the sea spits out a fish

two crows watch the beach

until the sea spits out a fish

flying and then dying on the sand

*

two crows pick this fish

to pieces, scoff down their feast,

fly on back inland

*

—the crows are lucky

all the gulls were gone—they’d have

had to fight for food:

*

they’d have lost it,

weren’t it only witnessed by

a passing poet.

*

**

*

Omm

*

*

**

*

Photo by F. Oomkens

work in progress: sketch of snow, dunes, sea and dog

 

when we want to live

a life more lit and touched with

fire we need the beach

*

where sea throws us waves,

thoughts singed with feels we can’t share

like words lost in storm

*

light snow drifts on dunes

while wind blows cold and dry, we

walk down to the sea—

*

foam flies from the waves

like smoke, rolls on soft wet sand,

the dog sniffs, bites it;

*

sunlight’s lying on the beach–

wet, shining now the ash-curled waves sink

reflecting sky:

*

clouds of flame and ash

float through blue, hidden heaven

soaking into earth

*

sky, flames, snow and wind, waves, foam and sand,

they and all of it are never still not ever but they move us

through us as we walk, wish, stand–

*

what I see, I write,

and with my words I try to

catch the snow and light

*

**

*

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photos by F. Oomkens

 

Crowning Charles

*

This crowning of a king

Is a strange, uncomfortable thing:

*

Among the watching crowd:

A pleasant peasant madness;

On our screens: choreographed grandness

While unseen cops arrest and make all protest voiceless;

And he who is crowned

Bares visible sadness.

*

on being conscious:

From a Meditation of Philippe de Saint Maurice, une entité mystérieuse by all accounts, best known for his Meditations, selections of which I’ve been tinkering at these past years. This one skates the edge of profundity and platitude in characteristic, unsettling Maurician manner:

*

**

*

On being conscious:

*

We are dewdrops in the dawn

Of sunshine on the thirsty lawn:

*

We are sparks that fly

Through deep and darkening night sky

Till rainclouds quench us.

 

*

**

*

 

Having spent time recently in Thailand I was able to reconnect with Philippe de Saint Maurice and go through some of his Meditations.

These two haiku on consciousness are part of a longer sequence called revelation realisation, but they stand well alone.

I took the photo on Bang Niak beach on the Andaman coast of Thailand last month (December 2022).

For those interested in epic literary hauls, translations of the Meditations are coming along fine and will be shared in Book Seven of The Dark Gospel; I’m sharing the odd snapshot and highlight as I proceed.

musing

Peaceful as the dawn

of spring above Lake Como

one silent morning

*

the windows open

while the still soft air wove fresh

sweet scented coolness

*

on our skin we felt

our gentle touch our hands our

lips our mouths musing

*

peaceful as fresh dawn

of spring close by Lake Como

that silent morning

*

wrapped in our lovers’

waking warmth—help us remember,

daughters of memory!

*

**

*


person

*

**

*

From Tank Person to

Person, transitioning, stillI

Standing up to power

*

I became one with

The tank, then we dissolved, gone—

Person can return.

*

**

*

Omm

from conversations with my friend

Yu Yan Yip

*

**

*

The photo is of a rare and wondrous Inchan tree, over 200 years old, in Thailand, which bears two different types of fruit, the In and the Chan, at alternating times each year. In a similar way, one person may develop two different, alternating kinds of being, at alternating times, while remaining the same, consistent person.

This poem is part of a series inspired by the experience of Yu Yan Yip, previously known as Tank Man, who has been on the run and transitioning for many years.

The previous poems in the series are:

– Tank Man

– Tank Person

Photo of the Inchan Tree by Freddie Oomkens taken at Kanchanaburi, Thailand, in 2022

Rotterdam, Bright Monday

Rotterdam in spring

sun’s eastering glow—winter’s

in shadows, past us,

*

Past us, waking fresh

soulsakes, godsakes born in light—

burning bright Passion.

 

*

**

*

Poem and photo by Freddie Omm

*
Notes:
Bright Monday is a name for the Monday after Easter.
– This haiku chain is based on a Meditation of Philippe de Saint Maurice—albeit the original was written in and about Jerusalem soon after the Crucifixion.
– In this poem, as in Port Vendres (September 2021), “godsakes”—and their relations, “soulsakes”—are again evoked. Godsakes and soulsakes are aspects of being human, according to the Tabernacle of Gaia.
– The central wording of the haiku chain—“past us,/Past us”—contains the idea of past selves, as well as the more literal idea of winter now being in the past, in Rotterdam’s hemisphere, at least.
– “Passion” refers both to Yeshua’s Easter narrative (Christ’s Passion) and to the passion all humans can feel, regardless of religion—the word is rooted in suffering, with a transformative tendency toward regeneration (or resurrection).

the brave new year wakes

Haiku and pic by Freddie Omm

*

the brave new year wakes

all unconscious of her being

like a child star born

*

on-screen, hopes and fears

of future years—young, unsung

–past all forgetting—

*

puffed, angel-kissed face

unswiped the tears that time will

meanly bring to smudge

*

her moist, smeary cheeks,

dimpled now, her first cry

a wave or blast of waking life

*

washing over us

with some vague sense of our own

blazing potency

*

—yet uncertain too

of fresh madnesses ahead,

the brave new year wakes.

*

**

*

Freddie Omm, January 2022

*

Note: This poem is the third section of a triptych of poems.

The others are: autumn blaze away (and next year be a blast) and new year’s eve, oudejaarsavond 2021.

The triptych starts with autumn (the left hand panel), then comes new year’s eve (central panel) then this one, the brave new year wakes (right hand panel.

tank person


*

**

*

Called a man, then, I

Changed, fluid, freely flowing. Now

I am Tank Person.

*

**

*

Omm

from conversations with my friend

Yu Yan Yip

 

photo by freddie

Ascension 2021

We celebrated last year’s Feast of the Ascension with a single, potently philosophical haiku based on a Meditation of Philippe de Saint Maurice (Ascension). Focusing on a pebble at the bottom of a pond, it got a lot of comments about the nature of consciousness, the will to rise up from the mundane mud, and suchlike.

