An on-line group I joined to explore our relationship with the Earth was given a project to write “A Love Letter to the Earth”. I didn’t want to do this and at first couldn’t quite explain why. I thought it was “blissy”, that is, emotionally sentimental. I have, like most people, written love letters…
Considering the Snail The snail pushes through a green night, for the grass is heavy with water and meets over the bright path he makes, where rain has darkened the earth’s dark. He moves in a wood of desire, pale antlers barely stirring as he hunts. I cannot tell what power is at…
I like this example very much: it does of course beg the question as to whether this is a dream or not. I like to think I/we am/are having a participatory relationship with the moon and the ocean. But then I’m not a Buddhist. Love to get some comments about this. Does it remind anyone…
In Time of Plague 2. “We live in a mysterious world, a world that will not yield up its secrets either simply or by force. I’ll begin, therefore, by asking for a willingness to be complex. I don’t mean we should give up valuing simplicity, but recognize that one-sidedly simple critiques of the contemporary…
Goose Down Day Cocooned under duck down goose down day mug of tea beside me nothing like April light gray shorts twisting as I turn on an elbow to half sit anger hard in my cock eyelids stuck no cough no fever throat a bit raw breathe deep think I can still smell my sweat…
“Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.” (The Desiderata) It is the Christian season of Lent and just as I like to sing carols…
My favourite poet, if not the first living poet that moved my soul somehow was Thom Gunn. He was an English, “leather boy”, who moved to California in the 60ties and lived the rest of his life there. He died, maybe of an accidental drug overdose, in 2004. My title is really a quote from…
Odyseus and Hermes by Thom Gunn It is amazing to find this poem I had never seen before in Thom Gunn’s collection “The Man with Night Sweats”. The second line, “-beard scarcely visible on his chin-” is from his introductory quote from Homer on the opening page of his collection “Moly” written in 1971…
Meeting Beetle: In my video on this blog called “Embracing Gaia Two” I mention a day at Schumacher College in Devon, UK. when I went for a long walk alone on the Dartington Estate. It lies on the edge of Dartmoor and the river Dart flows through it. For the first time in my life…
I would like to start a Poet’s group in Galway or near there. Maybe creative writing students from NUIG or GMIT who find the fare there a bit dull might be interested in a bi weekly or monthly meet. I have a tendency to like young poets who challenge conventions but have no age, gender…
My dear friend Beth Philips reminded people on Facebook to-day that it was Whitman’s birthday so I posted the following: Here are some (other) things to do on the day: 1. If you are feeling down or depressed read Whitman’s “Song of Myself” the first poem in “Leaves of Grass”. 2. Read a poem…
Bella Fitzpatrick writes in Ireland’s Gay Community News (GCN) of the 16th. March about the way Bisexuality is ignored or consumed under the blanket term Gay and about how many Gays are disappointed to find the characters in movies like “Call Me by Your Name” are actually Bisexual rather than Gay. I tend to agree…
Robert Duncan is a little known American poet, he was a friend of Thom Gunn and remembered in Gunn’s poem “Duncan” in Boss Cupid (2000). Gunn says of him: “While the pen wrote, and looked beyond conclusion” I am a bit haunted by metaphors about conclusions of late; Lorna Shaughnessy in “Sacrificial Wind” has Euripides…
I posted my introduction to this piece when it was performed at the new theatre space in National University of Ireland Galway on the 23 rd of November 2016. https://hugofgaia.com/2016/11/24/my-introdution-to-the-sacrificial-wind-at-nuig-24th-november-2016/?iframe=true&theme_preview=true The space is now officially opened and is called The O’ Donoghue Centre for Theatre and Performance apparently becoming known as The ODT among students. The…
I wrote a poem some time ago called “On Being Lost” which talked about a river called “Bunowen” in Connemara, Ireland and how the river was my guide out of a wilderness place in which my partner and I had lost our way. The poem is below but at the time of writing I also…
