Harvesting the Sky

10 September 2024 by Leave a Comment

Look seaward west where

Sun’s gone down pale mauve striped pink

Cloud dimming shadows

*

That photographer

With his spotlight on the beach

Where people are shades

*

The silver ocean’s

Rippled blue reflecting waves

Whishing softly by

*

Offshore windmills stand

Like far off crucifixes

Harvesting the sky

*

Spirits whisper power

To earth and air and water

Resurrecting time.

*

**

*

Photos of Scheveningen Beach, The Hague, by Freddie Oomkens

Freddie Omm’s Sicilian Haiku—Migrant Shadows, published by Mad Bear Books in September 2024, also features sunset-linked poetry, notably in Sunsets.

Sunsets explores how we idealise our lives, while being deeply suspicious of such.

Sunsets’ imagery is filtered through a rich spectrum of sundown light,  albeit Sicilian, rather than Scheveningean.

 

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the sea spits out a fish

1 March 2024 by 1 Comment

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

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

18 January 2024 by 6 Comments

 

when we want to live

a life more lit and touched with

fire we need the beach

*

where sea throws us waves,

surf 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

 

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Villa of the Mysteries, Pompeii

17 October 2022 by 3 Comments


A poem by Ummidia Quadratilla, on learning that her husband, daughter, and son-in-law have been killed in the Vesuvian holocaust. The family’s seaside villa in Pompeii (now known as the Villa of the Mysteries) has just been destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, and the family died while helping their household to escape. Ummidia Quadratilla, a Roman-era Messager of the Tabernacle of Gaia, had stayed in Rome. Selections of her poems appear in The Dark Gospel and are translated by Freddie Omm:

Sweet home, bodies loved

Before the ash and pumice storm:

Thoughts, loves, lives, buried

*

Words too crushed to speak

My loss through lasting love now

Silence covers all—

*

Busts, scrolls in libraries,

(Like grapes left liquid in the press)

Some burned, crushed, some saved:

*

We can only wait

For the centuries to come

To uncover us

*

**

*

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musing

23 August 2022 by 2 Comments

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!

*

**

*


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person

5 June 2022 by 2 Comments

*

**

*

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

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Rotterdam, Bright Monday

20 April 2022 by 2 Comments

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).

Filed Under: easter haiku, freddie omm, haiku, haiku chain, meditations, by philippe de saint maurice, Philippe de Saint Maurice, poem, poem by freddie omm, poetry by freddie omm Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

the brave new year wakes

7 January 2022 by 7 Comments

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.

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Ascension 2021

13 May 2021 by 8 Comments

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


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real

23 January 2021 by 2 Comments

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

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here

14 January 2021 by 4 Comments

I followed a path

thinking that it led somewhere

but it’s ended here—

*

It isn’t the road

not taken so much as the

untakeable road—

*

Follow my advice:

don’t follow a path—choose the

made up, pathless ways.

*

**

*

freddie omm

january 2021

*

with apologies to robert frost’s road not taken

– the poem is based on a meditation of Philippe de Saint Maurice

Filed Under: haiku, haiku chain, omniscient narrative, online poem, poem, poetry, poetry by freddie omm, postmodernism, selfhood, the dark gospel, Uncategorized, writing Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

In Chelsea Old Church

28 December 2020 by 1 Comment

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.

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smile in me

28 November 2020 by Leave a Comment

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.

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haunts (haiku)

16 November 2020 by 5 Comments

            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

 

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Loving Light

18 September 2020 by 7 Comments

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

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O My Days All Blue

14 September 2020 by 1 Comment

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

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Elysium

8 September 2020 by Leave a Comment

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

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in neverland lost

28 July 2020 by 3 Comments


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Strength (RIPped) – haiku puzzle

28 June 2020 by 2 Comments

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

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tank man (unknown rebel)

5 June 2020 by 4 Comments

I stood up to you,

Then disappeared.

O

Even now

                                up to you

I stand

*

Not invisible,

Although unseen, unknown, still

O

I stand up to you.

