Oscar Sparrow's Blog, page 6

The Poetic Truth

How exciting it must be for you, dear readers, to see that I am opening this blog with some statistics: poetry sales in the UK amount to less than 2 per cent of the market. If you take out the "dead poets", the genius of rhyming comedy, Pam Ayres  and the anthologies such as "A Thousand Poems about Cats", you are left with very little indeed. The marketeering literatti place the average reader of poetry in the over fifty age bracket. My revolutionary scheme to provide a book of poetry with every new pair of spectacles has so far not yet been approved by parliament. Opponents suggest that this would deter people from attending eye tests.

Now, far greater minds than mine receive money to write about all this, bemoaning attention spans, social media and "uncultured" education in schools. Of course, some of this might be true but there could be other reasons. This is my list:

Visibility. Out of sight is out of mind. In my youth I used to race bicycles. Once a rider gets away and round a bend and disappears it does not matter how hard you try. That thread of awareness has snapped. Once a generation loses contact with an element of culture it has no continuance. Country dancing, croquet, smallpox and the eating of rabbits ( in the UK) have all gone that way.

Now, I hear you say – you promised a nice juicy list. Well, just be grateful that I keep my lists short. VISIBILITY is the entire issue. No one will like every poet. Having rubbed shoulders with some real "up the backside" airy fairy poets I can report that I have not liked many of them. My favourite poet is an Indie like me.  Poetry has machine gunned itself in the feet and both legs with its inaccessible elitism. Dear old Pam Ayres, Benny Hill and popular music composers have kept the comatosed patient alive in the public mind. Barry Manilow, Neil Diamond et al have done more to keep the concept of poetry alive than any poet laureate. We poets must remember that this is a world where in many households either a stereo playing music or a TV playing across 300 channels occupies the whole environment while anyone is awake. It has been a revolution that the "Greats" could not have shouted down. OK Mr Tennyson – your friend died and you wrote a poem – so what? There's been 4 murders and a car crash since lunch time on channel 18 and no one is writing a soppy poem about that!"

My own view is that poets have still got the guns. They have the ristretto fix in the internet café. The new media of music and video mix is there to be taken. Folks may never again sit under the summer boughs with a book of verse. They will pick up a phrase or an idea if it is delivered to their antennae and we fellow poet citizens of that same world put it there for them.

And the point is…

My poetry collection "I Threw a Stone" is FREE on Amazon this weekend, Sat 28th and Sun 29th January. It is available in Kindle format and has an active table of contents (so you can skip between poems). It also includes a link to a FREE MP3 audiobook – with all the poems read by me.  This can be played on your Kindle too – so you can read or just sit back and listen.  For a sample click here.

Roll up, roll up get your free poetry here……

Amazon USA

Amazon UK

Watch the video trailer for 'I threw a stone'

Mathematics For Poets

Reblogged from Oscar Sparrow:

Just a few times in life you meet someone a bit special. At a party during Christmas I came across a guy who made a real impression on me. He was not a corporate thruster. He was not a "get out of my way" Mister Important. He appeared to have no interest in Maserati executive cars or money. He was a little old guy, wearing a suit and looked up at folk through his eyebrows. I saw several youngsters chat and smile with him. He knew their names. He knew the names of their brothers and sisters. I wrote a poem …

Let's get Kreativ with the truth, the whole truth… well 90% of it

As a newbie to blogging, I was very pleased to receive a "Kreativ Blogger" award from a recent acquaintance – Michael Rivers (author of the Black Witch and Moonlight on the Nanatahala). In order to keep this accolade, first I have to list 10 interesting facts that folk may not know about me, and then nominate 6 more deserving blogging recipients for the next round of awards.

OK, here are my 10 facts… one of them is untrue but can you identify which?

1. I built and operated the first commercial rickshaw in the UK in 1976 and starred on national TV with Eamonn Andrews (famous UK chat show host) as my passenger when I launched my bid to "green up" London.

2. I wrote a novel in the cab of a sewage tanker whilst sucking drains and ships' bilges.

3. I performed the marketing trials for black cherry flavour yoghurt in the UK and signed the report recommending production and launch.

4. I crashed a police car into Westminster Abbey in London.

5. I was guardian of the Lord Lucan file at Interpol.

6. I knocked a priest and his holy water over the dead body he was blessing.

7. I discussed the plight of South American parrots with Prince Charles.

8. I applied to join the French Foreign Legion.

9. I lived in a lodging house where a flightless crow made itself mobile by sitting on the head of a German shepherd dog.