It was a rather uplifting item all round.

For this year’s Feast, we have another of Philippe’s mighty meditations, but this one comes at the idea of Ascension from an altogether more provocative angle, wondering whether Yeshua’s ascension wasn’t perhaps the result of his wishing to escape the judgmental coldness of us killjoy humans – a sobering thought, entirely apt on this day of feasting and celebration.

Becoming sweaty,

They feared their bodies’ passions

Would take them over

*

Sometimes forever

They fought their desires to death –

Thought to transcend them

*

Morals to judge them,

Judgment to condemn and kill,

Death to embrace them:

*

They feared their own love

And so blamed others, made up

Sins deserving death –

*

Is that why Yeshua

Rose up to heaven – to escape

Our killjoy death-wish?

*

Tired of being judged,

He left us to our cold, mad,

Delusional lives.

*

**

*

Omm

Feast of the Ascension, 13 May 2021


real

how if we try to

do something like change the world

we can and we can’t

*

achieve all we want

by force of will alone that’s

just delusional

*

when the world around

is just as real as we are

our will is not all

*

yet in our mind lives

a universe just as real

as any other

*

being all we want

needs an equilibrium

a balance between

*

**

*

haiku chain and photo by freddie omm

In Chelsea Old Church

In Chelsea Old Church

(December Evensong: 12 Haiku)

*

**

*

In Chelsea Old Church

At Evensong on Sunday

I hope, pray, repent

*

For the coming year’s

Dates – work, duties, dreams – love’s loose

Change of comings, goings:

*

I’m not quite sure who

My confusion of spirits

Would be praying to

*

Jesus seems quite far

Our Father even farther,

Holy Ghost most lost

*

In faith that is ours

To find by quaint disbelief’s

Dark dusty corners

*

Darknesses of this

Church’s memorialised pasts

Framing spaces where

A handful of us

Sit, stand, kneel, sing and mumble

In twilit hangovers

There’s darkness that turns

As the world turns its seasons round

To joy and gladness

*

In the shadows, clouds,

Disintegration delights

Dismantling sadness

*

In meadows, poppies,

Gardens by the Thames that bloom

Long centuries long

*

Before Thomas More

Prayed, sang here with Erasmus

Wisteria grew

*

On the Embankment –

Once a low shore – cars now crawl

Past flowers, me and you.

*

**

*

Omm

Note: This poem describes a time when I lived down the road from Chelsea Old Church, along Cheyne Walk, where what is now a busy road on the Embankment (the A3212) was a sleepy village shore in Sir Thomas More and Erasmus’ time. More worshipped (and was upbraided for singing) in the church and added a chapel to the south or river-side of the building which, unlike the rest of the church, survived World War II bombing. The church was rebuilt in the 1940s, retaining many of its original features and fixtures – it’s a powerfully atmospheric place.

I used to join Evensong regularly to contemplate the week ahead.

This year, most services have been cancelled – I hope they will soon be able to reconvene, and these twelve haiku (one for each Christmas Day) are humbly dedicated to that outcome.

The painting is by Henry Pether (1800-1865). His father and brother were also painters, known as the “Moonshine Pethers” for their addiction to the hooch and liquors they illicitly brewed in seedy stills on the banks of the river moonlit scenes.

Another of my poems with links to this part of London, Ghosts of Cheyne Walk, was published here last year.

My upcoming book, Migrant Shadows – Sicilian Haiku, will be published by Mad Bear Books in early 2021 – with all profits going to support refugees.

december blessing (haiku)

days shrink, night e x p a n d s –

light and warmth of close kind friends

make love more intense.

*

**

*

freddie omm

december 2020

*

photograph by siddharth salve

smile in me

sometimes when we smile

at some shared joke, it’s as if

you’re smiling in me

*

and we’re one wit (as

it were) in one split

                                                          second

when you smile in me

*

a smile spilt over

from that mere moment of now’s

spillage of pixels

*

past laughter uplifts

us – we’re happiest when shared

smiles float up again

*

**

*

freddie omm

winter 2020

 

Note: The idea for this haiku chain was sparked by Proust, where he describes Swann’s memory of Odette’s laughter just as he is sinking into disfavour with the Verdurin set: …”il voyait Odette en rire, en rire avec lui, presque en lui.” – Un Amour de Swann, p. 282. The memory of shared laughter lifts us, as it does Swann, bonding us in a timeless bubble with those whose passing laughter we share, becoming especially poignant and powerful when that bond feels as though it might break through separation or drifting apart.

haunts (haiku)

            oaks spread and twist low

            branches close to damp dark earth

            white sand under wind

*

            as time-tinged leaves blow

            rustling past

                                                       migrating birds  

                      vague mists ghost the dunes:

*

          time, fog, wraiths and haze –

           insubstantialities

 

            that haunt us all our lives

*

**

*

freddie omm

november 2020

 

Loving Light

I

All my life I’ve loved

beaches and the beauty of

being on the edge

*

Where senses merge like

sex in sand and sky in eyes

we are everywhere

*

Feeling a moment

like lifetimes of loving light

from intense shadows

*

While feelings blur like

sea in sand and sky in air

we’re here everywhere.

II

All my life I’ve loved

beaches and their hot bodies

heating everyone

*

(Save folks or times with

lack of lust for life in sex through

mood or age or choice)

*

All my life I’ve loved

soft warm curves that turn things hard

tangling everything

*

All my life I’ve loved

those days when outlines grow so vague

you shape in the flow

*

Like waves washing worlds

that wishes made whole, oceans

smooth and connect us

*

All our lives loving

beaches and bodies and love

make us all hotter

*

And all our lives’ love

lifts us from life’s heaviness:

makes our lives lighter.

