016. Celebrating

Forgive me, for the rushed post (no poem, purple prose today), just two images. I am having a long weekend in Berlin with family & friends, and am sunburned and walked out but loving it so much. Today's inspiring image comes from Carol Mack (Day 14,  Fiber of Urban Life), and my juxtaposition is of graffiti from Tacheles, Berlin; which reminded me of fabric. Tschuß!

Hot days, cold wine, warm friendships, wonderful parents; all take the edge off the big four-oh...

015. Roiling

This wonderful piece from Claudine Metrick caught my eye, speaking to me of dark and distant horizons, roiling atmosphere, somehow a journey. My picture, an variation/extract from "Gone Surfing"

I did not need even a raft on this journey. The sea was as flat as the beach, as flat as the horizon, you could walk on it for miles. Leave it. Not warm, but the chill of the water was invigorating, not for me a somnambulist suicide. Walk briskly to the distant islands poking up like bubbles. So wet already, what can a mere storm do to me now? Embrace it. Take me up into the clouds and smear me across new horizons.

014. Pooled light

Mindy Bray inspired today's piece with her picture erasure (for kate) below left. The lamp posts in Venice always had an otherwordly quality about them, pink, no, rose coloured glass, as if the surroundings needed to be further prettified. Also, Amrita Mishra's day 10 piece inspired me to comment about men who visit... and that got developed further into the poem below

                                                You walked with me to my door,
                                                     afterwards. I glowed with pink prosecco,
                                                    feeling mysterious in the fog, and daring too.
                                                  Thrilled to have seized the day, to have lived
                                                    in those moments with you.
                                                   Your breath tickled against my ear, kissing
                                                      my cheek goodnight. I did not understand,
                                                       not then, that you were one of those men
                                                      who came only to visit, never to stay.

013. Sitting

More browsing, more to see, read, mull over. Today I chose a piece from Billie Williams over at billielovesdogs2011.blogspot.com. Confession time? I am a cat person, I guess if I had seen the title of the blog I might not have clicked it, and then I would have missed out on some gorgeous black and white photography. I wanted to start with her shot of encinitas beach; but Tuesday's shot of two chairs caught my eye, reminding me (again) of last years visit to New Orleans and making a nice contrast with the silty warm colour of two chairs snapped on Southern Decadence weekend, and a haiku pair below.

Double Measures
sunned whisky and silt
muted days, writers bake thoughts
into dialogue

breezes thread cool gaps
through heated conversations,
bourbon mellows us

(see Issuu publication here for more from the writers weekend in The Big Easy)

012. Calendar

As the mechanical church bells begin their twice-daily more-on-Sundays clanging, I remember to turn over the calendar to the month of June. Unconscious thoughts about passing time aside, I rarely remember to do this on the 1st of the month, something I can only put down to my own inertia since I am usually in possession of a calendar with plenty of beautiful pictures to make changing them a joy.

This years calendar is an exclusive, digital prints from Sandra Davies, and as I say goodbye to May's picture I am reminded of the diverse reactions this got as the T10 Canvas challenge (Sandra's favourite piece, by Coraline J Thompson is here). June's picture is a blurred balcony in New Orleans, at night, with Reddy Brek oaty glowing light from the window behind it.

My picture today is from Ireland, from the hull of a rusting boat in Connemara, and below, the 6S piece I wrote for it. T10 (thinkingten.com) and more particularly for me 6S (sixsentences.ning.com) have been important playgrounds for practising writing, and I am looking forward to meeting the online voices again this year.

Epithelia

It is like looking at skin, if the skin was magnified and viewed through brick tinted glasses.
It is a boatskin, made of rust and flaky paint; terracotta and pannacotta paint in clotted cream splodges, thick layers on top of each other and the rust crystallising through them.
Water gets under the paint and oxygen works its magic, transmuting the steel into ruddy puff pastry.
Epidermal rust, skin deep and all of the skin, cellular rust, a ferrous bark.
The boat, once an erythrocyte caught in the tidal flow, but now moored up, scabbed and crusted.
Dead but resisting disintegration.

