Here I sit watching the day out
No-one beside me who may doubt
All of the words that I could chose to say
So listen, believe, or be gone from this day
I need a friend to walk with me
And sit in the shade of an old tree
To think nothing much, just agree with my thoughts
To say nothing much, never tell what I ought
Watching the people pass by now
They just don't know why or know how
They don't seem to care about all that I've seen
They just walk on by never knowing I've been
Sitting up here where I'm wind blown
Only to ask and to be shown
Things that would make you believe what I say
I'll tell you myself and I'll show you some day.
As Harry Chapin said in my song lyric for yesterday:
Sometimes words can serve me well
And sometimes words can go to hell for all that they do.
Lyrics mean whatever you want them to mean. It's just like reading a book. Whenever I read a novel I have a picture of a person or a situation in my head. In other words I visualise what's going on and how disappointed am I when that book transfers to the cinema or television and the person they choose to play a part is nothing like the one I imagined?
I have a weakness for some books/music that I shouldn't really enjoy. I call this my piffle books or piffle music. Who has read any of the Agatha Raisin books by M C Beaton? They are nice gentle murder mysteries (if murder can be gentle) set in the Cotswolds which just happens to be one of my favourite parts of the country.
In my mind I imagined Agatha as a rather middle aged and matronly person. On television she is played by Ashley Jensen who is anything but matronly. I suppose it's best not to have any preconceived ideas of the people you are reading about. Same thing with another detective series. I refer to that featuring Detective Superintendent Roy Grace who is played on television by John Simm who is anything but what I imagined Grace to be like from reading the books by Peter James.
I knew nothing about M.C Beaton other than the fact she was female. So I looked her up as is my habit on such occasions and was surprised to find she is no longer with us. As for those initials - well M C Beaton wasn't her real name anyway. Her real name was Marion Gibbons and she was born in 1936 and died in 2019.
She was pretty prolific and wrote under no fewer than seven different names. In fact she wrote over 150 novels including 32 full length Agatha Raisin novels and some short stories. But back to my theme and things for me not necessarily being the same as for the person writing.
On the Barclay James Harvest website the band goes through their lyrics and explain the meaning of many of them. The Poet was written by keyboard player Stuart Woolly Wolstenholme who had this to say: ""The song was written in 1967, and is really having a go at the self-importance of `the artist' - that kind of 'sit next to me and listen but don't touch or criticise' attitude."
Now that's not my interpretation, although I have to bow to the fact that the writer probably knows more about what the song is meant to say than I do.
For me it's a very pastoral piece of music. Two friends sharing the countryside but neither needing to say anything as their bond is so strong. Interestingly the song morphs into a separate piece entitled "After the Day" which is about the apocalypse. So as they say when it comes to lyrics you pay your money and you take your choice (have I got that right)?
Poetry played a big part in yesterday morning's Forget Me Not Cafe. There was an excellent attendance for coffee and chat. This meeting used to be known as the Dementia Support Cafe but its name was changed to be more inclusive and include people who just want to have a chat and a bit of fellowship.
People were asked to bring some favourite poetry along and so we had some Robert Louis Stevenson, some Pam Ayres, some Oscar Wilde, some Spike Milligan and a few others - a nice varied collection. I wanted to read Too Many Saviours On My Cross which is a savage poem written by hell raiser and actor Richard Harris. We ran out of time. Try this for size.
There are too many saviours on my cross,
lending their blood to flood out my ballot box with needs of their own.
Who put you there?
Who told you that that was your place?
You carry me secretly naked in your heart
and clothe me publicly in armor
crying “God is on our side,” yet I openly cry
Who is on mine?
Who?
Tell me, who?
You who bury your sons and cripple your fathers
whilst you bury my father in crippling his son.
The antiquated Saxon sword,
rusty in its scabbard of time now rises--
you gave it cause in my name,
bringing shame to the thorned head
that once bled for your salvation.
I hear your daily cries
in the far-off byways in your mouth
pointing north and south
and my Calvary looms again,
desperate in rebirth.
Your earth is partitioned,
but in contrition
it is the partition
in your hearts that you must abolish.
You nightly watchers of Gethsemene
who sat through my nightly trial delivering me from evil--
now deserted, I watch you share your silver.
Your purse, rich in hate,
bleeds my veins of love,
shattering my bone in the dust of the bogside and the Shankhill road.
There is no issue stronger than the tissue of love,
no need as holy as the palm outstretched in the run of generosity,
no monstrosity greater than the acre you inflict.
Who gave you the right to increase your fold
and decrease the pastures of my flock?
Who gave you the right?
Who gave it to you?
Who?
And in whose name do you fight?
I am not in heaven,
I am here,
hear me.
I am in you,
feel me.
I am of you,
be me.
I am with you,
see me.
I am for you,
need me.
I am all mankind;
only through kindness will you reach me.
What masked and bannered men can rock the ark
and navigate a course to their annointed kingdom come?
Who sailed their captain to waters that they troubled in my font,
sinking in the ignorant seas of prejudice?
There is no virgin willing to conceive in the heat of any bloody Sunday.
You crippled children lying in cries on Derry’s streets,
pushing your innocence to the full flush face of Christian guns,
battling the blame on each other,
do not grow tongues in your dying dumb wounds speaking my name.
I am not your prize in your death.
You have exorcized me in your game of politics.
Go home to your knees and worship me in any cloth,
for I was never tailor-made.
Who told you I was?
Who gave you the right to think it?
Take your beads in your crippled hands,
can you count my decades?
Take my love in your crippled hearts,
can you count the loss?
I am not orange.
I am not green.
I am a half-ripe fruit needing both colors to grow into ripeness,
and shame on you to have withered my orchard.
I in my poverty,
alone without trust,
cry shame on you
and shame on you again and again
for converting me into a bullet and shooting me into men’s hearts.
The ageless legend of my trial grows old
in the youth of your pulse staggering shamelessly from barricade to grave,
filing in the book of history my needless death one April.
Let me, in my betrayal, lie low in my grave,
and you, in your bitterness, lie low in yours,
for our measurements grow strangely dissimilar.
Our Father, who art in heaven,
sullied be thy name.
To me that's an incredibly powerful poem. Yes it's about The Troubles in Ireland but it has a much broader meaning than that. It does of course mean whatever you want it to mean.
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My feature on the tenth anniversary of the Olympic flame coming to Hethersett was included in yesterday's Eastern Daily Press. A copy of the cutting is included.
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I know it's something that comes with age but does anyone else start writing, have an idea, and by the time you come to put it down the wholet idea has gone completely out of your mind?
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I have to admit it. I'm beginning to struggle a bit with my aim to walk 1,500 miles in 2022. I am still well on target but the last few days have been tough due to a sore ankle and heat. It's also a mental battle knowing that I still have almost six months still to go and still need to average around four miles a day to reach the target. That's a lot of going out to walk when I don't feel like it.
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Today I started out with nothing in mind and very little to write about. But somehow I've managed to put something together and hopefully it will make some kind of sense.