my dreams seem to be those, or perhaps it's just the ones I remember. Tangent: My understanding is that we only dream when we are in REM phase, but that REM means we are in deep sleep mode, so how does that work - Logically one might assume that we would take a while to go from deep-level up through more superficial levels before eventually waking. BUT, waking from dreams contradicts this logic - I guess it's one of those counterintuitive things, whoa.
In any case, this is a case of the poem title just accidentally being clever, it only occurred to me when I'd finished.
Being that that dread word 'inspiration' often translates into only dribs and drabs of disconnected text, I was pleased that such a short dream could render a relatively substantial piece of verse. I think it's down to a continuation of a theme of things like bullets and flames and carousing tunnels and so forth cutting through the everyday, or, better put, distracting us from the distracting. Also though the dream was short, visually it had a high impact, which remains so that even way after the dream takes place, the visual develops and drives the words.

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Pipe Dream

one of those effluent pipes you see at beaches
except flowing from this one was not waste
but a whooshing fire - the sound of it
a platinum cotton-like flame, relieving the sky
clean, the original universe waxing
onto the coarse fettered landscape
a reminder of things past, of things pure
the origin opaque, the source mysterious
nebulous in form, the flame not the source,
but not cloudy in consistency, nor even hot;
strained light, atmospheric discharge,
it cut through but was not intrusive,
it was one-with, severally focused
but razor-quick and as it crackled
the sand and licked the nitrogen
as I morphed from inner REM
to outer abrupt furniture
so the thought occurred, as implied as the whoosh,
the dream-flame already embered, but:
one bleached glow is in the background
and it is a thought emanating and the thought
is an echo and the echo is a doubt and the doubt
niggles and finally eventually surfaces:
Who are we to say that dragons don't exist.

iThis, iThat, iThe other

Much as I try to avoid it, it seems to be difficult for me to avoid a cynical tone... A recurring theme is people thinking they're so big and clever when they're in fact not.

What I'm sort of getting at here is the prevailing modern belief that God doesn't exist. I'm not saying I believe in God yet still I kind of think we're a bit spiritually lost in 'The West'. I am particularly interested in how the spiritual and the physical, or scientific, mesh. Is this what people mean when they refer to the metaphysical?

Despite this professed non-belief, our everyday lexicon is peppered, peppered I say, with God stuff. There are more obvious examples than the following, but the following is one I like:

Who are you to {tell me how to live my life/ say/ judge}

- I think the implication is: You are not God.

Bill Hicks did a routine in which he impersonates some kind of heckler. In a whiny voice he says 'Who are you to say, what makes you the judge, wah wah wah'; His response: 'I'm me, it's true, shut the F up', which is an enjoyable riposte from a man who believed in god but was vehemently anti the prevailing view of what God is, and managed to be articulate and hilarious in explaining this. Hicks referred to a god who loves us unconditionally and who will rain down gifts of forgiveness.

'Evolve ideas' is also Hicks, a phrase he often employed during his eloquentia, his rants about the stuntedness of humanity.

'Break on through' and 'The Other Side' are Jim Morrison. I love Morrison's poetic lyrics, particularly his song The Other Side. I looked at the full lyrics, contemplating making more use of them. I couldn't think of a way this time and I suspect his wordsmithery is best enjoyed along with the music anyway. Still, here's a snippet:

We chased our pleasures here
Dug our treasures there
But can you still recall
The time we cried
Break on through to the other side
Break on through to the other side


The title of the upcoming poem, possibly misplaced, is from The Cure's 'Close to Me'. Here are some of the lyrics:

i never thought this day would end
i never thought tonight could ever be
this close to me

just try to see in the dark
just try to make it work
to feel the fear before you're here
i make the shapes come much too close
i pull my eyes out
hold my breath
and wait until i shake...

but if i had your faith
then i could make it safe and clean
if only i was sure
that my head on the door was a dream

In the insulated first world, we have the luxury of political and moral belief, in quite an abstract way. There is no such thing in The South and because survival and subsistence are more clear and present, the personal and the political are indistinguishable: Human life is cheap or disposable, priorities are different. Things like personal responsibility or paying taxes are abstract and absurd. The world is generally an absurd place and again, of course, the third world seems more absurd to a first worlder. But it's a bit like growing up; safe little notions of what should be get successively trampled by what simply is.


