and, now i’ve seen it

its so obvious

so needs-to-be-done

...

and it won’t be hard to do, to write

it’ll be a rhyming poem and rhyming poems are fun

fun to think up

fun to write

and a great challenge to make work

...

the kind of challenge you can relish approaching

because you can be pretty sure its doable

achievable

resolvable

...

the English language is fabulous for rhyming poetry

an endless trove of potential

there are six or more words for most things

so with archness, and rulelessness

and fooling about with phrasing and word-order

you should be able to make almost anything work

all you need is time and thought and a sense of fun

...

yet

how come i never saw this could be a poem twenty years ago?

i’ve had the key line all this time

...

images are a non-sequitur
the mud volcanoes near Shyam Nagar

on North Andaman

...

while rhyming is much easier for performance poets

for performance poetry

which allows huge flexibility with time and timing

and the stretching of vowels and syllables

all making a perfect rhyme considerably easier to achieve

...

and those lines and rhymes might look terrible on the page

like execrable

but who cares?

its a performance piece

its for the air and the ears

its for lyrical surprise in the right now

...

...

poems with poor or flatly obvious rhymes are

almost always

a sure sign the writer hasn’t spent long enough on the words

for with time and thought

with a circumambulation in the approach

and a sense of fun and lightness

one really should be able to get it right

...

like i should

now the obvious idea has leapt out

saying WRITE ME WRITE ME WRITE ME

...

...

how did i not see this before?

its plain as day

i’ve not just had the idea for years

i’ve had the last line of every verse for years

...

where the chief rhyme is going to be with the word “LESS”

so the chief issue i can see is not

accidentally

turning into something which resembles a certain poem

one of the very best performance poems of them all

ever

Johnny Clarke’s

“You Never Get A Nipple In The Daily Express”

...

off the “Live At The Electric Circus” 10 inch EP

which i had for years until i lost it

at The Libertines gig in Edinburgh in 2002

where me and Jenny Lindsay were the support acts

...

that poem

“You Never Get A Nipple In The Daily Express”

is very probably the first performance poem i ever heard

and loved

and got knocked sideways by

and considered at great length

in its wit

its politics

its gorgeous adept language

...

though i already knew

and loved

“Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream”

which is supremely free and funny and smart

...

...

rhyming poems are so much fun

that i have trouble explaining to myself

or anyone

quite why i’ve written so few

when i’ve thoroughly enjoyed the writing of

“Clanger Man”,

way back when
and

“The Man So Acutely Vulnerable He Brings Out The Vulture In Everyone”,

in the years before 2025

and

more

but not enough more

...

...

for me the gods of rhyming poetry are

Johnny Clarke
Cole Porter... e.g. Anything Goes

Chuck Berry... e.g. Nadine

Bob Dylan... e.g. Hard Rain

and a trillion pop songs
e.g. “you’re gonna need an ocean
of calamine lotion”

...

while the one thing i shouldn’t do

so it doesn’t set me any patterns

is YouTube the Johnny Clarke poem

which i haven’t played for well over a decade

yet i can probably remember EVERY LINE

...

so here i go

i have a rhyming poem to write

here i go

fun to come

here i go

having climbed a hill for an easy roll down

here i go

but not quite yet

...

i think i’ll let it ripen

will conjure some more issues to keep

juggling the notions a

few days more...

...

Ana heads back to Europe in four days

and i’m gonna go exploring Havelock Island

so i’ll wait till Radhanagar Beach

...

while the nature of the idea

chunky, political

is going to open up a whole host of possibilities

so its not like i’m going to be milking one idea

i’m gonna be having bags of fun grabbing ideas from all over

from the personal, the historic

the specifically now, the timeless

the literary, the pop

...

though i don’t actually need the piece

for a new show

until next year

as i’m taking a year off

so i got time

...

yet the key thing is to write the first draft

and then, however long it takes

fast or slow

get to a version i’m happy with

and then, through the months,

slowly muck about with it

have fun with it

let it rise with the yeast of chance

ferment with the sugar of time

...

for me, now i have the core idea

its gonna be about the cultivation of the notions

as they stretch themself ever fuller and wider

and i get the chance to

idly and / or determinedly

consider the petals

and stems

of the many growing

and flowering

possibilities

...

...

so here i go

after Kalipur Beach

its Aerial Bay

for the mud volcanoes at Shyam Nagar

then the ferry to

Port Blair

for Aberdeen Bazaar

and Cellular Jail

then Havelock Island a.k.a. Swaraj Dweep

for Radhanagar Beach, a.k.a. Beach Number 7

to catch all the balls
a-juggling in my head
and finally write a poem called

**[words to be created]** Harder and Longer For Less

...

here i go
…

the mud volcanoes are near Jol Tikry and Shyam Nagar
which we journeyed to pretty much by accident
after being stymied in our Plan A for the day

…

never seen anything like them
yet they are not easy to get to
and took two buses and a jeep

…

if you look at the second clip
that mud is very slowly moving

they were apparently dormant for twenty years until February
and are not volcanic

are, rather, organic matter decaying somewhere under the hill

Mr Rushdie
doncha just love him?
I do
he must be my favourite living writer in the English language...

...

And you know what i think?
when i turn another page

after a page of delights
I think,

Hooray

its Salman and he’s off again
But i also think,

O Bloody Hell

its Salman and he’s off again...

On some beautifully measured flights of lyrical fancy

Because its great and i love him but, but...

Doncha just wish that he would calm down a bit sometimes?
Doncha?
Cos why does everything have to be so up? Why can’t anyone be normal? Why do they all have to be so bloody extraordinary?....

O there’s an enchanter and he’s the most amazing enchanter there ever was, and O there’s a woman and she’s the most beautiful woman in all of Asia, and there’s a scent shop and O, its full of the most wonderful and treasured and scents giving Salman any unneeded excuse to rattle off another long and marvellously written list of the ingredients of ancient perfumes
Which he probably did in his last book, or was that stuffed animals, or alchemists tools, or, whatever?
Whatever, who cares? Its Salman and its always marvellous
But O, there’s a temple builder so he’s the best temple builder there ever was...

