- I'll get by

Button up the back.

I found myself becoming attached to this piece of clay as soon as I had gouged out the eye sockets and marked the position of the mouth. Is this normal or is my narcissism pathological?

I kept on loving it, I said goodbye to it when I went outside for a break, up to a certain point, when I lost the contact. When I opened its mouth (the theme of the workshop was the scream) the weight tilted forward and I had to prop it up against a block of wood to work on it - so I didn't feel as close to it, I couldn't squeeze (hug) the whole head into shape - also there comes a point, as in a painting, where you become scared to touch it because you think you'll spoil it rather than improve it.    

 But I came through the other side and started liking it again.

And I starrted thinking about relationships, between me and the clay, between me and the blog... Sylvia Plath's poems with their piggy and fishy air.

As you can see, my head doesn't button up the back...

  

Devilled deep blue me

From my house I can see the chapel on my hill and the tower of the village cathedral down in the valley. A lot of religious buildings for an atheist. But am I? I don't believe in "God" but I do believe people are spiritual and that the spiritual side of life is more important than the material side. And yet we spend (ha ha) so much of our time embroiled in the latter.

The sight of the mountains on the horizon always fills me with awe. The sea has the same effect. Something bigger and more powerful than us. Not easy to state just what I do believe. What exactly is "the spiritual side of life"? The first thing that comes to mind is "everything that is not related to having to earn a living," but that is obviously not satisfactory.   It's a bit like wondering what it means to be human once all your needs have been taken care of. What is important? Other people, whose needs have maybe not been met. Hungry children. And once everybody has Plumpy Nut?

Then comes spiritual hunger. The 'indistinct yearnings' Virginia Woolf wrote about.  

Or Stig Dagerman's "life is a journey between 2 places that don't exist" and  "Our need for consolation is insatiable".

This all poses the problem of freedom & slavery. To be able to have a spiritual life I must have spare time left over after fulfilling my needs. The ancients were able to philosphise because they exploited weaker minds. But if there are still children going hungry, am I really free to allow my soul to learn to fly, isn't that selfish, shouldn't I be trying to feed them? Should stands up like a wall. Where to start?

  

Auld and knew

Ah, tu ne perds rien pour d'attendre, the wait is always worth it, my swirling little dervish…

 

There was a skirmish, backlash, 

Kyle of Lochalsh, didgery-doo, a gnu.

Whirlygig, thingamagig, help ma boab.

Or was it a squirmish, devilled eels and no can feels after the dos and don'ts, the wills and won'ts, I should her to think in the blink of another I, I, I. 

ô Ragged clause, and something kilt-ered, askew,                                          you!

Phew.

Ten thousand ours and counting, whose zoos oozed flooze?

If I had a plan, would I span more tributaries?  

We hit the light ... fan d'angle

Kwoatting

“To know that one does not write for the other, to know that these things I am going to write will never cause me to be loved by the one I love (the other), to know that writing compensates for nothing, sublimates nothing, that it is precisely there where you are not--this is the beginning of writing.”

and 

 

“I encounter millions of bodies in my life; of these millions, I may desire some hundreds; but of these hundreds, I love only one.”

― Roland Barthes, A Lover's Discourse: Fragments

Translated by Richard Howard.