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Writers' Group August 2009
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Message 1.Â
Posted by Josey (U1242413) on Wednesday, 5th August 2009
Any ideas for this month's session?
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Message 2
Posted by Silver Jenny (U12795676) on Wednesday, 5th August 2009
Geographical features.
Or colours?
she says, singing 'I can sing a rainbow'! -
Message 3
Posted by Josey (U1242413) on Wednesday, 5th August 2009
"Geographical features" sounds good, SJ. Mountains, valleys, uplands, lowlands, headlands, peninsulars or even an isthmus if that takes anyone's fancy!
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Message 4
Posted by Alsdouble (U524298) on Wednesday, 5th August 2009
How about bricks?
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Message 5
Posted by Silver Jenny (U12795676) on Wednesday, 5th August 2009
Well, what about bricks?
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Message 6
Posted by Alsdouble (U524298) on Thursday, 6th August 2009
Bricks. Fascinating subject. Viaducts, houses, walls, Hadrian, Great Wall of, dung etc.
Bricks.
(Nips off to find my famous pome...about bricks.)
Wonder where it is? -
Message 7
Posted by Josey (U1242413) on Thursday, 6th August 2009
Yes, come on Als, where is it?
PS that war poem you posted in The Bull t'other day, that was wonderful. Was it one of yours? -
Message 8
Posted by Alsdouble (U524298) on Thursday, 6th August 2009
Yes. It was. Off the cuff.
I was looking through my Microsoft word for the world famous, Ode to a Brick, and all the scrolling sent my head funny. So I stopped on this one.
14th C anon, Zen poem. I just love it, up to the last 2 lines, I would not have added that.
Big words though, and so long ago. Shows have far we have travelled. (Nowhere.)
As follows:
I watch people in the world
Throw away their lives lusting after things,
Never able to satisfy their desires,
Falling into deeper despair
And torturing themselves.
Even if they get what they want
How long will they be able to enjoy it?
For one heavenly pleasure
They suffer ten torments of hell,
Binding themselves more firmly to the grindstone.
Such people are like monkeys
Frantically grasping for the moon in the water
And then falling into a whirlpool.
How endlessly those caught up in the floating world suffer.
Despite myself, I fret over them all night
And cannot staunch my flow of tears. -
Message 9
Posted by Silver Jenny (U12795676) on Thursday, 6th August 2009
All the centuries since and the words could have been written yesterday. Frightening.
Whilst waiting for inspiration, I looked up poems about bricks and found this one. Appropriate, except I can't find me fountain pen!
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Message 10
Posted by Alsdouble (U524298) on Thursday, 6th August 2009
Ah well,
Ode to a brick.
Oh mighty brick an ode to you.
Granite, sandstone, Cheshire stock and blue.
Thou art perfect for a corner stone.
Foundation, header,
Single skin or two.
I would build a pyramid with thee.
Upside down.
With good foundations.
Starting small and growing larger,
And place upon the top,
A warrior on charger.
And if, per chance, when it was windy,
Corner columns would I place,
Made of stone, to support the finest home.
And upon the face,
Of it, I would carve.
'Brave poets, I challenge thee to enter.'
For within its labarythine heart,
Would be crawl ways, passages,
Traps and poison darts.
Whirling blades,
And pits of spikes.
And the quest would be,
To reach within, to the very centre of brick world.
And find.....
Thine own world of inner peace.
Where upon, thy would be sealed forever.
To crack the code,
To write the ode,
Which triggered and delivered,
The mighty mechanism of escape.
The sliding stones that float and sink into the deft hidden foundations.
And delivered thyself into another time, another place.
Free.
That I would build, of stone.
If I could be bothered.
But, until then,
I will build a bed of brick.
With no cement.
Just carefully placed lozanges.
Smartly cut,
So not a cigarette paper would pass between the joints.
To lay my loins.
At rest,
Sleeping in my vest.
'Pray do not rock the bricks,' she did utter.
Perhaps I could have built it lower.
So as to not need a tripple extension ladder to mount -
- it.
But I was carried away with the laying, you see.
I had Telfordian moments, I could not resist.
'This is what I am afraid of'
She did say, before she went away.
I think I may recycle the bricks into a fireplace. -
Message 11
Posted by Silver Jenny (U12795676) on Thursday, 6th August 2009
Brilliant, Als.