You get my drift?
And O, there’s an engraver and, you know what, he’s the most amazing engraver you can imagine there ever was without using adjectives
He knows so much, that Salman, the knowledge keeps coming at you till you’re floating awash in a lyrical delirium growing within for as long as his ever-extending semi-ecstatic sentences...

And he either does know a hell of a lot, or he’s brilliant at making it seem like he does... Probably both
Cos i don’t know if Salman has ever had a character of an Egyptian Observer of the Royal Bowel Movement but, if he did, the royal priest’s mother would have been the most beautiful and enchanting woman in all of Egypt, his father used to make the clouds scatter purely by opening his mouth and letting out the lyrical beauty he was famed for on twelve continents in his youth but which unique gift he lost when he fell in love with the most beautiful glassblower ever, ever, who etc etc, and his sisters would weave the most perfect carpets ever heard of anywhere ever, ever, which began as childish art, curiously mimicking every known style of cave painting ever, ever, about which of course Salman seems to knows everything, so much so he can make knowledgeable jokes about it in a way which even ignorami like us can get, but which tapestries became Egyptian with puberty, Greek perspective with marriage and which, amazingly, foretold every artform there ever was and ever could be, ever and ever, so there...
O Salman, you are the dog’s bollocks but can’t you just calm down a bit and write something more imaginatively restrained in that beautiful matchless style of yours?
Not all the time, heaven forbid, and long may you live, and many books may you write, and prosper may you errr do, but just once, less lists and less bloody superlatives...
Why not?
Err... please
A very long list of all the words which have ever meant please in every language there ever was, kind of please...
...

...

...

First time i was in India i read three of his, Shalimar the Clown, The Ground Beneath Her Feet, The Moor’s Last Sigh...

And loved them... Shalimar the most ... [the writing]...

And the second time i motored through the Enchantress of Florence, which was then his latest... and somehow i was surprised by how marvellous it was

And i not long ago read Victory City... his latest

...

...

...

While a couple of decades back i made a list of my favourite living writers in the English language

And seeing how Phillip Roth and Toni Morrison and JG Ballard are now dead

its Salman

...

...

...

Salman, he doesn’t go up to Eleven

Salman begins at eleven

...

...

...

THE JOYS OF SALMAN

...

the lilt

the cadence

from left to right and down

left to right and down

...

to turn the page

and stand the eye above the

downward roll of language

the eye-mind a little daunted at the

unbroken paragraph of the

long passage of words to come

for the eye-mind knows already the

long fluid sweep of the lines

as they lilt

from left to right and down

left to right and down

with a language so beautiful it needs not rhyme or meter
in a cadence

a sweep, a surge, a pulse

with each image a verbal incandescence

one following another following another

from left to right and down

left to right and down

a rhythm in the succession of motif

a sustain in the pursued idea

with a fluid lilt, a deft cadence

and a phrased precision

with the beauty insistent

the intelligence persistent

and a gently rocking in the line

from side to side and down

from side to side and down

with a billowing in the fleshing out of detail

and an exacting in the paring down to the

pertinent

in a gentle lilt, an easy cadence

rolling the eye-mind

from left to right and down

left to right and ...

up and ...

across

...

...

...

in other news

last evening on Neil Island

tomorrow a ferry to Rangat

up the islands

for a bus to Mayabunder

on our way to Diglipur

...

...

…

in other news

a metaphor the key

to unlocking

the door to

a passage to

a whole new realm of though

t

To slide between the shadows

and become as one with the dark

To enfold within the waves

and become as one with the sea

To filter in with the haze

and become as one with the air

To vanish into the sun

and become as one with the light

To sense the dark the light the air the ocean

and be as one with the ever

…

To word oneself in the air

and become as one with the silence

To move fingers at the skin

and become as one with the touch

To feel the heart in rhythm

and become as one with the blood

To know the world in motion

and become as one with the flux

To unbond every atom

and become as one with matter

To sense the evolving ever

and be as one with the all

…

…

…

…

...

...

...

in other news

Port Blair again

the utter swelter box

the streets a bath in heat

the soggiest shirt in every street

...

with lots of pleasant ambles

yet, for obvious reasons,

the best are along the cooling water

from here, on Marine Hill

around to Dignabad fish market

and maybe on to the Aberdeen Jetty

or from here

past the Port just down below

all the way round the sea-hugging Foreshore Road

out over the sea bridge

past the Chatham Saw Mill

the last of the once-many saw mills

British-built and enduringly destructive

past the mill

to the ferry for Bombooflat

across the bay

[tomorrow]

...

...

...

in other news

next thing to do

Tuesday morning

is Cellular Jail

Colonial nightmare

designed by the British specifically to be fearsomely brutal

scene of multiple martyrdoms

and most certainly very forgotten North of the English Channel

…

…

…

…

in other news
…

I want it, the rattleless fit

want, bit by bit

to shrink and smooth myself down to it

the rattleless fit

want blocks within blocks, grey within grey

time within time, shade within shade

snug as a brick in a block

a line in a grid

a note in a wad

I want it,

to fit easily

inside the me

i used to be

and, bit by bit

shrink and smooth myself down to it

the rattleless fit

…

…

…

…

in other news

...

first the bad news

i don’t know where the bus goes

then the good news

the destination on the bus is in the western alphabet

[unlike in, say, Maharashtra]

then some more bad news

the destination is

Garacharama

and i’ve never seen that word

and don’t know where it is

yet further bad news is

i need a bus

it was a long walk here

out to what seems to be called Chatham

and i am very VERY hot

because it is very VERY hot

an absolute swelter

hotter than it ever gets in England or Canada

yet the good news

maybe the best news i can have

is that i am, Chatham is, at the end of a head

so the bus can’t go anywhere too far from the centre of Port Blair

though i can’t know how far that might be

and my mental map is sketchy at best

and the other news is that well

i’m gonna get on the bus whatever

and see what happens next

...

