Category: Travel

I don’t get off the mountain much, but when I do, I tend to blog it.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Scottish beasts

Arranzilla

tapping & tugging
at the side of the tent
early morning wind

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around the headland
from the seal sculpture
this one moves

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at the Osprey Center
a crowd gathers to watch
squirrels on the feeder

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no does to herd
the solitary stag haunts
a caravan park

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blood-red sunset
I raise the midge net
to take a nip

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with each wingbeat
another yelp
oystercatcher

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Phil Bennison
Dry Stone Walling
Mole Control

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out of the water
a black guillemot totters
on its big red feet

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rock pipit on the beach
meadow pipit on the moor
that same restless tail

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these hill-walkers
with their lurid greens & yellows!
lizard, tiger beetle

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on the far hill
white boulders have infiltrated
a herd of sheep

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Sea Kale

sea kale

I’m currently camping in Scotland, whence the lack of new blog posts. In the meantime, here’s a photo of some sea kale on a pebbly beach on the south coast of England, which I visited briefly eight days ago. The new leaves were surprisingly mild and tasty raw. Continue reading “Sea Kale”

Posted on by Dave Bonta

England by Rail

i.
A crane in a scrap metal yard
unclenches a great, magnetic claw.
Breast-shaped mounds of soil
sit two fields away from the pit,
a future fish pond.
Gulls glean in the plow’s dark wake.
A large, white dog follows
two boys along a dry creek
while we in our fast train
hurtle backwards over the sleepers
in their gravel beds.

ii.
A signal goes out
& we creep slowly through the night
so the driver can inspect the track.
Three stops ahead, another train catches fire
& we wait for more than an hour
on some siding between stations.
The darkness is busy with our reflections.
We move about looking for outlets
to recharge our mobile phones.
Here & there an anonymous light
glimmers orange or blue.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Wolves of London

The wolves have finally come to me for advice. Avoid making eye contact with saints & ranchers, I say. Stick to the suburbs where no one else goes to hunt. The wolves are tired; their tongues glisten like red silk ties. In the window of the building opposite, a white cat levitates on a sudden carpet of arms. The Daily Mail headline reads, IS YOUR CHILD A PSYCHOPATH? IT’S MORE COMMON THAN YOU THINK. My love has taken five sharp sticks & begun to knit me a sock. What big toenails you have, she says.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Bill Bailey at the Hammersmith Apollo

This is not a review, just as a pipe fallen to the stage is not a pipe. The performer’s open mouth resembles a small asteroid covered in hair. Eventually, everything is thrown into question, such as why we don’t live in flowerpots or buy religion all shrink-wrapped out of vending machines. Have the sun and the moon really been played by the same poorly informed celebrity all this time? Do you remember where you were when you heard about the death of humor? Why don’t owls ever unbutton their vests? Who told your elbows to sing? Words approach as quickly as starved sheep and lower in pitch after they pass, thanks to the Doppler effect. Short films of moss growing on a butler or tractors that won’t start are triggered by a wrong note on a tuba or the audience’s failure to clap. It turns out that people dress up like armies solely in order to march, becoming lost in the middle of a vast square. It turns out that you need a long stick to poke someone who is far away. The lighting crew keep a purple spotlight on the audience, so I take advantage of the extra illumination to write down a one-word recipe for porridge (“porridge”). An avuncular Jah chortles about the beetles he squirreled away in Guatemala. All the Jamaicans from Downton Abbey begin to pray.