Dharma Bum
Hum drum clunking run,
on rails above a Dharma bum…
leans on nostalgia
to deepen the lightness
welcomes true murkiness
and fake city brightness.
London’s litter hides,
backward ebbing tides,
a phantom gaggle glides,
Mayan clocks tock on by
and metropolitan life
abides.
by David Bugg (Dec 12)
Ceylon Tea in Lanka
Clink.
Teacup
and saucer
embrace.
Sip.
Ages
of
etiquette
drank,
enjoyed,
morning,
day
and night.
By David Bugg (2012)
Lankan Hill Country
On a mat a peon
prays.
Bus windows
clatter.
Almost
onomatopoeia.
On her lap a child
lays.
Deep set eyes
fearful.
Journey
to find her son a cure.
Dusty, proud a picker’s
trade.
Plastic sacks
contrast.
Bright silks
of a peacock feather.
By David Bugg (2012)
Monsoon
Endless rain.
Endless rain.
Voices strain
drowned out,
drops
march
as armies.
Endless leaves,
400 greens
of
canopies.
Trees
Stand
Straight,
No flinch.
Drenched.
By
endless
rain.
By David Bugg (2012)
On Entering The Woods
On entering the woods,
external noise is lessened
and daylight settles
for that shadowy compromise.
On passing under the trees,
the body’s genes tighten
and senses heighten
to recall a wilder past.
On leaving behind the copse,
a still mind is flooded
and human life coupled
(it never became detached)
with nature’s daily system
By David Bugg (2012)
Twelve hour day
Santa Claus is coming…to town
Accompanies squawks
from parakeets
as…the sun…rises.
Motionless
unaware of sound,
I am casually
regarded.
A grey monkey
fist clenched
munches
on a leaf.
We understand
one another.
And still the sun
bakes us
and all
that is green.
The red globe
plunged
with no splash
no drip.
Cue for
hungry masses,
swarm as a
feather.
And marks…
Goodnight.
By David Bugg (2012)
Of Polonnaruwa and Midday Heat
Troops of children breathe and learn,
of cultures hewn from stone.
Ancient peoples long removed,
their ruins lacking throne.
From sun-baked sandals
Toes protrude,
Or hardened soles meet
Soil nude,
Bare behinds from dwarves
Cavorting,
Maned beasts, paw raised, stand guard
Roaring.
In a green leaf filtered glow,
the snoozing monkeys lie.
Whilst at the speed of midday life,
lone tortoise plods on by.
By David Bugg (2012)
Unbearable Lightness
He waits…
and waits…
then
like buses
2 arrive
oh
and a third.
The wait is over
and the unbearable lightness
becomes lighter.
By David Bugg (April 2011)
Pre-justice
Gold watch,
Pink tie,
Shoes gleam
like owner.
You decide, already.
A man, imprisoned,
guilty without trial.
Cell block Y. Categorised.
By David Bugg (2012)
Futile? Vanity.
Quadriceps burn,
like chilli oil injected,
and veins pulse.
Grey muscles,
ache like legs
ever pounding
psycho marathons
but no finish.
Just dotted lines,
re-written targets,
over shoulder,
then empty.
Only forward makes sense,
at least to us,
senseless runners.
By David Bugg (2012)
The Girl Looks
The girl has the look,
as if she knows she has it,
she looks inward,
wears a social shield,
amor chinks
pierced solely
by well sharpened swords,
from professional gamesmen.
Else, the fool is fooled again?
Perhaps.
By David Bugg (2012)
Font vs Text
The font needs text,
like the adjective needs
the noun.
Points, dashes,
they come and go.
Pts, they cum + go
By David Bugg (2012)
What Zedong Said…
Amateurs speak with broken prose,
verse scrubbed clean of grime,
and lines that end in perfect rhyme.
Whilst students tend the teachers’ needs
cut-backs bring families to their knees,
a young girl’s biro
ebbs and bleeds,
black blood the banks’ recession feeds
and reams and reams we now will see,
rejected minds’ creativity.
Devoid of human worker bees,
no longer long to up and flee
a land of modern tyranny.
Perhaps the youth will fill such roles,
and let young artists’ minds dissolve,
or rather brew a cooking pot,
tedium’s tapa traps the lot
and wait while hot pot simmers,
for revolution-fed hot dinners.
And therein lies the critic’s contention,
when art is dreamed not of invention,
conceived as jingle,
bohemian betrayal.
Only the soul is not for sale?
The kids aim high
celebrity lover
when life – not just career – is measured,
by Simon, Cheryl or Big Brother.
But evolution still may come,
revolution – preferred by some,
is softly uttered by British tongues,
not yelled aloud from patriotic lungs,
for this go search new world afar,
yet leave the nation’s door ajar,
allow people’s public
to creep back home
and then they sit and moan and wonder,
under government we lost our right,
our passive fight
boiled into drones
and out of sight.