III

All my life I’ve loved

light, I’ve left darkness behind

when stuff got murky

*

At dawn if things got

sweaty I might stay on till

stuff got cool again –

*

– I get dark sometimes

too, we all do, but try to

leave darkness at dawn

*

**

*

Omm

September 2020

O My Days All Blue

O my days all blue

With loves like suns that warm and

Burn us up all through

*

Hot nights of turning

On the spit of sleeplessness

Feverish with you

*

Blazing together

– Days and nights of endlessness

For making love to

*

**

*

Freddie Omm

September 2020

Elysium

Forever in blue

Light warm day lifts woke souls to

Elysian Fields

*

Light that conceals

Leaks among us and links us

Each in sublime joy

*

West winds fan our passions

Growing golden flowers to garland

Blessed lit up isles

*

Float on light that hides

Night for a bit while gods wake

Heaven is being.

*

**

*

Words and photo by Freddie Omm

September 2020

Ripening

The vine writhes in wind –

Sunsoaked leaves, darkening grapes,

Ripening season

*

**

*

Freddie Omm

August 2020

in neverland lost


Strength (RIPped) – haiku puzzle

To go with this little puzzle, some words by Verity Worth:

Becoming strong can come when you fall apart and break down.

You’re overcome by – you melt in – you surrender to – you give your self up to (and in) the present moment.

That moment can be a space filled with overwhelming emotion.

Maybe you are mourning a loss, someone you loved.

Maybe it is the moment itself you are mourning, the intensity of feeling it has evoked that feels as though it’s passing.

You become the moment – the moment becomes you – give yourself to the moment –

You find strength in pulling yourself together, and every time this happens the extra strength seems more, like building muscles.

And yet another part of you feels wasted, emotionally hungover, psychically drained.

The two sides coexist in you, different facets of the same self, two selves within a larger You, like rainclouds amd sun, selves containing many more aspects like scattered pieces in a jumbled jigsaw puzzle.

Neither gains the upper hand for a while, the two sides just about balancing, then matter resolves, the hangover dissipates, it drains away, as is natural, it passes like a cloud.

The pieces can be reassembled.

There’s enough strength in you to grow again.

*

**

*

Verity

Ascension

Sunk in the mundane

like a pebble in a pond.

*

How rise up again?

*

**

*

Freddie Omm

Feast of the Ascension

21 May 2020

an empty beach in summertime

Freeform sonnet and pic by Freddie Omm.

the new normal (haiku chain)

What is it to be

Normal when our past, now, is

Newly abnormal?

*

Wasn’t it always

So, and don’t we overstate,

Slightly, the moment

*

We live in – strange times,

Strangely recasting our selves

For the new normal?

*

Isn’t it normal,

When living’s new and strange, to

Hope past lives survive?

*

**

*

Freddie Omm

April 2020

Distanced Days (April Blooms)

Here in the now we think of then

And them – of times when we

Could meet outside – touch, kiss, hug – when

We felt like it, so free –

*

That world of honeyed dreans is lost

In isolated dawn

It succumbed in the last spring frost

And cannot come again

*

In April blooms the bees are woke

And drunk on nectar as the evenings wane

They seep and melt through air like smoke –

They may not come again

*

We sleepwalked into viral purgatory

Long distanced days of social dystrophy –

But nightmares fade away at dawn

If we can wake again.

*

**

*

Freddie Omm

April 2020

 

spring 2020 (health, love: spring springs)

in times of sickness

it’s hard to see spring’s beauty

in the littlest things

*

(all the world’s beauty

– sun, skylarks, cherry blossoms –

can’t make this spring spring

*

when all the world’s sick,

only health, love, could ever

make spring spring again –

*

pale flowers grown on graves

look like little things of health,

love: the seeing is all.

*

**

*

freddie omm

march 2020

Love in Times of Quarantine I

This Spring’s a Psycho

Come to take our lives away

While we hide inside

*

This March, Spring is Loss

Of what we thought was control

Of our little worlds

*

This March, Spring’s gone mad –

Scattering buds of sickness

Seeding fit bodies –

*

This Spring is Zombies

The Undead with the Living

(No one knows who’s who)

*

This Spring is stealing

All our money, our nest-eggs

For a rainy day

*

This Spring spawns madness

We hide ourselves away but

Still the virus comes

*

(No wonder we’re scared

And sad and buying loo rolls

To wipe it all away)

*

Crazy thief of Time

Of plans, hopes, closeness, futures

Still the virus comes

*

While we stay inside

The season of life unfolds

Sick blossoms of death

*

Days stretch into days

Blank nights of feverish dreams

Of gone, better times

*

Like blossoms floating

On vague streams our memories

Drift down to the sea

*

Those gone, better times

When once we sang in crowds now’s

Still, deserted streets

*

As we shelter from

These threats we’ve never seen

One small comfort’s true:

*

While you come for us,

Psychoid virus, we know death

Soon will come for you.

*

**

*

Freddie Omm

March 2020

*

**

*

 

I took the photo in Villach (once the home of Paracelsus the Alchemist) last month.

Love in Times of Quarantine II (Lockdown Loving)

Still deserted streets –

Spring’s forgotten earth, lovesick

in times of quarantine

*

We’re isolated

Beings – lone, socially-distanced

Bodies in disease:

*

Now in spirit we

Should touch each other’s hearts, share

Droplets of airborne love

*

Spread lockdown loving

Through springtimes of quarantine

Till the virus leaves.

*

**

*

Freddie Omm

March 2020

– love’s words run still (twelve haiku)

things we feel will not

die for want of words to speak

them – those feels will stay

*

your breast warm on my chest

heart and tongue’s incoherence

dissolving in sex

*

how our words run free

of sense when what we feel speaks

more than we can say

*

love shifts forever

infusing lust’s hot moist mouths’

fluent sweet nothings

*

the love we feel gone –

ghosted, holed in our hearts alone

swells in silence still

*

love remembering

each wordless stroke of the tongue

bodies becoming

*

that loss sends us mad

whose griefs we know shall not pass

so we stay still, still

*

love like roots in earth

grows deep, inarticulate

all through tacit seasons

*

till we cry our loss

pain blurred blind – we’ll not be heard

nor seen as we are

*

love is a virus

spreading our sweet infection

mingling genes, bodies

*

this is how these words

might speak to those who hear and

feel their inner sense: –

*

if what we felt died

through lack of words to speak it

this is how it ends –

*

**

*

freddie omm

20.02.2020

February Ink

February ink

Scrawls dark promises on sky

Written in love’s shade.

