I will never comprehend how words

 Reflected from the gutters of utterance

To give you a dark hope. Even now in lost

Long-term memory. The stroke took

My inner poetic sense, my mind erased

Of 45 years went downthe drain,n but

The word like somantraverse given me

By my inner being, twenty years of broke-

Rai-zen mind and emptiness of purpose-

Less purpose.

 

Soman-traverse-totembryo. Soma

It is an ancient word, the elixir of

Life from the twelfth century, Soma

Fluidity by anon:

 

 

Soma THE SPIRIT FLUIDITY

 

Traversing the sacred

Secretion, Soma flows

to 3 brains: Mind, heart

and solar plexus.

 

This is alchemy today

Fire is an etherised liquid

milk and honey heavenly

the light of fire.

 

Substance oil of father-

Mother-son compassion

The vibration of life, art.

 

Everything I hear and read

I forget to remember.

Three words are on my

Mind, not in diction.com.

Words that reflect natures

Way broken-zeñ is the nearest

The thing I have found is broken

Empty mind. I don't understand

Zen, but I don't think I need to.

 

It's just like my poetry.

There is no meaning meter.

Rhyme, it's about feeling.

My natural poetic sense.

The poet's house felt it.

Even schooldidn'tt catch

My inner flow. Poe-art

Is beyond uni-verse

Snobbery that trips up

Humanity. This could

Be dogrell nonsense

Tense, butit'ss my tense

Of a broke-zen mind of

Soma fluidity. My love

Of li,fe my children poe-

Art, nature's natural way

Saved my life, the inner

Vibration of life, art.

 

 

 

 

                                   POETRY IS LIKE SUNSHINE, IS FREE

 

THE POET'S ESSENTIAL LONELINESS

THE POET'S ESSENTIAL LONELINESS

The Solitude of the Artist 

"I think the artist feels lonely. Perhaps his recourse to art, in any form, comes from his essential loneliness."

William Carlos Williams

Engaging with Poetry: Respect and Solitude

To truly enter a poem, you must invest something of yourself—time, respect, and a willingness to listen. Like donning the scales of Elizabeth Bishop's Fish or letting William Stafford's darkness tumble over the edge, the essential loneliness of a poem only reveals itself through sincere engagement. American wri EARTHENWARE ‘'RAVY CLAY'

In the words of Raymond Carver

 

From Mucker (friend in Irish), Kavanagh Country. To the poet's house, Port-

Muck to the Muckish gap. I am deep down in my deep-veined stroke thrombosis. This is my muck shuck ditch. 'Clay is the word and clay is

the flesh SPOKE from this mortal coil.

 

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I can't pinpoint the moment. A Fox entered my mind. I was lost in the fog of war.

All long-term memory.

 

 

 

 

Aged fourteen in 74' in Hackballs cross County Louth, Kavanagh country, just a mile from the townland of Mucker.

 

Opening a half-door

a red dawn shot

Through the ditch like nothing else on earth.

 

A fox skulked out ofKavanagh'ss ditch like

The fox thought in Ted Hughes' poem,m but this is a fox thought.

 

 

Mother Nature nurtured A Fox

turning muck-gold.

         

His spiritus mundi

of A. Fox thought

An sionnoch, feel.

 

Want this to duende

 

 

MUCK-MUCKER-PORTMUCK-MUCKISH MOUNTAIN

 

A FOX LOOKING AT A FOX

BY A FOX  another A Fox Muck-

Mucker Portmuck Muckish gap.

 

A VERBAL MEMORY

 

No mind's eye in noman'ss land

From the shadow of Muckish

The mountain was over his

Shoulder, editing my words at

Thepoet'ss house.

 

Mucker- Portmuck to Muckish

Clay is the word and clay

Is the fleshly spoken kee from this mortal coil, the source

High on Muckish to where

I sit writing nature poetry

poem extract:

 

I brush soiled tears from your eyes, yes, swimming 

and glistening in mine.

Like a sculptor with clay, I am inward, 

moulding our wounded past.

Emerging light on the stones.

 

A FOX LOOKING AT A FOX

BY A FOX another A. Fox

muck to Mucker-

Portmuck- Muckish gap

 

A VERBAL MEMORY

 

No mind's eye in no man's land, I lived

in Ardoyne's no-go. Don't even have

                    A fatherly feeling for my sons. 

                     It must be like a death 

                               in the family

 All sensation is gone.

 

My brain-damaged T.B.I. memory loss

 Trauma Brain injury. I can't recall

my marriage, my childhood, or my children

being born. More dead than alive.

I have tried to write this before, but I gave up
up as the cogs of memory didn't click in-

The only way I can place is to tell you

What I can't remember is the past and future tense.
Having Aphasia/ Aphantasia doesn't help

But it's an Aphantrauma poetry portal.

 

Aphantasia, the broken mind's eye- In one man's mind, 

like the ability of disability, shamanic. Aphantrauma 

is a way of dealing with grief and trauma.

