haiku

Kerouac n' cat

One thing I did do whilst up t'North was get into writing Haikus. I did it in the Kerouacian vein. Came across a Jack Kerouac book in Helmsley library, 'book of haikus'. In it he outline's his version of the traditional Japanese poems. He free'd them a little, saying that Western languages didn't fit so inline with the 17 syllable structure of traditional haiku, so instead he proposed just three line numbers. He called them 'American pops'. The aim with haiku is to create a little snapshot of the world, of life, etc, with all the simplicity of a trickling stream, yet the full force of a sunset.

I just keep a little book in my back pocket and write them whenever. I did them with the Kerouacian ideal in mind that 'write in recollection and amazement FOR YOURSELF' however i'll publish a couple here anyway 'cus they're fun little ditties.

cherub smiling cat,
sleeps tight under arm
and i write haikus.

ancestral remarks
detail the fur of the cat
on a winters eve

Hayfields on the horizon - remind
of giddy summer playgrounds
in golden spring youth

Holy smokin fire
puffs its rings to the night
and says 'how do?'

aching windpipes
curtails spiritual practice
today & tomorrow

If sight is only reflections
and waves are all but vibrations
then where is the source which winds them?

When I refer to waves I mean particle waves, e.g sound waves.
what I like about this one is it sorta follows a trajectory, step stonin' the reader to 'the source'.

This last one got me thinking about the source.. how we can't see it. I've long thought upon how human's trying to comprehend our creation is much like a dog trying to grasp how human's talk.. or where a can of coke comes from.. it's above them, outta reach, incomprehensible.

So perhaps an analogy for the source, using the above haiku as reference..:
NOTE - 1,2 & 3 refers to line number

Rain falls down on a mountain. (3)
it trickles down, curving and caressing a path for itself, collecting into a river. (2) The river bends itself along the land, until it reaches the sea.
the sea is unable to turn inland. It cannot swim upstream, but only struggle on the shore. (1)

So you see how the sea can't swim upstream, it can look inland - but it can't reach far. It certainly can't reach its source by its own will. Then how does it reach its source? By simply going through the motions - where it finds itself raised to the clouds.

I hope that makes some sorta sense. I think i'll explore this idea more, in different creative avenues. Perhaps it'd be explainable in song.

Anywho, some more, follwing the theme loosely:

Rainfall & waves for millenia
carved a david of this land
& the granite of our bones recalls us.

vein's criss-crossed
murmer in echo
of the faraway heart

(this ain't a haiku but on the same wave length)
& like a kite morality stems
from the hand of atavism
dancing-to-and-thro
in the winds of willful existence.

waves reflect
from brain to brain
through ear eye & hand.

cemetry's lined
with washed away lives
stories told to the stones & dirt.

cold & distant
his face hangs like the moon
bright & weary, motionless
(about a wreck-head friend of mine..) 

He reads his woes in the sunday papers,
the cats not out the bag;
children count the ladybugs.

Innocence lost from adolescent eye's
ten years too late
redemption will come

Sisyphusal bee sting!
the forever thorn in one's mind
that rues you from being

go write some of yr own!

What I enjoy most about haiku is its immediate art - art that rivals the click of the camera for its immediacy, and therefore, encapsulated spontinaity.

life update

So a dip in form for this blog, but can explain.. I moved up to Yorkshire last August, and where we were living, we had no internet, or television for that matter. Infact it was quite the hippy household - plenty animals for company (a dog, a cat, 2 rabbits and a pheasant at one point!), a field-fulla-sheep across the road, the woods right on our doorstep.. the village itself only had a curry house, a fish n chips and a pub that opened one night a week!

But anywho so have been doing that since August. I came home for christmas and then decided to move on to the next place.

So now I find myself in Brighton. My reason for coming here is that I want to get creative as I can, get my foot well and truly back on the ball.. I loved living in Yorkshire, but I feel that its time lost in a sense - I did very little creative work whilst I was up there, and instead spent all my time working full time. Infact, the only painting I finished up there was done two days before I came home. I did it for my nan for christmas (see pic)

This is certainly my most well travelled canvas. So I finished it a few days before christmas, however being done with oil's, it certainly wouldn't be dry for a good while. I put it in the car for the first leg of the journey - Helmsley (North Yorkshire) to Essex with Rosey. Not only did I have the canvas with me (which is about waist height btw..!) but I had as much of my stuff as I could physically carry - a full to the brim rucksack, a side-bag full of books & trinkets, a mandolin... I think I also had a few sets of clothes on that wouldn't fit in the bag. From Basildon (Essex) I jumped on a train into central London. Changing onto the tube was the worst part, I didn't even have a hand free to put me ticket through. Finally though got to Victoria and got on my coach. This was the nice part as it was the evening now, and I could sit back finally and enjoy "drivin' home for christmas"..