Further Notes On Watching A Fly On A Slate Table: The Return Of The Fly

This post is a follow on to an earlier post called, ‘A Poem: Watching A Fly On A Slate Table: A Fly Tetralogy’.   With the full privilege of a month in a Himalayan hut, I was granted the rare liberty of observing a common fly for a period not too removed of two hours.  I’d avoided flies in Rishikesh: they’d usually flown hot, straight from a homeless and vomiting cow’s arse.  But here in the flowery mountains, I imagined this one had just danced from a pink rose or at worst had been pestering a butterfly.  You may think that flies are just black dots that you brush off, but I firmly advocate closer inspection.  A whole world is waiting in the minutiae.  My protracted period of muscidae monitoring resulted in the following poem, which is a sequel to my earlier poem.  My main gripe is that there is no mention of Jeff Goldblum. Continue reading

Words of Cormac Mccarthy

“They rode on. The horses trudged sullenly the alien ground and the round earth rolled beneath them silently milling the greater void wherein they were contained. In the neuter austerity of that terrain all phenomena were bequeathed a strange equality and no one thing nor spider nor stone nor blade of grass could put forth claim to precedence. The very clarity of these articles belied their familiarity, for the eye predicates on some feature or part and here was nothing more luminous than another and nothing more enshadowed and in the optical democracy of such landscapes all preference is made whimsical and a man and a rock become endowed with unguessed kinships.”

CORMAC MCCARTHY
BLOOD MERIDIAN

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Bag Packing Tips for Thailand: With Hazel Keeley.

Rejecting the hullabaloo and excess of the Western world for a month of freedom in the East means you can throw a few vests in a bag and everything’s hunky-dory. Passport. Check. Wallet. Check. Vests. Check. Undies. Check.

However, prioritising the pure necessities for a rough and ready back-packing trip when you have a limited number of litres in your rucksack can present it’s own dilemmas. Here, our guest back-packing legend and seasoned traveler, Hazel Keeley gives her tips on keeping packing to a minimum. Continue reading

A Poem: Under A Tree In Rishikesh

Parmath Niketan ashram by the Ganges in Rishikesh was our base for a week after we escaped the 46 degree heat of the Indian desert.  In the ashram we rested, ate incredibly healthily and practiced yoga.

Under a tree in the pretty, lush gardens by the yoga school (which is incidentally just next to the World Toilet College) Collette and I took a couple of hours to relax surrounded by the butterflies, colour shifting lizards, tropical birds and insects before we were rudely disturbed by the rhesus macaques. I was writing plenty of poems during the peace of this time and here is one inspired by the garden beasties.

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Poem Boner

Greetings from Luang Prabang in Laos.

Since January and as we have been travelling,  I have been having fun writing screenplays, a book and some poems.  I am learning a lot and I am definitely getting better.  I love it.  I’ve learnt some new words ‘n’ that ‘n’ all like vermiculate and penumbra.  And kerfs.  Gonna use ’em.  I am thrilled that the poem, ‘Pillars’ below has been selected from a competition (which had entrants from all over the world) to be printed in a real book made out of paper and everything.  I have a proper poem boner.
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