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If only I Was Sure


Everything revealed,
double helix unravelled
having vanquished all
as if all were foes,
fear rears still
rears forth as it did to those
who thought the world flat
and the sky imminent.

Too much at fingertips
Not enough at soul
No bottom only bold
strides, giant leaps
no gravity, no tether;
free or adrift we cannot know
until it's too late
Soul forgotten, heretic soul.

Evolve ideas, break on through
the Other Side is waiting
beyond the Wailing Wall
Perhaps a climb-down is in order
from the widget-encrusted throne
the chrome asylum
the Googlegimmick high-chair
the REAL PLAYER.

iThis, iThat, iThe other
When all the iWhile
the games console us
we drift away from the shroud
away from the tallis
and towards the man-eating
blockbustering overlapping
waves of the many many many
kinds of violence.

Time as an SEC

I was listening to Sweet Thing, one of my favourite songs (Performed by The Waterboys as opposed to Van Morrison on this occasion) so some of the words in this poem are lifted from there. At the same time I was messaging with a friend who has a kid. I was suggesting we meet up but she couldn't, largely because of her kid. In reassuring her that I was fine with meeting up with her and the kid, I referred to myself as Uncle. I remembered walking on a country path on The Wirral in the north west of England with my "ex nephew", aka the nephew of my ex. She and I used to take care of him a lot and I had known him since he was very little. On this occasion I remember him being behind me, I suppose pottering and frittering and dawdling as kids are wont to do. Spontaneously he said my name preceded by the title he, I assume, had decided at that moment to bestow upon me: Uncle. Myself and my ex were quite touched. The Child in Time is a fascinating novel by Ian McEwan and I often think of it. I don't have a copy of it at the moment, must pick one up next time I'm in the UK... It charts a father's PTSD/ general state of mind following the snatching of his child and is a novel very concerned with Time as a subjective emotional concept, adding and interweaving physics. The way children experience time is different and, it could be argued, the way every human and other animal experiences time is different. I therefore like the ambivalence of "in his own time". We've all seen children in their own little worlds, playing, often alone, creating a whole inner world, far from adult clock. "More than a promise": Children are a very practical reminder, as opposed to something as abstract as the line from Sweet Thing: I will never grow so old again.
"Gardens all wet with rain". Reminds me of a fairy tale I liked as a child, involving some pauper, woodcutter, prince or whoever, who scaled the high walls of the secret garden to get at the mouth wateringly sweet lettuces. I think that garden really exists, in Calderstones Park in south Liverpool.

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Sweet Thing

Gardens all wet with rain, the child trailing behind,
a country trail far from his inner city circle
just digging it all not wondering why.

Could teach us a thing or two, us the containers
the carers, the modern life sharers,
he could, as he ambles in his own world.

A beautiful child in his own time
in his own time he dawdles
in his own world, he could let us in on the secret.

Left to his own devices, left to imagine and expand
he is our vow, he is more than a promise
and we dote, awaiting his next proclamation.

all-important context

Like many, I feel as though a different part of my brain is accessed when i listen to music - because it is. poetry, music, fluid conversation resembles both. language has rhythm, if he who uses it is deft of word. when two people engage in a conversation that's meaningful there is a fluidity like no other and not just because of the words used in fact often in spite of them; unspoken undercurrents,flirtation in every sense of the term and in every sense of the speaker.

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getting to the heart of the matter

two conversations, in quick succession
the first longer, more disjointed, the second
with more purpose but with the all-important
grounding, basis of the first; context.

and following both the music and this,
this, is the ocean beneath, the cavern
and awakened is the heart and opened is
the can, worms, warts, all asunder.

laid bare in the most pleasing way,
the tumbling words of the naive poet
borne against the twinged light of age
filtered, dark soul to confused brow.

'sall Relative Innit

I write my stuff elsewhere before posting it here (though these, my commentaries, I do write straight onto the blog - Fascinating I know) and I noticed I had written the poem below and not posted it. I tend to reel off words sometimes, which on the plus side means I have spurts of productivity and in a general sort of way I guess I'm fairly prolific - Don't really have a lot to compare myself to. Disadvantage is I'm often not sure it's any good. This is where you come in. I repeat what I've said to "you" individually: I really value your feedback/ critique, including "I think the penultimate line of stanza II is too long" or whatever - Seriously.

