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The man and the woman sit across from each other at the cafe table. There’s a storm outside, they’ve stopped in to avoid the rain and while they’re there they’re drinking coffee and waiting. The man reads a newspaper, the edges damp and shaded. The woman looks at the man, smiles.

‘Do you know poetry?’ She asks.

‘I know of it.’

‘No, but do you know any?’

The man doesn’t look up from his paper.

‘Poetry.’ The woman says.

‘No. I don’t know any.’

The woman watches his face as he reads, his eyes moving across the words. She looks out to the rain, the headlights of the cars washing by. Dark clouds pulled across the sky like a blanket, a cubby house from when she was a kid, over the whole world. She looks back to the man, touches the back of his hand on the newspaper. His fingers wrap over hers.

 

Active creativity

Hagakure

One of the hardest things, for me, is staying creative. That’s why I have to try and write 1000 words a day, to keep my creative mind open, so I can continue to see opporunities in every day life, every day things. It’s easier to ignore that imaginative side, just get on with reality, but when you’re doing something creative, you have to keep it open as best you can. I do this by watching films, reading books, writing as much as I can – sometimes making visual art pieces like the one pictured. I’ve heard that ‘1000 words a day’ target mentioned by many writers over the years, and it is true – the more you push yourself, the more you’ll find the words will come to you. There’s always hard points, times where things just won’t work no matter what you do, but writing every day, keeping that creative part of the brain active, it definitely helps.

 

The Master

The Master

‘I watched Paul Thomas Anderson’s ‘The Master’ yesterday. It was pretty good, better than I had expected. It was definitely more in the style of ‘There Will be Blood’ than his previous stuff – not a bad thing, There Will be Blood is excellent. Joaquin Phoenix was good, though I felt like he may have over done it at some points, and all the other performances were really good. I really like the way Anderson’s scenes often feel lived in, like you’ve wallked into a conversation midway through.’

 

Escape

 

‘As a kid I used to dream about being put in the bins, escaping from things, without my mum knowing she’d put me out in the bins. So I’m in a black plastic bag outside a building, and hearing the rain against it, but feeling alright, and just wanting to sleep, and a truck would take me away.’ – Will Bevan, aka ‘Burial’

 

Summer Solstice, New York City

One of my favourite poems – by the legendary Sharon Olds:

Summer Solstice, New York City

 
By the end of the longest day of the year he could not stand it, 
he went up the iron stairs through the roof of the building
and over the soft, tarry surface
to the edge, put one leg over the complex green tin cornice
and said if they came a step closer that was it.
Then the huge machinery of the earth began to work for his life,
the cops came in their suits blue-grey as the sky on a cloudy evening, 
and one put on a bullet-proof vest, a
black shell around his own life, 
life of his children's father, in case
the man was armed, and one, slung with a
rope like the sign of his bounden duty, 
came up out of a hole in the top of the neighboring building
like the gold hole they say is in the top of the head, 
and began to lurk toward the man who wanted to die.
The tallest cop approached him directly, 
softly, slowly, talking to him, talking, talking,
while the man's leg hung over the lip of the next world
and the crowd gathered in the street, silent, and the 
hairy net with its implacable grid was
unfolded near the curb and spread out and
stretched as the sheet is prepared to receive at a birth.
Then they all came a little closer
where he squatted nest to his death, his shirt
glowing its milky glow like something
growing in a dish at night in the dark in a lab and then
everything stopped
as his body jerked and he
stepped down from the parapet and went toward them
and they closed on him, I thought they were going to
beat him up, as a mother whose child has been
lost will scream at the child when it's found, they 
took him by the arms and held him up and 
leaned him against the wall of the chimney and the
tall cop lit a cigarette
in his own mouth, and gave it to him, and
then they all lit cigarettes, and the
red, glowing ends burned like the
tiny campfires we lit at night 
back at the beginning of the world.

Published in 'The Gold Cell' (1987) - http://www.amazon.com/Gold-Cell-Knopf-Poetry-Series/dp/0394747704