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 shore—

*

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

 

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

holy ghosts – haiku chain

all our holy ghosts

live in us, and we in them –

love’s eternal haunting:

*
blithe spirits spook us

from deserted dunes – singing

sands, rustled by winds –

*
heartbeat-storms roil round

the beach, rouse stomping wildness,

clamour in our veins:

*
we are the children

– and parents – of the past

in love’s family

*
whose children succeed

give birth to generations

for eternity

*
mother father child

live and grow and give their love

timeless trinity

*
all our holy ghosts

live in us as we in them

we are love eternal

*
Omm

Spring 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


zuiderstrand, the hague

from boardwalks buried
in the bed of that steep dune

you step on the beach –

*

sandscapes shift, air-borne,

you’re a visitor here, as

timelessly moving

  *

as sea waves wash off

infinite fictions of earth –

mere specks on a spot in space.

*

Omm


october 2017