*

**

*

Freddie Omm

February 2020

Untitled Haiku

Poets play with words

like kids with toys – in this way

We all are poets

*

(When our thoughts are cut

up full of rage we need a

Monosyllable

*

If we want to make

things complicated we get

Polysyllabic) –

*

We all play with words

to shape our worlds according

to our needs and wants:

*

Whether or not we

think life’s a game, only words

can change the metaphor.

*

**

*

Freddie Omm

30 January 2020

*

**

*

I wrote and published this one on the same morning – this morning. Like many other recent haiku, it is based on one of Philippe de Saint Maurice’s Meditations. The photo was taken on Scheveningen beach recently. The pawprints in the sand are Coco the Dog’s (the copyright, to all of it of course, remains mine!).

Coming Together (haiku chain)

In the still soft hours

Of night I wake as if alone

In bed although we’re not

*

Still there in each space

Between kisses in each breath while

We sleep love completes us

*

When we’ve way too much

Unsaid we want to say and

Much unshared to share

*

Even in silence

Our closeness warms us fills us

Speaks us forever:

*

Coming together

After time apart too long

Fills a voiceless void

*

Our lovers’ talk so close

Lasts longer far than mere remembered life

Never really ends

*

While we’re together

Hold each moment hold each one

In fullness of love

*

Even in silence

Still warmth eloquence love

Speak us forever

*

**

*

Freddie Omm

(very loosely translated from an original Meditation by Philippe de Saint Maurice)

*

**

*

I took the photo of the sunset through a window, quite dirty, in San Francisco.

Stranger (haiku chain)

For millenia, humans

waited for god to show up

Now we are furthest

*

from belief – closest

to meeting god in person:

Unwelcome stranger –

*

Forever mortals

on earth forget our fate is

Eternal promise

*

Eternal waiting

for the life that has no end

Mortals forever

*

Unwelcome strangers

to their own lives and planet:

Strange and unwelcome

*

Until they embrace

the passing of all that flows

and streams us is all.

*

**

*

Haiku and picture by Freddie Omm

(Loosely translated from an original Meditation by

Philipe de Saint Maurice)

*

**

*

The photo was taken at Scheveningen on a windy afternoon last month when the sand was seething along the beach in noisy funnelflows.

for josephine kate – haiku chain

hey josephine kate

welcome to this wild wide world

you will grow in love –

*

each newborn baby

has wise ones who come to bless,

bring gifts, praise, omens:

*

caspar, melchior,

balthasar – kings with gold, frankincense

and myrrh – following a star.

*

written in the god book

we glow like spells of unspelled words

on the unscrolled page

*

will we float in light

like morning mist on frost still white

as night’s evening dawns –

*

will we make our homes

watched by the gods of ourselves

scanning our future?

*

written in that god book

spells untold on unscrolled page

speak the unspelled age.

*

**

*

freddie omm

epiphany 2020

Our cousin, Josephine Kate Bader, was born on Christmas Day 2019, making triply apt this Epiphany welcome on Twelfth Night, the night of the Magi’s visit.

The Magi, or Three Kings, bringing their gifts to the baby Jesus, from a 6th century mosaic at Sant’Appolinaire Nuovo, in Ravenna.

streaming (haiku chain)


at year’s end we try

to let what’s done and doing

settle in our minds

*

our memories edit

us in a flowing sequence

like a narrative

*

mishmashing hot nights

that wake lush fantasies of

love made (up) just right

*

as kaleidoscopic

impressions make up all our lives,

bye bye bygones stream

*

a vision of us

on waking up in beds we

don’t quite remember

*

to be joyful we should

see life as though providence

really worked for us:

*

(without edits like

random words our streamed stories

make no kind of sense)

*

our dreams of bliss are

real when woke in each other’s

arms in homely beds

*

each day we give fresh

meaning to lives streaming by

loving each other

*

**

*

freddie omm

new year’s eve 2019

*

The kaleidoscope collage is made up of kaleidoscope photos which I shot of various subjects over the past few days, including Coco the Dog, trees and skies, our Christmas tree, etc.

chiffchaff (haiku chain)

 

before the snow falls….

this winter, we’ll warm ourselves

with wine and firelight

*

within tall sheltering walls

we’ll lighten lovelost shadows

through this longest night

*

green-winged chiffchaff calls

warbling from the weeping winter willows: –

woke spirits take flight

*

**

*

freddie omm

the hague

winter solstice, 2019

*

The chiffchaff (pictured below) has an onomatopoeic name evoking its song (cf Dutch: tjiftjaf; German: Zilpzalp) – even though the trilling chirrups of the chiffchaffs I’ve heard sound more like chee chee than chiffchaff. (And how, in any case, could a bird produce an ff , let alone an lp sound?)

Most chiffchaffs who breed in Europe migrate south in winter, but they seem quite keen on the continent, arriving earlier in spring, and leaving later in autumn than other birds.

Avian heralds of global warming, many of these summer colonists are now becoming permanent residents, overwintering by Dutch and Belgian coasts, the English Channel, on southern Welsh and Irish shores, in Normandy and Britanny, and along the Mediterranean.

For all that, this slightly bastardised haiku chain isn’t exclusively about chiffchaffs, much as I love their presence and the vigorous, spirit-enlivening brio of their song.


when we make love a billion cells break free (villanelle)

when we make love a billion cells break free

our bodies flowing fluid like disgendered

creatures of great beauty growing unbound gloriously

*

although we’re only human too and so quite ordinary

we spiral into plasmic dust as spores sprinkling our eggshell world

while making love a billion cells break free

*

in some identities we hardly see

among us – beside, within, beyond us – enraptured,

creatures of great beauty rising upward gloriously

*

like stars that gleam and glow in space and transiency

like birds in deep still forest undergrowth unheard

love is made perpetually so billions of our cells break free

*

our love in life is that which lets us be

ourselves in an intensity of moments scattered

creatures of great beauty growing unbound gloriously

*

we find new freedoms freeform ecstasy

now top and out of mind and sight no need for thought nor any word

when we make love a billion cells break free

like creatures of great beauty growing unbound gloriously

*

**

*

griffith park

LA

again

we had such careless loving times back when

we sheltered on the shore as storm and sleet swept in –

we hugged each other hot and close again

*

and with each kiss our mouth and tongue would send

such warm and wordless blissful touch and then

we’d find each other’s joy in hot wet carnal time again.

