Ignition (for life)

Two Glasgow friends will unite for life on Saturday. If they still lived on the island, they would do so today (!)

I first met them through a drama project called ignition some five years ago. We shared moments, a few haikus, life, poetics… 

Later, as they settled on the island, we shared more moments at Mareel between a mic’ and a guitar… Roo added up ukelele. 

We even shared a corridor at the High School for a short while till they could not resist the call from their home city. Glasgow, Glasgow… 

The great Celtic city is your homeground. 

The Clyde has flown under the bridge; and October firs colours deep in your hearts. 

Cha’s on her way to Aberdeen in a hellery of its own… Let me share with you a poem that rekindles Finest hours when you first came into my heart. 

No white roses but happiness inside this great urban jungle (!) 

Let me gift you with a poem, my renewed dream for a next spring when we meet bar for a fine brew. 

So,

There you go. 😀 ​

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change

On the fourth day of the tenth month, I found a way to break my day, sit and obey my headteacher, as she encouraged us to celebrate #nationalpoetryday through the tannoy. To find, read or write a poem on such fine day.

My lunchtime turned so creative. My after-school behind splashed glass, here, at Mareel, to re-draft it and share with you.

And now, our star looks a beacon out of greyness, I have finished what I began.

This year’s National Poetry Day challenged the pen to the theme of change. Already, I contributed to my Federation of Writers (Scotland) by submitting a few lines to a massive collaborative poem which is to be read today, in Glasgow, I believe under the watchful eye and voice of former Makar Andy Jackson, the very man behind it all.

That peerie offshoot adds to the millions of poems written today to celebrate the spoken word.

So, Happy National Poetry Day 2018 fae da island in da far North, and enjoy Change. 🙂

Change

Open your eyes to a new day.

Ask me again,

… So, what is change?

Something exotic on your tongue,

say hello in a new 

language –

collect laces to please your heart,

lace up your shoes with

unkennt loops,

pick a new path to love pavements;

that biggest box of CaranD’Ache where 

colours burst out of pencils to

break the dullness of

Tarmac, 

allow you to grow from darkness.

Dare it,

         dare it, or

                        just die now –

harness your fears,

                 bite da bullet,

dare to step out on new cobbles,

light that new road that

needs beacons;

hands on

tight ropes,

               Carrick-a-Reede,

what you once dreamt,

                                 incidental.
© Nat Hall 2018

Mørkin (2)

I toy with the thought of
touching the Moon that
hangs out in
this dark blue sky;
and as
tide turns in
your favour, on that last weekend of
July,
I feel its pull, rolled up in
clouds.
I lit a tea light in your name, and
let the lantern on the deck, for
you to find me in
the dark,
mørke, mørkin, in murky night, where
the Moon shies here in
thin clouds, between my world and
summer tides – where Angle shades fly to the flame, where your voice vanishes with
night.

© Nat Hall

Sandwick, 26 July 2018.

 

Note: Mørkin, from the Norwegian, mørke, dark(ness)

C’est la vie

Marcel Proust had his madeleine in France, I have mine in Lerwick!

Falling in love with an island (or any place on Earth) will make you shift mountains and turn a dream into reality.

This certainly happened to Valérie and Didier Pîquer, today’s proud owners of C’est la vie, located in Commercial Street opposite Harry’s Department and the Fort Café (the town’s best Chippie). 

An authentic French experience guaranteed from the moment you step in. The décor, atmosphere and a welcome with a smile invite you to a very convivial establishment. Your eyes are drawn to the myriad of treasures ranging from le comptoir to the brioche and other delicacies displayed under glass bells on a table in one corner. 

Whereas Valérie comes from Paris, Didier is Basque. A magic blend that brings an amazing 3-page menu on a clipboard! There is something for everyone. 

From the famous Croque Monsieur family  to the platter of charcuterie, they offer you the best produce. Brioche, madeleines, cookies, gauffres and langues de chat are homemade. If some dishes are directly imported, Didier confided they came from the finest Basque (from either side of the Pyrénées) or French supplier – local artisans. 

Each plate feels gastronomical – each bite, an exquisite moment your senses will memorise for a very long time!