Now the youth has filled a gap,
yet left us with a hole to plug,
but with no tap
our view is steered
to aged pros,
with modern prose.
Creation now ended,
old guard defended,
Collins, Duffy now resurrected,
to feed the sap,
to grow from seed,
convert weed to thriving vine,
for when financial spring arrives,
may our minds be filled with blossom.
by David Bugg (2010)
Note: The title for this poem was supposed to just be a working title (but has stuck simply because I cannot think of anything else) was inspired by this quote from Mao Zedong:
There is in fact no such thing as art for art’s sake, art that stands above classes, art that is detached from or independent of politics. Proletarian literature and art are part of the whole proletarian revolutionary cause.
Philadelphia
All that happens
is smoke drifts
like a magic carpet.
Pale amber lights
flicker
to remind us they are working.
Clouds, dull grey,
pretend to care
as part of a
half hearted
yet
likeable sky.
By David Bugg (2012)
Rocket
Set the rules
Then pick and choose
Who gets to
Hop – skip – run – leap – jump
kick things off.
One to fire
5 to race
Fastest pace
Leaves 4 to chase
Then 3 do battle
First keeps jumping
Rockets soaring
Boys a sliding
One on one.
Won by one.
Now lonely loser, prize delivered
Rules amended
Rockets are mended
1 is injured
Ego un-dented he soldiers on
…Guile unaffected.
Lads like jack
Cubs in a pack
Adults & kids toys
they say boys will be.
By David Bugg (2011)
Dog Fur to Tick
I make you tick
parasite life
dog fur to tick.
You feed off me
I make you click
A friendly flea
dog fur to tick
parasitic means
for sharing
worldly scenes
within one
hug.
by David Bugg
Likened to Mud
I stick to mud
You stick to me
Lichen to tree
Like sphagnum
Clings upon
A stone
Set deep
Into a bog.
By David Bugg (2009)
Alike
Brown suede – gold ring – blue jeans,
alike, content,
it seems,
of rust – lichen – of cloud,
of city life,
it dreams,
sleep-walks-on and on through life.
By David Bugg (2009)
The Wall
Soles, alone, pound the organic trail
chores, voluntarily, assumed and done
for joy, for fun,
aches rise like
the thick humid damp
dragging limbs (and)
sagging minds.
Electric, in series, empowering the soul,
discharging, in parallel, head to toe
draining
rotting
dying, alive
space hits out
a sudden silent thud
freezing the march
absorbing all sound.
by David Bugg (2009)
I came across a series of old mini poems from 2009…I will struggle to fit a suitable photo to them so am going to post them now one per day from tomorrow.
They are silly little rhymes but meant something to me at the time (as all poems surely do to the author)…see next few posts.
“Pencil to Paper”
I put a question
first to myself
then to the page.
Is it even worth
writing down?
Mindless plagerism,
dropping of names,
like Billy Collins,
as Massive Attack
whispered to Sunday pm sounds.
Atmospheric beats
stifled
by a kettle like
a jet plane
taking off
for afternoon tea.
Cups brewing
as beats return
and drumsticks
scribble without relent.
Why write it down?
Is what I wrote,
in pencil –
as if to emphasise
its temporary nature.
by David Bugg (2011)
Just heard a real nice poem on Country Tracks, it’s by Joel Stickley and was inspired by a warning sign on Theddlethorpe beach…
Untitled (Theddlethorpe)
At Theddlethorpe, the sea goes out for miles
and England falls away beneath your feet
while concrete bunkers hidden on the dunes
wait silently for rabbits to retreat.
Amongst the drift of wood and broken shells,
the path along the seaweed tide is lined
with white-on-red official signs that warn
that there’ll be no reward for things you find.
He searches anyway, his school shoes wet,
imagination full of guns and gold.
He scuffs his feet through suspect spots of sand;
somewhere, back home, his dinner’s getting cold.
He wants a souvenir of something real;
he wants to hold a thing that heroes held –
a hand grenade, an unexploded bomb.
He wants his heart to swell as theirs have swelled.
One scuffing school shoe thunks on something hard.
He kneels down and starts to excavate.
He feels it – metal, buried in the sand.
One hand digs deep, then pulls. He feels the weight.
It shucks off sand, emerges with a schwup;
the cavity refills with rising silt.
His breathing quick, he wipes the metal clean.
His heart swells now – excitement, fear and guilt.
He holds it up, the surface oddly slick;
it feels so heavy, alien and dead.
Then something from a video game he played:
‘War never changes,’ whispers in his head.
‘It never does,’ the lump of metal says.
He drops it, stung. It thumps into the sand.