 

The unemotional engineering. I can't cling on-

hold on to memory. With trauma, and my life was full of it. I find it hard without any emotional engineering. I had Muttley Mucker, my best friend. The Brits left him for dead with rifle butts; he hated a man in a uniform. One-eyed three-legged dog growling like me, he hated a man in a uniform.

I will never forget that moment us
Moment, he seared its glare into
My being like 'THE FOX THOUGHT'
By Ted Hughes, but this A Fox thought.

A magic moment seemed like time stopped, 

I think that was the first day, I felt a poetic

sensation felt, I was me,e wow

A F, through natural beauty.

All the world, not just

 1 mile square thought what a moment.

The fox showed me a true natural wonder, 

'absolute rhythm,' said Ezra Pound.

It was as if NATURE welcomed me.
I can't remember that moment now, but

that moment. Poetry woke in me,

That morning, that dawn a mile from
The townland of Mucker, and I to be a published poet tutor, of seven books. Can you fathom that I can't?

 

I wish I could remember to forget

These are snippets of verbal memory

Poe-art is all I have. I only remember

Because I wrote it down, a vibration

Of life, as Carver said in Hopeless Ville.

                     NOW!

 2. ANOTHER FOX THOUGHT

 

The fox has appeared in my Poe art 

since I was a boy. At first, I thought nothing

of it, just an animal symbo until I checked

 how often it appeared.

 

A bodhran beat rhythm of Sionnach on animal skin.

 

The hot stink of fox flows naturally from the thought

 of fox into this. We are from two different worlds. 

We both see the view of pig blood-letting.

 

Drifted off thinking the last line

and woke up in a vague haze

Poetry, like sunshine, is free.

 

 

Soma THE SPIRIT FLUIDITY

 

Traversing the sacred

Secretion, Soma flows

to 3 brains: Mind, heart

and solar plexus.

 

This is alchemy today

Fire is an etherised liquid

milk and honey heavenly

the light of fire.

 

Substance oil of father-

Mother-son compassion

The vibration of life, art.

Ters often pay homage to their influences before sharing their own work, a gesture of respect we might learn from, as it honours those who inspired us. Ted Hughes's vision of the fox thought on the page is a reminder that poetry is a solitary endeavour, a turning of the soul's spokes along life's uneven path. Words themselves arrive needing care before they can stand on the page, but ultimately, sharing the poem becomes essential.

Breaking from Tradition: The New Poetic Path

Poets are not marshalled into stanzas like a battalion. While we pay tribute to war poets, today's poetry breaks away from regimented forms that corral us into neat lines. The journey of poetry is not one of repeated conflict but rather liberation from old structures. We are shaped by the past yet push forward, as Czesław Miłosz described, towards 'a more spacious form'. Only through such visionaries can we escape dog-eat-dog systems and open poetry and education to humane possibilities.

The Value of Loneliness and Generosity

It is through our essential loneliness that we transform hardship into something valuable, breaking free from the constraints of the past and moving forward into an enlightened future. We are not performers in a circus, but civilised people. True honour and respect are not determined by wealth, and while we live in a consumerist society, we must not let greed take over. Generosity—giving and receiving criticism—refreshes our perspective and builds trust, turning writing into a shared act.

The Honesty of Good Writing

Genuine writing always cuts through deception. As Raymond Carver notes in 'Fires', there are no tricks—trust and truth are central. No amount of self-help or imitation can make you a poet unless you are honest with yourself. Actual writing demands you embrace the poet's essential loneliness; through it, you discover your own wonder.

Loss, Memory, and the Poetic Sense

I will never comprehend how words, reflected from the gutters of utterance, can provide a dark hope. Even in lost memory, after a stroke erases decades of poetic instinct, something within continues to give. Years of hardship might drain purpose, but an inner being persists, sustaining a broken, emptied mind.

Soma and the Spirit of Poetry

The word 'Soma'—from ancient times, seen as the elixir of life—embodies the spirit and fluidity of creative energy. It traverses the mind, heart, and solar plexus, embodying an alchemy in which spirit becomes substance, where compassion and the vibration of life meet in art. Everything heard and read may fade, yet certain words resonate deeply, reflecting the natural way of things and an acceptance of brokenness and emptiness, akin to Zen.

Poetry Beyond Meaning: Feeling and Natural Instinct

Poetry is not about measuring meaning or rhyme; it is about feeling and natural poetic sense. The essence of a poet's journey, often overlooked even in school, goes beyond the universe's snobbery and connects to more actual humanity. This writing, whether it is doggerel nonsense or tense, is authentic—a reflection of a 'broke-zen' mind and the fluidity of Soma. Love of life, family, and nature's art saves and renews, providing the inner vibration vital for living.

The Generosity and Freedom of Poetry

POETRY IS LIKE SUNSHINE, IT'S FREE