10. I cycled from the UK to Paris, and back 11 times.

OK – which one is the big Porky Pie?  (London rhyming slang for lie). You can ask questions if you feel motivated and I may answer them, but all will be revealed on the 31st January….

In the mean time here are my nominations for Kreativ Bloggers of 2012:

1. Bert Carson

2. Christina Carson

3. Jo VonBargen

4. Phil Torcivia

5. Ru

6. Jan Morrison

They are an eclectic bunch – some irreverent, some sensible, some passionate, some grounded, some spiritual and some spiky  – I leave you to decide which – but they are all entertaining and work hard at their craft and I always look forward to their posts .  Well done you folks I take my hat off to you Kreativ Bloggers all.   You too may display your badge with pride in your side bar – providing you can work out how to do that (I have such problems on WP) and of course tell us 10 secret facts and nominate 6 more bloggers…  the chain goes on.

No Applause For Clapped Out Queens

"When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life". This quotation by Dr Samuel Johnson is undoubtedly true. Having spent yesterday in London I think I would add that when

Masked Balls

a man is tired he would be well advised to stay out of London in order to preserve his life. The crowds around Big Ben and Westminster bridge were so dense that it was almost impossible to get along the pavement and pedestrians are forced out into the road. The situation was made far worse by seven (7) grubby men dressed as the queen in utterly dilapidated costumes and eleven (11) 3 card trick players with their coterie of stooges. I am not yet a completely miserable old man but if I have to shuffle off the old mortal coil I'd rather it was not by being squashed by a London cab. I believe that the queens will pose for photos with gullible tourists. Venetian carnival it ain't.

However, my trip was wonderful. Last week I went to a country house and came across a mosaic by Boris Anrep. I learned that he also did the floor in the entrance to the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. Since London is only a short train trip I found myself looking at this fabulous piece of art that I had walked on so many times, but had never seen. Innocently I decided to take a photo. At once an official advised me that I was not allowed to photograph the works of art. I did point out that people were scuffing and treading all manner of substance onto the floor. He advised me with great courtesy that this was

I love you

acceptable as long as no one photographed the vandalism in progress.

Boris loves Maud

I won't drone on about the history of the work but here is a link. For me the most interesting aspect is the depiction of his lover and patron Maud Russell as "Folly". How little we think of what is under our feet. Poets like William Wordsworth and Jo VonBargen have seen infinities in blades of grass and the simplest of flowers. These images from other minds become the torch in the darkness of the self conscious mind. Oh  - poetry, how your tiny voice whispers amongst the tumult of it all. Yes – and in a sense the whole of ART is a tumult with its pantheons of schools, critics, apologists, galleries. libraries, soothsayers and junkies. All of it, verbal and pictorial, reduces to the language with which we speak to ourselves. Inchoate and debased, it is the pornography of  seething crowds and the frustration of intelligence before the dumb shrine of mystery. Only poetry works. Only poetry works.

Dear me – I do go on a bit don't you think?

PS. The captions under the mosaic photos are by me, not any kind of official title. Looking at the floor, these were my humble vibes about two souls now quiet but speaking still.

Angela – A Short Story

Years ago I wrote a short story. Today I thought I might let someone see it.

                                                            Angela

She had just flown into Heathrow and I was the guy with a name, apparently her only name, held up on a sheet of paper in the Arrivals hall. Typically someone had missed off the flight number but amongst the crowd of crumpled smoke-dried chauffeurs she found me. Briefly our lives would intersect like brain cells in a passing thought. We pushed our way out to where I had parked the big 500 SEL Mercedes – almost new in 1977.

"No luggage?"

"It was just a day trip," she said.

I could tell that she was friendly but formal and she sat behind in the darkness. To be honest I couldn't tell you what she wore or the colour of her eyes. The way things turned out a lot of that evening got lost or confused.

I nosed the big Merc' out of the airport and headed in to London. I loved this car and had risked everything to set up my chauffeur business. I loved this car…the smell of leather, the badge at the horizon end of the bonnet, the effortless Pavarotti push of the tenor V8. In those days you could guzzle without guilt.

