Definitions

Gin-scious (adj) a fluid feeling of sublime unity with the universal continuum; n, the part of your brain open to sudden mystical experience, religious or otherwise, by the frequent use of gin eg "The ginscious mind bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world."
John Milton

Ginned (adj) The state achieved through the continued and conscious development and stimulation of the ginscious part of the mind eg "Is it not passing brave to be a King and ride ginned through Persepolis? "
Christopher Marlowe

Then you walked off
and the rain began to bounce
ankle-high on cobblestones:
an opening at last
for umbrellas.

Dwam and mair dwam

Completely crap blogger just now, too much in a dwam.

Popped in to the Tartan Bonnet last week to see what was happening and found the place alive with rumour and scandal as usual, all too exciting and lurid to appear in the public domain, apart from the King of Clatteringshaws appearing to be out of the closet and poor old Theosyphillis Neill being grilled by the social and having his bus pass taken off him. What a change in fortune: it doesn't seem any time at all since the man was sending taxis to collect cases of Chateau Lafite and spending a couple of grand on a night out in the Scandic Crown. Kizmuht, the Turks would say, and they are close enough to the Greeks for me to start all that again.

Reading the Magus, again.

When the wind blows
light breaks against the cypresses
and there is fire and marble,
a flame for the bull slayer
and shadows to dance the mystery.
In the temple
I take a little yellow flower
and, half embarrassed by my silliness,
leave some money by the altar,
just small coins,
but even from the car park
I see them glint from their fist of weeds,
picked out by the sun.

Romans and Greeks

Hotfoot from Roman fortlet in Durisdeer, situated on Roman road north. What contrasts between drookit wee bits of the Empire like this and the bleached Greece of last week.



Graeco-Roman Culture

1.
The Acropolis, Lyndos.
Below, blue spirals between stalks of rock
and beyond, to backs of islands
inching above the lip of distance like whales.
What angles,
what spinning light to burn dreams on stone.
The men who built this dizziness
had eyes lidless, like the sun.

2.
Hardknott Pass,
quarters carved from guts of granite,
grey slate and scrim, blown like sand.
Above, clouds knot like rope,
fill the gaps between broken shafts of mountain.
These little hard men,
leaving their slough of monuments,
built no temples.
They dreamed
of anoraks..

Mythos, Muses and Mycenae

Still washing the dust of the Argolid from my sandals. Some say you never get rid of it. Occasionally trips leave an impression that can't be explained properly. This one did. I'll probably get round to making it sound rubbish by writing poetry about it, but till then, Greece will just stay in my head. It's a good feeling.

tee hee

It's late...but I've been away.

Back from Greece. England out of the World Cup. Lots of good potery news.
So why this sadness interespersed with deranged bouts of dipsomania?