*

those deep cold nights of storm that draw us in

together closer than we’ve ever been

to kiss and fuck each other warm and well again

*

against the pain that cuts us deep when wounded by a friend –

we long to make it up but can’t begin –

we miss those carefree loving times back when

*

so young and fresh, with sunlight prickling our skin,

we spread our arms and let the sunlight in –

we hug and hold each other hot and close and mingled up again.

*

so to pick up the heartloose wreck of storms (which time will also mend)

our edgy lust and love that longing doesn’t end

we’ll have such careless carnal time and then

we’ll hug hold kiss each other hot and close again.

*

**

*

freddie omm

december 2019

we come alive

from the way we act
when we’re in love you’d think love
wounds and hurts us most
*
in life – though things far
bitterer are daily thought and done –
love hits us hardest
*
– at times though we seem not
to even know we’re alive
while we’re here living
*
we can’t remember
our births, don’t believe in our
deaths – all too human
*
errors throughout life
shape our being – our delicate
small blue fragile world –
*
it’s quite likely that
love changes us because love
makes us come alive
*
as time goes past pain
fades but love’s the thing that lasts
to save us from ourselves
*
when we kiss and touch
our loving tenderness makes
hard living softer
*
we come alive then
love ourselves into being
loving mortal gods
*

**

*

freddie omm

*

**

*

This haiku chain is loosely translated from a Meditation of Philippe de Saint Maurice.

hurrian hymn


Sounders of the Depths is Emma Talbot’s exhibition at GEM in The Hague (next to the Photography and Kunstmuseum). It features brilliant, visceral installations (photocollage of selected works above). The show’s soundtrack, serendipitously, is a recording of Hurrian Hymn 6, the earliest piece of transcribed music (c. 1400 BC) – and it’s serendipitous because I wrote this haiku chain about it, some of whose preoccpuations resonate with Talbot’s work:

hurrian hymn

as we humans sing

for the goddess of the moon

singing creates us

*

now we come alive

in a forgotten language

past and unsurpassed

*

words from long ages

of birth, death and love relived

make us only us

*

being an offering –

the oldest song in the world

written in our blood

*

printed on this clay

by god through genes of humans

words and melodies

*

our voices swelling

the endlessly singing silence

breath of timeless sound

*

thirty three centuries

in a blind eye’s blink – always

we sing of presence

*

always we are song

mostly so when discomposed

in discord suffering

*

we’re never to be

silenced or wiped out as we

sing ourselves alive

*

**

*

omm

moving


we humans stand alone and still in life until

love takes our hand  and kisses us and helps us walk and talk

*

loveless, the passing hours through which all things must pass

stand still the days succeeding days stand still

and all is focused on ourselves alone

as if the universe herself is holding breath

*

we humans stand alone in life until

one day we find our love and it is good

while loving lasts all lives are rich in joy

and come together we all taste the fruits of heaven.

*

so can we forget a while that sometimes

a human stands alone in life until they fall apart in death

and make our wishes all come true with hope

and faith in love to keep us humans moving?

*

**

*

freddie omm

venice beach

september 2019

essence

the imagination required to see

how life grows through a series of moments

*

(at once selfcontained, static and timeless

yet flying yes swarming into infinity)

*

like flocks of geese breaking from an amber

sunset into invisibility

*

like summer nights fading in september

flown into those endless twilights of eternity

*

where sensation is becoming to where

we run blindly into fresh horizons

fading as each sunrise into darkness

this warm fleeting intimacy we share

created from those moments is the essence

*

**

*

freddie omm

big sur

september 2019

 

ventura beach revisited

                      Freddie in Ventura

*

those amber sunsets

never set but hung in mind

resplendent always

*

many years before

this beach and all that’s on it

were now, were mine

*

time was not what it

now is nor is becoming

each moment stayed whole

*

the waves held me fast

while the wind blew permanence

over solid sand

*

gulls sat in the sky

as if transfixed or painted

by a maker’s hand

*

 

*

a kid on a beach

– in the timeless space of life –

that kid’s always now

*

**

*

freddie omm

ventura, september 2019

*

The first of my haiku chains about Ventura beach was published here in December 2014: on ventura beach. I wrote this new one and took the photo while revisiting the beach last week. Here’s a shorter edit of the poem on Instagram.

narcissus

i see you my love

as clearly as reflections

in dark water

*

as clearly as the light

i see you stark and unblurred

in the noonday sun

*

perfection of love

that shatters into ripples

when i kiss your lips

*

**

*

omm

*

haiku by freddie omm; painting by john william waterhouse

surf

Meditations of Philippe de Saint Maurice, which I’m editing and transforming into haiku, will be published by Mad Bear Books. The Meditations offer insights into spiritual growth. I’ll be posting a few in advance here, interspersed with other work.

The first was gulls.

The second is surf:

our loves are dolphins

weaving wild unwinding waves

in and out of sight

*

our sentiments are seals

on rocks submerged in ocean

slicked in ceaseless tides

*

our thoughts’ sea lions

flap and flip on cold bare shores

to breed in rookeries

*

our lives’ deep mysteries

will swim and sink and drift through

phosphorescing seas

*

like drops in quick waters

loves, thoughts, lives are liquid

flowing surfing beings

*

**

*

freddie omm

june 2019

text by freddie omm, header pic by pagie page, footer pic by daniel h. tong

still


*

**

*

Decades pass by, while

Moment of eternity

Stands still, like a tank.

