Poems and Pictures

Endy- I'd rather be called Rebecca, so it's fine if you want to use my real name.

I've only done a small bit on my story and I'm not at all sure about it. I was thinking I might switch back to one narrator, which would negate about twelve pages that I've written- because I just can't get comfortable with what I have written in the female voices.

We must be on the same wave length because I feel that some big changes have already occurred- in a lot of different ways, and in a lot of different arenas. Life's just feels like one long, continuous surprise sometimes.


Drunk or sober- it's all thoughtful and thought provoking in my opinion.
I'm glad you're here contributing.
Talk to you later - Rebecca

Turning

Twas here a beast laid down and closed its eyes
To slumber in cool shade neath soothing skies
Of summers bluest and most golden hues
To lie in languid warmth and dreams suffused.

When night stole over the land it did not rise
In answer to the farmers herding cries
Its bed now steeped in moonlight, still it lay
Was lying still when dawn brought the new day

No one disturbed the beast's eternal sleeping
As nettles twined through ribs and ivy creeping
Rimmed empty sockets, blank now and unseeing
And seasons turned and years flew onward fleeing

Today there is no fragment, not a trace
To mark this as a final resting place
But green with spring and silent sunlight streaming
The grass recalls the sleeping beast still dreaming.

Winter Sky

Waiting for the clouds to
reform or part to admit the
possibility of light beyond
the gray that seemed to
say to me,
"This is all there is and ever will be"-
had led me to that place on that
day when I awoke to a
familiar and complacent sky
offering the only thing it knew -
that the absence of something
is a testament and event
as fully realized and holy
as the presence.

And there I saw starlings
suspended in winged grace on
empty winter air,
a swift fluid stream of
black feathers staining
the sky, moving together
and apart as if one.
Their flight- and my
inability to capture it-
a reminder:
that possession is at once
desireable and impossible,
and nothing is as beautiful
as that which is meant.

Beautiful as always

The tree in your moon picture - the colour of those leaves!
I've been using a digital camera to take pictures of nature recently - but I find the colour is never true. Rather annoying

The winter sky pictures are amazing - you've really captured the peaceful atmosphere - and that wonderful texture - I can almost hear the sound my feet would make walking over that frosty field.

I saw starlings too the other day - a cloud of them. They flew over my local village, black and then silver in the sun, twisting and turning. It was incredable. People stood around looking up with their mouths hung open!
It wasn't a huge flock, but still quite stunning to watch them move like that - as one.

I enjoy reading your poetry, Rebecca - somehow very calming

Peace, as ever
E

Thanks Endy. Even though I got a more expensive SLR with a good lense last year, I've been lazy about using it, especially on walks, which is what I'm doing when I take the majority of pictures I take, because I can stick my little digital in my pocket and not even really know it's there until I feel like using it. So, I haven't really taken enough non-digital pictures lately to make a comparison in terms of color. But I sometimes like the slightly off-color grainy look (I just noticed, I am almost instinctively putting a "U" in color now-it's become an automatic instinct-like saying petrol and holiday - funny how these things sneak up on a person).

Anyway- with my cheap little digital, I only like my results if I take night-time pictures at a certain time-dusk-if it gets too dark, and I'm close to the subject, the flash floods the picture and makes it look like daytime. The picture of that skeleton was taken not long before the picture of the moon. I was standing near the skeleton, looking out over the field of corn (on the other side of the fence) when I took that. And I think those pictures look like one was taken midday, and one was taken at night- weird..

Those winter-sky pictures are not black and white. Those are the actual tones of that place (the Mendips up around Priddy) that day. That's become one of my favorite places in England, just because although the landscape is so spare and stark-there's so much variation from day to day depending on the sky and the light (sun or no sun). I also love the textures up there-the grass (when it's windy-which is almost always) moves in waves. On that day, it was like it was frozen in mid-motion.
And the sky is so vast up there-and always changing-it's like a huge canvas.

There's a guy named Jake Vincent who does photographs of the Priddy area (where I take a lot of my pictures- and his are much, much better). He has a gallery in Wookey. Anyway, he told me when and where to find the starlings-he's done an incredible photo of them-I have a small print of it-(I tried to find it on the internet, but couldn't and my scanner is broken) but if you ever get up that way-you should check his stuff out.
Have you ever been to Priddy-or the Priddy fair? It's a wonderful place-kind of stuck back in time-I think that's the thing I like most about being up there- the scenery makes you feel you could be walking on the moors hundreds of years ago- and if you meet a person from Priddy up there-it doesn't break the spell- kind of like Brigadoon or something.

In terms of my poem, I am feeling more calm and peaceful- you're so astute, it's amazing.
How are you doing?

"There's a guy named Jake Vincent who does photographs of the Priddy area (where I take a lot of my pictures- and his are much, much better). He has a gallery in Wookey."

Hi Rebecca

I haven't been to the area for many a year - but if I do manage to get up that way I'll certainly check out the gallery. At the moment, I don't know - I'm a bit of a recluse. Actually, not a bit … I am a recluse. Folk in the nearest village seem to accept this and leave me alone on the whole (they probably think all Londoners are weirdos)!

Thanks for putting up with me here on your excellent thread.
The contact is invaluable to me. I find what I'm doing on the Revolution thread extremely stressful - but somehow necessary - coming here to check out your latest photographs and poems always has a calming effect.
Just getting my mind away from Iraq for five minutes makes it worth it.
There's a kind of tranquillity about this thread and I enjoy looking at the way you 'see' my country. Helps me remember what I've always loved about it - and why it's worth fighting for.

