2011-06-06 Steina eg Steini 
Faxafloi Bay the Hungry Hundred 

The sun is playing with the shadows 
On a distant Iceland mountain. 
The blue sky and the evening snow
Mix cocktails on a far horizon 

A fishing boat bobs red and white 
On Flaxaflói in baby whitecaps 
Tomorrow's dinner going to work 
To provide for the Hungry Hundred 

The trawler kicks the waves aside
Reflecting sunset on redwhite beam 
Sun licks snow from distant peaks 
Shadows deepen sides of mountains
footed in a calming sea 

Whitecaps now have lost their anger 
Calming breeze on deep blue main 
Steina and Steini stones are watching  
Basaltic rocks in a setting sun

This poem first saw daylight in 2011
when Diane (who was born here in 1953)
and I stopped off at ... Keflavik ... for lunch
... in Reykjanes ... with views of Faxafloi,
the boats and the mountains.

Bungee to the Antipathies 

If there were a hole going straight down through the centre of the earth and coming out on the exact opposite side of the great circle, And if someone jumped into the hole would they come out the other side, having passed through hell, would they be singed, roasted, incinerated or none of the above.  Maybe I'll ask Hannah Fry

2008-08-27 

Try as I might and I don't, I will never get Ireland out of my system.  I'm staying at Rathfarnham for a fortnight while others take a break.  

I have no serious work to do so I get a chance to listen to the radio, get out by bus and tram and train.  I get to talk to people whenever I feel like it and watch life rolling by.  There is chat to be had anywhere and the chat exchanges news and views. 

 In England, I am considered eccentric because I start conversations.  How refreshing to meet someone like Martina with a normal gift of the gab.  

Here, in Ireland, I am considered totally normal and it works both ways.  Conversation is an ideal means of bonding and the Irish are naturals.  I listen to three small boys on the top of a 16A going into town.  They observe everything, comment on everything.   Nothing is sacrosanct, not even how to rob sweets from a shop we're passing   Intriguing to note that, just like 50odd years ago,  a fishing rod features high on the list of desirable tools.  On the radio, everybody has something to say and everything is worth hearing.   The most interesting observation, though, is that all the talking is done by the Irish.  I have no idea who has cornered the market in listening.   I do not hear the hum of foreign tongues in Bewleys.  It seems to be that Ireland and the Irish have cornered the market in talking to each other and in story-telling and stand-up comedy.  

Did you hear the one about ...

2025 ... Bewleys is gone 
What reason might I possibly have now
for walking Grafton Street?

CHRISTMAS EVE SHOREHAM 2007

The Climb to Mill Hill 
It says on the sign going in
at the exit to Shoreham 
"No exit to A27".   
And the road is closed at night
by a gate.  
The uninviting sign fails to say
that the exit is actually an entrance.  
So you Stridalong anyway and you see the planes.  

Martina: a Strida is a type of fold up bicycle I used to use

And then you almost exit to the A27 but you see the footpath sign 
so you Stridalong the Adur and climb up to the A27 anyway.   
And you follow the footpath on the side of the main road 
until you are able to climb the escarpment, Stridanall.  
And you climb and climb and climb and climb 
til you reach the top and the road, by the overhead bridge.  
A turn to the north and much huffing and puffing 
takes you to Mill Hill Reservoir.  
Here the radio-controlled gliders 
fly off the wind up the hill 
and the wind on 24thDec2007 
would skin a duck. 

It can take a long time to become an overnight success.  
It takes even longer to become successful.  
The road to success is paved with the hardest of paving bricks and many of them.  
But when I look carefully, I note a simple pattern.  
Each brick is hard; much harder by far
than any of the bricks 
that pave the way
of lesser mortals. 

There is a unique colour pattern to my own road, 
which repeats with variations
along the multi-coloured brick road 
travelled by the one who,
while walking it, would reach for the stars. 
The light grey is the early morning brick;
the green is the seven-day-week paver. 
The orange is for every hour god sends, 
the white is for perfection. Not too many they soil easily. 
The blue brick is possibly the most important of all. 
It signposts the way and mark when it is time to pause. 

Down what drain?

Pouring History down the River is not like pouring water down the drain 
The water down the drain vanishes; the history beaches itself downstream 
They poured the Isle of Dogs into the Thames and heaped it up on Mucking marshes  

To make way for a future Olympics they poured Stratford into the Lea 
It floated down by Silvertown and onwards to the sea.  
Everywhere along the way bits came ashore 
and put down new roots in Purfleet Marshes

Hitler tried to bury dogged islanders
under tons of rubble and under their own homes. 
They surfaced as a million bubbles 
on a river of liquid history floating downstream 
And were soaked up by the Tilbury marshes

It is a very absorbent mat is Thurrock
It soaks up people from London 
and the rubbish of those left behind
or came to replace those who left.

Just a Tick 

Why does the clock tick in the quiet room
only when my wife is working there
It never ticks when I'm engaged
Or if it does I've never heard it
They say I've got selective hearing 
But I say it is she may have it 
Ask not for whom the clock ticks 
It ticks not for me 

What is the pinging ringing dinging 
Upstairs, downstairs night or day 
Self-inflicted tinnitis I reckon 
But the bings never go away 

My microwave goes ding and ding 
When it has done whatever's in 
And if I ignore the dings when finished 
It dings each minute I can't win 

If I burn the toast, the fire alarm 
Goes beep beep beep beep beep  
Until I wave my towel at it 
Enticing it back to its beeplike sleep. 

My watch goes blick at noon each day 
The computer's ALWAYS AT IT. 
The washing machine goes cheep cheep bleep 
And the dishwasher is gleep and gleep 

Meanwhile I go bananas.
But bananas are so far quiet 
Nice to know something is right  
I never thought the sound of silence 
Would drive me bats at night

The lad bows and plucks his fiddle 
That is so big you couldn't hug its middle 
It isn't one you lift up by your chin 
nor is it a 'Cello.

Much bigger nor them! 
It is so big that you stick it to the floor
It reaches the sky and you climb on a chair 
And a brown sound comes from big BASS 
And when it is silent it goes not in a case 

It goes in a great big brown bag   
Of plastic and filling up the car 
With space left only for the musical lad 
who spars like a bouncer with a great big heel  
With the big brown loaf of sycamore and steel 

I lived my life on a tiny island
where I knew every cove and creek
And I knew the oystercatcher's cry
And the curlew's call and the barnowl's shreik 

I'm a country man and an island man
And I know the scent of a mossy glade
And I've lived surrounded by miles of bog
In a cottage of stone and mortar made 

One day I sat at my warm turf fire 
With a new computer by my side 
And a wire from the laptop through the wall 
Snaked out to roam the web worldwide 

The wire coiled out from my island home 
Across the seas and oceans wide 
It searched the the East the North and West 
And brought the world to my fireside 

And so it searched I knew not where 
For many weeks in foreign parts 
Til an island lass tuned to the vibes 
By the copper cables stole my heart 

I left the safety of my green isle 
And followed the web that drew me on 
By train and plane and motorway 
to a village called South Ockendon. 

I was happy on my safe green island 
By cool blue lakes and brown tilled fields
But another life was calling me
By a motorway M twenty five.