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Wednesday, August 19, 2020

Horse. Angel. Riddle.



Once again, I have been terribly lazy about sending out. But thanks to Callum James (I met him some years ago in Wales, during splendid celebrations for the retrospective of painter Clive Hicks-Jenkins) for requesting some poems for the Spiritus Mundi series at Cunning Folk in the U.K. He was, for a short time, their poetry editor. 

The lovely illustration above is by Helen Nicholson, who is an illustrator and musician in the U.K. You can find her here: https://helennicholson.co.uk/. She also has an Etsy shop for her prints.

Here are some three-line openers/teasers that will surely make you fly through the aether and land ever-so-daintily on the Cunning Folk cloud:

from "The Riddle"

   The mystery of making things
From words is how the needed element
   Seems like a metal jot that springs

and from "The Horse Angel"

Heaven and earth are like two hands that touch,
Clapping together when a thunderbolt
Rives the air and melts the sand to glass.

I also have a short story titled "The Horse Angel." It's in the 2009 Postscripts (U.K.) anthology. Suppose I need a horse-angel essay next.

In related news, I'm saving the tweet below because a.) Dan Sheehan always deletes his page and b.) it is my favorite tweet of the month, and I shall look at it when I feel blue about having yet another novel come out during a disaster. (However, surely the universe will find that three disaster launches is enough... Then again, maybe not. There may be some reason behind my terrible timing, some thing I simply don't get. Offended a minor demon. Insulted a child. Tripped over my own words.) The Sheehanian comment is evidently referring to the Cunning Folk poems in particular, but I feel cheered by the idea of having eerie powers, haha! At least in the realm of world-wielding... And transporting. And timelessness. Okay, I sort of love Dan Sheehan right now, though I suppose that is childish and silly. Compliments at the right moment are sweet.

As I'm getting over a nasty g.i. bug (not The Bug), I shall now wave good-by! and go hug a pillow. 

16 comments:

  1. p. s. Why is new blogger not letting me add labels? Does anybody know? I wanted to add Dan S. and Helen N. Aggravation...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Labels are there, just sniffle them out as if they were truffles. I seem to recall the first couple had to be inserted manually. Now they are listed tick-box fashion and less restricted.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It was letting me tick boxes already established but not make new ones!

      Just back from Portland...

      Delete
    2. Well, you can still use older blogger .... right? BTW, Chrome permits comments.

      Delete
    3. Yes, that's what I'm using. But I've had friends tell me they wrote long comments on Safari and wept tears of blood when they vanished! Okay, well, only one with tears of blood...

      Delete
    4. Older blogger likes Safari still?

      Delete
    5. No, but it remains more user friendly for posting and editing.

      Delete
  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  4. The solution involves editing HTML code. To make things easier I included the area of code itself but your Comments section reacted to this code and eliminated the details.

    There is an official solution:

    If you select a post or posts, you will surely see a red menu at the top that includes a little tag icon. Use that to add labels to selected posts.

    But I haven't been able to identify the red menu or the little tag icon.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hmm, okay. Guess I can fiddle around again and try for clarity!

      You would have loved our concert last night, just after we got home from Portland. Such a gorgeous garden setting, magically green after rain, with some deservedly well-known musicians, several on retreat from NYC.

      Delete
  5. Replies
    1. An all-jazz, mid-century night--trombone, keyboards, bass, drums...

      I know jazz isn't your thing, but it was just lovely, the place, the music, the garden, the seeing-of-faces.

      Delete
  6. What made you think that? I used to play When the Saints Go Marching In on an inadequate trumpet. Also CofE hymns, thereby bridging the cultural divide.

    Having left sadly inadequate info on creating new Labels with you, I returned to my own blog and found that Google had in my absence slipped in a simple and obvious facility for doing just that. Look again, you may have been similarly blest.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh, good, shall take a peek!

      And of course I should have known that you like many sorts of music... It's just that I was thinking of your vocal repertoire.

      Delete
  7. Google has clearly received a lot of complaints about the new interface. Mine offers to let me revert to the old one.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'll have to take a look and see if I can find that offer! Thank you, George.... hope you are doing well, despite the times...

      Delete

Alas, I must once again remind large numbers of Chinese salesmen and other worldwide peddlers that if they fall into the Gulf of Spam, they will be eaten by roaming Balrogs. The rest of you, lovers of grace, poetry, and horses (nod to Yeats--you do not have to be fond of horses), feel free to leave fascinating missives and curious arguments.