Pale Grey Track Suit Bottoms

I can't remember when grey track suit bottoms
became the definition of modern casual wear,
for fancy free young men to step out in.

At first they seemed to me like pyjamas
that young men could wear in public.  

I first noticed the change in legwear
when charity shops no longer stocked
my favourite coloured corduroys
-too few people now donated them
with wear left in them anymore.

From my past I knew
how young men disliked wearing underwear.
I have been there, I went through that phase
and many others as minor 'acts of rebellion'.

Nowadays I feel faintly alarmed
at the clear freedom of movement
that youths show when they walked
down the street in their tracksuits
wearing nothing underneath
-uncaring of the thoughts
they might be prompting in others. 

When they do that in my presence
I have to remind myself of how much
Victorian gentlemen once did the same
and hid what they were doing
behind resolutely asexual language.

Signs Of Greater Age (52)

The older you get the more you find
that you still like going the movies
but modern Hollywood franchise films
fill up far too many screens
and they lack the depth of character
that you knew films used to have;
the franchise is a sealed world
that denies the viewer
the most creative conflicts
because the viewer is younger.

What pleases you instead are slow documentaries
where some real life subject from the recent past
is explored in all their conflicts and resolve
to survive as themselves, against the odds.   

Transports Of Gratitude

One of the daily graces I enjoy
is that I don't drive
and don't own a vehicle
whilst living in a car culture.

What makes it a grace
is that public transport
is trusted because it subsidised,
and I have reached an age
where such transports of delight
are offered to me, for free.
They need passengers like me.

The citizens of many small countries
who think nothing of life elsewhere
think that only they thank the drivers,
when they disembark from the bus.

What the citizens of such countries
don't realise is that part of why
passengers give thanks so readily
is for the quality of publicly owned transport.

If every country that believed
that such everyday gratitude
was unique to them were to ask abroad, 
'What do your passengers say
when they disembark from the bus?'
where public transport was similar
they would find that such thanks
are as universal as the subsidies
that make for quality of public transport. 

Happy Centenary Kurt Vonnegut Jnr

The writer who predicted much the modern world
through lamenting and lampooning the direction
it was going in. Here is an article for the reader
who is new to this author where his books
are celebrated, worst, none of them really bad,
 to the best which are hard to put down once started.   

 

Mother Night Indeed

 'The experience of sitting there in the dark, hearing the things I had said, didn't shock me. It might be helpful in my defence to sat that I broke into a cold sweat, or some such nonsense. But I had always known what I did. How? Through that simple and widespread boon to mankind - schizophrenia*.'. 

Quoted from page 116 of 'Mother Night' written in 1961 by science fiction writer, satirist and essay writer Kurt Vonnegut Jr (1922-2007). Here is the writers website.

*A long-term mental disorder of a type involving a breakdown in the relation between thought, emotion, and behaviour, leading to a series of faulty perceptions, inappropriate actions and feelings, withdrawal from reality, and a withdrawal from personal relationships into fantasy and delusion. Overall a sense of mental fragmentation. It may well seem like a rational response when reality seems to be complex to the point of being intangible. 

A Thought Too Late For Halloween

I am not entertained by ghouls,
or ghosts, or things without names
that don't know how to be quiet at night.

I find better reasons for fear
from being subject to jealousy
in confined spaces where, too late,
I realise that I am the target of something
all too human, and all too possessive,
for me to easily escape it.

This jealousy can happen all year round
so Hallowe'en 'celebrations'
are mostly seasonal vexations.

The most engaging experience
of this jealousy I ever had, second hand,
was seeing 'The Exorcist' at the cinema,
and less for the reason you might guess.

The cinema was full to standing room only
at the back, with young men from West Belfast
who loudly cheered The Devil, on the screen,
when, through Regan, he audibly taunted the priest
before the priest finally threw himself out of the window
from the height of the fifteenth floor apartment.

I had never seen such an anti-clerical mob before
I had no idea what they could be jealous for.

Picture Set Of The Month - The Plate Designs of Clarice Cliff

'Comet' design painted circa 1930 by Clarice Cliff
(1899-1972) she was active as designer of domestic
pottery from 1922 to 1962. 

 

Geometric design circa 1930. Clarice Cliff started
work as a gilder, a free-hand painter of gold on pottery,
aged 13 until she came to the attention of the factory
owner, Arthur Colley Austin Shorter.  

'Zap' design first seen 1930. In 1927 she was given
her own studio and white 'glost' ware on which to draw
freehand designs in which she incorporated
any mistakes she made as if they were intended.  

'Blue Autumn' circa 1932. The designs of Clarice Cliff
were stamped as hers with a 'bizzare' stamp from 1927
onward. With that stamp came a staff of 70 young
women employed to hand-copy her designs. 

'Red Roofs' circa 1931. Her work sold well in the
1930's through out the world, particularly in the
British Empire. The factory she made designs for
was bought over in 1963, but still hand-painted
pottery according to her designs up to 1968.  
 Here is the artist's website.