Stravaig is out!

Geopoetics in motion


Feel free to click. The Scottish Centre for Geopoetics, led by Scottish poet & essayist Norman Bissell, released Stravaig online. Issue 1 has found freedom inside the cyberworld and its content is exciting! Friends, poets, writers, essayists, artists, photographers, designers and filmakers creatively mapped, chartered inside one world. It's... Exciting! There is a place for everyone who practises the discipline of intellectual nomadism. 


I still remember a friend who once asked me, "what is Geopoetics?" My poetic heart & mind attempted to describe something like "the natural art of opening to a world, finding our place within it and celebrating our connection with this very world within the realms of every rock, mountain and shore... This natural, real world, in which every rock, shell, sandgrain, snowflake, birdsong, flower counts. Not somebody's delusional mind - but the very cross-disciplinary movement to this world in which our human intelligence interacts. The widening of our knowledge to cross-cultural bonds, just like the crossing of continents via the ancient (now submerged) land bridges... Kenneth White speaks of walking away from those motorways of western civilisations in which too many generations of our ancestors met a dead-end by keeping their scope on one-way roads. Geopoetics offers freedom to wander whilst embracing a world intelligence, the human spirit and creative genius, irrespective of civilisation. This international movement has found many adepts over time, and The Scottish Centre for Geopoetics belongs to this Archipelago of current, practising intellectual nomads for our region (and beyond), which remains, White's native homeground. 

Stravaig, this wonderful Scot word meaning stroll, wander, will cross your way, I hope. 

Place, culture, world,  in the words of Kenneth White.

Late night fun for new project

Nat Hall,
nordicblackbird


after the blog,
myspace, twitter... the blackbird now sings on soundcloud.com


thanks to a pal, who posts as well and inspired.


The first two tracks were recorded just a little while ago, at a time when poetry was turned into sound. We were then experimenting with the spoken word as narrative inside a song when the words were not sung altogether...
Some never made it to the project. So they now have a new home and purpose. 
More will follow, as material fills folders. 


I still remember poet, editor and performer, John Hudson, telling me that my voice was my brand when performing poetry. There, you go, John - I have found a nouveau souffle through this platform. 


And I intend to have fun with it.


Have added the site in the "HOMEWORLDS" Section on the right hand side of the blog. 


And now to the kindred spirit who inspired,

You find him here:

Alastair Cook

Thank you, dear Al :-)

National Poetry Day: on the topic of home

In anticipation to today's celebration of the spoken word, I wrote a haiku.

Today's da Day! 

And on the theme of home,here is a humble contribution, as I add my stones to the edifice.

HOME 

Colourful world.

On either side of the mountain,

ice melts, rock hangs,

dam, water falls.

Deep in the U of the valley,

a porch, a key,

white plume of smoke.

A blended scent of peat & salt

so close & far from the ocean,

spiders tip-toe on varnished boards...

Piled up books sleep under thin dust -

cold ashes fill your coal bucket.

Wood chips tangled in sheepskin rugs,

like secret love in a locket;

your fingerprints

on every switch, tap,

bannister, pot and handles.

Your favourite painting on the wall...

Palette of petals in a vase,

everlasting dripping

of wax beyond our Moon & Orion

caught in a net framed for our dreams,

your universe through one keyhole.

© Nat Hall 2010
National Poetry Day, 7 October 2010
Theme: home

wild shore!

the "big" sea

Today I felt the ocean rush, as I walked towards the big waves.

Light has returned on the island. Yesterday's hellery  died away in our sleep... As a matter of precaution, we checked the roof for dislodged tiles.

 The afternoon shone in pale blue

 Wave upon wave, the very edge of our own world endured the might the North Sea. 
 ...Like an army, those relentless rollers crashed against rocks - their every crest defied the sky, and dressed boulders with shameless lace, as if to hide October's skin. 

 before ending up in honey

I sat a moment by the shore and questioned the whole universe.

on the nature of the divine

heart struck by your wisdom,

                as waves, foam & bubbles,
                     similar to water,
                         even our universe is mirrored
in our souls*

thunder so powerful,
I can forget my pain –

            the Holy has so many names, it is nameless;
                so many forms, it stands formless,
                      and since it speaks so many tongues,
                       why not consider Him speechless?**

let me re-consider your name;

                the great abode,
                  like water moving in secret,
                    Being & non-Being – in potter’s shops,
                        vessels of various shapes yet made with that same clay ***
      
your love on every hand,

                and when I speak of the Mother,
                    it is coiled & fast asleep in all centres – awake, potent,
                       above our heads, descending on us to transform;
                        nature of love, wide, pure, divine.****


northern garden, 24 October 2008

poet’s notes:
*) after Ashtavakra, Samhita, II, 4.
**) after Mahatma Gandhi, Young India, 1931.
***) after Mundaka Apnishad, 11, 2, 1-2 & Sayings of Shri Ramakrishna, No. 457
****) After Shri Aurobindo, On The Mother, pp 501-3.

stormday

 first day of October
And the island is enduring Storm Force 10 as a wake-up call to the darkest of season...
Whereas September dazzled hearts with rainbows, October began in blueness.
But then, as wind awakes...