Peace
Endy

ps - Have you checked out Lostnsearching's Diary of Poems? (If you have the time - and I know you're very busy) I'm sure you could give her some valuable input. Better than she gets from a crazy drunk like me, anyway!

Sometimes it's just easier to leave other people out of the equation-what they think about anything doesn't matter as much as the fact that someone gets whatever they need from a given situation.

Maybe the village people don't think you're a weirdo, as much as automatically bestowing upon you some kind of evated or almost mythic status as a "Londoner" (in whatever stereotypes they might hold, depending on who they are and what their individual experiences of Londoners have been- I always automatically assume "more sophisticated" when I hear Londoner).
I know that happens time and time again to me as an American. The common misconceptions I come across all the time are that all Americans are rich (they should read your Revolution thread ) and we all own guns (because they watch the news).


No problem. I have reclusive tendencies myself-so it's nice to get a visitor who wants to converse from time to time. I have a lot of respect for what you do on this forum Endy, and so by extension, although I don't know anything about you but what you show of yourself here, I feel that I'd respect the person you are if I knew you.
I agree it's sometimes hard to keep your eyes wide open and focused on all that is wrong and sad and evil in the world. These little pieces of creativity (and the beauty of your country) are my therapy and my escape. Sometimes it just all gets overwhelming, and it pays to step back and remember what there is that is beautiful, and as you say, worth fighting for.

Thanks again for your encouragement - Rebecca


I have. I love the one about the girl she is and how she is hanging on to that despite everyone giving her a hard time about it.
I think your input is invaluable Endy- much moreso than mine would be. Let me just say from experience, (having been a teen-aged girl), you'd have been just the kind of person I'd have listened to in terms of life and art and creativity, etc. She probably has a mom or a teacher (someone like me) in her life already, so she probably really values having someone like you as a friend.
And from what I've read, you're doing an awesome job encouraging her. And talk about a role model-teens today need someone who cares about the world to set an example. So many adults have become enmeshed in their own day to day grind of attainment and self-indulgence, it's good for kids to see an adult who isn't. You fit that bill perfectly.

I'm not too busy and I'm not copping out by saying "You're doing a good job, so I don't have to"- I just don't want to intrude, but if I ever feel I have something productive to add, I will.

Talk to you later- Rebecca

Thanks Rebecca - for being reasuring.
I look forward to seeing more of your work.

peace
E

Sea Song

If I lived by the sea
I could never be free
Of the magical spell it weaves
Of the spray on my face
And the sun's warm embrace
And the soft, summer kiss of the breeze

Oh wide churning sea
With your stronghold on me
The rhythmn of your waves is the same
As the beat of my heart
Their shared music imparts
the knowledge you are whence I came


*Found this song (I wrote the words, a friend wrote the music) in my piano bench. The music is a beautiful, haunting melody in the key of E major (C,D,F,G #'s)- I hadn't played it in years, and when I did, I was impressed all over again with the amazing musical talent this friend of mine had at such a young age.
I wrote these words when I was sixteen. I thought these words fit this picture. I wish you could hear the music, as I think it fits this picture perfectly too. It has this underlying background ascension and descension of notes played by the left hand that reminds me of the ebbing and flowing of waves.

Wow
that's stunning
Thanks for sharing the song
Have you thought of putting some photographs together on imovie (or similar)- adding a piece of music and making a 'stills movie'? It would be easy.

Conversation

"I will die alone"
you said, and
silence settled over
us like the
peaceful surrender
of day to night.
And knowing
it was ours and
we belonged in it
was as freeing as the
notion of "too late".

Endy wrote:


Thanks Endy. I have thought that I would like to put some of my pictures from England with poems I've written while I've been here into a book form of some sort. I hadn't thought of the stills with music, but that's a great idea. Of course, easy for some people doesn't necessarily mean easy for me-but I bet I could find someone I know to help me. I'd use Vaughn Williams "The Lark Ascending" for my pictures of the English countryside. That song is just kind of entwined in my mind with the green and wooded hills of England. I'd have to find some other music to use for the Mendips though. Any ideas?

Elgar. Cello thing.

Very kind of you to offer a suggestion Spendius. Thank you.

Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata Op. 13 sprung to mind - but then I thought - hold on a minute, would classical music 'change the peaceful atmosphere' the photographs already portray?

Maybe something 'atmospheric' would be better - say, Aphex Twin - Litchen
or even better - and the thing I'd use myself - from the collection of 'Natural Sounds' - birdsong.
Dawn Chorus

Hope that gives you some ideas to play around with - good luck

Endy- I hadn't realized I'd heard anything by Aphex Twins, but when I looked them up, I realized that I had in a movie.

I didn't find Litchen, but I did find Avril 14:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wkx7W2wBF4E

which I love the melody of- and it's something I could actually play myself (not beyond my ability- which a lot of other stuff is). I like the way it's kind of contemplative, but not minor sounding-just very simple and straight ahead, but very beautiful.

Thanks so much for your suggestions. They inspired me to listen to stuff I had forgotten about (somehow I went from Beethoven to Greig back to Beethoven). Anyway, thank you- now all I have to do is figure out how to put it all together.
Then maybe I'll post it on youtube so you could see it.

Hope you're doing okay. I was wondering where you'd gotten to. Glad to see you back.

Blimey

You're supposed to have a poem to go with your picture Builder.

Hi Rebecca


Is that piano?


I think that's a great idea



thanks for asking... i try and keep myself away from here when i'm on a real downer - seems only fair :wink:
Creativity always follows and for the last few days i've been writting away at something which seems important - but is quite complicated to write - a kind of short-story...think i'll just see how it goes.

Good luck with your film - I'll look forward to seeing it on youtube
Have a great weekend
Peace
E