thoughts

the previous two posts were written in a fairly short space of time. it's been weighing on my mind recently that I haven't been doing as much writing as I'd like. I went along to the local poetry evening today and was once again reminded of the vast scope that poetry entails and the endless opportunities for inspiration that are out there. I hope this means I've overcome the block I was experiencing. I'm making no promises though. I also did not blog about life on the road this year. There was a reason for that. danged if I remember what it was now though. Anyhow, I was once again made very aware of the vastness of the US, and the huge range of life and experience going on all over it. I would like to say that I kept notes, even mental ones, but that would be untrue. All I have is a jumble of disjointed anecdotes involving a huge number of genuine characters, and a feeling that I'm one step closer to some form of understanding.

this view across Austin is beautiful, and the colonial-style architecture reminds us that Texas has a long and colourful history.

Cresting the ridge of a pass in the high Appalachian country, Kentucky

a fiery sunset over the buttes and dunes and sagebrush of the Mojave Desert, California

a houseboat anchored in the Mississippi River, beneath a sign epitomising the upper Midwest and Plains region, in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The Captain's warning to a sailor who started getting Notions above his station.

Don’t be so dismissive, mate
Of race, gender or creed
Because everybody’s got something
They want or they need
to be happy, to be rich, to drink rum and act wise.
And will all cling to the lifeboat if the ship
Happens to capsize.
Ponder your own faults
The things that affright
You and leave you to shudder and shrink from their sight
And yet you pass judgement
on those who admit to
being less brave when the storm finally hits
because you personally can handle
the howling of gales and tie a neat reef knot
in the foremast topsails
But you know they have courage
and would face you down
and might acquit themselves better in a bare knuckle round
so the captain’s cabin is no place to throw stones
and there’s no place for haters
‘neath the Skull and Crossed Bones
“Heal thyself, physician, or I’ll see you becursed,
and let the crewmen rest easy, without fearing the worst.
For Davy Jones is waiting to swallow us all
whether tis by noose or by knife or by cannon ball that
we finally succumb to the disease they call life
and we don't need your judgements to cause us more strife."

A Big Man

Foxy McFagan
From far Follyertha
Travelled through wars
and deaths and rebirths
He was the man Uncle Sam wished he was meeting
And the man who moved cities
with the food he was eating

Ol' Foxy McFagan
with fulsome frowns
looked at the mountains
and they followed him down
Foxy ran across lakes and dived up through the sky
and after he left them
the deserts were dry

he rode an old mule
with worrying ways
so he hobbled its legs
and stuffed it with hay
he lit the hay on fire and roasted it through
and ate the mule's innards
and he ate the outards too.

he kept the mule's hide
scarred, scorched and sleek
and made a huge tent
where he slept for a week
not a person could wake him, his snores drove them deaf
he woke with a sneeze
and felt much refreshed

Foxy McFagan
from far Follyertha
could leather a volleyball
clean through the earth
his arms were the size of mighty Hoover Dam
and the people he'd meet would say
"That's a Big Man."