Tag Archives: forest

Day 07 – foraging + edibility

Lovely walks past & present. [Note: photo is one of mine, taken on just such a walk.]

The Factoid Poem addresses the very real & pressing question: what mushrooms can you eat?

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foraging seasons

i.
some substantial rain & 
the passing of the March equinox 
heralds the coming season

magic is starting among the trees
but we’re all waiting
on a little more water first

to engage in our adult version
of an Easter egg hunt — the long 
range forecast delivered news

no one wanted — a dry winter
followed by another dry summer 
La Niña’s kaput  El Niño’s back baby

ii.
Chester & i enjoyed wandering 
among the pines on dank damp 
drizzling delightful delicious days 

he loved smelling every new spore
before dashing off to the next adventure 
leaving me to identify (if i could)

& artfully photograph the most alluring 
sometimes wished i could have trained 
him to seek out truffles (or similar)

but he found his enjoyment 
in his own way & that was enough 
(more than enough)            for me

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Day 07 Factoid – All mushrooms are edible

Edible

don’t listen to what
the naysayers neigh

you can eat any 
mushroom you like

whether you wish to keep
living is another matter

altogether

Day 06 — impressions + interstellars

This one has been building for many days. In an ideal world, perhaps it should have been the first poem of the month. But it’s not. What ya gonna do about it? It’s here now. & it’s okay.

The Poetic Factoid has the potential to be revisited in a bigger poem later on as there’s lots of interesting things about that particular topic.

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first impressions

when i think of mushrooms : it’s almost always something primal : something primitivistic : something pagan : something archetypal : something out of the dim distant past : something older than dinosaurs : something ancient & eternal : more chthonic than Cthulhu : yet still something otherworldly : something Lovecraftian : something neverending : something overpowering : something from Ovid’s Metamorphosis : constantly transforming

primordial : growing among the decay : the rot : the hummus holes of homes : the wet humble detritus of life : in a forest : in a cave : somewhere dark : somewhere dank : somewhere quiet : somewhere eternal : somewhere enchanted intertwined entangled beguiled 

yet for all this : passionate : active : evocative : working hard to make the world better : to restore : to regenerate : to rejuvenate 

to con : tinue on

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Day 06 Factoid — Space fungi are badassess

star spores

7 years ago a number of unoffending fungi were deliberately 
attached to the hull of the ISS by malicious scientists

exposing them to a year of space’s malevolent triple threat
cosmic radiation  complete vacuum  & Kelvin-level temps

despite the deep freeze many both survived the ordeal 
& were capable of reproducing themselves afterwards

hinting at the possibility fungi
                             could well be excellent interstellar explorers

Day 04 – the most famous mushroom? + costume-inspiration

Because it is a weekend I’m attempting a Case Study poem, focussing on one specific mushroom. You’ll recognise it as soon as you see it, even if you don’t know its name.

Note: I’m really pleased with today’s main poem which means (unfortunately for you) that it’s heavily redacted. Hopefully the three stanzas I’ve left give enough of a taste of it.

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Case Study: Amanita muscaria
#1: Fly Agaric

[please click to enlarge image]

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Factoid Day 4 – TIL I learnt more about festive costumes

mushroom suit

some believe this stereotypical
bright red shroom : with white dots 
beloved symbol of fairy tales
may even be the inspiration :
for one very famous : red-&-white 

costume : of a certain benevolent : 
(generosity inspired by ritual buzz?)
Claus-comma-Santa : harking back 
to his : Bacchanalian : pagan : wild 
man of the forest : Siberian shamanic roots

Day 26 — Robin Hood + Will Scarlet 

Today’s poem was always on the shortlist but at the last minute supplanted another book I was considering writing about. It came about given how I spent part of my afternoon — underneath an oak glade as the afternoon sun set. It seemed quite obvious to flip out that other book for this one — or these ones — as there’s no definitive text & multiple versions of the wonderful tales of the Merry Men of Robin Hood. The Factoid is likewise connected to that medieval gang.

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LM #05 — Robin Hood

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Day 26 Factoid — coiffures in the Greenwood 

Will Scarlet and the Hairdresser 

in the earliest ballads 
Will Scarlet was but 
a background character

called Will Scathlock
Middle English sc(e)afan  “to shave” 
& locc meaning “hair” 

in other words 
Will Scarlet was originally
a skinhead

Day 19 — Pookie & the Country Boy + Easter Leporidae

Been toying whether to include Pookie in this series or not given it’s a very different kind of book to the previous two; but ultimately decided I should. It’s a foundational document in my development, if not in fact, my psyche. Multiple things which appear throughout this series have become things I collect other books about.