...

the further good news is that when

eventually

i get off the bus

guessing it would now veer away from the centre

a smiling old woman said

“where do you want to go?”

and i said

“the centre”

and she said

“its a long way to the centre

but its back up there

and down the hill”

...

the more the world gets bigger

its the trig-trig-trigger of the next trip

e-even bigger

for the more you move, and the more you see

the more the world becomes, not smaller

but wider longer deeper taller

...

for there is so much to enjoy

for every girl and boy

yes joy to be had for

joy to be glad for

so much whirl and joy

for every girl and boy

...

as

when the next, breaks the context,

the detail will derail

and for you, the zagzigger,

the digger with vigour

the not-known next is now
richer

and reachable

as, for each blank page in the world,

sketchily filled in,

five more are unfurled

its the trig-trigger of the next trip,

e-even bigger

...

and so

in the strive

to be alive

to get yourself somewhere new

where you

are suddenly unused to

being unused to

and to have to get used to

being unused to

and this too

keeps the mind athrive

...

[can i invent the clumsy word

“athrive”

maybe...]

...

for over every border

the world gets deeper

broader,

so i’d rather

the farther

when the smooth of the

move

and the tough of the

rough

are more than

enough

to put you

in the

new

...

cos i

gotta be somewhere

and why not there?

because ahh yes

ah bless

there is so so much joy and whirl

for ev-every boy and girl

joy to be had for

joy to be glad for

so much joy and whirl

for ev-every boy and girl

...

its the trig-trig-trigger of the next trip,

that the next, breaks the context,

as, for each open page in the world,

sketchily filled in, more are unfurled

for the more you travel

the more the world gets

wider deeper

bigger

its the trig-trig-trigger of the next trip

e-even bigger

...

...

...

…

...
and hi

from my sudden repose

after varying kind of hairiness

on savage shore

and in thick jungle

because out there

at low tide

on the South-East of this island

Shaheed Dweep

it is the weirdest harshest landscape

is a moon of lichen

is a petrified coral bed

is a peek into unknown crevices maybe only two decades old

is stark and elemental

because

next the beachless sea

its fifty a hundred metres of smoothed lumpy rock

a sand and green algae colour

with pools

with three kinds of sea slugs

and brittle stars

and goldfish type fish

and feisty crabs waving their claws at you like they

want a punch up

with living coral of gold and purple and yellow

and one like blue heather

yet inside that outer seaside ring of smoothed

its fifty a hundred metres of greyed dead coral

pointed, bladed, serrated, coarse

where if you fell over you would cut yourself a hundred times

and another hundred getting up

so i really had to take my time choosing where to cross it

while this whole landscape must be unusual

over the aeons there must have been many places like this on earth

yet maybe not always

for this is the creation of the earthquake that caused the

Great Tsunami

which uplifted this island by

ONE TO TWO METRES

exposing the coral

which slowly died

withered

greyed

and so here we are

in all its harsh monochrome petrification

though the sandy green stretches make me wonder if

this is what the planet looked like three billion years ago

when algae and lichen ruled the Earth

while in the outer layer

nearer the sea

there are crevices and underwater passages

angled, thin, uneven

some maybe six feet deep

which are probably young

twenty years old

caused by the one sudden shock

and colossal subductive upwrenching

while this whole walk

which i just got back from

was caused by the fact i forgot my goggles

and when i got to Sitapur Beach i thought

well i can’t go swimming and looking for fishies and coral

so i might as well see what happens when i go right

and that is what happened

the lush green jungle path brought me out to the coast

its outer-ring of smooth lichened sandy rock

and then, further round, to where the inner-ring of harsh begins

so it was a

slow

precarious

ninety minutes

in unwise flipflops

marvelling in the colours

the fierceness

the clear crevices

the cactus-like coral

the seaweed like peas

which explode white in the sun [?]

are sea grapes or sea caviar

and it turns out i could have eaten them

while i could maybe have sat down

to read The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A Fuck Up

which is of course the only English book

on the shelves of my current abode, The Garden View

yet sitting down anywhere would hurt

and might get bloody

and anyway

its a self-help book

even though its pretending not to be

and i can’t be bothered with self-help books

particularly when i am in this unique

and fascinating

and colourful

and stark

weirdscape

and particularly when i feel pushed out to the waterside

by the scrapey gratey slicey slitty petrified coral i

still

somehow

have to get across

which makes me again

relish

and savour

and enjoy

and revel in

and soak in

the singular weirdworld i find myself in

so i pick my way back to the sea

while stepping over

round

into

the water

until i decide that the places where the

mangroves jut out from the jungle

will be easiest to cross

are shortest

and with mini-valleys of relative smoothness

so i do, and i’m right

it ain’t so hard

except

the mangroves are impenetrable

have huge grasses serrated by thorns

so i struggle along the jungle-front

fail on a first break into the thickness

and so, on the second

i just keep going

over, under, round

sweeping, swiping

stepping, treading, kicking

caught in lianas, grabbed at by vines

freeing naked feet from thick grasses

and battling into some kind of forgotten banana grove

simultaneously wondering and

not thinking about

What Lives In Here?

and

What Made Those Holes In The Ground?

so calling

and clapping my hands

to warn any cobras, or whatever

till i come out

before a large square well

or tank

and a pile of rubble

and see a guy in a dhoti in the distance

and realise

hey

i’m out, again

and i’m fine, again

while it turns out i’m near the Garden View

so ten minutes later i’m delaying my much-needed shower

because i’ve been given two mangoes

where Indian mangoes are the BESTEST

are peaches from Heaven

and well, there’s no point in me having a

shower and then

eating a mango

because mangoes get messy

and after i eat a ripe mango

i’ll need a shower

after all of which i

get under the mosquito net

the liberating mosquito net

and write this

summer off

year out

will eke the poetic pennies in South-East Asia

...

...

there’s Ladakh

the very farthest northern region of India

i’ve been hankering to go to for years

yet its icebound most of the year

and only practical two months

June and July

which aren’t Fringe compatible

so i ain’t ever been

...

yet...

this year...

Ladakh, Leh, here i come

the high cool empty, here i come

the blue-and-white yonder, here i come

some kind of Himalaya, here i come

next step the next step, here i come

upstep the upstep, here i come

...

...

...

...

will miss many many Canadians

yet...

the high mountains beckon

...

...

...

other incentives are

...