Anyway, I think this poem is somehow connected to A Shockingly Vivid Dream and the link is memory and the subconscious. Cassette tapes are becoming rapidly obsolete but most of you are as old or even older (OMG LOL) than me so will know what I mean when I refer to Autoplayback - It was written on a lot of tape recorders. In my unending fascination with the mindscape and self observation, it seems that one thing the mind does, one assumes since birth, is to simply record everything it encounters, everything it "sees". This in turn is why the eye is so interesting - It seems, to me and I imagine to those of us whose eyes work, to be the most manifest part of the brain, and is sort of the loading dock or the wide mouth (see my poem called "Eye"), through which the cerebellum (...) ingests information. Of course it's not just the eye, it's the other receptive senses too, especially the ear. The autoplayback seems to occur when the organism is at rest, hence when I half wake from deep sleep, I hear voices...! Don't worry, I'm not losing it (Be quiet Gerald, I'm telling them). It does sound like a long reel of tape though, being played back in (seemingly) no particular order.
Someone sent me the video of Jill Bolte Taylor, which I find quite amazing. Her voice is a bit monotonous but anyway:

http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html

I've never had a stroke but I have felt weird and so could relate to some of the sensations she describes. When she describes feeling huge I could relate and of course we are potentially huge, I think. I think a physicist or neurologist could probably give you a formula for that, er, maybe - Something to do with gravity and relativity and depth perception. The metaphysical is pretty incredible, and poetic and mysterious. The notion that when we have experiences or traumas which are outside the normal realm we are granted another view of the world and ourselves is logical - One might even call it casting adrift from self. I recommend The Child in Time by Ian McEwan. In that book he manages to tie emotion and science together quite well, with a focus on time and our relationship with it.


First is the poem as I originally penned it, then follows another version, the Sir Fagpakit Edit. He comments:

'It occurred to me that you had deliberately made the lines longer to provide a sort of visual echo of the tape playing to the end ...'

- It wasn't deliberate, though I like the idea and image.
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Autoplayback

we are sprats in a sea of molecules branching off an ocean of energy
and we have tools which enable us to take this ocean in, for if not
it would drown us as a black hole sucks in stars and gas and light.

the tools are the mind and this reflects the ocean and the tools are
the eyes and they are the mind's closest ally because not only do they see,
they allow us to tell as in distinguish and it, the small muscle called the eye,
has an esoteric counterpart inside the fortress, amidst the microcircuitry
and this is the situation room, where raw sense data is decrypted.

the mind's eye as we call it, sees, tells, is memory and Now all at once,
a Chinese alphabet, deep in character and complex in sheer number,
quantity of linear code shapes, calculating tickertape spewing intelligence
crossed with sensory perception, streaming beaming light-resembling energy.

Small being versus big being, I am on the train as opposed to I am;
whirring away left brain chatter, all about the non-Now, whirring were
Fusing will be, no time for am being, no time to do things now because
there's way too much that already occurred, to stow and box off
and too much to come, for which groundwork must be laid, categories
lined up; all about the boundaries, the sorting office, gone postal.


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Autoplayback - Fag Edit

We are sprats in a sea of molecules

Branching off an ocean of energy
And we have tools which enable us

To take this ocean in, for if not
It would drown us as a black hole

Sucks in stars and gas and light.

The tools are the mind and this reflects the ocean

And the tools are the eyes and they are the mind's closest ally

Because not only do they see,
They allow us to tell as in distinguish

And it, the small muscle called the eye,
Has an esoteric counterpart inside the fortress

Amidst the microcircuitry
And this is the situation room

Where raw sense data is decrypted.

The mind's eye as we call it, sees, tells

Is memory and Now all at once,
A Chinese alphabet, deep in character

And complex in sheer number,
Quantity of linear code shapes

Calculating tickertape spewing intelligence
Crossed with sensory perception

Streaming beaming light-resembling energy.

Small being versus big being

I am on the train as opposed to I am;
Whirring away left brain chatter

All about the non-Now, whirring were
Fusing will be, no time for am being

No time to do things now because
There's way too much that already occurred

To stow and box off and too much to come

For which groundwork must be laid

Categories lined up; all about the boundaries

The sorting office, gone postal.

