a forty first cartoon...'office still-life'

Still-life paintings have never really been my cuppa.  There are one or two exceptions, namely Van Gogh (yes, The Sunflowers!) and Matisse (various); however, how many fruit bowls and/or vases of flowers can one take in and enjoy?!  Still-life painting has it's origins in Graeco-Roman art, and became a professional specialisation in the 16th century, it's aim to depict the inanimate and the common-place, at the same time as giving the artist freedom in composition (by contrast with the then disciplines of portraiture and landscape painting). Offices are, in a sense, still-lifes, or so they can appear...the only movements being fingers on keyboards, or the occasional tongue wagging when speaking down the telephone; these days you don't even have to move between desks, let alone floors.  This cartoon has plenty of the inanimate and the common-place; the artistic freedom exercised being the rather frivolous use of primary colours.

a seventy fifth poem...'the long now'

Words break in

Our mouths like

Old sorrows,

You’re speaking but

I’m listening only

To my heart,

In the long now,

Still beating

For you.

a fortieth cartoon...'great bear'

This cartoon hasn't reproduced particularly well. Ho hum!  Somewhere in the constellations above the fir trees, you might be able to make out 'the great bear'.  It's a special thing to be in the woods late on a winter night.  However trivial or meaningless our problems seem to be, they don't, of course, always go away (and so should be given due consideration); and yet looking up at the star-spangled night sky can at least lift us from our earthbound trail for a moment, every now and again.

a thirty ninth cartoon...'extra! extra!'

T-shirts are to me like sandwich boards: they can be used to announce to the World!  I'm always surprised, and somewhat fascinated, by the fact on one level people understand that the way they dress is a form of self-expression, and yet, when it comes to giving their clothes a voice (T-shirts in particular) people tend to go for generic slogans and/or brands.  The latest one I have 'designed' says: 'Live more / Exist less' - a good philosophy intended to expand one's horizons in life a little further: although, admittedly, I owe my old friend Hugo for that little nugget.

a thirty eighth cartoon...'gas'

Cars are a barometer for the state of our lives - or rather, our material wealth as individuals, and as a society; but they are also a strong metaphor for the condition of our hearts, our minds, our souls.  Life is a journey, and we all start out wanting (in part at least) to explore beyond the horizon...sadly, not that many of us get close, or close enough (at least by something approaching our own reckoning), and end up running out of fuel on the way, because the road is full of metaphysical pot-holes, end up in the proverbial knacker's yard.  

a seventy fourth poem...'day off'

Spent the morning eating chocolate – rolling each square around and around with my tongue, until the chocolate melted, and coated the roof of my mouth.  Then I’d wash it away with a swig from a flask of strong, dark coffee, put my feet up, and gaze out into the small garden.  The rain had left standing water in places, and droplets of rain still clung to the bare branches of the apple trees, and when a bird alighted, the branches shook imperceptibly and the droplets of rain shuddered from them, back into the sinking ground.  The sky was overcast, the cloud cover giving a grey-purple light to the garden which made the lawn seemed greener than ever - almost fluorescent, but for the brown, leafy puddles.  The house was gloomy, but I was enjoying the natural light, and the dull shades of colour it gave to the living room.  And because of the rain, humdrum sounds from outside were dampened, and all I could really hear was the low splutter of the gas boiler, and the slow ticking of the nautical clock, that once belonged to my father, on the mantelpiece.  I was wearing my thick cotton socks, and an old Guernsey, things were warm and peaceable. And I had a second-hand paperback with me in case I felt the need to exert myself, but I did not, was content instead to open a page at random and inhale the dry, sweet smell of old paper, idly dreaming up a lazy narrative of my own.

a seventy third poem...'sing'

My love

Made a song

Out of thin

Air and the

Notes quivered

On the air

Currents and

Her chest

Rose and fell

Heaved like

A squeeze-box

And I looked

At my hands

In the moonlight

And they were

Trembling

Like the notes

And all I

Could hear

Was old brass

A marching band

And I realised

I just wasn’t

Born for

These times

And later

The wind got up

And the curtains

Became full

As sails

Were sucked

Into the night

And my love

Lay silent

Somewhere in

Her dreams

And I loved her

More than

Ever then, even

Though I had

Not made

Her sing.