Not Narnia

Just returned from a trip to the attic, always traumatic. But I survived unscathed and saw no mice, living or dead. I did find another quarter million words of writing I'd forgotten I'd done years ago. This takes my guestimate to well over a million words over the past 35 years. It included, as just a fraction of the newly-discovered box-full, a huge file, 2" thick of plays.

Orange post

M4 flyover, Newport

Pillars

M4 flyover, Newport

Flickr album

I have a Flickr album here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/45569705@N05/

'Beautiful Creatures', section

Beautiful Creatures, Watercolour and Graphite on paper, A3, 10.11.13 (section) 

'Beautiful Creatures'

Beautiful Creatures, Watercolour and Graphite on paper, A3, 10.11.13

Irdial soundscape

First new music I've made in a while. An electronic soundscape using 'numbers stations' recordings from shortwave radio.

The track is called 'Irdial' and can be found on Soundcloud here:

https://soundcloud.com/johngimblett/irdial


'For more than 45 years the Shortwave radio spectrum has been used by the worlds intelligence agencies to transmit secret messages. These messages are transmitted by hundreds of “Numbers Stations”.'

( http://www.irdial.com/conet.htm )

Kierkegaard

“What is a poet? An unhappy man who hides deep anguish in his heart, but whose lips are so formed that when the sigh and cry pass through them, it sounds like lovely music.... And people flock around the poet and say: 'Sing again soon' - that is, 'May new sufferings torment your soul but your lips be fashioned as before, for the cry would only frighten us, but the music, that is blissful.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or 

Trinity (The Wounded Angel, Hugo Simberg)

So this angel

   lifting two boys above

the landscape.

                        So

the strip of gown,

   flown to the ground

kisses earth, almost

under one boy’s mudded

boot.

         It’s a Manichean

mystery of a kind. The

boy in black, with the

fitted hat is thinking:

                                                In that water

                                                beyond the bare bush the

                                                Hesperus lies empty.

So this angel, tipped

forward, doesn’t

see either of the boys

she or he is

                        lifting.

And they are trying to

push him

                        or her

into the earth.

Helsinki 2012

Helsinki railway station, 14.2.12

breathe

Kouvola, river

Kouvola, Finland, 17.2.12

"Yellow Weather"

"Yellow Weather" oil and collage on canvas, 18cm x 12.5cm

No. 013727

At work with:

"No. 013727", Oil on canvas with: collage, Finnish snow, other materials, 30cm circular.

"No. 013727"

"No. 013727", Oil on canvas with: collage, Finnish snow, other materials, 30cm circular. 

"Spår"

"Spår", Oil on canvas, collage, enamel, Finnish snow, other materials, 38cm x 20cm

New painting

"Spår", Oil on canvas, collage, enamel, Finnish snow, other materials, 38cm x 20cm

Cello Loop

https://soundcloud.com/johngimblett/cello-loop-2012-eghg-mix

My garden

Mushrooms and nasturtium

Ursa Major

There were eight stars
above us when I kissed
you but thousands
reflected in your blue
eyes. Polaris was a
beacon and I felt its
protection, it's spike
of light, choose only
us to brighten. The
night sky is clear and
magnificent. You are
a wonder, true beauty.

The Rose by the Gate

Your rose, in a

line with others will

pine for you.

Its sisters and

brothers, too, will

wait for you by

the gate. In

the sun it’s the

colour of a French

wine, claret in

daylight and beams:

‘She is mine’.

Towards the end of

this season, there is

a reason for the

rose to remain in

bloom: by the gate

it waits and will

   see you soon.

Stars

We were speaking of stars:
they worked their way into
my dreams, and you were
with them. The brightest of
them all, you were warm
gold in the sparkling belt
of cold Orion, splitting the
night sky with heavenly

   magnificence.

Figs

I warmed ripe fresh figs

in a late summer sun and

wished you were here to

share them. Shadows from

beech leaves and a southerly

breeze shed their scent and

their flavour towards you.

