Sometimes I look for you – new poem.

SOMETIMES I LOOK FOR YOU.

© David Milligan-Croft.

 

It’s been almost twenty years now.

 

Even still, I look for you,

Every time I visit our capital.

 

I look for you ascending great escalators,

As I descend into the labyrinth.

 

I scan the faces in crowded carriages

Looking for your headachey eyes.

 

I look for the scar

On hands that grip the rail.

 

Although you are not the purpose

Of my visit, I hope to catch a glimpse of you,

 

Among the other eight million inhabitants.

And, why on earth not?

 

It’s still better odds

Than winning the lottery.

 

And that’s what being with you

was like – winning the lottery.

Cognitio, Sapientia, Humanitas.

That’s Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity to the rest of us.

Which is the motto of The University of Manchester.

Why am I telling you this?

Well, I’ve been very remiss of late with regard to updating my blog. And the reason being is that I have recently taken up a position, at the aforementioned University, as their Head of Creative.

And, why should you give two hoots about this?

Well, you shouldn’t.

But I do have the privilege of working in a gloriously inspiring campus which I just had to share with the class because it is so beautiful.

I feel very fortunate to be treading the same cobblestones as 25 Nobel prizewinners.

Unfortunately, I don’t think they give Nobel prizes for graphic design.

Perfection

To achieve perfection takes trial and error.

If others are involved in your task, they may see your experimentation as indecision.

Ignore that gnawing urge to placate them for an easier life, and press on with your goal.

Only then, will you hope to attain something that you can be 85 – 90% satisfied with.

Sylvia Plath – In Memoriam

Sylvia Plath
October 27th 1932 – 11th February 1963

I was a few days late with my tribute to the great artist, Amedeo Modigliani. So, I decided to be a bit premature with this one to Sylvia Plath.

Poet, novelist and short story writer, Sylvia Plath committed suicide 50 years ago tomorrow.

She was married to fellow poet, Ted Hughes. And the pair had two children together, Frieda and Nicholas.

On hearing of Hughes having an affair they separated. Plath taking two year old Frieda and nine month old Nicholas with her. Five months later, with the kids tucked up in bed, she sealed the kitchen doors and windows with wet towels and put her head in the oven. She was 30 years old.

The world lost a literary colossus and prodigious talent.

Understandably, Ted Hughes came in for a lot of stick for his part in her death. Exacerbated by the fact that his second wife, Assia Wevill, (the woman he had the affair with), also committed suicide in 1969. And, even more tragically, she also took the life of their daughter, Alexandra.

It’s not my place to vilify Hughes, as I don’t know what went on in their relationship. What I do know, is that he was an outstanding poet too.

Plath’s daughter, Frieda went on to become a successful poet, children’s author and artist. (I think she lives in Australia now.)

Nicholas became a marine biologist. But, like his mum, suffered from depression. And sadly, he also took his own life in 2009 by hanging himself.

The world would have been a better, richer place if she had remained in it.

Here is one of my favourite poems; I love the way the lines break, sending one stanza cascading into the next:

EDGE

by Sylvia Plath

The woman is perfected
Her dead

Body wears the smile of accomplishment,
The illusion of a Greek necessity

Flows in the scrolls of her toga,
Her bare

Feet seem to be saying:
We have come so far, it is over.

Each dead child coiled, a white serpent,
One at each little

Pitcher of milk, now empty
She has folded

Them back into her body as petals
Of a rose close when the garden

Stiffens and odors bleed
From the sweet, deep throats of the night flower.

The moon has nothing to be sad about,
Staring from her hood of bone.

She is used to this sort of thing.
Her blacks crackle and drag.

What a smile – RIP Sylvia Plath

Addendum

Here’s a lovely little article from the Academy of American poets about

the things that Sylvia Plath loved.

Addendum II

The days before death. Read this honest, harrowing and heart-felt account, by Jillian Becker, about Sylvia Plath’s final days. (I know, as a parent, that I would’ve felt a little put-out at being a nursemaid.) Thank you to Jo Harley Hynes for sharing it with me.

Modigliani – In Memoriam

Amedeo Clemente Modigliani
Born 12th July 1884 – Died 24th January 1920

I know I’m a few days late with this, but seeing as though Amedeo Modigliani is one of my favourite artists, I thought better late than never.

Tragically, Modigliani died of tubercular meningitis on the 24th January 1920, aged just 35.

What is equally as tragic is that his wife, and muse, Jeanne Hébuterne, was so devastated that the following day she threw herself from the 5th floor of her parents’ home, killing herself and her unborn second child.

Fortunately, their first child, Jeanne Modigliani (1918 – 1984), was adopted by Amedeo’s sister and was brought up in Florence, Italy.

Jeanne Hébuterne

Jeanne Modigliani, daughter.

I was first introduced to Modigliani’s work by my mate, Markham, who very kindly gave me a sumptuously framed print of this piece…

Seated Nude

As you can see, Modigliani was very heavily influenced by African masks and sculpture, creating elongated forms and mask-like faces.

He died a pauper. But, as is the way of the world, in 2010 “La belle Romaine” sold for $69 million.

His work inspired me to write a short story, and subsequent screenplay, entitled: “Jeanne, reclining nude, 1917″, about a First World War veteran recuperating in the South of France after losing his left hand.