I had found that if the client wanted to talk you could respond. Often the social gap was just too huge and I was invisible. Some wanted simple peace or to enjoy a city wildlife safari with air con and leather. Those were the days before mobile phones and all that tip-tap claptrap.

We chatted for a while about this and that. Banality was us.

"You know my name but I don't know yours," she said.

Her accent was short cropped with mid Atlantic highlights.

"I'm Joe."

Her manner was self confident but gentle. You get these types in business – smooth but full of power. Really I was overstepping the conventions and I just spoke to her as if we were equals.

"What do you do in the world?" I asked.

"Oh, management consultancy – fly in, meeting, fly out."

"What do people consult you about?"

"It's always decisions and choice."

"Big decisions?"

"Big decisions are easy because you have to make them. It's the small ones that are tough" she said.

"How's that?"

"Did you ever get stuck buying a candy bar? Mars, Twix, Bounty, Boost – you could spend your life in an oscillation of trivial choice, living for ever in a corner store"

"I get a bit tongue tied in McDonald's," I said.

The Merc' purred on towards the City. The lady fell quiet and tried to relax back into the leather. I noticed she was fidgeting as if she were uncomfortable or had a bad back.

"You OK?" I asked

"Fine – it was a tough flight."

I just loved the night time city, the swirl and bustle of the Marylebone Road, a trace of fried chicken, a jolt of eau de parfum.

"So the big decisions are easy?" I asked.

"Well – tell me – you bought this car OK?"

I nodded.

"Just before you bought it…let's say the night before – how did you feel?"

"Anxious I guess" I replied, slipping aquatic chameleon style into mid Atlantic.

"But after you had actually bought it – did you feel better?"

"It was a relief" I said.

"Right again!. And when you got it home and looked past the tyre gloss and the wax job you found a few problems I bet…"

"Well there were a few things, but it was the right decision."

"Exactly – because once you had made the choice everything you did and thought was reinforcing your decision and so it was the right decision." she said.

I laughed a little. "Can I be a consultant now?"

She laughed a little too.

"Nope – we gotta keep the prices up."

By this time we had cruised into Aldwych.

"Anywhere here will do fine," she said.

"Don't you want the Strand Palace hotel?

"I'll be OK – I'll be flying straight out again."

I pulled over and turned to look at her. This was strange.

"What will you call that little girl?" she asked.

I caught my breath and stared at her. Had I said anything to her about that? I do gabble on. It's my job.

She didn't blink and said gently

"I must go now give me one of your hands – either one"

I held out my left hand and she took it in hers. She continued "Sometimes we reach a fork in a road and you think you don't know which way to go, yet deep down you do know. In my consultancy we would advise you to follow your first instinct. Even in the silence there is a small voice. Your left was your natural choice and that is the way to go."

"What if I had given you my right hand?" I asked as if all this were the most natural situation in the world.

"Then we would advise to go to the right. You gave me your left. Your instinct will be correct."

Then she was swept away in the anonymous crowd outside the Strand Theatre. I selected Drive and pulled away. Bloody Hell she was an odd one – probably making millions.

It was true about the baby on the way. I'd only known for two days. Just between you and I the decision was far from certain. We were renting a one bed flat and I had just started the business. Baby? Did I need a baby? You can have a baby any time.

I lived west of London and so I headed out onto the motorway. I was tired and gratefully smoked a cigarette. Traffic was light and I stoked up the Merc' to about 90.

I spotted a small shunt on the Eastbound and a queue was starting to build. I saw the smoke from the tyres of a 38 ton Leyland locking up to avoid smashing into the tail end. The trailer began to snarl round into the jack knife.

I watched the truck doing 60 slam straight through the barrier and head for me.  I killed some speed and then pulled left. Hey – do you know what I was thinking? "How did that woman know it was a girl?"……….

All this was years ago. I rolled the car but ended up on my wheels on the hard shoulder. The truck ploughed on broadside across three lanes for about 200 yards. By the time I climbed out of the wreck, the ambulance was there. No one died and I spent just a night at the hospital.

My little girl Angela grew up to be a nurse.

Oscar Sparrow.

Angela

Years ago I wrote a short story. Today I thought I might let someone see it.

                                                            Angela

She had just flown into Heathrow and I was the guy with a name, apparently her only name, held up on a sheet of paper in the Arrivals hall. Typically someone had missed off the flight number but amongst the crowd of crumpled smoke-dried chauffeurs she found me. Briefly our lives would intersect like brain cells in a passing thought. We pushed our way out to where I had parked the big 500 SEL Mercedes – almost new in 1977.