The following piece, written just over a year ago, describes this moment of earthly madness - as felt inside my very own nordic home! ...As well as published by Pushing Out The Boat earlier on this year.
 

Stormday

What do we do when the wind wakes?

Some take to bottle in despair, as if to gulp an illusion –
others tuck in deep in their yarns,
light wax towers,
hail to Mary,
holy gale,
gust,
hissing disguise
of earth disgust through wildest skies,
as heavens send their cavalry;

some wonder what it’s all about.

Floorboards tremble under our feet,
everything shakes all around us like a spinning washing machine –
birds fly like crabs in wild airflows,
won’t hang our shirts till next Wednesday….
Sunset looks like pale flamingos.

Others switch on marine forecasts.

I still remember fishermen who moor wisdom tight on bollards;
pride iced inside a blue fishbox, their living anchored to tight rope,
as water hits without hatred, jealousy, discrimination.

Will drown my fears in cullen skink,
    most of us grasp tongue of the storm.

© Nat Hall 2009

Three Seasonal Haikus fae 60N

1.

Black rhone pipes on a wall,
mouth open to grey skies -
hush.


2.

Solitary raindrops
fixated on small panes -
time out.

3.

Beware of illusions,
colours slide off rainbows -
splash!



September 2010

Hairst, Harvest Moon, Autumnal Equinox

Tomorrow rhymes with equal time.

sun,

hairst,

harvest moon,

magic of equilibrium -

it has not shun at equinox since '91...

Hairst, Harvest, Fall... festival

 
This is the second festival of the season of harvest - at the beginning of the harvest, at  Lammas (1 August), winter retreated to its underworld, now at the Autumn Equinox, it comes back to earth.  Harvest Home marks a time of rest after hard work, and a ritual of thanksgiving for the fruits of the world.
This is the time to look back on the past year - what has been achieved and learnt, and to plan for the future. 

Not a time to mourn the decrepitude of summer... But time to celebrate balance within our boreal world.

 equinox

The sun's like an orange,

the earth, 

like an apple...

first gale, a tin whistler, who jumps into puddles;

the moon's like a lamp post,

that keeps us safe

at night...

Hairst, harvest,

equinox,

go and tell the sand man,

first ground frost's a medal that shines on dried flowers,

as we turn hands of time.

© Nat Hall 2010

celebrating the autumn equinox

from hellery to heaven

will power

Last Thursday was a hellery.

Doom, iron cast inside my head, as I sat inside a cold room filled with benches, hollow voices, fears and remorse.
When one feels collapse of the world, all slips away through tiles and stones... La comedia del arte dressed in black.
Thank goodness, friends surrounded me.
I shall remember it for a while - wet flagstones recorded our every step until drizzle turned into fog.

and so is hairst

September filled with silver heads, even iris leaves turn to rust, as chlorophyll becomes weaker... Everything changes around us - precocious signs of early gale, the haste with which birds fly away; even ravens seem much darker. Our every sound, voe and wick become a paddock filled with horses' manes. Soon we shall vanish in blackness.

this precious little book of zen

Zen is easy. Zen is life, exactly as it is, here and now. At the heart of Zen is a sense that we are all part of something greater, just like each wave, part of the ocean.

So I went out to be at one with the rest of our universe and stirred my yin inside my yang... 

 

string of haikus 

 

Plop, plop, plop,

precocious splash kissed our slate tiles -

love letter from autumn.

Feel my shimmer,

equinox breeze through heather bells,

purple wind chime.

 

 

 

 Shamanic world,

drum and birdsong inside your head -

feel the feathers of the blackbird.

 

© Nat Hall 2010

 

...On a lighter note, Kevin MacNeil would smile. I still vividly remember how pitiful I sounded at his haiku workshop series in Lerwick a few autumns ago... There you go, poet-friend and reader, may hellery turn to heaven!  ;-) 

the oared folk

One year ago or thereabout,

I was standing on my sandbridge at St Ninian and watched folk row in the distance.

