Thursday, November 21, 2013

Star Spots #441


19.xi.13
Will Self (and dog) - Hampstead Heath

20.xi.13
Melvyn Bragg - Festival Hall
Simon Armitage, poet - Festival Hall

21.xi.13
Sebastian Faulks, Burlington Arcade

Blackberry-Picking - for Dylan

Blackberry-Picking

Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots
Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
We trekked and picked until the cans were full
Until the tinkling bottom had been covered
With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.
We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair
That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not. 

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

YHEE - Sturm & Drang

Bringing home Thor and other comics to read with D

The open fire in the upstairs room at the Union Club where I interviewed Mike McCarthy

Getting my haircut on a rainy grey day in Drury Lane

Thursday, November 07, 2013

Simple Pleasures

Afros
Beautiful black girls
The British Library central book tower
Japanese women's eyes and faces
Creating things with friends
Libraries
Books (made of paper)
Photography
Creative Thinking