Getting to the Other Side

natgeo02.jpg

Negotiating with a Glacier

 

Not trailing…not tight…

our connection just right.

 

They may be retreating,

but they are still here,

here to cross,

to traverse when

There Is No Alternative.

The blue beneath our boots

shames the brightest skies,

making them blush grey.

Stone-hard shatterings of fused ice

contort our tautening ankles

amidst numberless ruts and runnels

ploughed into this frost-blistered hide

covering for frozen flood flow.

We rope up in recognition –

together we might be surer of foot,

less chasm-bound, less ice-sliced.

 

Not trailing…not tight…

our connection just right.

 

Too loose and nothing is gained,

too tense and we mis-step.

Tenderly, ruggedly, we get there,

make the benign other side:

the secret of relationship glitters –

not trailing…not tight…

not trailing…not tight.

 

 Ted x

Highly Recommended!

I maintain a very small publishing operation called Cairn Time Press. It is mainly a home for some ISBN numbers that I like to reserve for projects of special interest.

Cairn Time Press has just published Dancing On Thin Ice, a collection of poems by Nathan Lee Davies.

Dancing on Thin Ice JPEG.jpg

Nathan suffers from Friedreich’s Ataxia and his poems are powerful, eloquent comments on the politics of disability and the personal costs of dealing with a relentlessly debilitating condition. The book mainly consists of tanka (the 5-line traditional Japanese form that allows for pithy, punchy expression). Nathan’s tanka are sandwiched between two longer ‘list’ poems.

Nathan’s poems are remarkable in their honesty, insight and dark humour.

Dancing On Thin Ice also contains my introduction, a Foreword by Nathan, and an explanation of the nature of Ataxia. There are ringing endorsements from Sophie McKeand and Liz Lefroy.

The collection costs £5 and copies can be obtained from me, or direct from Nathan (nathandavies01@hotmail.com).

Nathan is a very fine writer and you can also follow his excellent blog at https://nathanleedavies.wordpress.com/2019/12/10/ge2019-select-tweets/ You can also put his name and ‘wordpress’ into a search engine.

I am very proud to play a part in getting Nathan’s vital voice ‘out there’. Snap up your copy now!

Ted x

Even the Pulp Writers Warned Us...

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, published in 1962, is a wonderful book and an early landmark in climate change awareness. However, as a lover of the intersections between popular culture and academia, I have to point out that pulp fiction was there first…just three exemplars here.

68751137_3258043770880051_3135946190508523520_n.jpg
73446325_716655975481467_1866242682582466560_n.jpg
71151629_10217722803935067_3659463984760750080_n.jpg

Rebel! Rebel against capitalism, against capital’s political parties (Tories, Lib Dems, Brexiteers, nationalists, fascists). Rebel against religious fundamentalism, racism, sexism and all forms of power abuse, whether political, economic or personal. Rebel against extinction.

Ted x

Film Poem Collaboration

Here is the short film and poem made for the Encounters exhibition with brilliant video artist Jill Impey.

The text of the voiceover poem is below the video.

This Primeval Infant Earth

 

From the shore’s foredune of dawn

                    to the ridgeline’s afterflare of dusk

new nebulae coalesce –

                    star nurseries nourished by submarine volcanoes,

dark lava beaches wave-washed in saltwater.

                    This terra firma shapeshifts in tectonic time,

ebbflowing from solstice to equinox and back again –

                    some ancient child, some indifferent trickster

lives within this buddha bardo –

                    pregnating space between spaces

in ripples conjoined but not together,

                    veiled in cloud droplets from hot spring heat,

cupped tide-pool calderas of bubbling fecundity

                    at this subliminal androgynous crossroads.

The temporary is made permanent by repetition –

                    repetition of pattern embedded in turbulence,

from the geometry of each singing sand grain

                    to the sulphur vapour droplets on misted moss:

earth, water, fire, and air learn to walk and to play,

                    to sump consolation from deep time’s reminders.

 

 

Ted Eames, 2019

Ted x

Encounters Exhibition 2019

Twenty visual artists and twenty poets respond to each other's work: a fine exhibition at the VAN (Visual Arts Network) Gallery in the Darwin Centre in Shrewsbury.Opens on 30th September and runs to 2nd November. Not to be missed!Poetry readings and…

Twenty visual artists and twenty poets respond to each other's work: a fine exhibition at the VAN (Visual Arts Network) Gallery in the Darwin Centre in Shrewsbury.

Opens on 30th September and runs to 2nd November. Not to be missed!

Poetry readings and artists speaking about their work: Saturday 5th October 1pm - 3pm in the gallery.

My own contribution is a collaboration with video artist Jill Impey. Jill has produced a short film called Liminal, partly in response to my poem Between. My new poem, This Primeval Infant Earth is dubbed onto the soundtrack.

Ted x

Early and Late reprint

I run a small publishing press called Cairn Time Press (Cairn Time is one of the poems in my collection Between Me and You).

I am very pleased to announce a reprint of Early and Late, an excellent collection by Michael Thomas, with illustrations by myself.

Michael can be contacted via his website: www.michaelthomas.co.uk or by email at michaelw.thomas@btinternet.com

Early and Late has been attracting some great reviews!

Early & Late.jpg

Making a Molehill Out of a Mountain

Once upon a time there was an unattainable goal. It was generous in its gifts: dreams, stories, rich metaphors and symbols.

The summit ridge of Everest in this May’s weather window

The summit ridge of Everest in this May’s weather window

Gerard Manley Hopkins was a great poet of the wild places. The pictures from Everest this year remind me of his lines:

“And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

and wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil

is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.”

On the uppermost ice field before the last rock climb to the summit of Everest

On the uppermost ice field before the last rock climb to the summit of Everest

Attainment is for the financially wealthy, on the backs of the indigenous, under-rewarded sherpas. Ha! One more universal metaphor bequeathed by the mountain!

Ted x

Stay Hydrated

Water. Water is the vogue element. Here is a poem in the voice of Water. It is called ‘Tearjerker’.

Tearjerker

I seem to attract cliché upon cliché,

easy words to dilute my power:

but my most important trait

is memory.

I remember mixing the mud that made

                      you.

Dust from the sky, grainy gravel

from ground-down mountain ranges,

rivers of lava from grieving volcanos –

I met them all head on,

seeded their sediment into myriad motion.

So do you truly believe I cannot recall

my last wave-glut flood-flash?

I allowed Noah to ride me then,

bequeathed life to you all – again.

God gave Noah the rainbow sign,

no more water, the fire next time.

Your problem is this:

there is no other god but me.

This time I will laugh at your arks,

this time you will fight over me

even as I salt my way to ice-melt excess:

God gave Noah the rainblow sign,

no more fire, the water next time!

 

 Ted x