Shockingly Vivid Comment...

... from Amanda:

That's cool, man. Keep 'em coming. I know what you mean about the delightfully endless tangential journeys through wikipedia.

The Very Bowels of Creation

It's amazing what the weird mix of red wine and slightly out of date ice cream can create. i was awoken from a dream by the sound of a voice. i awoke suddenly, i heard the voice so clearly. there was someone else in the dream with me, someone i know. was the voice supposed to belong to this person? does it matter? only me there, in reality.

how digestion affects the extent and intensity to which we dream has interested me for a while, because, as happened in the last hour or so, sometimes my own dreams are so vivid and i know it's because there is rumbling going on below. i was fascinated to learn from the genius stephen fry on the show called QI, that we have a "second brain" in our gut. further research revealed its slightly more opaque anatomical name: the enteric nervous system. it can function independently of the main brain (you know, the one inbetween the ears - yeah, cheers) and this, apart from being fascinating, holds poetic humour and mystique for me; funny to think of all the emotion that gets connoted with guts, both in cliched phrasing e.g. i think he's got the guts to go for it etc, as well as the fact that medically, so many of the symptoms of emotional angst are traced to the gut region.

neurology is endlessly interesting to me and again there is poetry in the medical terminology. we really have a sympathetic nervous system, for example. i find much poetry in scientific register, to my delight. much of the lexicon of the following poem is from my beloved wikipedia, which fans out as does the malapropping mental lexicon. i could get lost for days, drifting on a sea of wiki. there is copy here from text on gear systems, speech generating technology, even a little seismology i think - i was obsessed with geography and my ward lock's pictorial atlas as a child and distinctly remember the cut-in-half world, the inner and outer core, the earth's crust. a certain tv character i like uttered a phrase i like: "spinning iron amorphous core of the earth". i am probably mis quoting but hey, poetic license and all that. he was being dramatic (no, really?) but his phrase seems to have seeped into my conscience, like the thingies through the intestinal cheesecloth in my poem. i now think "spinning iron amorphous core of the earth" is a real thing, which i don't think it is.

from all my ferreting around on wiki, i would most highly recommend the entry on the steam digester, also known as papin's digester - amusing and very interesting, as, i think, is the way i happened across it. i was visualising pressure cookers, my mother would often use one, which somehow connected to what i reckon must go on down there in the gut. so that led me to papin and his bone crushing exploding steam digester. cool.

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a shockingly vivid dream

the various meaning of wake up
conscience clear as a bell
its voice as green as the grass
the mind-eye clockworks, playbacks
all that has been ingested
scooped, funnelled, spirited
by the soft intestinal muscle
relayed by the second brain
all unison, all a well-oiled machine,
all pith and obliviously self-aware,
bent on task, click-click go the pistons
in slots, doing the dirty work of
playback, rinse-through, spin cycle:
each cog sympathetic, each cog a
reflector of the past, the glow
lessening, increasing, fading,
soul to conscience to nerve ending
sleepers, railway junctures, spotters
sympathetic nervous system
algorhythmic homing pigeon
narrow-gauge gear-mesh idler
raw torque, loose wheels, oiled cogs
loose talk spouts forth
the voice seems to be the driver
transmitting rotational motion
mirroring what is executed in real time,
physical display the puppet, a virtual device,
the sealed vessel, organs in dermis
fat extraction, internal reaction, rendering;
the miners are busy at work,
casting bone to brittle, releasing steam
allowing liquid to be hotter, amorphous,
spinning, disordered molecules, melt,
to be found in the bowels, the core,
drawing in of all, the funnel; irrestible.

the virtualness of the device may interrupt,
thus synthethised speech, during pressing
and during draining, may suffer leakage,
may eddy and stray, filtering through membrane
through cheesecloth and so does generated voice
come through loud and clear and white and pure
and the voice is the conscience and the voice is
heard and the chords, vocal, empathetic, resound
in such arresting union that oneness is and
genera-tor is indistinguishable from genera-ted
and the lid is lifted, buffeted up, skylighted;
hatch is unbatoned, revealing all that activity.