"No luggage?"

"It was just a day trip," she said.

I could tell that she was friendly but formal and she sat behind in the darkness. To be honest I couldn't tell you what she wore or the colour of her eyes. The way things turned out a lot of that evening got lost or confused.

I nosed the big Merc' out of the airport and headed in to London. I loved this car and had risked everything to set up my chauffeur business. I loved this car…the smell of leather, the badge at the horizon end of the bonnet, the effortless Pavarotti push of the tenor V8. In those days you could guzzle without guilt.

I had found that if the client wanted to talk you could respond. Often the social gap was just too huge and I was invisible. Some wanted simple peace or to enjoy a city wildlife safari with air con and leather. Those were the days before mobile phones and all that tip-tap claptrap.

We chatted for a while about this and that. Banality was us.

"You know my name but I don't know yours," she said.

Her accent was short cropped with mid Atlantic highlights.

"I'm Joe."

Her manner was self confident but gentle. You get these types in business – smooth but full of power. Really I was overstepping the conventions and I just spoke to her as if we were equals.

"What do you do in the world?" I asked.

"Oh, management consultancy – fly in, meeting, fly out."

"What do people consult you about?"

"It's always decisions and choice."

"Big decisions?"

"Big decisions are easy because you have to make them. It's the small ones that are tough" she said.

"How's that?"

"Did you ever get stuck buying a candy bar? Mars, Twix, Bounty, Boost – you could spend your life in an oscillation of trivial choice, living for ever in a corner store"

"I get a bit tongue tied in McDonald's," I said.

The Merc' purred on towards the City. The lady fell quiet and tried to relax back into the leather. I noticed she was fidgeting as if she were uncomfortable or had a bad back.

"You OK?" I asked

"Fine – it was a tough flight."

I just loved the night time city, the swirl and bustle of the Marylebone Road, a trace of fried chicken, a jolt of eau de parfum.

"So the big decisions are easy?" I asked.

"Well – tell me – you bought this car OK?"

I nodded.

"Just before you bought it…let's say the night before – how did you feel?"

"Anxious I guess" I replied, slipping aquatic chameleon style into mid Atlantic.

"But after you had actually bought it – did you feel better?"

"It was a relief" I said.

"Right again!. And when you got it home and looked past the tyre gloss and the wax job you found a few problems I bet…"

"Well there were a few things, but it was the right decision."

"Exactly – because once you had made the choice everything you did and thought was reinforcing your decision and so it was the right decision." she said.

I laughed a little. "Can I be a consultant now?"

She laughed a little too.

"Nope – we gotta keep the prices up."

By this time we had cruised into Aldwych.

"Anywhere here will do fine," she said.

"Don't you want the Strand Palace hotel?

"I'll be OK – I'll be flying straight out again."

I pulled over and turned to look at her. This was strange.

"What will you call that little girl?" she asked.

I caught my breath and stared at her. Had I said anything to her about that? I do gabble on. It's my job.

She didn't blink and said gently

"I must go now give me one of your hands – either one"

I held out my left hand and she took it in hers. She continued "Sometimes we reach a fork in a road and you think you don't know which way to go, yet deep down you do know. In my consultancy we would advise you to follow your first instinct. Even in the silence there is a small voice. Your left was your natural choice and that is the way to go."

"What if I had given you my right hand?" I asked as if all this were the most natural situation in the world.

"Then we would advise to go to the right. You gave me your left. Your instinct will be correct."

Then she was swept away in the anonymous crowd outside the Strand Theatre. I selected Drive and pulled away. Bloody Hell she was an odd one – probably making millions.

It was true about the baby on the way. I'd only known for two days. Just between you and I the decision was far from certain. We were renting a one bed flat and I had just started the business. Baby? Did I need a baby? You can have a baby any time.

I lived west of London and so I headed out onto the motorway. I was tired and gratefully smoked a cigarette. Traffic was light and I stoked up the Merc' to about 90.

I spotted a small shunt on the Eastbound and a queue was starting to build. I saw the smoke from the tyres of a 38 ton Leyland locking up to avoid smashing into the tail end. The trailer began to snarl round into the jack knife.

