shards of bottle glass
and the roots of great mountains
worn smooth by the tide
-
worn leather boots and
my grandfathers' old knapsack
trudge along the coast
-
Mendocino was
a special place my spirit
will never forget
-
if god is in the
details, I suspect he is
developing stones
---
she crawls the beaches
of Mendocino for stones.
Danarocks.com
-
Ocean rock and roll
forming lingams on the shore
worship or ignore
-
For Free Elixir:
Seven Stones in round Black Hole
Add Ocean and Stir
---
temporary forms
shifting in tidal structures
give new arrangement
19 comments:
shards of bottle glass
and the roots of great mountains
worn smooth by the tide
...
worn leather boots and
my grandfathers' old knapsack
trudge along the coast
...
Mendocino was
a special place my spirit
will never forget
...
if god is in the
details, I suspect he is
developing stones
...
I'm guilty as ever of taking a steady stream of "stone shots" like this latest muse, from gemstones in a copper bowl to the broken schist fragments I used to cut a couple steps into the short bank where the arch in the big hedge out back cuts through. Then again, being an earth sign, it's probably just "logical".
We've got another tall arch in the hedge where the front path along the house facade meets the street line, and I can't stop seeing it with that gorgeous "spiral" gate sitting there lately. We've got a local smith who does nice wrought work, but he's not nearly that creative from what I've seen.
When we contemplated a gate there not long after we first arrived here in the Eifel, and I gave him some relatively detailed sketches (A4 sheet sized), he balked and said he couldn't proceed without a full-sized template with every last detail. At which point I decided he might not be our guy.
Now I know that our guy, if we could even afford him, lives back in California -- which we departed in 2002 before eventually arriving back here on the family farm.
How would you feel about "trading" a gate for a nice long full pension stay in the western German countryside along the Belgium/Luxembourg border, with a tour guide, necessary transport and more history than you can see in a lifetime within two hours.
Recently acquired a new router, of the wood working variety, with which I am about to begin making signs and other necessary bits. Two of the first signs I plan to make will read "Julius Caesar slept here", and the second will replace JC (hmmm) with "Carolus Magnus" (Charlemagne), since both hung out in the neighborhood at some point.
(For those not already in on the joke, this is just a silly jab at reports of an apparent plethora of "Mary Queen of Scots slept here" signs hanging in English inns up and down the country, leading us to believe the she was a very well-traveled lady.)
You would have complete creative license, though you would also be required to suspend all design exercises until you'd had a chance to stand in the arch and think about it for awhile... =)
she crawls the beaches
of Mendocino for stones.
Danarocks.com
...
Dana is a good friend who makes jewelry. One of her favorite things is to find special pebbles and grind channels in them, then pack those channels with silver using a technique she invented herself.
Lately her thing is making jewelry out of bottlecaps, transforming them in all sorts of ingenious ways.
Miraculix, your idea sounds very appealing. If I were to do it, it would advance me more towards the status of having legitimate poetic street cred as a "tinker" (which is what gypsies were/are called in Ireland.) I would thus perhaps be at least near the psychic space of those people that the Irish Government gave houses to in the effort to induce them to "settle down," who took the houses, settled down long enough to strip the copper out of them, and then abandoned them and resumed nomadic life! There's something about that rebuke to the "real estate fetish" that does elicit my profound admiration. (As did hearing a story about my father giving away the family car while on a drinking binge.) Property is fine and useful but then they make a trap out of it. As Thoreau pointed out in Walden, you can house yourself adequately in a few weeks or months of work--this trip of complicating and stretching the process of putting a roof overhead into payments going on for thirty years of bankster interest is just bullshit...
My friend's son, who sometimes helps me on projects, just came back from Germany, and on this trip he made it to the Czech Republic and stayed at an art center called CESTA. The roof was being done by a group of carpenters who operate on a trade basis only, no cash allowed, and preserve an itinerant, guild-type craft apprenticeship tradition.