A second passes – he is still alive.
It stares at him. He wipes dirt from his hand.
It speaks again – a hollow metal voice:
‘But you don’t know the smell of blood, my lad.
Your Xbox zombies never taught you that –
that churning in your gut you’ve never had.’
He turns and runs – the rabbits scatter out.
The puddled sands reflect the afternoon,
then rise to fill his footsteps as he goes.
The concrete bunkers stare out from the dune.
He stumbles on a sunken pile of kelp,
turns with his ankle, spins and sprints away.
Behind him sits the lump of metal, still;
he knows that there’ll be no reward today.
He feels a burning in his throat and lungs.
Imagined spitfires cover his retreat.
At Theddlethorpe, the sea goes out for miles
and England falls away beneath his feet
Joel Stickley
I am very keen on this modern trend by poets to write verses that combine the everyday, almost mundane, with classic beauty or simple mini story telling (David Bugg).
Lincolnshire’s Poet Laureate writes Theddlethorpe verse – Leisure – Louth Leader.
“Departure Loungers”
The purple flannel suit drew my eye,
“shall I buy a coca cola?”
American, of course, thought I,
dry as brut, my throat’s relief,
A man, alone, nursing Heineken
from cans.
A place of big spaces
travellers wait and wait,
people alone surrounded by others,
accompanied by clever phones,
companions for wandering businessmen souls.
All with common goals,
a longing for neutral airspace
and leaving the lounges, for
departures back home.
By David Bugg (2011)
Of American Countryside
Lands of contrast, rolling at will
decked green, with vegetation
Calming seas like maids,
ironing smooth but smooth
the sands of former lives
and beaches,
themselves embossed with joy, and
current lives of certain dignity.
Almost as standard the limitless skies
as blue and high,
as the flag
solo, and rippling with pride.
by David Bugg (Jan 2007)
“With Tropical Ease”
Salty lips soothed
by a steady breeze
that sweeps
west to east.
Tight salty flavour
grains of sand between teeth,
all passive
crabs flutter by.
Rumbles from the sea
not a wave in sight
lazy motors
slowly. slowly.
by David Bugg (2011)
(Written whilst chilling on a beach in Zanzibar the day before my wedding)
Not by me!! By the great Pulp front man…the poem was placed in large steel letters on the side of a building in the Forge student village in Sheffield.
Trashed on cider by Jarvis Cocker (2005)
Within these walls
the future may be
being forged
Or maybe
Jez is getting trashed
on cider
But when you melt
you become the shape
of your surroundings:
Your horizons
become wider.
Don’t they teach
you no brains
at that school?
by Jarvis Cocker (2005)
I have decided to add some poems I enjoy to this blog site to show you some real artists at work. I hope it is clear enough that they are not by me!
Here’s one I came across in 2010 – I love imagining the feeling of the heavy coat.
Coat by Vicki Feaver (1943-)
Sometimes I have wanted
to throw you off
like a heavy coat.
Sometimes I have said
you would not let me
breathe or move.
But now that I am free
to choose light clothes
or none at all
I feel the cold
and all the time I think
how warm it used to be.
-Vicki Feaver (1943-)
Wireless Networking
Families chat face to face
screen to screen
from a far away place
hear first words
will this suffice?
Teams work like teams
typed out text
through wireless data streams
hang on a thread
highly efficient?
Friends like strangers
nudge and like
bonds spread so thin
they’ll have their day.
By David Bugg (2010)
All I Can See
The tree tops and branches,
from natural stems
a recycling system
torn bark as cuttings
birds collecting this season’s home.
A layer of green
and white and pink,
dead trees support the living,
a site of rubble to one side,
nature’s building site the other,
our glowing sun struggling behind clouds,
a rare, fair compromise.
David Bugg (2001)
Think of Everybody
Think of everyone,
body you know,
seen, heard
imagine
everybody.
A grain of sand,
a living desert
for every
body, soul
imagine
everybody.
What you do now,
they did then,
make life,
move, love,
imagine
everybody.
By David Bugg (2009)
Poem to Night
Melodies reach clouds,
through chirps,
and serenade gangs of stern
blocks pretending to be rocks
aged skins continue to soften,
in a whirlpool,
above as words whirl
below piercing sweet wisps of pipe.
The time for silence,
silent assassins,
draw blood and rejoice,
in communal frenzy for electrical light.
by David Bugg (2008)
Das ist mir egal,
dass dies mein Leben ist,
weil das was ich nicht habe,
hätte ich niemals vermißt.
David Bugg (2000)
Poor effort on my behalf here as there are some poems of old that I struggle to put a photo to but want to put them out there anyway…
Roars of ‘encore’!
And tremendous applause.
The reverberation and
Grand finale,
friction between atmosphere
and expression,
between chord and string.