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Message 12
Posted by Anglo-Norman (U1965016) on Thursday, 6th August 2009
Thu, 06 Aug 2009 21:44 GMT, in reply to silverjenny in message 11
Oh dear, I've been neglecting my duties again. Haven't made a proper offering since March, I don't think! Must try harder, though truth be told I've been neglecting my non-WG offerings, as well - Biker Mice and Doctor Who. Must try harder! -
Message 13
Posted by Alsdouble (U524298) on Friday, 7th August 2009
Thanks silverjenny. It does rave a bit. (I do that.)
Could have stopped after the first section but...... -
Message 14
Posted by Josey (U1242413) on Friday, 7th August 2009
Als, you are a poet-and-a half, mate. Fantastic!
Anglo, welcome back, hope to see some more of your work here. -
Message 15
Posted by Alsdouble (U524298) on Friday, 7th August 2009
It's interesting writing unlikely subjects. Subjects that don't immediately have an attraction.
Back inth'owd days the tv companie used to issue script requirements to agents, which they'd pass on to their clients.
Z Cars, Dial M For Murder etc... You could have a crack at anything, with absolutely little chance of getting it gone done, of course.
Things were different back inth'owd days. -
Message 16
Posted by Silver Jenny (U12795676) on Friday, 7th August 2009
Meanwhile back to bricks...!
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Message 17
Posted by Silver Jenny (U12795676) on Monday, 10th August 2009
The Wall
The old cottages stood, as they had done for two hundred years, warm and welcoming. They opened direct on to the village street, wide old doors painted smartly now, with bright brass door knockers and twinkling old windows. Like all the houses thereabouts they were Cotswold stone.
Despite the eager young estate agent’s best efforts, the village was not part of the dream which is the Cotswolds. It avoided the tourist buses and the tea shops. For near on a thousand years it had survived the ebb and flow of prosperity, and a Civil War skirmish. The cottages, once small shops, enjoyed their retirement. Ours had been a sweetie shop. We found pages from copy books, with perfect copperplate exercises on each one, stuffed down the cracks in wide floorboards.
Walking round number 9 and along the footpath to the back gates, you could see the cottages had settled into the gentle hugger-mugger of daily life, and let out their corsets. At the bottom of our long gardens was the Wall. The small red bricks were weathered, and an artist’s delight with the colours changing in the sunshine. Ivy scrambled over the bit at the end of Fred’s patch. It was home to many small creatures.
Fred would tell the tale of his battle with some upstart who owned the big house on the other side of our wall. He wanted to knock a hole in it and drive his cars through to the village street that way, through Fred’s garden. He reckoned without Fred’s ability to study old maps and plans.
‘The Bishop’ said Fred grandly ‘would not allow such a thing’. Once the cottages had belonged to the Bishop’s land and sure enough, no carts were allowed on that path, which was interpreted as any vehicle. So the wall stayed. It sheltered our crops, warmed our earth and kept the world beyond out.
‘Been there since the War’ sad Fred. And we were not too sure if he meant the Great War, in which he had served for a few months, or the Civil War. Fred was on first name terms with the soldiers who defended the Manor House when Cromwell came riding by.
And why not. They were his kin and watched over him. -
Message 18
Posted by Lola (U633284) on Monday, 10th August 2009
Last Wednesday I took the metro-bus to the Arab market, as I love to do every time I come back to this part of Normandy, here I find old friends who love to haggle with me over the price of a melon, tee-shirts, exotic fruits and long silky dresses to wear in the heat of the evening.
There's a brick stand where two young dark skinned men work away steadily over a large flat frying pan making brick snacks.
They weren't there this week, most probably having joined the annual exodis to the North African homelands, so I looked around for the stall selling Morocain and Algerian food stuffs.
There were triangular, oblong and square shaped packets of paper thin pastries. I bought a square packet but I havent a clue how to make those lovely snacks filled with chicken or eggs or veggie bits....ummm. I look forward to having a try when I get home again. -
Message 19
Posted by Silver Jenny (U12795676) on Monday, 10th August 2009
Oh Lola what a lovely glimpse into a more exotic world. And what a delight haggling can be, for both parties.
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Message 20
Posted by Lola (U633284) on Monday, 10th August 2009
I have just examined the packet to see if there are insructions on how to prepare these bricks, it says "Produce of Turkey".
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Message 21
Posted by Lola (U633284) on Tuesday, 11th August 2009
Best red bricks, initialed BBB
Blythes Bricks Birtley
baked in the ovens outside my town
yards from the facinating gaping clayhole .
Once, my dad says, these water filled clayholes froze over in winter years, children had played, skated and even drowned in them.
Romans are even said by some to have started them up but I don't believe that.