Valérie shared her deep delight as clients shared smiles and even their appreciation in French, as it feels such a heart warmer.

Although they only opened to the public on the third day of April, locals and visitors are already flocking in, sampling what C’est la vie has to offer, and the menu has so much to offer. 

It is the start of a great adventure! 

If you are a fine gastronome in search of some culinary and traditional Gallic delights, just come along and push the door. You will be in for a real treat! 

Book your table to avoid disappointment. 

Skydiver

Six wonderful days in the great Scottish city of culture. 

Reconvening with friends, meeting old and new ones – treading on flagstones and cobbles uncharted till then…

Book launch, Open Mic’ reading… Now Compass Head introduced, well received and since well shelved in Renfrew Street. 

With gracious thanks to Christie Williamson and Hazel Frew for rolling the ball, Chris Tait for a great crack, Basil for homing the verse at tell it slant and orchestrating that marvellous night at the Project Café, and to E for being here all along. 

So lovely to meet up with Elizabeth Rimmer at the Clutha Bar for Jim Ferguson’s book launch and blending with Glasgow poets that same night.
So chuffed to share such precious slices of life with precious friends. 

Felt so welcomed at the Project Café as well as any public place treaded into. Glasgow shines through the folk who make the place!

Till my next visit, Sláinte, Glesga! 

#worldpoetryday

With the Vernal Equinox, that sense of joy and revival, as Mother Earth awakes and grows deep in her bounty and belly, comes an invitation to create, celebrate, as today, Wednesday 21st of the third month, was chosen as our World Poetry Day. 

The chance to reconnect with ourselves as Mother Earth’s children, and allow creativity to flow like sap inside our souls.

It is exactly what happened this morning during Period 3 in the classroom with Fourth Year pupils who wished to practise their own creative writing skills through poetry. 

They asked me for the first theme, whilst they picked the second.

They sat down inside our world, and, with a few words of guidance, began to write their poetics. Not only happy to hint them into using their own senses, they asked me, the poet, to write my own.

Theme 1

The Rain

It drips and clops like

a metronome against time,

Clop, clop, clop, clop… 

that sense of Spring past Equinox, as they lash into their 

trillions, clones,

cold water unleashed from clouds;

aborted, unborn icicles,

unwanted so late inside March.

I hear them crash against windows, on every corner of

meadows, and feel them

drop inside the

warmth of my collar, as 

morning vanishes in

vain.

——–

Theme 2: 

The Beach

There isn’t a pebble in sight,

heart-shaped, 

polished by angry tides, 

riptides and rollers 

rolled in wrath

a jealous moon pulled & twisted.

But there are prints from

our own past, 

hundred of footprints in white sand

a gale will blow, obliterate through

hands of time, like

a school slate wiped by a child,

timetables & mathematics in

an attempt to unwind 

Pi.
NH 2018

————-

Now your turn to be creative and celebrate the spoken word on this fine day! 🙂 

echoes

   

 When you are passionate about something, you voice it.

It is exactly what I penned – a poem – inspired by a History lesson yesterday- a reminder of how folk can be treated, and wondered why a great democracy like the US is still treating some of her people the very same way it did in the 1830s… Canada has led the way with her First Nations. Then, in 2009, President B. Obama made an apology via a Bill. A step forward, even though footsteps got lost inside politics… As history obeys circles.

Trail of Tears

Featured Image:  Cherokee Indians are forced from their homelands during the 1830’s. (Credit: Alamy)

America was built this way…
Native folk pushed by aliens in the name of money…

Trail of Tears

Rounded at gun point to force you…
Walk through the path of
the un-
known, un-
wanted, un-
humane
track,
as
others
needed your
home, land to grow cotton and
make their
gold off
what they felt
lushest of
earth.
So
they
pushed you away from
your ancestral ground, where
you,
the one who
occupied
this land;
and
made you walk across meadows, mountains and snow that
lied
across
others’ nations, on the other
side of
the
gigantic river, where
Sitting Bull,
Red Cloud and
Crazy Horse
lived by…
For every four, one of you
died.

© Nat Hall