The Poetic Factoid was a super easy one given the weekend we’re in ATM.

Note: As with previous LM poems you’ll need to click on the image to enlarge to get the full effect.

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Lawrence’s Maxim 03 – Pookie

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Day 19 Factoid – Easter Leporidae

identifying Easter 

Ears Up! originally the Easter “bunny” was a hare
(why? cos they’re a hundred times cooler, obviously)

sadly i don’t have the time (nor wisdom) to explain how 
a male bunny (Peter Cottontail) produces … eggs of all things

Day 4 – trees & forests

It’s strange how often the poem you set out to write, morphs into something unexpected. I began the evening playing with climate “cliches” — things deniers say to disprove/discredit the science — & trying to tweak them into new forms. Which lead to a poem I’m pretty pleased with using a quote from Ronald Reagan (implementor of the neo-liberal “experiment” in America). Because I like its potential, I’m only going to share a few lines: the opening ones & ones near the very end to give a taste of it. 

Today’s Poetic Factoid practically wrote itself as the idea/awareness has been in my mind ever since I read Peter Wohlleben’s The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate: Discoveries from a Secret World several years ago. There are so many cool tree facts I could write dozens of factoids & one day just might … one fact I couldn’t fit in this time, is that trees can recognise their own kin!

NB These poems were written yesterday, but when I startled myself awake at the keyboard at 12.22am I realised I needed to go to bed & upload them later. Hence, this…

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barking up

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago.
       The second best is today.

neo-liberals have long believed a tree is just a tree
how many must you look at to know a forest?

no doubt Reagan & his ilk never planted a tree
under whose shade — they never expected to sit

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http://www.tree.org

trees are connected : by their toetips
via : an underground fungal internet
the wood wide web : a mycorrhizal 
symbiosis of mutual benefit : root-clinging 
fungi aids tree absorb extra water & nutrients 
from soil : tree reciprocates by sharing :
tasty photosynthesised sugars

trees even text : messaging : when insects 
attack : the victim warns : trigger defences : 
networks have hubs : older : larger : “mothers”
connected to : hundreds of younger ones 
who send : excess carbon through the system
to understory seedlings : quadrupling
their chance of surviving

more evidence : of collective strength : over separatism 

Day 29 — 11th hour inspiration

Today was a tough day. Long tiring. I have at least a dozen titles/ideas for love poems about my most recent experience of same that I thought I might write this month that I never got around to. Titles I jotted down included: fairy tale love, five answers to the same question, how we got to this point: part 1, invested, MSG, questions i now know i’ll never ask, reconnection, rid, soul mates, tainted, the moment of hindsight, the spare, to those who wait among others. I guess some of those might get written one day. Just not today. Nor tomorrow neither.

Other topics I consider were: love of books, love of planet, love of land & billionaires — their love of money versus their non-love of humanity. All of which might well have produced some interesting explorations. Yet the one I went with came to me quite quickly through the flittering eyelids of halfsleep.

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from a foreign field

end of an exhausting day : babblebox on in background : company as i chairdoze : when my fave Escape begins : & i am reenergised 

whether it be — golden farmland : mist-ridden valleys : lumpy mountains : windswept seas : hemlike hedgerows : aching lakes : weeping brooks : ancient sprites : wildflower fields : one hundred types of rain : or chocbox houses : in tiny hamlets : with absurdly wonderful : gobstopping names

no matter which area — Cornwall : Cotswolds : Cumbria — Devon : the Downs : Lake District — Shropshire : Warwickshire : the Shire — New Forest : Sherwood Forest — the moors : the fenlands : the locations list nearly endless 

cannot help myself : though often wish i could : feel inexplicably torn : that some small part : of my traitorous soul : is & always will be : for ever England

Day 30 – endings (& fairy tales)

30 at_the_end_by_heretyczkaa_d4irx0t.jpg

Toyed with a couple of ideas, none developed very far, when I realised I’d almost written a poem over the past 29 days. Took the titles & laid them out one after the other & they make a kind of sense. Couple of stabs at rearranging lines & adding words to help soften the occasional harsh transitions, but in the end, just went with the order they were produced, unadulterated, in a self-referential, albeit imperfect, found poem.

