Posts made in February, 2012
How to see the world differently in one easy step
‘Picture Walking’ Writing Workshop Contribution – by @theghostshirt
A contribution to this week’s Writing Workshop, by David, @theghostshirt
Christ of Saint John of the Cross by Salvador Dali, 1951
His face, holds it a smile or frown?
What does he think as he looks down?
On fisher folk of old below
Their lives so simple, as we know
Perhaps a smile for plain sweat ‘n toil
Warm mirrored eyes for a mortal coil
*
But now, many torrid centuries on,
how does he feel as he looks on?
A frown, I reckon, these days he shows
As he looks down, on us below
We pollute the oceans and kill the fish
And those who profit are few, but rich
*
So, footstep followers or those who sneer
Love n’ compassion you must hold dear
Like fundamental scenes of fishing
A caring future needs more wishing
For if we lose the bonds that bind us
Then money and profit will only blind us
*
Perhaps his gaze pierces the dawn
A lost regard for days long gone.
Or perhaps he looks for a brighter future
where love and respect we all can nurture.
But whatever those sweeps of an artist’s brush
The simple bowed head brings a sense of hush.
Writing Workshop – Walk through the Wheat Field
I fell asleep with my head on the open book, the day enveloping me like the kind of blanket that’s held down. Breathing slowing, vision hot, I fell some more. Down and IN.
It was the smell that woke me. The kind of earth that smells like death and life at the same time. Carbon-rich, thick and damp – I could feel it seeping though my jeans, the heels of my trainers half-sucked beneath. I lay on my back, thick grass like ribbons in my hair, my hands instinctively reaching to my eyes to rub before realising my fingers were coated with the same mud, determined to reach every part of me. It was warm though, soft. There was the thought that if I kept my eyes closed and still I could let it take me, sink down until it covered my mouth and I was just as much death and life as it was. But the cries brought me to – caw-caw-caw; echoing from one pointed, open mouth to another.
Prising myself from the ground I sat up, face war-painted, knees instinctively drawn close as I took in where I was, gazing along the thick river of mud winding its way ahead of me. A sudden gust of wind woke the wheat, before now blind to my senses, but now pulled low and shaking itself in my eyes and ears like paper waved to make a point. And I thought of the Fox in The Little Prince, begging to be tamed, and how he begged the Prince to love him so that the golden wheat may finally speak to him, as it would always remind him of he who he loved the most. And I spoke to the wheat and the earth and begged it, do not make me special to you, do not tame me else I can never leave. Leave me free, please, my voice joining that of the crows circling above me with their cacophonous rancour, perhaps begging the exact same thing.
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