Perhaps there is a metal worker's branch also that could help you if, upon kicking the idea around, it turns out that it is not practically possible for me to fabricate something for you. If you had drawings, it is pretty easy to get full-sized templates using big city xeroxing technology or scanning drawings into a CAD program such as Turbocad. If you wanted me to draw it up, that would be fine, and I could even "ride herd" remotely on quality control via email photographs/commentary to be relayed to the smith if he did't get too testy about it. I am honored at your offer, we can get into more detail if you email me.
Whacko! I was so zapped back into my workshop just now. How many conversations have I had like this? Onya guys.
Also I have to apologise to Susana. Sorry Susana. I meant to grab the first comment so I could explain how you were inspiration for this choice of pic. Dizzy airhead that I am, I forgot.
Otherwise folks, go click the link and have a read of the poetical piece Susana wrote about a trip to a pebbled beach. I grooved on it.
Actually, I'm wondering if I have crossed a line here. Normally I, er, 'pinch' things that are being used for some other purpose. ie, not poetry. But Susana's pebble photo is being used precisely for poetry. So I think I've screwed up. If I'd thought about it I'd have done it differently. Like ask Susana first, ha ha. Anyway profuse apologies and shan't do it again, blah blah blah.
And good haiku. Mir, inspired obviously. And Brian, we'll forgive your plug on account of the most excellent syllable count in the last line. I love the '.' ha ha. Off to check out danarocks...
Thanks folks.
Hmm... actually Dana's vibe is 180ยบ to what Susana's on about. But I think both can be appreciated. Between picking up a pebble and mining a beach to make concrete for highrises, there's a big middle ground. Me, I have picked up pebbles and kept them. But in my defense I should say that the number I've picked up is massively outweighed by the number I haven't.
When you read that last line, did the word 'sophistry' pop into your head? Quite right.
Yoroshiku.
Ocean rock and roll
forming lingams on the shore
worship or ignore
Nobody,
speaking of pebble kleptomania on your part, and also noting your relish for "pinching" photographs and then following up with "sincere" apologies that somehow sound like they were rehearsed before the crimes were committed, I noticed with shock today that "lexicon of nobody" seems to have disappeared from nobody central. I visited it once and noticed that it was attributed to someone "else," or maybe that name is actually yours, I don't know. Anyway, it was just starting to dawn on me that there could be a devious, hilarious connection between it and the "crossword puzzle" part of your operations. I had not taken the time yet to see for sure but now...Shit! It seems to be gone. So, maybe you pinched it and now you have been forced to cease and desist? Bummer! Say it isn't so!
Hullo Brian,
I am undone as usual. There was a period where I scrupulously asked people if I might use their pix beforehand. This was on account of me thinking about what I did before I did it. Currently that ability seems to have deserted me, ha ha. For the last couple of weeks I've had almost no idea what I was going to post on the day of posting. Lately I've been coming down to the cafe and seeing what pops into my head. Mostly it seems to consist of me following whoever posts here and whose site I visit, ha ha. It's pretty lazy of me really. But it's all for a good cause. And yes I wave my arms around a lot.
Otherwise Brian did you groove on what people wrote? I meant to ask you. Dizzy, as usual. I thought it was cool.
And I did announce it somewhere, but I moved the lexicon. It was only ever going to be a single entry and I couldn't quite see the point of it having its own blog. So I moved it into it's introduction page that was on the church. The link on the church front page now takes you to the article. Subseqently it's disappeared from my bloglist thing, but is on the front page of the church. If you can dig it.
And oh, the crosswords... sigh. As far as I know no one does 'em. That crossword blog is the most lonesome joint in the world ain't it? I don't think anyone goes there. Kikz popped in once to say hello which was nice.
The thing is you see, that it's unfindable in google. Anyone searching for 'free crosswords' will find 28,000 other sites (none of which are 'free' so much as 'paying') before crypticofnobody appears. Which is a shame because if there was a single person interested in doing them I'd be happy to make them. But it seems there isn't. Subsequently the cryptic blog is just this quiet acrostic mausoleum, ha ha. Never mind.