South-East Asia cures my gout

gout doesn’t get cured

but mine did

by the diet

...

...

while creating and putting up this

The Bucket Of Unused Ideas

was shattering

...

especially as it got followed by long-Covid brainfug

from the Covid i believe i caught from Madani

a nomad in the Sahara

...

yet, if you want to get some of me this year

you can always subscribe to The Bucket

5 bux CAD gets you a month

...

...

while, Ladakh aside,

the biggest motivation is

that i really liked last summer’s show

Adventures In Canadian Parking Lots

yet none of it was purely a product of the preceding winter

2024-25

most of the ideas and writing i’d had for ten years

...

i might have put together

finessed it

in the Spring of last year

but none of it originated then

...

the arising logic being

a good show now takes more than a winter

and while i have probably over half a next show already

i likely need more time

...

and can now spend many happy months

directionless

thinking reading and writing whatever i like

...

...

whilst often bending the mind towards The Bucket

...

...

...

...

in other news

sickly sweet perfume of fermenting mangoes pervades my world

...

...

...

...

in other news

...

back to Neil Island

for nine whole days

of super-cheap living

to think about poems

and what might be for the future Bucket

...

jungle

coral

high trees

...

parotha

masala dosa

fleshy coconuts

biryani

thali

...

and at high-tide

my longest swims in years

right out

over the atoll

to the coral

with goggles

for the underwater coral show

...

and low-tide

flipfloppily picking one’s way out

across the coral

living and dead

to the atoll

...

and at any tide

picking one’s way out along the Mangrove line

the rich greens

the harsh rock

the dead coral

the white sand

...

with

Laxmanpur Beach

and Sitapur Beach

and Ratnagar Beach

and more jungle strolls

...

...

so here we go, here i go

next stop the next stop

next step the next step

upstep the upstep

...

...

...

...

...

in other news

...

made a new pal

Stephen, lives in Wales

...

here’s a dialogue

...

Stephen

“i’m a carpenter”

me

“you never said you were a carpenter, Stephen”

Stephen

“carpenters never tell people they’re a carpenter

everyone got something they got needs fixing”

...

...

not me though

no possessions

no home

no wood

...

If you don’t count the time in the late 80s when

25-ish year old me

rented a table at the Anarchist Book Fair in Holborn

and sold cut-out paragraphs and lines at 20p for three.

...

Which is certainly unusual

and now seems to me like Conceptual Art

though at the time it seemed the

obvious

next

artistic

writing step

...

It was a long crazy day in Conway Hall
in a roomfull of stalls

selling Bakunin, Debord, Vaneigem, Marx, Blake

Class War and more

plus me

…

I had a box full of a couple hundred pieces

typed with a stone-age Underwood typewriter

the kind that features in Moulin Rouge and other movies

where the “o” would punch a hole through photocopy paper

where pieces were one-line, five lines

three words, fifty words

...

I talked my face off for seven hours straight

in unceasing and

ever-improving

self-justification

and aesthetic theory

...

And had to keep restraining myself from interjecting

“that bit’s not good enough”

...

While making myself a decent fifteen quid

enough for a night in the boozer for me and Carole

...

Yet the Anarchists

rather unanarchistically

all thought me a “nutter”

and treated me like an idiot.

...

...

So, at the age of 63, with The Bucket

here i go again

selling

a

bunch

of

ideas

separated

from

each

other

…
The Bucket

766 or so digital pieces

where there is no set order

where each comes by pure chance after the last

randomised by Nick Fox-Gieg’s special-sauce code

...

So its yet another lost virginity

when its quite late to be losing any virginities

...

...

There were of course

some very nice and open folk i met that day

yet it all rather put me off anarchists

who i’d thought would be my natural home

yet seemed somewhere between

an establishment

and a tribe

...

...

While the idea of cutting up the bits

of being anti-book

anti-narrative

anti-completion

was an aesthetic step very much inspired by anarchism

and surrealism

...

And i went away feeling “too anarchist for the anarchists”

...

Thinking about the prison-house of language

...

And certain that, as one of the pieces in The Bucket says

“freedom is a language yet to be invented”

that the limits of our language limit and inhibit our freedoms and thinking

that a revolution would necessitate a revolution in language

and that without that revolution in language

true freedom

and a revolution

would not be and is not possible

...

...

While a true revolution in language is much easier said than done

and quite what it would involve has been

and is

a deep subject somehow always

eluding me

...

...

Yet it is rather a shame

to be making such a first venture

monetising

now

in an age when so very very many people

are monetising EVERYTHING

podcasts

websites

youtube channels

go-fund-mes

all of it

...

There are even folk monetising their hobbies

while i’m rather late to the game

and am now monetising over four decades of hard thought and writing

yet am just one in the swelling mob

yelling “me me me ...”

...

Where my yells of

“its unique

“wholly digital, wholly random

“no-one ever did this before

“it could be a new literary form...

“look at me, me, me... “

are rather lost in the white noise of a million yells

...

“me, me, me...”

just one drop of human pixel

in the expanding ocean of ...

...

...

...

...

In other news

bizarre six a.m. conversation with Stephen

Portsmouth / mid-Wales, 61

talking about 70s music

because, very strangely

he can quote one long convoluted verse of

“Plastic Bag” by X-Ray Spex

which i thought was a never-noticed and long-forgotten album track

yet he can quote one verse

and i can quote another

...

Which is a pretty random coming together

at 6.05 a m in the Andaman jungle

...

I remember a verse as

“my mind is like a plastic bag

with crossed and tangled lines

contented with confusion

that is plugged into my head

i don’t know what’s going on

its the operator’s job

not mine, i said”

...

As a teenager

i found that album lyrically amazing

and the most-interesting of those years

...

...

...

...

in other news

...

a nice routine is evolving for the days

...

a long swim out to the coral at high tide

whenever that is

to float with goggles

and to marvel

...

a long walk out at low tide

whenever that is

six hours after high tide

and almost an hour later than yesterday

to pick my way and watch

and marvel

...

at 6 a m

or half an hour after whenever i wake up

a table outside the unopen restaurant ten minutes away

because they have internet

...

at 7.30 a m

parotha at the Grumpy Dhaba in the village

as soon as Parotha arrives on the menu

...