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the end

i.
the present  twilight ; a long ago perfect day ; the speed of light

ii.
the many things we see in the moon  from our flying machines  on an unordinary day

iii.
to repair with gold  failure  deflated ; big top potpourri  white hare

iv.
autumn day  sunday farm sounds  home, less  holy houses  day of birth ; Jubilate Canis (shout out to my dog)

v.
absence  wallows  the wind tree ; game of poems  will never end ; senescence  lest we forget ; game of moans  intertextuality ; last day of holidays  scans  the end

 

 

BONUS POEM: April 30, 2018

Looking back over the bookface, it seems I never actually posted a Day 30 pome last year. WiFi was possibly an issue, but it was also a big travel day. None-the-less, checking my master file it seems there were three pomes drafted that day (or at least, begun) so as a special End-of-Month Bonus … I’m going to share all three (after each gets a wee tidy up).

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silver 3

in an outer suburb
of Bad Wildungen
on route to Kassel
where the Grimm Boys
collected, collated
& reconditioned
so many of their tales

a silver 3 heliums
its shiny foil
way to freedom. sadly
tonight someone will
be recelebrating their 1st
rather than their 13th

initially  think it’s a bird
a rook or raven or some other
portentous feathered omen

seek personal symbolism
you can see signs
in anything — so i do

being in Fairy Tale land
naturally i see in
the wayward ballon

the three bears;
the little pigs;
three wishes;

three sons, two who fail,
one who saves everyone;
rules of three everywhere.

& always
always   always
three dead babes

°°°°°

for the trees

i.
being here where they were
has forever altered the way
I’ll read the Household Tales
for now I understand — forest

why so many stories are set there
why so many journeys go through
for there’s forest on every third hill

a forest around every third corner
a forest bordering every third field
& road … & river … & valley

& where it’s not a forest
it’s a grove, or a copse
or even just a stand

no wonder there are
so many woodcutters,
with so much wood to cut

likewise there are so many
kings, queens, princesses & princes
when beyond every forest
may well be a new kingdom

ii.
i also comprehend having
                                            walked in
Hansel & Gretel’s forest
that it’s so much darker,
blacker & gloomier than I could
ever have understood
from the desert’s
                              edge ;

Little Red’s, while
                                ominous
has infinitely more colour
a variegation of verde;

& seeing the virulence
with which things grow here
can well understand how
quickly thorns could over
come
Sleeping Beauty’s castle

°°°°°

Märchenstraße

I believe some of these towns
heard there was a wagon
grabbed their bands
& just jumped on

Cos their connection
to anything Fairy Tale
seems grimly tenuous
(& that’s being generous)

30b forest.JPG

Day 16 – poem about serenity

Paro Taktsang – Paro Valley, Bhutan

Been partaking in much thought (as I do this time every year); as well as a Firefly marathon, so themes of home & family have been percolating round for days. (The pome itself took about an hour; finding the right picture, close to five.)

Somewhere there is a house

whether facing a storm on a cliff ;
lost in a forest ; birdhigh in a tree ;
or underground browntangled among
ancient roots ; atop an old stone tower ;
even above an ocean where mountains
once used to be, before being washed away

But somewhere there is a house ;
where when i walk in, i have always been
where i know and am known ;
where there is no need to play roles ;
no need to keep pretending all is well ;
where those long lost are as they were

i know there is a such a house, somewhere

Day 13 – Leaf Cycle

Day two of my residency went well. One more person than last week, but none of them stayed the whole three hours — which was fine by me … my brief is to write poetry while there & to interact with library patrons & to impart (hopefully) some slight dose of poeticking wisdom whenever possible. (I’m keeping notes on each session & my plan is at the end of the month to post something which looks back over all 4 sessions with a quasi-critical eye.)

But the ‘me’ time meant I could play with lots of ideas. I chose about twenty books in under five minutes just grabbing things off shelves that ‘spoke’ to me (apologies to the librarians who had to put them all back the end of the day). Then played a bunch of games based on initially, over half the covers; but eventually my interest whittled down to three or four I really liked. I have a number of pomes either in first draft or partial draft stage at least a couple of which will be fleshed out further for my performance in week 4.

So I had a solid selection to choose from today is what I’m saying. This is the one I chose:

woods: lovely, dark & deep

deep in the forest
someone has left
a circle of leaves
on the path — 55

leaves large & small
in a perfect circle
carved from silver
gems on black cloth

i don’t know how long
they’ve been like this
wind has not disturbed
them — they remain

like the promise
of a child

leaf circle CROP

NOTE: image is a detail of The Promise of the Child (yes that is where the last lines came from heehee 🙂 very handy it was cos I didn’t know how to end it) by Tom Toner

NOTE 2: I also spoke to Musician in Residence, John Denley (it really is a very cool library) & he’s writing three songs as part of his time there … so next week, myself & any interested participants might find themselves contributing lyric ideas to John 🙂 Cross-Pollination, yeah baby!