I stand gazing through the fence at the flames, see the men holding shovels, emptying the ovens, working in the heat facinated by their labour. -
Message 22
Posted by Lola (U633284) on Thursday, 13th August 2009
Late this afternoon, through streets of red brick I left my tour group and climbed the grey stone steps to the top of The Tower of Jean of Arc in Rouen. Behind these stone walls she had been kept before being led to the market place where she would be burnt to death "by the English" we are told.
I protest. In 1431 who were the English? It seems to me that it may have been an English elected French national bishop who took charge of her trial, but the hundred year war was between two French families, one of them happened to be of duel English/French nationality.
I think they should change the sign on the red bricks blaming the English.
(suepet, head bowed to miss the missiles from our French contributors) -
Message 23
Posted by Alsdouble (U524298) on Friday, 14th August 2009
Sorry to have inflicted bricks upon you. Feel free to change the subject, as and when.
(There's only so much you can do with bricks.)
Meanwhile, inspired by a visit from Grandson II this weekend. (2 3/4 y.o.a.):
'BUILD BUILDINGS GANDAN'
You want buildings? Okay we got buildings.
We got big Leggo little Leggo,
Sticklebricks, and best of all, Mega-bricks.
Let's build the biggest building ever, right here, right now.
And so an edifice grows,
Despite reaching hands, changing the structure,
From moment to moment.
He has design intensions from the Dada school of thinking,
And my Acroplis suddenly sprouts an east wing,
Shaped most unusally, featuring a horse's head Sticklebrick as a feature.
The Atticans would be gutted.
I am undetered.
Despite his wish to demolish, each superb effort.
I make a mental note to buy him a JCB for Christmas.
A real JCB.
And slowly, we build a magnificent wall.
With headers, and solid corners, which by stepping in, each layer,
Become a pyramid.
If I make it big enough I can entomb him.
I jest. For now he is a trained mason,
And starting with solid Mega bricks we exhaust the massive box.
Then sevral floors of big Leggo, capped by little Leggo, and....
Using Sticklbricks which bend with the wind.
For now the tall monument has equired its own ecology.
We stand back, together.
United in pride at what we have done.
'That's a good building Gandan.'
CCRRRASSHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And a thousands bricks topple to the floor.
The cats run, the tv uses up one of lives,
And the furniture gains more patina.
Moderately horrified I sit down, Granson II returns,
With his push along car,
Which he crashes over the wreckage, levelling the mounds.
I think he's gonna be a demolition man. -
Message 24
Posted by Josey (U1242413) on Friday, 14th August 2009
That's marvellous, Als.
Sorry I'm not creative at the mo, got grandchildren and their ponies here, can just about manage some me time on the boards. Fall into bed exhausted. It's nice but not conducive etc etc -
Message 25
Posted by Alsdouble (U524298) on Friday, 14th August 2009
Grandchildren.
AARRRGGHHH! -
Message 26
Posted by Anglo-Norman (U1965016) on Friday, 14th August 2009
Fri, 14 Aug 2009 17:47 GMT, in reply to alsdouble (..vacant..) in message 25
Some great stuff turning out, here! At last, my (very silly) effort:
It's not easy, being cuboid. Brick dust is a menace, but it happens to us all in the end - no moisturiser, you see. But the biggest problem... the biggest problem is getting something to drink. "Why would a brick need a drink?" I hear you ask. Well, how would you like it, stuck out in the mid-day sun, unable to move because of the crush all around you? Rain helps a bit, but it's a menace in the winter. Any flaw, it fills up with ice, expands, causes cracks. Maybe someone might come up with a cream to cure that, but who's going to rub it in, that's what I want to know! So, in the end, it's the drinks that count. Cold for summer, hot for winter. Not that we get any. No-one's prepared to help us, of course. We're just the bricks. What do humans care? Used, that's what we are. Taken for granted. A little glass of something, that's all it takes. We could absorb it. But how? We can't lift the glass - no arms, you see. Even if we had arms, how would we use them, stuck laid end-to-end in Flemish bond (and you can stop sniggering - there's nothing kinky!) No, what we need is something to suck it up, a little tube. But we get nothing of the sort. So we're stuck like this, baking or freezing - all because we're bricks without straws. -
Message 27
Posted by Lola (U633284) on Friday, 14th August 2009
Call me square if you like
but you won't see me for dust
if you try to make me into a pre fab.
What a half baked idea!
I say it 'till I'm red in the face
But do they listen to me?
My old man hates them too
and they say I'm a chip off the old block
He came from Hadrian's wall
so he knows what he's on about
I may as well knock my head against a brick wall, but not a pre-fab one.
....and that's all I have to say about bricks folks!
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