...

How Often Are You Deified?

turned into God?

not often enough, i’m sure

...

maybe watch this and be turned into

...

G

o

d

...

?

!

...

...

...

like i say

this could be described as

Industrial Strength Sycophancy

…

…

…

ASTOUNDING UNUSUAL BEAUTIFUL EXTREME WEIRD

COASTLINE

...

how unique is this waterline?
well its unlike anything i ever saw?
yet how uncommon is this on this Earth?

...?

...

and what the hell, i wondered, is this? are these

these shells are in the rock, the dead coral

that’s not sand its in, its stone

how?

...

...

so its...

Shaheed Dweep

a jungle island

with the white sand of a coral island

and gorgeous mangroves again

...

yet much of it is tidal dead coral

which, i believe

was raised out of the sea over twenty years ago

by the same earthquake which caused the great Tsunami

and which earthquake which was epicentred off Sumatra

not so far away from here

Shaheed Dweep, aka Neil Island

one of the Andaman Islands

part of India but nearer Myanmar or Thailand

...

where, over the twenty years since

the coral, underwater half the tidal time

has died

and gone grey and light brown

though a little coral has come back

with flecks and bands of colour

pink and gold and blue and orange

yet most has has eroded and corroded

both into smoothnesses

and into the jagged and bladed and sharp and coarse

extending for tens of metres

which makes quite the harshest terrain i have ever come across

so if you fell over and rolled around you would

flay yourself

...

and it makes me wonder

how long will this last before the relentless ocean has its way

and this stone wears away

and maybe new coral grows out beyond where the edge of the atoll was?

how long?

a lot has happened in two decades

yet, how long

a hundred, a thousand, a million years?

...

so, i wonder

is this coral the old pre-earthquake coral still dying away

after twenty-five years?

or is it gradually returning?

i guess its dying away

but cannot say for certain

...

while, at very low-tide

its like an extra-rocky Martian surface [see photos]

making walking difficult

especially on flipflops

on the uneven, the higgledy-piggledy

into and out of the low water

and the rockpools

with their brittle fish

and orange-speckled black sea-slugs [see photo]

and, weirdest of all

those shells, which are somehow IN the rock

that’s not sand they’re in, its rock, or coral

though as you approach they have a deep dark blue fleshyness

which shrinks back, and in, as you approach

and are like wiggly-lined dark-blue mouths in the coral

...

while i also saw a couple of goldish ones [see photo]

which also didn’t make sense to me

...

how can they be IN the rock?

as i asked myself

while picking my slow way out there in the flat destruction

along the waterline

and then back to the shore

where the lush fronded bushes are backed by the vast trees

their bare trunks rising to their high green

...

to then head into the

lush lush verdure of the jungle

which also has an aspect of wreckage

with its filled space

its broken beams of sunlight

its vast trees

its bushes like an eruption of green from their centre

its serratedly bladed grasses

its looping and tumbling vines and lianas

its fallen branches and fallen trunks

its crumbling logs

and damp brownness and rottingness

and out-of-place white white fungi

and busted-ness and knottedness

its chaos of living green and dead brown

...

with some of the thousand greens picked out by the angling sunbeams

while its bursting with life

and cool to the breath

and constantly changing as one walks

is maybe the nicest jungle for a walk i ever went in

as nice as the Brazilian or Ecuadorean Amazon

as nice as the Californian Redwoods

...

speaking of which

these islands have some indigenous trees

which make for a glorious high canopy

with some huge and towering indigenous trees

like the Andaman Redwoods

and a couple of others

with stark high branchless silverish trunks

Gurjan?

and Andaman Bulletwood?

while i think its the Redwoods which have...

errrr

and this is difficult to describe

because these roots have an extra dimension, a second

with triangular roots in undulating planes

while there are also Banyan Trees

often ornamented for their holiness

...

and all this is a fascination for the eye and ear

above the lightly pacing feet

slow-motioning up the thin faint loseable path

with the sunlight dappled through the high canopy

with the kxgszgcx call of the couacal

and the tweet of the myna birds

and unseen coos and hoots and caws and squawks

while the feet and eyes wander on and along into

next

...

...

...

...

...

and so

where there were first 719 ideas

poems

jokes

stories

fragments

anecdotes

one-liners

couplets

verses

choruses

and ideas again

there are now 766*

...

and they come at you

with the refreshing of your screen

one after the other

for as long as you choose

at pure and glorious random

...

nothing over 100 words

nothing more than 13 lines

...

...

so here we go

The Bucket went live three months back

and this is our first addition

first deepening

...

its 49 new pieces...

comic

lyrical

poetic

historical

personal

political

hard

sentimental

silly

blunt

obscure

conversational

chunky

dumb

double-dumb

and more

...

...

pieces have very different intents

styles

feels

agendas

...

and, as with all The Bucket

the accent is on the new

with many an attempt to say the unsaid

...

…
next pour in three months, i guess

...

...

while me

i’ve been making a living as a performance poet

for something like twenty-five years

and this is being the first time i’ve properly published ANYTHING

...

so i’ve had plenty of time

decades

to generate a huge quantity of ideas

of pieces of writing

and to assay them for quality

and originality

...

The Bucket was born from a huge digital file

filled with hundreds

and hundreds

of the lines i’d never said in a show

because too poetic

or subtle

or complex

or mad

a file which just kept growing

and which, for years and years

i was perpetually grading and assaying and sifting

moving the ones i liked best to the top of the file

...

so that i often scooped off the cream of the lines

and used them for poems

or one-liners

or titles

or blags

or something

...

yet only when The Bucket was becoming a thing

back in Gokarna in 2019

did i also add many many lines i had used in poems and shows

to assemble something vast

...

...

at some point soon i might write a post

answering

why?

why The Bucket?
and chiefly, why random?

...

...

in the meantime, i feel obligated to point out

that as The Bucket is unique

in that no-one has ever done this before

A Giant Number Of Pieces, Completely Randomised

then, of course

no-one has ever added to that giant number

so then this is another first

...

while me, as i’ve said

i believe first

and unique

and original

all go a very long way

have a significance in their own right

...

though i might add that i’m really not sure if everyone i communicate with

is terribly impressed by the weight of the originality

...