For Free Elixir:
Seven Stones in round Black Hole
Add Ocean and Stir
temporary forms
shifting in tidal structures
give new arrangement
Nobody, Thanks for the directions to the lexicon, I found it, but it turns out that it was the wrong it, I was really thinking of the lexicon by Douglas Adams on The Meaning of Liff which I had just recently seen somewhere, maybe connected to John's blog, and which I just found. Not knowing anything about Douglas Adams previously,(having missed alot of what went on in some circles in the 70s and 80s) I confused your vibe with his, and thought maybe you wrote it and your crostics were part of a plot to get people using the funny words in the Meaning of liff lexicon, which have hilarious definitions. Sorry to hear of the neglect of your crostics dept., when I told Dana about them she said she was going to turn her parents on to them. They are in their 80s and do those things, which I would probably do if the wolves weren't at the door and if they were funny like yours. Regular ones look a little tedious. I'd be afraid they might trigger Alzheimers rather than stave it off...
B.K.: Your offer to help with scaling up the drawings and to "ride herd" on the local smith are both appreciated. While I may yet take you up on the former, the latter is surely above and beyond the call of duty, though it is also genuinely appreciated. As much as my offer may sound facetious, I was quite serious. I have long embraced non-standard economic exchanges, and as we are not independently wealthy, I realize such a trade must be made equitable or all value disappears. The thought of approaching a "journeyman" artisan has occured to us, but after the first flush of excitement died down, and our primary "benefactor" shuffled the coil in April, we're measuring our resources very carefully. What we do have to offer is the place, time, artistic freedom, truly healthy eats and access to the required raw materials. Of course, as it does also involve making expensive choices of your own (travel, time away, et al.), it is bordering on unrealistic to expect such an exchange to take place. And yet, one never knows who will show and what may come to pass if you leave the garden gate ajar...
Mr. N: Originating in the Pacific Northwest region of the lower 48, such collections of stones are very familiar. Via backpacking trips along the Pacific coast and other adventures on the south coast of England and bits of Bretagne, I've accumulated hundreds of miles over such terrain down the years. On the metaphorical side, I chuckled when I realized my first effort very unintentionally personified my relationship with my gentler half; rough fragments of earth smoothed and softened by the steady action of water. Also being "Fire Horse" and "Water Tiger" in ancient Chinese reckoning, we do create a steady supply of steam.
Kikz: so you don't get the feeling I've been ignoring you or him, Jesse Cook is already resident in the music library. A fine player. And by way of giving something back, are you familiar with French acoustic master Pierre Bensusan?
mira,
nope, missed him somehow.. thanks so much, beautiful guitarwork!
glad ya know jesse :)
happy solstice to all!
Onya folks. Mir, that first one of yours stole my thunder. Swine. Never mind, I shall now employ all my advertising-industry cunning to steal the idea utterly but make it look like a something new. That, by the way, is as precise a definition of advertising as you'll find anywhere.
And Brian, don't confuse me with Douglas Adams. I'm much better looking, ha ha. Too lazy to find it myself, but if you wander back in the last comments, or the one before, there is a link to a free download of Meaning Of Liff. It's marvellous. In fact I'd go so far as to say it might even be better than my own lexicon.
As for the crossword, easier said than done. Especially for North Americans. As I understand it, North American cryptics are possessed of an unforgiving rigidity, whilst the English versions are much looser. My efforts are pretty much modeled on The Times Crossword. And to be honest it would pay to be familiar with the Times. Anyway see how you go. If the folks groove on them, I'll be rapt.
Beach rock accidents
are insured and paid off
in sand settlements
Oink? =)
Here's one more then, with just the slightest hint of Douglas Adams contained therein, to unleash your most plagiarstic fantasies:
Building great planets
One small stone at a time
Infinite and grey
Aargh. Too many good haiku. I'll have to stop dicking around, immerse myself in that picture and that mindset and see what I can come up with. Onya folks.
Mountain to pebble,
from big things little things grow.
And each a marvel.
-
Countless millennia.
Did this mountain have a name?
Does this pebble?
-
The merest whisper,
of the violence of the past,
each stone now serene.
Post a Comment