I watched the truck doing 60 slam straight through the barrier and head for me.  I killed some speed and then pulled left. Hey – do you know what I was thinking? "How did that woman know it was a girl?"……….

All this was years ago. I rolled the car but ended up on my wheels on the hard shoulder. The truck ploughed on broadside across three lanes for about 200 yards. By the time I climbed out of the wreck, the ambulance was there. No one died and I spent just a night at the hospital.

My little girl Angela grew up to be a nurse.

Oscar Sparrow.

The naming of parts

Today I returned to my home town of Eastleigh which also stars in my blog "the Importance of being Ernie". In my guise as wandering artist/poet I was passing through a housing estate when, of a sudden I saw something that made my senses reel and gave me sensations that I had never known before. ( Can you tell I've been reading a romance?)  Oh all right – I'm doing a review of one. As a committed intellectual and seriously serious person I would never read such a thing for any other reason.

At first I could not believe it. Surely the Authorities had not heard that I was a famous poet by virtue of having sold a book of poetry on Amazon UK. YES – a whole book for money. The good thing about being from Eastleigh is that there are relatively few fame names to compete with. Obviously, the sale of a book of poetry triggered some kind of software tsunami that had councillors scrambling from their beds to name a road after me! Oh such joy. Soon the phone will be ringing with Radio Foreplay producers craving an interview. Who would have imagined that my life would come to this? Who would have imagined the skill of the town planning department to blend my name into other roads named Nightingale, Starling, Robin and Kestrel? Do you think I should complain about the dog poo bin or just keep quiet and be grateful.

Real poetry lovers will recognise the above nonsense as a a clumsy link to a poem by Henry Reed, "Naming Of Parts". This work has had its critics and its parodies. It is a beautiful anti-war piece that seems to me to contrast the hard steel and certainty of the gun against the fragile mortal values of Nature. Other readers see it differently……I'm sure that my American readers will enjoy the accents – one working class London and the other refined middle class of about 50 years ago. Tony Blair is modern middle class.

What a truly wonderful world we live in where folk lavish their time unselfishly to put this kind of material on You Tube etc. It makes me happy and optimistic that this happens. Mortality is strangely redefined by media do you think? I listen to Piaf you know – and she lives. Beethoven may have heard his symphonies just a few times and yet for me he can live in my head over and over at the flick of a switch. Oh dear – I'm rambling again….

Given the talent of Reed I feel that fashion and critics have rather overlooked him. Maybe he has a road in his name?

Angel of love

I do love the feel of old country houses yet I am a proletarian from the servant classes. (My mother went into "domestic service" as a scullery maid at the age of 12). I do love the notion of angels, yet I am an atheist educated at a church school. Yesterday, the poet's loyal and loving mate Jill ordered me to a grand estate to view an exhibition of angels. The venue was Mottisfont Abbey which is owned by the National Trust. The grounds are beautiful, blessed with the river Test and pure clear chalk streams darted  with trout and fished by herons. The house itself dates back to mediaeval times and the Augustinian monks. In those days pilgrims flocked to see the forefinger of John the Baptist. In the 1930′s it was a centre for sparkling entertainment, wit, philosophy and power when Mr and Mrs Gilbert Russell hosted artists and even the Churchills.

OK – enough of the guide book stuff. The exhibition of angels drew me there and I was not disappointed. The theme was inspired by a rather famous mosaic on the front wall of the house. It was created by a guy called Boris Anrep who seems to have been larger than about 100 lives. He was a poet, soldier, ambassador,Wimbledon tennis star and scandalously, lover of Mrs Maud Russell.  Now you know never to invite a poet round for a drink. It was 65 years ago that he created his angel mosaic bearing the face of his lover. He is best known for his mosaics at the National Gallery in London, one of which again depicts her features in a representation of "Folly". Oh dear – all those  lives, slipped away now, all those moments of sun streaming in through curtains at dawn with a day of love ahead when love, let alone life, could never end.

A total of eight angels were displayed and I have dotted a few pictures around the country of my blog estate to show you. I really do not know why I chose an angel back view. I guess I wanted to capture the idea of the angel flying away from me – always out of reach. I felt a real spirit of joy and transcendence in this work by  Andrew and Michelle Rawlings and entitled "Tarja the light bearer".