*

**

*

31 years on.

We greet and salute you, Yu Yan Yip—and all who stood and stand up to faceless tyranny.

Peace.

§

freddie omm

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the new normal (haiku chain)

26 April 2020 by 2 Comments

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

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spring 2020 (health, love: spring springs)

25 March 2020 by 3 Comments

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

Filed Under: freddie omm, haiku, haiku chain, Love poetry, love poem, poem by freddie omm, poetry Tagged With: , ,

Love in Times of Quarantine I

19 March 2020 by 3 Comments

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.

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Love in Times of Quarantine II (Lockdown Loving)

17 March 2020 by 1 Comment

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

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– love’s words run still (twelve haiku)

20 February 2020 by 1 Comment

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

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Untitled Haiku

30 January 2020 by 2 Comments

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!).

Filed Under: haiku, haiku chain, meditations, by philippe de saint maurice, poem by freddie omm, poetry Tagged With:

Coming Together (haiku chain)

29 January 2020 by 6 Comments

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.

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Stranger (haiku chain)

23 January 2020 by 3 Comments

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.

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for josephine kate – haiku chain

6 January 2020 by 5 Comments

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.

Filed Under: haiku, haiku chain, poem by freddie omm, poetry Tagged With: , , , , , ,

streaming (haiku chain)

31 December 2019 by 3 Comments


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.

Filed Under: freddie omm, haiku, haiku chain, love, love poem, Love poetry, love poem, narrative, poem by freddie omm, poetry Tagged With: ,

chiffchaff (haiku chain)

20 December 2019 by 7 Comments

 

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.


Filed Under: haiku, haiku chain, Love poetry, love poem, poem by freddie omm, poetry Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

we come alive

12 November 2019 by 11 Comments

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.

Filed Under: freddie omm, haiku, haiku chain, love poem, meditations, by philippe de saint maurice, poem by freddie omm, poetry Tagged With: , , , , ,

hurrian hymn

1 November 2019 by 3 Comments


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

Filed Under: freddie omm, haiku, haiku chain, poem by freddie omm, poetry Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

ventura beach revisited

25 September 2019 by 10 Comments

 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. 

Filed Under: freddie omm, haiku, haiku chain, poem, poem by freddie omm, poetry, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

narcissus

15 July 2019 by 4 Comments

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

Filed Under: haiku, haiku chain, poem by freddie omm Tagged With: , ,

surf

21 June 2019 by 5 Comments

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

Filed Under: haiku, haiku chain, Love poetry, love poem, poem, poem by freddie omm, poetry, poetry by freddie omm, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , ,

gulls

17 June 2019 by 3 Comments

Meditations of Philippe de Saint Maurice, which I have edited and transformed into haiku and haiku chains, will soon be published by Mad Bear Books. The Meditations offer insights into spiritual growth, and I shall be posting some of them in advance here, interspersing them with my other work.

The first is gulls:

since I first could think

I always thought that thought

will turn me mad

*

like gull-crawing skies

thoughts can sound portentous as though

from other species

*

voices like aliens

we think into being as

thought will think us mad

*

words crawl crazy like

lingual creatures who can fly

from our mind’s planet

*

whether in rage or

loving-kindness – we know no more

than if we were gulls

*

fly into the sun

illuminate a last thought:

they. we. light. are one

*

**

*

freddie omm

text by freddie omm – title pic by thought catalogue – footer pic by yifei chen

Filed Under: haiku, haiku chain, meditations, by philippe de saint maurice, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , ,

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

11 May 2019 by 6 Comments

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

Filed Under: freddie omm, haiku, haiku chain, Love poetry, love poem, poem by freddie omm

woke like song (haiku chain invocation) – for all the lovers everywhere

5 May 2019 by 2 Comments

I

open up like song

let music play us sing us

melodising us

*

we two wrapped in heat –

loose entangled limbs like riffs

of carnal melody

*

interlaced and lit

lasciviously dangerous

lullabying life

*

our bodies pick up

the pumping of each other’s

heartbeat rhythms

*

in our love for us

we’re lyrical and languorous

climax in chorus

*

wild music wakes us

enchanting and shaking us

open like song

*

our skin pricked with notes

glissando licks quickening us

like a morning shower

*

in our love for us

in trust in truth we give tongue

to life’s loving song

*

II – envoi:

*

for all the lovers

who grew lonely as time passed

silencing their space –

*

music of the spheres

come join us close together

sing us woke in song!