I had the whole beach to my feet  and came back home with bits and bolts from evening walk and made the most of this day-dream by engraving those words in ink after freeing them from the kelp...

One moment capsule in one grain where one tide rocks symetrical.

Today i dream  of craft builders who would understand the Atlantic, the deep meaning of humli- baand.............

So there it is without further introduction.

The Oared Folk

They’re rowing,
curved silhouettes towards fringe of one horizon

they’re rowing,
out to ocean they dream to tame

they’re rowing,
oar against kabe, same humli-baand

they’re rowing,
palms against wood create friction

they’re rowing,
clockwork bodies, mechanical

away from all familiar craigs,
elliptic bays,
light selkies songs –

temptation fae da waterhorse

they’re rowing
and I watch you barefoot in sand.


Poet’s notes:
Kabe: wooden pice holding the oar in place; humli-band: a piece of rope keeping oar to the kabe.

© Nat Hall 2009

And oh, this piece was well received at last year's Creative Connections.

night

 It has returned, stars now again visible - my angels' eyes.
Last night, I marvelled again at the Perseids... The whole of the sky unveiled itself to my childlike eyes. I stood on the top step of my kitchen back door wrapped in my Shetland blanket.


Last year, I wrote a piece out of such experience, The Whole of the Sky.

One last fag for a meteor.

Tonight I stand at my backdoor right before you,
asymmetric to Moon & Mars,
allegoric to northern night, as I’m waiting for flying rocks –
dust, tears, debris from a martyr since canonised
men don’t celebrate any more…

I’m watching the whole of the sky

late summer lace torn by the sigh of a demon
whose eye defies our depth of space…
and count each flash, elusive spark
and imagine God lights cigars with a more powerful lighter –

I guess he’s running out of fuel.

Maniac’s fingers might trash the flint;
my Milky Way gone up in smoke as he burns wishes among stars…
He might feel luckier with a match,
blow a halo around the sun;

and until I finish my fag,
 

I shall keep still on my top step, look up to you with shameless eyes
and draw a pen from my pocket to link each dot.

© Nat Hall 2009

I stopped smoking since then.

Night, 

moment encapsulated in verse, then turned into song by Garden2Garden


Dusk is a Dame,
dressed to attract like a magnet,
metallic blue or just jet black,
my loneliness & my angels.
This sky’s in rags,
torn between flares around pale stars –
too weak to love,
cries to the Moon;
sister darkness hides all his scars.
She’s cold & damp,
Indigo blue;
waltzes with dreams –
drinks from the clouds…
Night,
like sunflowers in a bouquet;
globular gold,
dark at its heart;
a thousand eyes look down on me
as if to say
“you’re not alone”.
A capella,
night is when you return to me;
your love and smile, all but a ghost –
song without words,
I need to feel, just not to see.
Blissful moments
slide before dawn,
they feel so real.    

© Nat Hall 2005

...All is quiet in Arcania.

Scalloway

for A

So many cobbles and boulders.

Let me redraw  each contour line;

Blacksness, castle,

they say mortar that binds all stones is mixed

with blood -

and when I look at each slipway,
I remember a prince's wish
to anchor boats
deep in your bay

and add colours to your skyline.

Now let me whisper to the maas -
their  reflections really fly high;

and wherever the wind may turn,


there is a home for every boat,
resting poppies on memorials,
restless ripples
closing on
us


as mist moves in,

shadows belong to the gallows...

I never knew tears in your eyes
but when I look back to the hill I feel your world


and want to step back to your door,
where that peerie dog and stoneman
always welcome you 
without frown...


We both stood by that silver boat,
there's an angel in the harbour.




Poet's note: 
the maas = gulls


© Nat Hall 2010

Requiem in Blue

Each note is meant to please the sun.

There’s a piano here at the sands,
legs in water, washed, wrangled, wrecked between two storms,
born to endure each of world tide, moon in anger,
pleas from tied hands,
our hearts bleeding on sun-dried stones,
where children play on a whisper.

Let light switched on across the sky – torch of dreamers that doesn’t lie,
it shines so freely on water, like an omen or a dancer
all dressed in hues of one ocean…

I shall write it deep inside us,
like a sonnet tattooed on shells,
a suite of rhymes we left to drift across our earth –
exotic drums only respond to tiny bells
so tightly wrapped around ankles,
as piano responds deep in kelp… to the otter or nautilus.

Let light switched on across the sky – torch of dreamers we can’t deny,
it shines so freely on water, like an omen or a dancer
all dressed in hues of one ocean…

Each note is meant for you & I.