*

**

*

Omm

*

Photos of tank in Ukraine taken by Dmitri Bukhantsov in February 2022 and added, with thanks to Dmitri, to this post later.


i burn for your love (lit lust) – may haiku

fresh spring rains pass by –

mist like smoke seeps up from earth,

buried burning warmth

*

i grow in your heat

pulse beats in the furrowed hearth

of this maykissed field

*

moist excited skies

spread out wide like heavy thighs

fecundating space

*

i burn for your love

lit lust lifts my loins my life

planting fresh new seeds

*

**

*

freddie omm

veneralia (love changelings) – haiku chain

love is unchanging

but like the moon looks different

with each month coming

*

from bright new closeness

of a full worm supermoon*

illuminating us

transfiguring all

the sleeping world with budding

love awakenings

*

as each mood succeeds

mood and sad and happy mix

we’re changelings in love

*

our inconstancy

moves, begets us, forgot in

guiltless venery

*

our loves’ festival:

bathe in the pools of Venus

crowned with myrtle

*

rediscover the

endless beauty of new fresh

never ending loves

*

**

*

omm

  • Veneralia was a festival held on 1 April in honour of Venus, Goddess of Love (Aphrodite to the Greeks). Women bathed together, crowned in myrtle, in the goddess’ honour. The festival was specifically focused on Venus’ attribute as Venus Verticordia – alluding to an aspect of the goddess as a “changer of hearts” – in this case, her ability to transform lustful love into chaste or platonic love. In this poem, the changing of hearts is seen in the context of a constancy of love that continues even when the love objects change.
  • *On 21 March 2019, the Spring Equinox, there was a full worm super moon. Looking from my window in The Hague, I saw an irradiated sky of swift moving clouds whose intermittent gaps opened a flood of stunning illuminations. They lit up everything like the flash of sudden universal compassion that can come with a new love, undermining cynicism and suffusing all in a bath of warm golden light.
  • Photos by Timothy Dykes and Guzman Burquin; Venus Verticordia by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

valentine possibilities (haiku couple)

each love is a kiss

melting and mingling – messed-up

unmissable bliss

*

each kiss is a sign:

unspoken love awoken –

timeless Valentine

*

**

*

freddie omm

14 february 2019

*

(illustration by annie spratt via unsplash)

faults and good bits

photo by matthew rader on unsplash

we own our faults but

all those faults do not destroy

the good bits in us.

*

Omm

february 2019

ghosts of cheyne walk

one night in London

I saw the ghost of a child

behind my old house

*

dressed all in white

from another century

in the basement well

*

I watched a while

– she was absorbed in herself –

diffusing through light

*

a veil of darkness

her little body lit up

void translucent shades –

*

face expressionless,

quite absent, as if her spirit

had drained her hereness

*

flowing past in light

like the sun’s in moony night

shining chimera –

*

I could not read her

state nor story from her looks:

she stayed still, mute, slight,

*

radiating calm

acceptance between us. I waved –

then went up to bed.

*

**

*

next night, another

ghost came through the bathroom wall

into the sitting room

*

whilst I sat talking

with my ex-girlfriend’s mother

sure I was mad, drunk

 *

visions and sirens

called me, but maybe it was

the ghost of our love

*

the evening after

I’d seen that blank ghost daughter

in not to be light.

*

***

*

Omm

freddie omm’s Sicilian Haiku will be published by Mad Bear Books in 2021.

canoes in the dusk

splintering sea – deep

troughs of sunset waves – shade, swell,

breathing dreams of sleep

*

lost in waking waves –

our canoes launch liquid lives

in limitless dusk.

*

**

*

Omm

grounded – a thing for me – split-line sonnet

not for me

those clouds that fluff the sky and

shift their shape like ghosts

*

haunting heaven,

inhabiting while whiting out

our snowy floating formless hopes –

*

not for me

the worn-in practised phrase

that targets

*

some soft weakness of our stricken hearts,

but always misses,

misses

*

tittle-tattling flattery that bigs

us up

yet disses, disses –

*

o not for me

those chilled and flaky

trout-lipped puppet tendernesses

*

nor for me

those strung-out wants that need yet never do,

they’ll never do:

*

not for me a life that’s lost for lack of you.

*

for me then what is left to make my day?

for me your hand and head and heart and kiss

*

that permeate

the mark of love which others miss,

miss

*

mashing us while world spins on around us in its feckless way:

*

but all those flakes

who flurry through the sky, who

flourish infelicitously

*

without a touch from you

to ground them cannot be

a thing for me.

*

**

*

omm

november 2018

reignite – haiku chain

Night. A single star

Burns, smudged by smog, smokelike clouds

Then blotted out. Dark

*

As my mood when you

Are gone – warmth and light snuffed out

Like a single flame

*

As the waxing moon

Is smothered behind storm clouds

Passing blind below

*

We absent ourselves

In darkness, deep depressions

Hiding from the sun

*

We dig a hole in

The plot of our own story –

Gotta stop digging:

*

Look up, wrap ourselves

In glowing glory, endless

Potentiality

*

Sea, sky, stars and moon

And this solitary earth

Spinning round the sun

*

That storm seething past

Stokes our sluggish blood till time

Reignites the sky.

*

**

*

Omm

September 2018

blessing for a child – haiku chain

open your eyes, love –

begin the unending day

of beautiful play:

*

ripeness of moments

fall into your lap like fruits

of bliss from the tree –

 *

song and carefree smiles

wrap you in the warmth of love,

forever happy

*

together with those

whose arms hold you close and safe

wherever you are

 *

and when your eyes close

may you see beautiful dreams

and wake to fresh dawn

 *

whoever you be

come in your unending day

of beautiful play.

song of the morning muse – sonnet

Every morning I sing – the birds above

And earth below move in those dawning musings –

Those twists and turns of dream and thought, those swings

Of mood that drive us off course when we love

*

But when we think we have the lives we hoped we’d live

We sometimes see ourselves as creatures that we feared we’d be –

Monsters of imagination, whom we

Fed because of what we dreamed they’d give –

*

We travelled far through countries strange, and stranger time

Wore out our wishes, blotted all that dreaming shaped in rhyme:

Our vital hopes were blurred – still, half-asleep –

Although throughout it all our vocal passions stirred: racing deep –

*

Till one fine day (like now) we wake, we rub our eyes and then

Realise we’re singing songs of morning once again.

