OU blog

Personal Blogs

Richard Walker

A Short Conversation with Time

Visible to anyone in the world

"Time, why do you hurt us so?"

"It is my fate. And you would never wish to share it."

Permalink Add your comment
Share post
Richard Walker

Walking the Plank

Visible to anyone in the world
Edited by Richard Walker, Monday, 2 Nov 2015, 00:59
Forward we go
But what else.

I'm scared. Hold my hand.
Permalink Add your comment
Share post
Richard Walker

The Indescribable Beauty of Snails

Visible to anyone in the world

If you wish to learn

The indescribable beauty of snails

Just cast your eyes humbly down.

Permalink Add your comment
Share post
Richard Walker

A Haiku of Regret

Visible to anyone in the world

I never said anything

Because there was too much to say.

And now it's too late

Permalink 2 comments (latest comment by Simon Reed, Saturday, 31 Oct 2015, 08:25)
Share post
Richard Walker

One Liner

Visible to anyone in the world

Go for chicken stir-fry? Defrost some fish? I was stuck between a wok and a hard plaice.

Permalink Add your comment
Share post
Richard Walker

One Liner

Visible to anyone in the world
Edited by Richard Walker, Friday, 30 Oct 2015, 00:06

I'm going to Bury St Edmund's in the morning. It's a big job.

Permalink 2 comments (latest comment by David Tracey, Friday, 30 Oct 2015, 12:34)
Share post
Richard Walker

Non omnis moriar

Visible to anyone in the world
Edited by Richard Walker, Thursday, 29 Oct 2015, 02:48
My shade was watching
As you found the little brooch
After so long. Your touch told me
I have not entirely died.

Permalink Add your comment
Share post
Richard Walker

If I could come back as an animal...

Visible to anyone in the world

I'd like to come back as a wildebeest. So I could start a gnu life.

Permalink Add your comment
Share post
Richard Walker

More Tom Swifties Than You Can Bear

Visible to anyone in the world
Edited by Richard Walker, Tuesday, 27 Oct 2015, 01:53

Tonight's connecting theme will be obvious. Sleep well!

"This bear should be given a title", Tom asserted.

"Someone's being hiding our bedtime toys again", Tom noted.

"This bear is sick", Tom reported.

"This bear should not be moved", Tom stated.

"My soft toys are losing their stuffing", Tom indicated.

"Bears for ever!", Tom orated.

Permalink 5 comments (latest comment by Cathy Lewis, Tuesday, 27 Oct 2015, 22:53)
Share post
Richard Walker

The Breath and the Heart

Visible to anyone in the world
Edited by Richard Walker, Sunday, 25 Oct 2015, 02:20
Your heart's a bag of pebbles
Each breath a tiny wave that
Polishes them in sharp manners.
Permalink Add your comment
Share post
Richard Walker

One Liner

Visible to anyone in the world

Ours was the smallest possible steamship company.

Permalink 1 comment (latest comment by Simon Reed, Saturday, 24 Oct 2015, 23:49)
Share post
Richard Walker

One Liner

Visible to anyone in the world

I really admire the Swiss. For me they are a roll model.

Permalink 3 comments (latest comment by Cathy Lewis, Friday, 23 Oct 2015, 11:49)
Share post
Richard Walker

Tom Swiftie at the Bar

Visible to anyone in the world

"Evening all", Tom said entrancingly.

"Everyone have a drink on me", Tom said roundly.

"It's an old drinking song", Tom said bruisingly.

"Ready salted please", Tom said crisply.

"The pub's run out of beer", Tom said bitterly.

"Guinness is good for you", Tom said stoutly.

"Let's have just one more", Tom said tightly.

"See you all tomorrow", Tom said regularly.


Permalink Add your comment
Share post
Richard Walker

One liner

Visible to anyone in the world

"Nobody likes advice", I said. But they didn't listen.

Permalink 1 comment (latest comment by Simon Reed, Tuesday, 20 Oct 2015, 07:43)
Share post
Richard Walker

Mortality

Visible to anyone in the world

Suddenly Death was at my throat

And all at once brought me down.

Paws hard on my rib cage

Cold breath in my face.


Oh the stench of it.

Permalink Add your comment
Share post
Richard Walker

Roy Andersson's films

Visible to anyone in the world
Edited by Richard Walker, Sunday, 18 Oct 2015, 02:15

I'm a big fan of the film maker Roy Andersson. If you want to know why, see this interview.

Tonight I'm watching 'You, the Living', whose title is from a poem by Goethe. It's the middle film of a trilogy that took 14 years to make. They are humanistic films, about poetry and existence.

There are many YouTube clips so you can join me if you want.


Permalink Add your comment
Share post
Richard Walker

To You The Living

Visible to anyone in the world
Edited by Richard Walker, Saturday, 17 Oct 2015, 01:40
In these slave mines
We have paid the bill of democracy
Without representation.
If you pass by Laurium
Remember us.


Permalink Add your comment
Share post
Richard Walker

A Celtic Sundog

Visible to anyone in the world
Edited by Richard Walker, Friday, 16 Oct 2015, 14:49

The other night, in my local pub, 'The Moon Under Water', a friend brought in an archaeological find, a gold coin.

Photographing coins is hard, because getting the lighting is tricky, especially on a bar counter, but here is my snapshot.

