While looking for a picture of a quill pen the other day, I came across several pictures I took to accompany an article on stationery written many years ago.This one particularly appealed, and though I’m not sure I’ve got anything very witty or insightful to write on the subject, I thought I’d include it here.
I suppose I could mention the confusion between the words ‘stationery’ and ‘stationary’.
Continue reading “attached to the past”
Well, it’s Valentine’s Day , so it seems a good day to post some love poetry. That concept always takes me back to something I read back in 2002 in an interview with Jenaro Talens in the El País literary supplement under the headline “Toda poesía es poesía de amor”. Although I don’t have the original newspaper any more, at the time I made a rough translation of the phrase that leapt out at me:
“All poetry is love poetry. But not in the conventional romantic approach; rather as seen in the impulse of desire towards an otherness…”
The cat in the picture has just been dabbing gently at my fingers, snagging slightly with her claws. This has reminded me of the traditional Spanish joke:
Continue reading “cats, commas and spiders”
More thoughts and words on buses. Starting with my own:
Estación de autobuses
The bus belches, wheezes, shifts
on its haunches and sighs: tired
of waiting for the passengers. They
kick their heels, scuff gravel, grind
cigarette stubs into the ground: tired
of waiting for the bus. The driver
toma su café; se toma
su tiempo.
But, as Flanders and Swann sang, “We like to drive in conveys, we’re most gregarious,” so to make this a proper omnibus edition it seems appropriate to add a few more links.
Continue reading “omnibus edition”
Since my current poetical effort is being concentrated on a couple of applications for courses and polishing some old pieces for competition entries, I thought I’d post this, which I wrote years ago when I was first trying to get to grips with sonnets.
Myopia
I’ve lost my glasses, without which I’m blind
as any clichéd pipistrelle. I’ve searched
in all the places that I knew they weren’t –
and I was right: they haven’t dropped behind
the tumble dryer, underneath the bed,
or in the trash; they aren’t perched on my head.
I’ve been through all the coats I never wear,
I even looked in John’s new jacket. There
I found a letter whose calligraphy
I didn’t know. Despite the cataracts,
my sight’s still good enough for me to read
a woman’s signature. So now, the fact
I’ve lost my specs no longer bothers me:
I’m focusing on other things, you see.
There was another reason I thought of that piece in particular – not, I’m glad to say, because I have any reason to suspect my partner of being unfaithful, but because I’ve recently had cause to visit the optician.
Continue reading “different perspectives”
don't confuse the narrator 