*

**

*
Omm

May 2018

the alien within us – haiku chain

we photoshop out

the alien within us

retouching our selves

*

to present profiles

that are shareable and bland

we become other

*
migrating exiles –

those aliens outside us

beyond the pale walls

*
and who am I then

an alien inside you

apt to be expelled

*
when you draw borders

for my refugee heart, we

live a little less

*
free to be as we

are in our core and essence,

unretouchable

*
irretrievable

inalienable us:

search for us in vain

*

Omm

March 2018


st valentine’s eve – anna and floris: 1270

at dusk she kisses him

mushymouthed and clinging breathless breast

to breast their smooth commingling

hard then fluid tender melting

*
cool hot creamy sex when two

so made so shaped for one another

couple up as one in one

*
dissolving her in him in her like milk in tea

and in the pearl-pale moisture bleeding from those honeyed lips

and in the sweet salt sweat of thighs and loins

*
she cries he too

for in that kindling consummate moment

they come consumed to be together

*
all thought given up

yesterday today no more tomorrow

she wonders how such mindless mindfulness surrenders

*

she wonders is that it then when valentine dawns

*
when is tomorrow then

when I and you become us

and she conceives as day in night is born

and fused and found forever lost that moment

*
when together now

we come as close as one can be to one

then is tomorrow and tomorrow’s past

*
Omm 

valentine’s eve into day 2018

space in our mind

there is a space in our mind

where thoughts are formed

which we do not express

when let’s say you catch a glance of someone

in the street

who smiles and you smile back but pass by

and forget about them

although you’ve never known them to start with

until days later you wake

in the night

from the darkness of a vanished dream

about some other person and their smile

that passing instant returns like a flash

to you vivid as lightning and fades as quickly

in bleached black

yet has left its impression

as if imprinted on your brain

so when you look away a shadow

of it still is there smudged

in faded pigments

like the glimpse of a ghost

of something you don’t quite believe

in

or a déja-vu of such familiar oddity

that it’s unsettling and draws you close

in

as a lover lost from long ago

who seems suddenly close and wants to hug

you back from your absence to feel

the sort of things that you cannot describe

*

 Omm

8 february 2018


twelfth night, 1296 – floris’ epiphany in the hall of knights – as if feasting

Floris V van Holland

Early in January 1296, Floris V leaves his court in The Hague for Paris, where – against his better wishes – he switches Holland’s ancient alliance with England to one with France. This sparks off treachery among some of Floris’ nobles, leading to his murder in June.

*

in his hall of knights –

mental topers, tumblers, ravers

– mad din of needy bingeing gluttons

*

smoke-shrouds cling to blackened beams

minstrels mock those braying, belching goblet-brandishers

ranting voices drunk

*

alone in that crowd

and at its centre, he sits

a silent moment.

***

*

thoughts like words unborn

in a womb of forgetting

flit through his spirit

*

scared of too much thought

(which drinking puts a stop to

– as if thoughts could drown):

***

*

sacred hopes, our wished-for dreams

float off like swans when we awake

they glide off on the glossy glassy lake

*

worn out by living

(which dying puts an end on

– as if our lives first wear, then strip us bare).

*

as if as if as

if, in drinking, sleep and dreams

and thoughts and words all drowned like shipwrecked memories

*

and yet and yet and

yet we live and breathe and feed our fates,

our lives float free of us.

***

*

he sits with his knights,

his ladies, fools, his dogs and serfs and clowns

one sated, bloated, slumbering moment

*

comes as if to himself

in the din of that great hall

on his island in the lake –

*

sees in that moment

the ghosts of future feasting,

woken when he wakes.

 

Omm

twelfth night, 2018

 

 

Binnenhof The Hague in about 1290

Hall of Knights (Ridderzaal), Binnenhof, The Hague in the eighteenth century


sex and being (three haiku)

 

pulsing passion fills

our veins – our bodies

cleave together, one.

*

now in our oneness

grows a seed of otherness:

each of us is both

*

oneself, and a part

of another being born

of us, though not us.

*

Omm

shoredays, yoredays: seven haiku on a beach

DSC02124

now, then, soon – shoredays,

wave-lapped hours, wind-spun and warm

like summer kisses

*

blown in midwinter

distillated on our lips

blissed out, oh! timeless

*

yoredays – flown, but here

with you forever, come spring

and the buds and birds –

*

skies drunk on light, blue

till blacked-out, then flopping blank

on a spinning globe

*

summerled like myth,

tripping out on dewy toes –

yoredays, yours, mine, theirs,

*

the only sure thing

left is love in all our lives,

strewn along the dunes

*

days of sun, shoredays –

all transilluminated,

hewn in memory

DSC02120

who am i (lana wachowski)

for lana wachowski

001Lana-Wachowski

… who am i, and when

wachowski to wachowska

metamorphosized

was there a moment

before i became me? – no,

and yet i wonder…

♥♥

what turns us queerly

recast in a different film

to act against type?

♥♥♥

(type?) (without a face?)

life’s not some single screenplay…

(type?) (without a cast?)

♥♥♥♥

we ask ourselves this

not knowing if an answer

ever was, will be:

♥♥♥♥♥

never yet someone,

neither a nonentity

nor quite nobody

♥♥♥♥

mostly we don’t ask

for fear of wondering, lost

in rapt selflessness

♥♥♥

one eye on the road

which tears our lives inside out

one hand on the wheel

♥♥

and we become one

body, not anybody,

don’t ask who am i…

♥♥

22nd January 2014

note:

i admire lana wachowski’s work a lot and also her general attitude to stuff (as far as one can make out from her few public statements) – she combines humour with intelligence and experimentation – artistic bravery, openminded energy, a sense of inspirational anarchy…

i wrote this poem in one go last night just after i’d been thinking about her life so far.