This is a Celtic gold stater. 'Stater' is from Greek, and the Greeks and the peoples from Asia Minor they traded with were the first in the western world to mint coins, about 600 BCE, see this famous example from the British Museum.

Incidentally the origin of the word stater is of great interest. It meant 'weight' and is connected with Latin stare, English stand, the suffix -stan (as in Parkistan), and similar words in most Indo-European languages.

Knowledge of the use of coins diffused westward and eventually reached the Iron Age people of Gaul and Britain. One suggestion is that the idea could have been transmitted by Celtic mercenary soldiers, perhaps fighting under Phillip or Alexander the Great, who survived and returned safe home with coins in their pockets. Or perhaps dissemination was via Rome.

Either way, before the Romans conquered the fashion had caught on and the Gauls and the Britons minted their own staters. This is one from that era.

It is a 'uniface' coin; the reverse is just a smooth, slightly convex, surface. The design you can see in my photograph is a stylized horse, a common motif on staters.

It would have been 'struck': an engraver would have cut a die from a harder metal and used it to stamp out the coin. Looking at online images of these coins, many thousands of which have been found, it's impossible not to be impressed by the artistry of the engravers. Even though they followed stereotypes, every individual die had its own originality and lively depiction of the things it portrayed, like the horse in the photograph.

I advertised a sundog.

Cunobeline, the 'Cymbeline' of Shakespeare's play, was a real person, a king of the part of modern Britain where I live now, with a domain stretching from Hertfordshire to Essex. He was probably in power from about 5 BCE until around 40 AD.

'Cunobeline' means 'Dog of the sun'. The first element 'cuno' means dog, as in Latin canus (think canine) or Ancient Greek kunos (as in cynic, the kunikoi were the 'dog philosophers').

The second element is from the Celtic god Belenus, whose name seems to mean 'shining' and who may have been a sun god. His name survives in the name of the summer festival Beltane and he was associated with the horse and the wheel, perhaps connected with the sun's passage across the sky.

The coin in my photograph is probably from one of the sundog Cunobeline's mints, since it's believed there was one not far from here.

Here's a striking quotation from Cymbeline. It's one of my favorites from Shakespeare.

Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.


Permalink Add your comment
Share post
Richard Walker

First Winter Haiku

Visible to anyone in the world

Woodsmoke!

We snuffled greedily.

Still in my hair.

Permalink Add your comment
Share post
Richard Walker

The Heart Speaks

Visible to anyone in the world
Edited by Richard Walker, Tuesday, 13 Oct 2015, 00:46

I'd almost forgotten the home star
Until I sensed my heart
Beating out a message
To some twin.
Permalink 2 comments (latest comment by Richard Walker, Tuesday, 13 Oct 2015, 18:36)
Share post
Richard Walker

Haiku for Angels

Visible to anyone in the world
Edited by Richard Walker, Sunday, 11 Oct 2015, 18:21

Michael—remember

The lower angels

Are the human face of God.


Permalink Add your comment
Share post
Richard Walker

In An English Country Paradise

Visible to anyone in the world
Edited by Richard Walker, Saturday, 10 Oct 2015, 04:40

I always used to think 'paradise' was from the Greek 'paradisos', a garden—and so it is, but the word is apparently something classical Greek borrowed, from an ancient Persian word for a deer park, or something with a wall round it.

The word survives into modern Greek, although 'κηπος' ('key-poss') is commoner.

Now here's the link-up. 'Garden' means a guarded place. It's Germanic and seems to imply a perimeter fence. Variants are 'yard' (as in front or back), and 'ward', as in keep watch over (what a warden does).

So gardens are places that have walls around them, to conserve things. Just like paradises.

And what is kept in a 'κηπος'? Well if it's trees it could be a "δενδρόκηπος', dendrokipos = tree garden = orchard.

Beware the apples Adam and Eve! You may be evicted and end up beyond the pale.

Permalink Add your comment
Share post
Richard Walker

Poetry Cure

Visible to anyone in the world
Edited by Richard Walker, Friday, 9 Oct 2015, 01:33

I grew up

Being told poetry is good for you.

After fifty years

It's beginning to work,

I feel

Slightly better.

Permalink 7 comments (latest comment by Richard Walker, Wednesday, 28 Oct 2015, 01:13)
Share post
Richard Walker

Limerick on Clerihew

Visible to anyone in the world
Edited by Richard Walker, Tuesday, 6 Oct 2015, 00:52

There was an old fellow called Clerihew,

Who never wrote Limericks, or very few.

He frequently tried

But after the third line his attempt always died.

Permalink 3 comments (latest comment by Simon Reed, Thursday, 5 Nov 2015, 21:28)
Share post
Richard Walker

Another Sun Dog

Visible to anyone in the world
Here's a 'Sun Dog'  I snapped tonight. I've posted about these before, because they fascinate me.



You can see the real sun is just off to the left.

Sun Dogs are sunlight refracted through ice crystals acting as miniature prisms.

Not a great photo (smartphone only) but hope you get a hint of the spectral colors, and also see the start of a big ring around the sun, which is hardly ever seen completely.

The photo does at least show why these are often called 'false suns'.

I'm planning to get a real camera.


Permalink 3 comments (latest comment by Simon Reed, Wednesday, 7 Oct 2015, 08:55)
Share post

This blog might contain posts that are only visible to logged-in users, or where only logged-in users can comment. If you have an account on the system, please log in for full access.

Total visits to this blog: 2362981