Nat, northern garden, 16 October 2008

Nordic Dream

I shared with Anita,

I shared it with my westside gang of writers,

I shared it with Per-Kåre's clan

and now with you :)

And I dedicate it to the Nybakk and all her friends. 

NORDIC DREAM

Last night I dreamt of your island,
where mountains shoot out of ocean.

Vågsøy,
Sogn og Fjordane,

somewhere
where words harbour strange sounds -
brand new diphthongs
hooked on my tongue,
blues and greens of the fisherman.

And through the eye of iced dreamers,
I touched the stone polished by time,
taille de guêpe* fashioned by tides,
earthrides, fabric of all angels.

Now show me coverts on the shore.

 Poet's Note:
taille de guêpe: in fashion, the perfect figure

© Nat Hall 2010

When poets meet and walk the shore...

Intellectual nomadism in action 

Our words sometimes feel like seaglass - colourful, insignificant... Hiding among sea and sand grains, washed on a shore; undetected until one hand picks them away and accepts each as a gem stone.

Summer belongs to the comber. As splash zones turn into treasure chests, we look for something different. 

Whenever I can, I share slices of summer with close friends, either poets or earth nomads, who dare to swim in any sea, from the Baltic to Atlantic .

That day, we sought seaglass at Sandsayre. Our hands gathered Arcania's gold - seashells, strange stones, driftwood and multi-bruck.   
We drove back to her citadel on the hillside and sat at the table.There,our fingers dived inside the  bag and scattered the loot all around. We shared coffee, paper and pens. And re-constructed the moment through a poem so spontaneous, as each line fed off each oither's words. It's been sleeping in a folder for four years now and like seaglass, i look at it as a treasure.
It's called Your Driftwood.

YOUR DRIFTWOOD

Look no further than on the side of this ocean,

water green salt – deep & unknown just like my fear,

            this fear to jump, panic and drown

there is no…                                                        

hesitation in me?                

I am floating…

What if I fall in the water?

You are driftwood, lifeline on waves;

    that bit of you I’m holding on above brown kelp like a dratsie

I am the sea, the smoke,    

the fireplace, the warming coal,                      

you are the shelter castigated in bird’s song…

    sea-salt-drift-soul, I taste your love inside rollers,

    my nightmare tossed, smashed in the glass of the shoormal

drying up?                                           

Faded by the sun,               

smaller & smaller like sand grains?

 

   With you I ken I’ll never drown

whatever colour of the beach,

                                    water-wood-sand,

whatever language of the sea,

I hear it everywhere,

thought-drift-spell

  We drew no line in this blue hell,

metallic dream;

unspoken bowl of treasures,

touching me gently

the driftwood

like an invisible poem,

  ripples are humming lullabies

         distant echoes of sea stories,

fears draped in nets,

                        our smiles,

sundried.

Nat and Klaudia, Quarff, 3 Aygust 2006

at once with my "treasure islands"

Eshaness,

edge of our world on this island.

Old Norse : Esjanes = Ash Ness, 'Esja' as reference to the easily split, ashy volcanic rock.

From this cliff edge we contemplate might of the Atlantic; the sheer blueness of our planet tangled in waves, spray and our awe... Those carved faces stand like vigils shaped in the rock of some ancient super volcano looking towards north Canada. Wow, it gives us wings and no nonsense in direction.

What's so magic about islands  is that we can walk from one edge to its opposite one without losing our sense of belonging. We can hug it like an old friend and feel happy to walk the shore.

I love to come on this headland. I feel at one with the wholeness of tides and stones.

And since I'm dreaming of summer, I now recall a past moment I spent with friends & guiding chums, as we made our way to the Light and back to the serenity of a auld Haa...

Magic island filled with treasures... 

As daylight overrides darkness, I'll swap my cap for another and  share the bounties of this world with the rest of nomadic hearts, who seek a bit of kindness from this earth... My chosen home & each headland for a lifetime of adventures!

moving images doon below :)

island vista shetland tours

homeworld

   60 to the highest dreamer!

   When I think of homeland,

     I look at earth, ancient part of

     your American universe –

     domes of heather

     above ocean,

   our Atlantic,

   clear,

     honey,

        crimson,

            tungsten sky,

                         mire,

                                      meadow,

                                                 multicolour;

                                                                         majestic shades of Viridian,

                                               

                                                where birdsong loops like

        cases left

                                                            on carousel…

                         where peat fills air

                            through chimney stacks,

                                       like rising smoke from

            calumets;

                           where each geo sounds like shelter

                  to fishermen,

                                where I can feel our hearts moving.

 

© Nat Hall 2007