(it is likely to get edited, tweeted and played with, being in the nature of an experiment, one of my haiku chains…)

endings & beginnings

my new year’s message this year is this quaint little ditty. i was writing out the fair copy this morning when i was interrupted not by a man from porlock but a mother-in-law from neuss bearing presents. so i had to finish it on a fresh sheet of paper which i then stuck together so you can see that the interruption came at a pertinent point:

endings & beginnings31122013_00000

for those who cannot decipher my writing:

 

                                                                  endings & beginnings

                                                                  (in a winter’s garden)

BEGIN with the word that comes first, like light

from a twilit winter’s garden, when soft rainfalls

drop on dewy, leaf-pocked grass, showering bright

like a sudden flow of MOMENTS through the calls

of a goosequilled V tooting past, this starry night…

*

I sometimes try to freeze TIME, so it stops

and in an INSTANT feel and think all blend

and merge within MOMENTS—consciousness drops

like heaven’s rainfall in a winter garden—

inconsummate, unbegun, word without END,

*

but now SOMETIMES I forget such somethings,

and in your love I’ve found SEASONS to care

about the here, NOW, not some perfected place where

there are no more ENDINGS and BEGINNINGS.

                                                                                              freddie o

                                                                        viersen, 29-31 december 2013

 

love became a lonely land: autumnal haiku chain

leaves on loam

leaves like love let go

spiral down to snoozing earth,

dark, russet-brown loam.

*

when fall took those leaves

love became a lonely land—

warmth withdrawn, wan sun’s

*

waning light bled slow

blind trails of mud and sodden

footsteps veined with ice

*

wan sun's waning light bled slow blind trails

where ghosts shadowed past,

skulked all through that leafless land

to haunt our autumns…

*

stark, unfelled, strange-boughed—

love’s remains in lonely land:

bare old beeches, clumped,

*

storm-ridden and gaunt,

sheltering our homeless hearts,

winterblown—like us,

*

love’s a vagabond

wandering to a nameless place

of endless leaving—

*

on tracks untravelled

from fall to spring, we will see

leaves, let go, return.

leaves, let go, return

leaves, let go, return

___________________________________________________________________________________

 – I originally wrote this haiku chain on Twitter — a bad habit of mine — poetry on Twitter being so hit and miss, nobody’s looking for it — but I find it a good place maybe for knocking out a first draft.

– When I’d written it I thought Love is a lonely land was a new phrase but then I checked and I saw I had actually lifted it (subconsciously…) from an old, sweet song.

–  This was Billie Holiday’s beautiful, mournful Deep Song (by Cory and Cross), which includes the line:

Love lives in a lonely land

and ends:

Love is a barren land, a lonely land/A lonely land.

–  That’s a song I must have listened to more than a couple dozen times since childhood (my parents also loved Billie Holiday).

– At any rate, my haiku chain has ended up as a sort of retort — a positive echo if you like — to the somewhat bleak sentiments of Deep Song

– So thanks to Billie, Cory and Cross!

– And here’s their song in all its glory:

Billie Holiday: Deep Song

earthgrazing haiku

moon and bay

moon and bay

In Dorset last month one evening after tea – and till well after midnight – there were some excellent meteor showers.

Spread out on our backs, on a tumulus on the clifftops above Higher Eype, we watched them.

I wrote this haiku chain about it:

earthgrazers
(meteor showers over the dorset coast)

peckish at tea-time:
pot warmed, kettle on the boil
as the light draws in

around the cottage –
fog furling up from the sea
all this moist evening

our minds soaked, softened
in warm cups of reflection,
dunked choccy biscuits –

scones with clotted cream
and jam, gentleman’s relish
on hot buttered toast.

we climb up the hill
to the clifftop tumulus,
sheep and cows around –

the sky inking in
those unscrolled constellations
crawling with time’s myths,

scanning heaven for
asteroids and meteorites,
bright trails clustered in

radiating lights,
mirrored waves, blank deep waters
where night takes a breath,

and then we look out
– wide-eyed, longing no longer –
appetites replete,

scattered meteor showers
sketch the intermittent sky
with points of parting:

radiant perseids,
earthgrazers, cosmic debris –
while we watch, starstruck,

and only the dog
is still on the hunt for more,
chasing her own tail…

dorset, august 2013

coco looking for her own tail

coco looking for her own tail

(“earthgrazers”, by the way, are meteors which fly close to the horizon, slowly, in the early evening… i like the way it could just as well describe us humans – and animals, too – grazers all upon this earth)

 

 

lovelife mutations

life is a ghostwritten script
a half-heard whispered soundtrack
of cues and quotes we’ve ripped
from old remastered notes, unverified facts…

                    *

life is an unwritten message –
never sent, unborn, undead,
relating a world without age
where words merely babble, only read

                    *

to alter their sense
and scatter random clues which give
us relics of self, and change the tense –
a poem of birth to live.

                    *

and we retrace our poems of birth
alive in love in every time
and every breath
whose heartbeat pumps our rhyme –

                    *

our poetry mutates
us and those who heed
our words in altered states
wake love out of need.

                                freddie
                                june 2011

who knew when they loved how to love?

this is the third and final part of this triptych of easter poems.

i mean to illustrate them with a tasteful and beautiful picture of easter eggs.

who knew when they loved how to love?
wasn’t love being the same as the loved
one – one – one could never disentangle?

and being apart, wasn’t it not like life
at all, unwhole, the atom split in two,
something alone no one could do?

so was this whole undoing then a way to become whole
when they loved – but who knew how to love?

                            *

who knew when they lost how to lose?
wasn’t losing it all the only way to find your
self: self – selflessness being everything to have

in nothing, and to gain by giving it all
away for a kiss of the air
and find our heartlove beating everywhere –

we love and feel our lives a universe
which when we lose, who knows what we lost?

                            *

who knew when they lived how to live?
or be the one that wasn’t just alone to
live: live – live recording loops unending

till the next verse overwrites us?
to be reborn’s to think those other unbecoming lives we had were fakes
being we alone have now got what it takes –

maybe another life to be the ones
who knew when they lived how to live?

freddie
easter 2011