...

yet folk, writer-friends, have said

and do say

and i guess they are right

that what most matters is

HOW GOOD ARE THE PIECES

writing-wise

laugh-wise

original-wise

and wise-wise, i guess

for there’s the rub

the old old question
How Good Is It?

...

...

...

* [as we took two out]

...

...

...

images are

two of the new drops in The Bucket

three of the original

and Sitapur beach

in our world now

goes a long way

has a value in itself

demands to be pursued, made, done

...

so The Bucket is 766 original ideas

poems stories jokes anecdotes quotes verses choruses fragments

and ideas again

digitalised and randomised

...

where nothing is over a 100 words

or more than 13 lines

...

and they come to you

random one after the random other

for as long as you like

...

and this, it would seem

and many writer friends concur

has never been done

...

...

and it is this prospective uniqueness

which compelled me to break my dogma of decades

my strict avoidance of publishing

and go for it

this

...

for i’ve done around 3000 shows

but published nothing

written and then toured 17 or so shows

but published nothing

i’ve had 45+ five-star reviews, 200+ four-star

but published nothing

i’ve been around gazillions of poets

including some very good ones

all of whom published something

yet me, i published nothing

i’ve been briefly famous in Scotland

and “Fringe-famous” in Canada

but published nothing

and i’ve made a living purely from the door money of shows

for decades

but published nothing

...

it

poetry publishing

was a world which simply did not interest me

while my world

performance poets

storytellers

comedians

and clowns beautiful clowns

was a fascinating world

brimming with newnesses

which wholly absorbed me

...

...

while the Bucket is 719 pieces

and after Sunday it will be 766

...

which is a very large wagon-load

of kegs of powder

to have kept so dry for so long

...

who else might have such a stock

of seven six eight hundred unseen pieces

amassed over three or four decades

they could do this with?

...
anyone on earth?

few, if any

...

...

i always knew it might not be unique

after all, our world is old

and someone might well have done it before

on a similar or smaller scale

...

so i asked a bunch of poet-friends, who might know

who all said they had not heard of such a thing before

yet all said that it would be the quality of the pieces

not the uniqueness

that would be what makes this work

...

...

so this excitement at creating a possible unique

combined with the excitement from so many of the ideas

gave me an aesthetic drive

which was, to my surprise

more than enough

to tip me over the edge

and get me to change the habits of a lifetime

break my aesthetic principles

my dogged dogma of decades

and burst me out of performance poetry

into poetry

...

though this doesn’t, of course

have to be categorised as poetry

and is simply

literature

...

...

little is new in our world

which is not a product of new technology

...

though i certainly believe the new is possible

and disdain the old old saw

There Is Nothing New Under The Sun

for i believe human beings have only

scraped at the surface of the possible

ideas

stories

words

...

yet the newness of The Bucket IS a product of technology

that one can have randomised digitalised pieces of writing

one after another on a screen

though this has probably been possible for

errr...?

over twenty-five years...?

...

yet for as long as there has been paper

one could have had a box of pieces of paper

and take the pieces out one by one

...

...

...

and i did do this

as part of the editing process

cut all the pieces and keep them in a box

...

and what was the upshot?

the upshot was me

pursuing bits of escaping wind-powered paper

as they got blown across a Cambodian hillside

...

...

The Bucket awaits you…

someone said

“Loving the bucket, Jem! I am consuming it extremely slowly - but each bite a delight so far. Congrats on making this a unique new reality!”

...

Enjoy…

is that we can simply add more

for its 700+ pieces

700+ short ideas poems jokes stories verses fragments choruses

and ideas again

...

and so we will

March 1st

...

...

so its ...

what’s the word...

a renewal

a relaunch

a second edition

a next version

an extended mix

and more

...

what’s the word?

...

SLOSH

“To move liquid around, typically randomly or haphazardly”

?

...

...

and, we guess, this is another first

for if no-one ever created anything like this

hundreds and hundreds of original short pieces

digital and randomised

[and extensive research does make seem like they haven’t]

then they won’t have been able to add to it

...

its a minor first

yet a first is a first is a first in this world

...

...

SPLASH?

...

...

so its 46 or so new pieces

meaning one sixteenth of the latest Bucket will be new

with one taken out of the original 719

because i can

...

as before

nothing is over 100 words

or more than thirteen lines

...

so it gets a new ISBN number

a new front page

and here we go

...

i thought we’d do this every six weeks

yet the first launch was quite the cataclysm

so i got over the finishing line

coasted and posted for two weeks

and then sank into

long-Covid brainfog

…

so maybe we’ll have a pour every three months

...

...

...

...

meanwhile

have landed on the Andaman Islands

Neil Island

into serious heat

messy filthy friendly lively

same same but different

yet hotter

and, seeing how this is only February

its gonna get much hotter still

...

picture is a roadside sign in Baner

where i’m staying

a district of the concrete jungle that is Pune

a city of Three Million

with overpasses over overpasses over underpasses

and colossal thrusts of oblique stone

in a wide-stretching hotchpotch of higgledy-piggledy
running for miles yet never quite repeating the same

while seen on hectic motorbike pillion skedaddles

through fevered traffic of buzzing mopeds and blocklike trucks

all a good dynamic shock

after Mahabaleshwar

up in the Western Ghats

that range of mountains

running a thousand miles

down India’s west side

where Mahabaleshwar is

the source of the holy Krishna River

the strawberry capital of India

the centre of a National Park

an ex-colonial British hill station

and a tourist moshpit

in a sea of greenery and strawberry fields

above dramatic steep-sided deep valleys

the ancient rock looking its age

a hundred million

or two

where the mountain cool

was itself a shock

after a hot sunny peaceful seaside month

hopping slowly North up the coast of Maharashtra

where my fixed-minded good idea

of slow and intermittent motion along the Arabian Sea

turned out to be, in fact

a good idea

and where i walked

and took super-dilapidated buses

from village to the village or beach after next

every three days

a neat thing to do
in those places, which clearly, no other tourists go to

seeing how the kids so wavingly, smilingly, wide-eyedly reacted

in my month of sauntering down lush green lanes

through the tightly clustered poor villages

across the dry-brown fields

and up the beaches

where i saw just four white-folks in four weeks

while ambling down the winding trails between the mango groves

struggling over the hot barren uplands

and pacing up and out

or trudging down and back

the long empty sands

while now its

five nights amongst the concrete

with forts

and street of bookshop

and drunk cricket fans

and broken sidewalks

and friendly chai shops

and hectic concrete boulevards

and tightly crammed peopleness

and ...