The taste of the fruit, the

kiss of its myriad seeds was

a scattering of sensations. I

looked to where the sun was

and smiled in that direction;

the figs were sweet in my fist

and I missed you here to share

   them.

Garden, September

Nasturtium with bee

Autumn

Fungi

The Iris

                                    for Ira

‘If you wish,
I shall grow irreproachably tender:
not a man, but a cloud in trousers!’

-- Mayakovsky

The garden, soaked in a summer

flood of sunshine and colour

threw up a spike of stalk, the

green of grasshoppers or pale

finches. On top of the stem an

iris flower punched its subtle

weight through the dappled

shadows dropped by the beech

hedge. Canary yellow, its petals

hung like a cormorant drying

its wings upon a rock. The sun

struck it, feeding the flower

with more golden power to

astound me. Beautiful in its

stillness, I caught and tamed

it as a portrait framed by sunlight.

The Garden

I send you these flowers,

their petals deconstructed

and redesigned as pixels

on a screen and the light

from your windows shocks

them back into life. I

imagine you being able to

touch them; feel the smooth

skin of the real blooms back

here. Can you pick up a hint

of the sweet scent, see the

stalk bend almost imperceptibly

by a weak breeze sent from a

warm summer? I imagine you

walking in the garden now,

searching out patches of shadow

and seeking other flowers with

warm leaves, bright petals. 

Cornwall, August 2013

Gypsy caravans

Rose

A new rose in an old
garden punctuates it
with a fresh colour; a

dimple of sun-yellow
or blush-pink amidst
the swathes of matt

green making a curtain
to the earth. A new
shape, new depth pulls

from the garden a new
design; draws new meanings, of
which, lately, there have been few.

Grass

Before the feathers of rain came

I lifted the heads from tired

daisies and cut the points from

spinach-green grass on the lawn.

A slither of movement at the

edge caught my attention; it was

a finger-thick Slow-worm,

Anguis fragilis. The length of my

forearm it moved timidly near

the pine border, twisting over

itself seeking a roof of mown

leaves. It disappeared as easily

   as it had appeared. 

Your Words

I woke in the night thinking of these

words you wrote: Summer blossoms

forth. There was a spectacular full

moon braving the slim crack in the

curtains, pushing a sliver of silver

forcefully into the bedroom. A glint

of it hit an old mirror, brought instances

of the antique alive again. I woke in the

night with scents and petals and summer

blossoming in a tired light. What might

come from this season, what’s meant by

the glory of moonlight reflected? Your

words were swords pricking my sleep;

there were strawberries and lilies and

syllables deep in my full moon dreams.

'The summer blossoms forth'

'The summer blossoms forth'

Acrylic, pencil, newspaper on board.

Yellow Rose

The sweet heady scent

   of the new rose creeps

like fine roots or webbed

   tendrils through the

Spring air. I allow it

   access to me; let

it fill my whole being

   with its invisible, sensual

   beauty.

Strawberry

I pick, gently and

   with tenderness from

my garden the first

   strawberry this summer. I

think of the words it

   elicits: you will change

them into fresh new

   words. Hopefully they will

ripen like this sweet

   speck-seeded fruit has.

Chestnut

Dappled splinters of a Sunday

   sun fragment through a

chestnut tree and we lie

beneath it serenely. I stroke your

arm, the smoothness of it

   another breeze moving

blossom from one place -

one state of mind - to the

   next.

Atoms of clouds of miniscule

May-Flies mingle in the

space we inhabit together; I

stroke your arm you stroke

  mine. You look at me and

smile; I know just what you’re

   thinking. Because I am

      thinking the same thing.

Blossom falls into our space.

Simon Pierse collaboration

http://www.alpinejournal.org.uk/Contents/Contents_2009_files/AJ%202009%20201-206%20Pierse%20Painting.pdf

'Endings', 2012

Oil on canvas (some mixed media), with Finnish snow and Swedish newspaper headlines

Shop keeper, Penang, Malaysia, 2000

Baltic Sea, 2/12

Kouvola, Finland, 2/12

Helsinki, 2/12

Tulips