011. Patio

today's post (& indeed my p art ici patio n in the 100days2011 project) is inspired by Dorothee Lang's "To Look"

now to read more at onehundreddays.net and fill in the gaps ;)

today,
blog browsing
late to the party
the patio of p art ici patio n
new burden of expectation
                                                        100 days
                                                        and a backlog
                                                        burning double ended candle
                                                                                                                today it rains
                                                                                                                battering fuchsias
                                                                                                                I reach outside of myself

010. Volcanic Coffee

Silvana Mondo's pieces (Fildzana) on Bosnian coffee, the sugar & cream crusts almost volcanic to look at, provided the inspiration for this catch up post.

cold crusts 

mask the magma warmth

stir here to break apart

release through

an anti-peristaltic throat.

009. Iceland

Catherine Singer's theme for 100 days is Iceland. How could I resist? Her image, possibly Þingvellir, is winterbound, stark and eerily beautiful. I visited in the summer, when Iceland was a land of light, and the image I chose is of Sólfar (The Sun Voyager, by Jón Gunnar Árnason). The colours echo (foreshadow, if I was not working backwards) the coffee and cream glacier in day 10.

From the Orkneyinga saga (written by an unknown Icelander in the early 13th century) - secondly inspired by Marcus Speh's use of mediaeval images & characters in 100 days and nights


Next morning when it was light they went to look for runagate men among the isles if any had got away;  and each was slain on the spot as he stood.  Then earl Einar took to saying these words:  “I know not what I see in Rinansey, sometimes it lifts itself up, but sometimes it lays itself down, that is either a bird or a man, and we will go to it.”  There they found Halfdan long-leg, and Einar made them carve an eagle on his back with a sword, and cut the ribs all from the backbone, and draw the lungs there out, and gave him to Odin for the victory he had won then Einar sung this:

                  “Man broad-bearded oft is outlawed,
                  Many a one, for stealing sheep;
                  But in isles here I for felling
                  Mighty Harold’s youthful son:
                  Risk hangs o’er me, say the freemen,
                  From the king so courage-full,
                  Harold’s shield I’ve hewn a hole in,
                  None can call that dint in doubt.”

008. windows

YB Poetry has a "windows thing" edition coming out soon - here is a preview picture by Dorothee Lang. I was reminded of this when browsing through some of the intriguing blogs in the 100 days 2011 group page, and finding the image below left from Janelle Stone; and my own photo to help inspire something for the YB magazine.

what are the windows that look onto those windows?

                 sometimes, I see movement

                 a flicker across the space

                 someone at home

                 by/with themselves

                 as I gaze outwards    

                                                                                                 sometimes I wave at my reflection

                                                                                                 there could be an army

                                                                                                 of watchers behind the

                                                                                                 bland mirror. Mostly I cross the space

                                                                                                 quickly, shrink from the outside

                                                                                                 in

007. trees

Barbara Laucius is celebrating natural beauty in her 100 days project bearbonesart.blogspot.com/ which brought me to contemplate her picture of birches in an Alaskan spring-not-yet-summer. My mind making connections to the blog carnival >language>place (which I will host around 4 weeks from today) from the first carnival I heard of, a tree carnival. Making connections through the carnival and also through this project. Also in my head the following refrain from a Nirvana song. And the poem I wrote for the lightning struck tree I pass on my way to work.

     My girl, my girl, don't lie to me
     Tell me where did you sleep last night

     In the pines, in the pines
     Where the sun don't ever shine
     I would shiver the whole night through 

                                                                                                                                     blasted

                                                                                                                                     blasted but beautiful still

                                                                                                                                     in its way, most days

                                                                                                                                     I drive right by

                                                                                                                                     but I stopped this morning,

                                                                                                                                     I wanted to see

                                                                                                                                     if it still lived

                                                                                                                                     with its heart splintered so