whatever else this city might throw at me

or my pal Prachi might grinningly take me to

before i make the next big change

and fly to the Andaman Islands

which might just be a paradise

for, regulations permitting

i’ll have ten weeks of jungle and beach

at the Jungle Beach Resort

on Neil Island

yet am, as ever, chiefly planless

so i’ll find out when i get there
…
…

has at least three nights worth of something

...

...

so this

slow hopping up the Indian coast

has turned out to be a good idea

village after village

beach after beach

ebullient greenery after dry barren upland

after ebullient greenery

...

i didn’t know it could work

if it would be easy

or tough

maybe too tough

yet the principle is simple

stay long enough to take a good look at everywhere

yet keep moving

...

the plan was

to land in Ratnagiri

chosen purely because its where a fabulous movie ends

ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT

[utterly recommended Indian drama]

...

so the easily achievable plan was

to take the main rail line

to that somewhat random city

...

and then walk and bus and tuktuk 10 or K north

or south

every few days

and hop from aye to be to see

....

for, as i’ve said before

and very much believe

everywhere is interesting

everywhere is fascinating

everywhere has three nights worth of something

every city, town, village

...

no matter how poor

no matter how concrete

no matter how industrial

no matter how like a mall

or a factory

or a warehouse district

its still going to have its interestings

its worth-thinking-abouts

its beauties?

so why not go anywhere?

like anywhere?

so i do

so here i am

and there i was ...
...

...

the above lines do have a caveat

because some things are really dull

some places are no fun

...

like English industrial parks

and Spanish warehouse districts

are OK to walk through

as a part of a long schlep of diverse beauties

but you don’t want to hang around

and four-laned dust-blown Indian urban highways?

they can become a drag pretty fast

and you don’t want to do that for an hour

though i have

and will again

because hey

its all good

and if you’re gonna do this

walk walk and walk some more through whatever comes

then its gonna happen

and the rough comes with

before and after and during

the smooth

...

so why not go anywhere?

like anywhere?

so i do

so here i am

and there i was ...

Ratnagiri...

Jaigad...

overheating my head on a country lane’s upslope

between Tawsal and Naravan...

battling with some extra sticky thorns

on a cow-trail [?] West of Boria...

...

yet maybe

probably

if you sit and feel the place

an idea will float to the top of the head

or an impression will focus your eyes

... a huge-eyed doomed puppy will appear

... those scavenging birds are immense, are in fact eagles

... that firework box in the garbage is for... “Saddam Hussein fireworks”...

with a picture of Saddam?

and if you stand and circle

or sit and watch

then the oppressiveness of the straight lines

the squareness

the unhuman flat empty space

will slowly creep up on you

spurring the mind to words

or memories

or more words

before you stroll on

through the hole in the fence

or up the steps into the barren uplands

or down the lush green lane

into further fascinations and beauties

and unseens and unusuals

and ordinaries and unwordables

and new-normals and

amazings

...

...

so i have Maps.Me and GoogleMaps

yet no knowledge about what is great to do

do not ask or look online

and so have no idea where is meant to be nice

and just keep walking and looking

and turning and enjoying

though stopping is not my forte

...

and i have no language, which here is Marathi

and many many people have no English

in one friendly village

on my stroll from Hedavi

no-one i met spoke English

yet in the next

even friendlier place

everyone in the chai-shop spoke it well

while my attempts to communicate with the

nice old toothless guy

downstairs in this hotel

are a comedy every time

and i hope he finds it funny too

...

...

...

and you’ve heard of a place

where the streets have no name?

well i went to a place with no streets

a village with no streets

or alleys

just a tight cluster of houses

next where the river reaches the beach

with, errr, no streets

...

so

to get anywhere

you go from front yard to back yard

in this poor village

cleaner than most

for there’s nowhere to throw garbage

to small temple-courtyard to side yard

where you are always on someone’s property

to back yard to front yard

...

so i would have written this on my tablet

while sat on a wall or stood in a street or alleyway

but there weren’t any streets or alleyways

and i don’t want to be hanging around in someone else’s yard

...

so i found my way out

of this village

and wrote it perched and stood on the

porch of no apparent purpose

by the big-rocked seawall

...

...

and the way this is working out is that

i arrive in the new village noonish,

probably by bus which

in this part of Maharashtra

are especially decrepit

and no fun at all if you have to stand

so i head to my pre-booked homestay or hotel

all of which so far have had nice rooms

and none of which have issues

[though this one here has a hideously squealing young dog

hating its new cage]

...

so i arrive

check-in for three or so nights

get my bag down

and spend the afternoon writing and wandering

[i have an acutely total lack of actual physical books

and even a John Grisham or Harlen Cobden would be a godsend

fuck, i’d even read EAT PRAY LOVE if i had to

and i cannot think of anything worse]

...

then next morning, first morning, early

i look at GoogleMaps

and booking.com

looking less for specific places

rather for areas to check out

on an aimful wander

and then

after misha pao for breakfast

walk or bus, bagless, five or ten k North

in the rising heat

to scout out the next beach

or the beach after next

looking for the right spot

with a decent homestay or hotel

while nothing so far has been perfect

not Gokarna perfect

and if anywhere had been perfect maybe i’d still be there

...

while i’m not wholly sure what i’m actually after

“i know not of what i seek”

i thought i was looking for, most wanted, the beach

the beach and the...

beach

and i am currently right on and over the beach

yet i have most enjoyed the lush green country lanes

like in Neware and, particularly, Hediva

which i’m really not sure i should have left

a super-friendly cheapish homestay

whose name i never knew

with a nice room and great thalis

500 metres from Hediva beach

but hey, i’ve never been good at stopping

decades on i still regret leaving San Francisco so soon

New Orleans so soon

Prague Berlin Aubenas Rennes Coimbra Sighisoara so soon

Siem Reap so soon

Hanoi Songkhla Fez, and many more, so soon

while leaving too soon is kinda the

price you pay

for doing it this way

...

to get back to my way of doing this...

so i arrive for an afternoon or night

next day i go looking for the next

which might be a long day

then i make my way back

sometimes smooth

in a shared tuktuk

sometimes a long hot leg-weary trudge

then the next day i simply hang out and take it easy

with a long walk around the rocks on the head

or over the head

or into the green valley

or maybe all of those

then next day i move on

or maybe i don’t

...

