My dad has another turn ...

I'm at my parents' house - my dad had a turn on the way back home from Waitrose late yesterday afternoon - 

We saw him briefly in the A & E Department of Queen Alexandra Hospital that evening - 

There he was, in Bay 5, cocooned in a hospital gown, his clothes bundled up in a big plastic bag - his tweed flat cap was speckled with blood - 

He may come home today - we'll get a call from the hospital - 

It's the same old story, a can of Tanglefoot and one or two sly bumpers of Pujalet in the kitchen - 

He'll have forgotten all about it now - 

There's nothing wrong with a glass he'll say - 

I want to shake him, but but it would be like shaking a wilful child -

11.44

December 7 2014

Staunton Road

Havant 

Thinking of Derek Jarman ...

A few years ago, I read Derek Jarman's Smiling in Slow Motion - 

The beautiful heartbreaking writing affected me deeply - 

Pity and wonder welled up in my soul -  

The last diary entry was HB true love, scrawled in his blindness - 

Project Adorno's hommage was true and tender - 

There, in The Square Tower, watched silently by benign presences, a precious life was evoked - 

The grainy Super Eight cast its spell - 

A throne was set up in the garden of Prospect Cottage - 

Derek Jarman wore his magician's robes - 

In my head, I heard Elisabeth Welch sing Stormy Weather - 

I saw Doctor Dee walking in a knot garden - angels appeared in a scrying glass - arrows pierced a young man's slender torso - 

Worlds appeared before me in the air, then dissolved - 

22.00

November 30 2014

The Square Tower

Southsea

Note

The barman in The Square Tower told me  - we had a medium come in, who told us there were nine presences here - 

Synchronicity in Bowness on Solway ...

Last Tuesday morning, after I'd spent an hour or so on in the gym, I saw Helene again in Harry's Sports Bar - 

She sat next to me, drawing her chair closer to mine - 

Helene attends Anne's yoga class - she's involved with mental health work in Boscombe - 

Helene is slender and catlike in her movements - she speaks softly, regarding you with her cool, measured, gaze - 

She'd just finished reading Jung's Man and his Symbols - 

Synchronicity, Helene tells me, had often featured in her life - 

I thought about the church in Bowness on Solway - 

I'd gazed upwards, to read a memorial tablet - something caught my eye, some glimmer of pale stone, some shape in the air - 

Edward Lawson, I read, had gone to Egypt for the benefit of his health, and on his return home, died on the 11th day of April 1852, at the city of Valetta, in Malta, and was interred there, aged 20 years - 

I has been born, to the day, to the month, perhaps to the hour and to the minute, one hundred years after that delicate youth breathed his last sighing breath - 

I had spent three years, a dreamy freckled boy, living on that sun bleached island - I'd walked down the narrow streets of Valetta, in the shade of crumbling palaces - 

Yes, I said to Helene, I know about synchronicity - 

11.30 

December 2 2014

Harry's Sports Bar

Purbeck Sports Centre 

08.45

July 16 2014

St Michael's Church

Bowness on Solway 

The Breeches Bible opened at Genesis, Chapter 3 ...

I fell upon my full English in The Old Rectory with gusto, spearing the Cumberland sausage like a nimble retiarius - I admired the white linen tablecloth, the precise geometry of cruets and upturned coffee cups -

Later, a taxi driver with a pony tail would take us back to Carlisle - there, we would part - each of us would return to their own world - 

I would be meeting Jay in Bloomsbury - I could already see myself, gazing at the statue of Virginia Wolf in Tavistock Square - 

Penny and I decided to walk one last time around the village - 

In my notebook I wrote - we saw Coverdale's Breeches Bible in the church - 

We'd pushed open the dark heavy door of the church - the Bible was opened at Genesis, Chapter 3 - 

The woman seduced by the serpent I read - Man is cast out of Paradise - 

08.45

July 16 2014

St Michael's Church

Bowness on Solway

Finding my Wonders of Life ...

The last time I was at my mum and dad's, I found a book I'd bought when I was 11 years old - 

There it was, in the white book case in the box room, below a shelf of Dennis Wheatleys, Wonders of Life, by L G Humphreys -

I'd gone to Miles Bookshop in Gosport High Street with my birthday florins - 

Mr Miles was tall and slender - he wore a blue lambswool sweater - 

I can remember buying the book, attracted by its gentle cover - inside were monochrome drawings of badgers and hedgehogs - 

I especially like the coloured plates showing Our trees in Autumn and Birds that like water - 

There were calm and wise sentences about Nature and the Seasons - 

I'd handed over my shining florins, and caught the double decker bus home - from the upper deck, I'd looked out over my small world - 

There was Ann's Hill Cemetery - there was The Criterion Cinema - there was the San Diego Road Post Office -  

Reading the words I scratched upon the flyleaf of the book, I imagine myself reading it then - 

There I am, with the book resting upon my bare knees - I'm leaning forward, frowning slightly - there are freckles on my back and arms - 

There's a cherry tree in the garden - I'm thinking that I might climb it - my slight body will be hidden amongst its blossoms - 

18.58

December 3 2014

The Old School House 

East Stoke

Richard choses a strong ale, claret after midnight ...

After Project Adorno's tender homage to Derek Jarman, we drank strong ale in The Hole In The Wall -

Richard and I had walked through silent empty streets - when we left The Square Tower, we'd gazed out at Spithead from the Sally Port - dark waves lapped against ancient stones - 

We'd skirted Southsea Common, with its shadows and leafless trees - 

I imagined pale figures dancing in the stilled funfair - above us was a starless sky - 

We arrived at the pub half an hour before last orders - Richard pushed his way up to the bar - sylphs in jeggings jostled canny gaffers - I saw Gareth, casting his silken nets - 

Richard considered the guest ales like an alchemist his retorts - the ale he chose was a noble elixir - 

Maggie and Ed joined us - Ed, courtly as ever, asked after my parents - Maggie snared bright words for new poems - 

Later, we sat in Maggie and Ed's elegant kitchen, drinking claret until one in the morning - 

01.30

November 30 2014

The Hole In The Wall

Maggie and Ed's house

Southsea 

Browsing foxed paperbacks on the slopes of Jade Mountain ...

A gaudy web of Christmas decorations hung from the ceiling of The Country Pantry - Richard said that his full English would get him ready for the gym - 

I soon finished my scrambled egg on toast - I'd slept fitfully the night before, as though clinging to a raft - I drank my Americano - 

The red haired waitress lugged a sack of potatoes towards the back of the kitchen - her waist was encircled by a golden belt - 

Richard told me more about his gym appointment - Chloe will be showing me the weights he said - 

I pictured Chloe, adjusting the settings on a gleaming machine - 

Richard made his way back to the house to seek out gym shorts - I paid a visit to the second hand bookshop next door - 

I snuffed the air of this small cave of foxed paper backs - I recognized the voice of the man from Adelphi Books - there he was, in a niche of Everyman editions, exchanging trade secrets with proprietor - 

As for me, I was beguiled by the covers of the Science Fantasy paperbacks - strange creatures crossed scarlet wastelands - brawny swordsmen faced terrible dangers - a winged woman readied herself for flight - 

10.30

1 December 2014

The Country Pantry

Jade Mountain Books

Albert Road

Southsea