*

**

*

freddie omm

may 2019

*

photo by spencer imbrock

Filed Under: bevrijdingsdag, haiku, haiku chain, Love poetry, love poem, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , ,

veneralia (love changelings) – haiku chain

31 March 2019 by 7 Comments

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.
Filed Under: freddie omm, haiku chain, poem by freddie omm, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

valentine possibilities (haiku couple)

12 February 2019 by 4 Comments

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)

Filed Under: Festivals, haiku, haiku chain, love poem, Love poetry, love poem, poem by freddie omm, Uncategorized, valentine haiku, valentine poem Tagged With: , , , ,

ghosts of cheyne walk

20 January 2019 by 4 Comments

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, published by Mad Bear Books in September 2024, also features ghostly presences, albeit in Sicily, not London.

Filed Under: ghosts, haiku, haiku chain, poem about cheyne walk, chelsea, london, poem by freddie omm Tagged With: , , , ,

salle des pas perdus – poitiers

1 January 2019 by 12 Comments

hall of lost footsteps

fugitive hot whispered words

scabrous ancestral songs

*

judgments from the court

of love whose lust-drunk troubadours

inspire my spirit:

*

a joy for living

a past that never passes

a loss yet unlost

*

in this hallowed space

– oak beams, flagstones, marbled walls –

still footfalls echo

***

I long for you much

as I listen to music

whose sadnesses touch

*

my heart still aching

from madnesses and rage that

haunt this rabid present –

*

let’s celebrate life

in songs of now, here, as in those

footfalls of the past

*

we find in absence

a beauty missing in presence

sometimes, timeless love

*

**

*

Omm

1 january 2019

Filed Under: haiku chain Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

here right now (lit like sparks in rain)

31 December 2018 by 7 Comments

lost in your head

– a maze in shade, leaves in fall

blown autumnal memories

*

your mind’s lost and found

place of missed discoveries:

space to be, begin

*

become right here, be

fresh and free like that loved child

you were and yet will be

*

in this place of warmth

(this then’s the only way in?)

welling from your core

*

and you’re here right now

as these words flit through your brain

lit like sparks in rain

*

in our synapses

no unlinked unwoke spaces

no clueless faceless faces –

*

flaming in the flow

of watery reflections

you are here right now.

*

**

*

Omm

december 2018

Filed Under: haiku chain, poetry Tagged With: ,

canoes in the dusk

9 December 2018 by 3 Comments

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

Filed Under: haiku chain, poem by freddie omm, poetry Tagged With: , , , , , ,

reignite – haiku chain

30 September 2018 by 6 Comments

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

Filed Under: haiku chain, poem by freddie omm Tagged With: , , , ,

blessing for a child – haiku chain

18 May 2018 by Leave a Comment

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.

Filed Under: haiku chain, poem by freddie omm Tagged With: ,

holy ghosts – haiku chain

19 April 2018 by 4 Comments

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

Filed Under: haiku chain, poetry Tagged With: , , , ,

the alien within us – haiku chain

28 March 2018 by 2 Comments

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


Filed Under: freddie omm, haiku chain, poem by freddie omm Tagged With: , ,

wake for the winter – cold front, february-march 2018 – haiku chain

27 February 2018 by 2 Comments

we all have it in us

this dying for summer this

dawning in darkness

*

like buds at the tips

of february twigs we grow

and feel its stirring

*

springtime inside us

until a cold front snuffs out

our wake for the winter

*

a crocus-white chill

grabs us not from the grave but

its deep dark bed of earth

*

winter clasps us tight

anew and what we wished gone

we take it back again

*

like people waved goodbye

come back and kissed afresh our

winter wishes woke

*

we hug them to warm us

our needs and loves we never lose

we have them all in us

*

Omm

Filed Under: haiku, haiku chain, winter poem Tagged With: , , ,

1989 – everything is now – 2017

24 July 2017 by 7 Comments

Photo by Filipe Almeida via Unsplash

 