The most striking form for me was by the sculptor Ed Elliot and entitled "Greer". Again I chose a back view since it seemed to ground the figure in muscularity and a human imperative. The "angel's" view was of the back of the grand house. This is a beautiful piece of work and if I'd had £7,500 in my pocket I would have paid the asking price. Perhaps I'll sell my pedal cycle and all my poetry publication rights! And that leaves one angel to add which is not in this exhibition. In fact "The Angel of the North" stands near to the main A1 route at Gateshead in the North East of England. At one time this area was famous for shipbuilding and coal. Hints of this history find their way into my own poem "Angel One" which appears in the collection "I threw a Stone"  Controversy will never cease about this work. I guess it's a love it or hate it. I have seen it many times since I used to drive trucks loaded with money out of a nearby printing works. I see Gormley's work as representing steel and heritage with a kind of awkward fixedness reflecting the grounding and mechanisation of our souls. The image I have chosen reflects the huge scale of this piece. To me its true angelic purpose  is to  remind anyone trying to create anything that both adoration and bile may be poured upon you at any moment and that neither matter. And that we are mortal.

The exhibition was set in the most beautiful landscape and being a poet I found myself wandering here and there, looking under the rattling stones of the river bed and the jumbled contents of my own consciousness for that key capable of opening the experience to my inner self. In my mind I ran a piece of prose, written in a blog "A fragile thread"  by the American poet Jo VonBargen. She too had been wandering and engaging in a deconstruction of such times which illuminated this mental process so agonising and exquisite to poets. "In the silence, mysteries yield. They almost tell their deepest secrets. You wonder if this is a flaw in nature, a sort of missing link that might randomly connect truth with questions."

Yup! That's how it is.

 

 

 

Mathematics For Poets

Just a few times in life you meet someone a bit special. At a party during Christmas I came across a guy who made a real impression on me. He was not a corporate thruster. He was not a "get out of my way" Mister Important. He appeared to have no interest in Maserati executive cars or money. He was a little old guy, wearing a suit and looked up at folk through his eyebrows. I saw several youngsters chat and smile with him. He knew their names. He knew the names of their brothers and sisters. I wrote a poem about him. I hope the smallness of my work reflects my respect in inverse proportion.

Dr Czaykowski



His name, he said

was a common denominator

In Poland.

He was the numbers guy

swept here by War

and placed in brackets

outside the theorem's QED.

His people too

were in the numbers game,

marching to the one way algorithm.

Finally he could not go home

but stayed to bless

the countings of children.

No such inversion in his heart

nor in his inner tongue

subtracted by History.

Yet he lived,

smiling uncalculated

love by numbers.

The goal not taken

Today is Sunday January 8th 2012. In the UK the sun rose at 0804 hours and set at 1610 hours.  I would like to declare this day as the first day of Spring. This is not merely my own pronouncement. The blackbirds in my garden have been showering the air with black feathered minims and quavers of melody. The male pigeons have been doing the mating- fan-tail-drag-and-cooing-head-nod-circle-dance. My shaman like animal language receptors translate this as "Fancy a quickie?"

What choice was there but to go to Danebury Hill Fort and think about primitive behaviour, about short brutal pagan lives, about priests, sacrifice and  how Man City v Man Utd which was on the TV, stood as a poetic metaphor for iron age life. Personally I believe that nearly all the humans sacrificed by the druids were football referees. As I sauntered through the hillocks and earthworks, just now and then I caught an echo of a disputed offside whistle, the braying mob and the hurled slingshot of racist/tribal chant.

I am so lucky to live near Danebury which is one of the most studied hill forts in the world. I can never go there without thinking of the poetry of Robert Frost in his famous poem "The Road Not Taken" since there are several choices of pathway around the site. Here is his poem, read by the man himself.

Danebury was the inspiration for my poem "Hill Fort". I have always been drawn to the idea of man trying to make sense of his existence with just his contemporary tools. In my own life I have thrice read Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time". In a previous life I would have read "A Brief history of Thyme" by the tribe herbalist. I did not understand either to be honest. All the same, one thing is certain – both were no more than stepping stones and the river will sweep all away until the next rock and eddy of knowledge hold us up in the transient dam of certainty.

Going back to my path through the wood and along the hill once again my mind wandered to roads taken (or not) and led me into the garbled poet-speak of fractals, of which I see everything and comprehend nothing. That's why I'm a poet ….duh… The pictures are some random fractalgraphs and forks of possibility.