Anxiety, excitation, passion
or energy, moving or
vibrational motion.
Nature, art and science
in unison.
David Bugg (2001)
Busy, busy, might never be’s
Busy, busy, might never be’s
one step after another,
cleaning up after the trees.
Mow down one ant-hill,
to be replaced by another,
and dream of being
her lonely hearts lover.
David Bugg (2000)
Footnote: Ok, a tenuous link I agree but I like the shot and the poem is pretty short…admittedly I am going to struggle at times to get the right shot for the text, so in some cases they might not work as well as others.
Enjoy nevertheless.
A Despertarse
de pie
abajo
del agua
del río
los hombros
escondidos
el sentido
me dio
a nacerme
de nuevo
sin decirte
dios mío
adentro
para afuera
muy lento
y sencillo
las olas
faltaban
las alas
ni paraban
a nível
de los ojos
los pequeños
atacaban
casi al agua
ni nadan
ni flotaban
el momento
refrescante
todo cuerpo
y la mente
ambos desnudos
ya están listos
a
despertarse.
by David Bugg (2010)
(Shikoku Haiku)
The lights are moving
More than time is passing by
The living stand still.
David Bugg (2003)
Sparse
The gaping plain
stretching near far and wide
so free and so spacious
omni-present by your side.
Envy the beings
who see us through their eye
many routes, many means
not the same though we might try.
When day gives way.
Colours battle to survive
the injured become hues
only darkness is now alive.
La résistance
such beauty will never die
twinkling or beaming bright
so much more than just a sky.
David Bugg (2000)
Soul
When all is lost,
but to blame is clear,
bury thoughts deep beneath,
no need to shed a tear.
A warning is offered,
as many would agree,
things don’t always stay buried,
yet never become free.
Stay in reach of the surface,
if trouble brews again,
express the fears and sorrow,
confide in a true friend.
Some talk of massive forces,
think of a storm at sea,
such a soothing explanation,
finally letting nature be.
David Bugg (2000)
New
think of a feather
how soft is your mind?
the faintest of touches
thoughts and body combined.
A scratch with no scar
feel love, don’t feel a thing
such force within a bond
stretched along a single string.
David Bugg (2000)
They are fed into the machine,
Grim-faced yet eager to be
Sorted, by row, by class.
A background hum…accompanied by
Shuffles, wheezing, cough!
mumble. mumble.
Dry still and warm as a day baked car,
Air is short and breath still shorter
Bumbling aides busy in routine
Signs of conforming youth, elegance
Betrayed by tight white visible lines.
“Please listen”, pay careful attention,
the machine is committed to safety
are the backs of heads committed?
Or too focussed on white lines?
A smooth ride starts with a jolt.
As trouser legs cling gently to basted skin,
Begins the safe travel, and rows of minds,
Rows and rows of minds busy themselves,
Switch off, scan texts, Zeitungen and novels of cat’s piss
– keeping busy, busy, whilst
Trousers stick, ideas melt, occupied
minds keep busy.
by David Bugg (2009)
Baby Talk
What’s that?
squeak, hum
and blurb. Sounds like
love,
warm, moist
as baby’s drool.
Love
oozes,
via voice,
noise,
pitch. Shrieks
a sure sign.
Adults,
grown fully,
talk,
baby talk.
If babies
could.
(talk).
by David Bugg (2010)
Nostrils flare, engulf sunken air
– thick as paddy field mud,
baked, feet, soothed,
free to an open dragging breeze.
Deep breath.
Eyes close.
Breath out – gently. Air is fragile.
Focus the mind
On its circular target, and
Senses are cut.
Only sound remains.
Mantras drift lightly above denser
noises,
Again, noise, settles into sediment
layers.
Monk drones – hums – flutter by
and into my mind, on damselfly
wings.
Engine grumbles compete for
attention – rushers come
and go
but weaken with breathes.
Buddhists hold firm to the
night.
Rough tannoy chants, Muslim
prayers pierce unseen barriers
to the left.
Spiritual voices
distinct peoples’ choices.
Nature reminds – its incessancy
its constancy – it is
“we are”
Belches Toké.
Insect chorus provides backing.
Still minds drift.
Still – calm – minds rise above
as noises jostle
and all sounds will settle.
This marks the start of a new project that I have been thinking about for around a year now. I enjoy taking a photograph that tells a story; reveals an emotion or triggers your thinking.
Over the years I have also jotted down notes that I loosely term as ‘poetry’ although I know very very little about poetry and may well be no good at it. I’ll let others judge.
So, my project is to combine the two giving the reader’s mind a kick start into picturing the scene or tone of the poem…leaving the reader to develop that picture further themselves.
That’s the plan – we’ll have to see how it works out!
For buggslife photography visit this link.