our summer of love:

high on hope, hardcore uproar

remixing our lives

*

dance in those muddy tribal fields –

surging acid nights – wild orgasmic waves

entranced, crowdy hazy drums

 *

all one together

when sunset shades to sunrise –

stay up forever!

 *

heaven in a rave

morphing bodies, spaced-out time:

starstruck eternals

  *

raucous, thrilled and chilled

travellers, mutating beings

stagger on the stars’ stoned threshold

*

in love’s euphoria:

kiss our forever lovers –

softcore love hardwired in all of us

  *

heartbeat to heartbeat

ecstatic, loved-up pulses

– everything is now –

*

Omm

summer 1989 & summer 2017

         Photo by Muhammed Fayiz via Unsplash

Filed Under: cosmic cycles, creativity, darkness fades, Festivals, freddie omm, Freddie Oomkens, free expression, god, haiku, haiku chain Tagged With: , ,

in our happy hour 

8 April 2017 by 2 Comments

  in our happy hour

  blooming among wild tulips

   sappily sprung in spring –

  *

   fresh April showers fall,

  sweeten earthy sluggish veins –

    riffs of birdsong wake

    *

       liminal lovers

    on the season’s bare threshold,

     shivering off the cold –

       *

    shed our chrysalis clothes,

      winter’s pale accessories,

        emerging nude, fresh –

         *

    limitless like love

    shaken from hibernation

        in our happy hour

__________________
freddie omm , april 2017

Filed Under: freddie omm, Freddie Oomkens, haiku, haiku chain Tagged With: , ,

sexy, slightly scary (her sweet self)

11 March 2017 by 1 Comment


She’s sweet like a friend

Yet sexy, slightly scary

Like no one other

  *

You like her. She smiles

The smile of one who knows that

That liking you feel

    *

Likes her for her self

Like she wishes she could too

But she doesn’t like

    *

Like herself… She says

She can’t explain how she likes

What she likes in words

   *

She has this dream

In which she merges in her

Lies of love with others like

     *

She’s living some truth

Neither selfish nor selfless

– Like her to be both –

     *

Sweet, wholesome, love-scarred

And sexy, exposed – scared that

She’s just like herself

     *

But is not herself –

Like no one else is oneself:

We’re like each other.


Filed Under: freddie omm, Freddie Oomkens, haiku chain Tagged With: , , ,

on ventura beach: haiku chain

31 December 2014 by 2 Comments

ventura keys bay

ventura keys bay

*

borne on a loose-tongued tide

when dolphins sang in our bay,

i swam alongside.

*

i learned my english

in california, oh yeah –

surfing on meaning

*

strange new kid from lands

far-off with paler beaches

i dug those endless sands

*

west of ventura keys

soaked up the lingo in waves,

loghorreic seas,

*

chilled long days drunk down

so deep, my first summer of love,

synaesthetized like

*

a child of the sun –

honey-skied strands, peacemeal love,

kool-aid cookied, fun!

*

like surf out of reach,

lyrics drift through smoke-tinged breeze

on ventura beach.

 

kool-aid cookies

kool-aid cookies

 

photo(2)

Filed Under: haiku, haiku chain, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

shoredays, yoredays: seven haiku on a beach

30 January 2014 by 6 Comments

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

Filed Under: haiku, haiku chain, poem, poem by freddie omm, poetry Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

who am i (lana wachowski)

23 January 2014 by 6 Comments

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…)

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love became a lonely land: autumnal haiku chain

12 September 2013 by 12 Comments

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

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earthgrazing haiku

9 September 2013 by 10 Comments

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)

 

 

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