Belonguish

Extension no.112 (Finland)

Here's a link to a piece for my friend Satu Kaikkonen

owlf/lowf/wolf

A Quick Word in Yer Ear

I've really only been posting random found text and the occasional doodle of late. Most of my work has veered in directions which don't quite fit the blog, but I really want to keep plugging away here and had thought about posting thoughts, reflections, rants which don't really relate to the work as such. We'll see about that.

In the meantime, I'll just say that a lot of the poems I've been writing have been abstract experiments which I wanted to try out on a few journals rather than post here. There's been some success so far and a few are due out in online magazines next year. I've also been writing a prose book about Christian spirituality which I hope to finish this month. It's nice to write prose. I get all lyrical and elevated, which is what poetry can be, though not really for me. I guess I'm a poet who likes to write prose. My collection, Lunar Poems for New Religions, is also due out from Colin Herd's anything anymore anywhere press next year. More about that soon.

There will be more found text, some window doodles (see above) and I'm hoping to make some sound poetry songs (perhaps in the new year), along with the occasional finished concrete piece. So, forward, with gusto, to the dying of the year and on . . .

It's snowing here in the West of Scotland. Lovely, but dirty too because of all the mucky tyre tracks along the street. How easily beauty is spoiled! (Told you I get lyrical around prose!) So here's a little pwoermd of winter wonderment:

swow

Something is telling me I should also be posting some spontaneous experimental utterances along the lines of random typing figures, so here's a little of that too:

sm#ll one way to go on out of utter udderance.

Jings, that was liberating!

Love & peace through the deep dark winter . . .

Stephen.

The Bionic Dream Blink Lifecycle

Hola

DeNiro

Flock

Eleganza (Refurbished)

Tyre Tyer Tire Tier Text

blue aum auto hum

Zen Concrete

Troll Bridge

White Trawler

Equi's Cloth.

lefan

cydr

ess.


(poem taken from an advertisement on the back of a bus, Peacock Cross, Hamilton)

Hosanna in the Skies Above the Dome of the Virgin Princess

Moon Moss Growth Writ

No Matter

Puppy Dog Dream Poem

waver
/aviary

ever
/livery

hover
/ovary

s
nail
s
s
s
nail
s

(I wrote this poem in a dream last night where I was talking with the Scottish poet nick-e melville. What can it mean?)

Eternity Grit

Funkrite

storment

On Seeing a Fly on the Window of a Bus

little fl
y God is with th
y wings

21st Century Saviour

[or)

Wild Light

Eyes, Nose, Fancy Moustache

Adirondack Issue

Some images of mine in the new issue of The Adirondack Review.

Frozen Fake Off

Paper Paste Pole

Pavement Glyph with Gum Stain

Super Conscious Memory Curtains

Slow Foot Disintegration Text

Minimal Poems for a Cruel World

s

up

s

p

os

e

s

ip

s

p

is

s


*


park
barking


*


mink ease


*


purpless
people


*


now
a
dose

any
thing
gays

Sick Note

in pain in leaf in relief

(composed while waiting for a prescription at Boots Pharmacy, 16th August 2011)

Elephantasy

Yeshua Song

Yeshua Song by Stephen Nelson2670

Otoliths Away!

Sorry things have been a bit slow around here again. Here are some tiny poems of mine at Otoliths to keep you going. Peace!

Holy Ghostburn

The Bield - Perthshire - 2010

(Here's a piece written in response to Andrew Philip's call for poets to write about their holiday reading, which in itself was a response to an article in The Guardian, I think, notable for its absence of holiday poetry titles.)

Not so much a holiday . . . more a . . .

retreat retreat retreat

retreat retreat retreat

retreat retreat retreat

retreat retreat retreat

retreat retreat retreat

retreat retreat retreat

retreat retreat

retreat retreat

retreat

retreat

Thomas A. Clark in a walled garden paradise with a cat on my lap lazily sharpening its claws on my thigh; Thomas A. Clark before and after a long walk through hazy woods, stopping to sit on a bench in a bower while red deer leap through wheat fields skirting the trees; Thomas A.Clark as I walk the stony path back to the retreat house, small birds skirling a network of whistles in the hedgerow.

THE HUNDRED THOUSAND PLACES

....................................................

....................................................

....................................................

....................................................

.................................................... x100,000

The lady who runs the retreat house asked to see my book. Perhaps she expected an old contemplative classic, perhaps something by Thomas Merton or Henri Nouwen. I told her it was a book of poetry. I told her I was a poet.

“Really?” she said, “How wonderful!”

A book about walking, mindfully.

His walk

My walk

His walk

My . . .

walk

wauk

wok

wind

waak

wawk

awk

wack

waulk

wind

wlka

wak

wuak

kwo

kwa

kaw

wind

The green grass glowing. The huge sequoia drum trunk. The labyrinth, in and out of myself. The girl with the burn marks all down her face and arms, stumps for hands. Lying in the grass as rain clouds gathered overhead. Walking, mindfully. Listening, mindfully, Reading, mindfully.

I finished the book that weekend, and it added to the experience of retreat, of silence. And it made me want to find a place to be like this constantly. In the HUNDRED THOUSAND PLACES, at once, one by one, as the mind stretches outside time and into singularity of experience. Only the poets can speak of this.

womiggge

Mars Oil

Harmonium

cat/caught

all those dreams
oceans

the most hideous scream
tearing at the curtains

demon demon demon demonstrate

When I saw you talking to my mother I expected a novelty embrace. Your mind is full of art stars and mood music. Creativity claps then collapses at the first sign of industry.

We spin to a magnanimous karma and your ripe cheeks and tumbling hair have poured into my life at the most opportune moments. I remember when you fasted for my father.

berries

berries

a lunar eclipse

There are parallels, I know, circles and shapes that bespeak an elegant geometry.

Tell me how you were delivered.

Tell me how they brought you home.

Tell me how they nursed you.

A decaying mansion sits on the water while the sun fires the hillside sound of laughter in the garden.

cat/cat/boat/harmonium

Cell Crust

Sprout Nook

Angel Dust