Inspiration

That intake of breath

Of fresh

Air.

Bringer of new ideas

Unfair

-ly mined

By a dozen minds

Or more.

These spores of thought

Are cultivated

Through mediums and means

Averages avoided in passionate extremes.

We find it

All

In scattered places.

Lost and founds

Fractals

Faces

Forms of clouds and outer space;

Equally in the grotesque.

Sparks flare catching

Clutching

At life.

Kindled by contemplation

Fuelled by frustration

Ventilated by imagination

Tempered by the midnight oils

As we watch our best laid plans

Burn.

We learn.

We turn to disciplines unschooled.

We spool our nets far and wide

Outside our comfort quarters.

Research has shown us one path

But doubt is crazy paving.

Stop saving for that rainy day

And discover for yourself,

your truth.

“I think therefore I am”

Is all we really know.

Why spend your precious life collecting objects just for show?

It’s not the breaths you take,

It’s the breaths that’re taken from you

It’s the things you make them feel

It’s the ones who matter and mind

It’s a million people just like me

Telling a million people how to see

The world, the truth, society

As if there’s just one

answer.

As if I somehow know better.

In my oh-so-limited life.

 I don’t

and never will have

The answer.

All is confusion.

All is loss.

Why try to mold this chaos

 after your image

When your image is only

Breath in frost.

You cannot force the muse

Or trick her into her prettiest dance.

You cannot even ask her for help

For fear of her reprisals.

Abandonment comes naturally to one so self-involved.
And artists such as we all are are not sufficiently evolved
to survive such isolation.

Frost bites back.

Call To Arms

Every day I read the news with growing trepidation.

It’s regression on a massive scale. The end of civilisation.

We’re not punishing those that caused this mess with lies, with greed, with ego.

But blaming folk who’ve nothing done and warring with nations we don’t know.

What year is this? Who’s in control? Where is Lady Justice?

She’s bound and gagged in a divan bed. Ransomed for the fame of her captress.

Of equal weight (or so we’re told) to celebrities, diets and twerking.

The blood on her sword is only her own so clearly, this system’s not working.

The children that need us the most,

Tragically fall through the ‘net

And children are taken when good parents seek help and hysterical healthcare objects.

Open your eyes and ignore the damned press! They have profits to make, don’t you see?

Horrors that happen go unreported and affect us – that’s you - and it’s me.

I do not believe it is really so hard to lay aside neighbourly spite

And just keep an eye out, get involved and speak up if something just doesn’t seem right.

Notice the pensioned! They are people too and their stories are going untold.

As we focus on disposable incomes of youth and deny our own growing old.

I don’t have the answers. I’m not the Messiah (or even a naughty boy),

I am just one person, sick of the nonsense and sick of acting coy.

I’m not asking for money, or a signed petition, or change in far flung lands.

I’m saying your community needs you before it ends up in God-knows-whose hands.

Get involved. Take an interest. Speak up! Go out!

Disenfranchisement is dead.

Earnestness is the future!

And without it?

Total extinction instead.

Clown.

Just one more clown in his circus you are.
Such a public mockery.
You are a tool in his all-consuming self-love.
Unwilling to face the one way, blackhole nature of it all.
You stand in painted smile.
The audience watch clutching breath
for him to pull out the chair.
The ringmaster owns your eyes and time.
Are you so blinded by footlights
that you can truly call this
astounding self-degradation
love?

Just one more clown in his circus you are.
Watch the pretty girls lead the horses away.
The spectacle is leaving town.

20/03/2010 Dear Gio (but not for Gio)

Surrounded by vices as strange as sliced toast
Interacting with many half-living, half-ghost.
Some glowing brightly, some dulled by life's blade,
but everyone wants something from you, I'm afraid.
Some want your body, some want your mind
Some of them only want you to be kind.
The best are the ones who want you to be you
and the ones who just want you to smile.
The ones who will paint you with custard and glue
To away a fun little while.
Who'll help you survive, help you to say no,
teach you things about Glasgow you never would know.
Ride bikes with you, share with you, get you a job.
To share a good joke with, to share with a sob.
To drive one way round Nottingham, eight or nine times (!)
and hypnotise randoms with powers of rhyme.
A gallery cafe, a man in a dress
and all of the time at Paisley Road West.
The long walk home never seemed so long
when walking at five forty-five
And shiny posh bars never seemed so wrong.
You'd rather be seen in a dive.
And if you find these friends my boy, hold them tight.
They're rarer then wormholes, more precious than light
and all of the time that together you'd have
would be sacred, remembered, occasionally mad
but thoroughly lived - and that's the whole point.
In life's murky waters, I urge you: anoint!
Your life may transport you to a Dear Green Place
of culture, catastrophe, darkness and grace
and then, maybe then, you will make friends like these,
my long lost and ever-beloved Weegies.

Per Luciana Zapparoli - L'Anniversario D'Oro.

This

I drew this for my mother-in-law on the occasion of my in-laws' 50th wedding anniversary.

It is an image of her on her wedding day.

The "50 anni" on the top right is a dream, not even imagined to her on her wedding day.

All the things listed on the top left are the things that came to pass in their life together - the things she could have forseen: Children, love, problems, work, happiness, hard times, tears, grandchildren, friends, dreams.

The road she is walking is moving her from the past to the future.

The roots under her feet are the roots of their strong relationship, the things that have made their relationship work: Love; Family; Strength; Experience; Luck; Hope; Patience; Determination; Sacrifice; Humour; Morality; the Church; Propriety; Life Education; Faith (and faithfulness - the word is the same in Italian)

I know my sketching skills leave a lot to be desired, but hey. The idea was there, just not the technical ability. Perhaps with practice this is something I can work on.

14/10/13

I feel I am just waking up
from 10 years in Van Winkle dust.
Head is clearing, footsteps lighter.
Horizons wide and vision brighter.
Emotional ballast I've unburdened.
Old grievances I feel I've pardoned.
Not that I'll forget, of course,
But from that me I'm now divorced.

Is this me now growing up?
Or just a midlife crisis?
It's not too young, my half-full cup,
I'll probably die of bronchitis!
Those days we can't choose but to see,
when antibiotics don't work
because no company wants to fund
research with no glamorous perk.

I know what I want and how to get it.
All I need now is time.
And a canyon of work, of which I'm not afeared.
My life will be Reason from Rhyme.

Christmas 2002

Once there were three:
The magic number-
3 witches; 3 wishes; 3 wise men.
Maiden runs away; goes to see a crone.
The witch of the East
My, my - how she's grown.
They smile and compare notes
but will scars tell the whole story?

Then there were four.
Ugly; clunky; boxed.
4 sides. 4 corners. 4 angles.
Parallels everywhere.

There are no witches in mathematics.
Only mother's apples pi.

He

He is a misanthropic Dr Seuss character
Fantastic and forlorn.
In his tower, viewing Camelot.
A spaceful time; timeless but for
A dinosaur. And memorabilia of a time
More fabulous than now.
Self evident truths. Pained. Personally haunted.
Exquisite facade. Visually gifted.
Betrayed by sight.
Stand alone at arms length.
Internationally adored.

Never change.