It isn’t a biographical piece, but moreover, explores the themes of physical and emotional cripples when he begins a relationship with his prostitute model.

Jeanne Hébuterene

Lunia Czechovska

Leopold Zborowski II

Reclining Nude

He was an extremely prolific artist, so if you get the chance to see any of his work in the flesh, I urge you to do so.

The world lost an undefinable prodigy 93 years ago.

RIP Amedeo Clemente Modigliani.

Jeanne Hébuterne

Reclining Nude with Loose Hair

 

Only the Truly Lost – Charles Bukowski, 1970.

Suspenders – by Raymond Carver

Suspenders

by Raymond Carver

Mom said I didn’t have a belt that fit and
I was going to have to wear suspenders to school
next day. Nobody wore suspenders to second grade,
or any other grade for that matter. She said,
You’ll wear them or else I’ll use them on you. I don’t want any more trouble. My dad said something then. He
was in the bed that took up most of the room in the cabin
where we lived. He asked if we could be quiet and settle this
in the morning. Didn’t he have to go in early to work in
the morning? He asked if I’d bring him
a glass of water. It’s all that whiskey he drank, Mom said. He’s
dehydrated.

I went to the sink and, I don’t know why, brought him
a glass of soapy dishwater. He drank it and said, That sure
tasted funny, son. Where’d this water come from?
Out of the sink, I said.
I thought you loved your dad, Mom said.
I do, I do, I said, and went over to the sink and dipped a glass
into the soapy water and drank off two glasses just
to show them. I love Dad, I said.
Still, I thought I was going to be sick then and there. Mom said,
I’d be ashamed of myself if I was you. I can’t believe you’d
do your dad that way. And, by God, you’re going to wear those
suspenders tomorrow, or else. I’ll snatch you bald-headed if you
give me any trouble in the morning. I don’t want to wear
suspenders,
I said. You’re going to wear suspenders, she said. And with that
she took the suspenders and began to whip me around the bare legs
while I danced in the room and cried. My dad
yelled at us to stop, for God’s sake, stop. His head was killing him,
and he was sick at his stomach from soapy dishwater
besides. That’s thanks to this one, Mom said. It was then somebody
began to pound on the wall of the cabin next to ours. At first it
sounded like it was a fist–boom-boom-boom–and then
whoever it was switched to a mop or a broom
handle.  For Christ’s sake, go to bed over there! somebody yelled.
Knock it off! And we did. We turned out the lights and
got into our beds and became quiet. The quiet that comes to a house
where nobody can sleep.

A picture-perfect start to 2013

I went to one of my all-time favourite places on this, the first day, of 2013:

Haworth – home of the Brontës’.

It holds a special place in my heart as it is one of the last places I visited with my stepfather before he passed away in 2003.

The reason it was such a special day, is that it was also the first time that I took my two young daughters to visit the Brontë Parsonage Museum.

Brontë Parsonage Museum

It’s something I’ve been wanting to do for ages. I thought they might find it a bit boring and stuffy. But they really seemed to enjoy looking around their home and seeing how they lived, what they wore and what they wrote.

Brontë dining room

This is the room where, Emily, Anne and Charlotte did most of their writing. And that is the actual sofa in the background that Emily died on aged just 30. (I didn’t pass that information on to my children.)

Patrick Brontë’s study

If you haven’t read Wuthering Heights yet, I urge you to do so. I promise you, it’s like nothing you have ever read before. It’s a complex and staggeringly passionate tale of unrequited love and dastardly deeds, set amidst the bleak and rugged Yorkshire Moors.

And, if you get the chance, watch the recent film adaptation by Andrea Arnold. It’s a pretty radical take on the book and one of the best interpretations I’ve seen to date. (See trailer below.)

Emily Brontë

It’s not just the collective brilliance of the Brontë siblings that I find inspiring, but the whole beautifully barren backdrop of the moors. That, coupled with the picturesque cobbled streets of Haworth itself, made it a perfect start to 2013 a Daddy could ever wish for.

Haworth

“Top Withens” Emily’s inspiration for Wuthering Heights. (Now a ruin.)

“Top Withens” as it would’ve looked back in Emily’s day.

And if you’re wondering where the hell Haworth is … ‘A’ marks the spot.

Haworth, in the gods’ county of sunny West Yorkshire.

 

P.S. It’d be positively churlish of me not to also include this classic by Kate Bush…

Wuthering haiku

Wild marsh grass of the

Wuthering Moors, bind my legs,

So, I, am no more.

Shinto – by Jorge Luis Borges

Shinto

By Jorge Luis Borges

When sorrow lays us low
for a second we are saved
by humble windfalls
of the mindfulness or memory:
the taste of a fruit, the taste of water,
that face given back to us by a dream,
the first jasmine of November,
the endless yearning of the compass,
a book we thought was lost,
the throb of a hexameter,
the slight key that opens a house to us,
the smell of a library, or of sandalwood,
the former name of a street,
the colors of a map,
an unforeseen etymology,
the smoothness of a filed fingernail,
the date we were looking for,
the twelve dark bell-strokes, tolling as we count,
a sudden physical pain.

Eight million Shinto deities
travel secretly throughout the earth.
Those modest gods touch us–
touch us and move on.