...

and i can tell no foreigners ever do this

ever come here

walk these streets and lanes and heads

i can tell by the stares and smiles and calls from the children

the double-take from the farmers in the fields,

and the babied mothers in the doorways

the glance in the wing-mirrors from the guys on the motorbikes

the grin of the uniformed school-kids on the country lanes,

in the small villages,

and on the high headland trails

or past the crab-fishers on the black rock below the heads

where its clear

no white folks ever come here

...

which is kind of a liberation

for the wandering spirit

always, but briefly, tied to the moment

to this street

this chai-shop, this lane, this thorny trail

this temple-gate, this rocky downslope

to this infinitesimal fraction of this earth

this place which is a world, a universe, all its own

this village

this lush greenery,

or browned-grass rock-scape

this stone seat around the holy baobab

all a universe, a now, of their own

...

...

and i bet no foreigners

or tourists of any kind

ever go to Jaigad

on the mouth of the Jaigad river

for it is towered over by the enormous chimneys

of a vast coal-fired power plant

and has three if not four industrial ports

while still only a village

and a notably poor village at that

...

which poverty, i would judge,

further disproves that great con of an idea

the Trickle Down Effect

for those are big commercial operations

yet it doesn’t look like the money,

the wage, anything

has leaked out into the village in any way

...

yet Jaigad

an old Maharashtran fort

and a super-friendly village

with its own unique take on the meaning of the word “kebab”

[a meat-cake sandwich?]

Jaigad was a good place for two nights...

before the upping of sticks

and the wander on

...

next stop Guhagar

where

“i know not of what i seek”

an infinitesimal fraction of this earth

a place which is a world, a universe, all its own

...

...

...

…

in other news

...

one of the depressingly fixed things about humanity is

that there are constantly new definitions of hell

...

one newish definition of hell would be

a place where you have to

work out a NEW WEBSITE EVERY DAY

...

or if you were really REALLY bad in your life

maybe a new website every hour

...

The Horror, The Horror

...

and you’re not seventeen in that ghastly afterlife

no

you’re sixty-three

...

The Horror, The Horror

...

...

...

...

in other news

am now actually in Guhagar

more accurately Asgoli

which feels pretty marvellous

and i might stay a weak

...

...

...

...

in other news

i find the line

“an infinitesimal fraction of this earth

this place which is a world, a universe, all its own”

a bit too easy to say or write

...

...

...

in other news

veg thali #25

misha pao #15

poha #10

from the lush green winding lanes of morning

on the easy snaking of the tarmac between the

thick oblique trunks of the mango trees

in the verdant river valley

with the twitter of the small birds

and the kgksxz of the couacals

and a fine mist still rising in the fields

on my easy saunter amongst, along, the just-so

the flat square blocks of colour of the walls and houses

the mix of colours of the curves of the temples

the green-green groves and orchards and avenues

the egrets around the pond

the chopped tree trunks and piles of red stone blocks

as the light seeps into the shadowed recesses of the undergrowth

and the first rays of sun break over the ridge

throwing the beams of light through the thick leaves

as i gambol on

rolling from this side to that

over the bridges

and into the villages

until i sit on a redstone wall

and then a fallen tree

fingering this, the thing you are reading, on my tablet

while watching

the colourful lines of women walking in the distant fields

the oxcart with two massive oxen

the Indian Roller on the telegraph wire

as the soundtrack

the rising Hindu singing and chanting

all floaty and ethereal

drifting gorgeously across the fields

as that temple music gets joined

by the sounds of two other unseen temples

one of fast loud talking

yet probably a Hindu sermon

while further away its chiefly drumming

so i’m strolling, stopping, turning, in this three-way confluence

this soundtrack of

one part floaty ethereal holy

one part superfast racing commentator

one part infectious rhythm

as i side-to-side and turn

and take this lane at pure whim

winding my way

from there to here to...

...

...

back in Gokarna

[300k South]

for 22 months of Lockdown

the main thing going on in my life was the sea

my biggest relationship was with the Ocean

that enormous wordless powerful space and thing, just there

i spent 22 months right next to it

...

yet here, now, in this month
its the green lanes which draw me

to wander and wind and pace and watch

and let the mind

a-ramble

...

...

...

...

later

coming back from Ganpatipule on a decrepit bus

i have the front seat

to observe an anthropological phenomenon

the Indian traffic jam
this one a long-weekend beach-town clog-up

which reveals the kindness and helpfulness of people

the stupidity and one-upping of people

the anger of folk

the lightness and humour of folk

the incompetence and passivity of individuals

the resourcefulness and proactiveness of individuals

as we inch our way out of Ganpatipule

and, after a held hour of observing other people’s

levity and frustration

their hopelessness and helpfulness

humility and fuckwittery

we are

liberated

out

gone

are charging along

crashing and banging on the non-existent suspension

on the bad roads

smoothly cornering

rolling past the seascape vistas

on my way back to Neware

so i can amble 2k more of

lovely lush green Indian lane

back to my over-swanky uncheap Homestay

and ...

sleep

...

...

...

hello world

from an easy late afternoon

in the green brown world

under the canopy of the trees at Killa

on the head below the fort at Ratnagiri

while Hindi for “fort” is “Killa”

so this gentle village

nestled softly in the curve of greenery beneath the fort

is called Killa

where i’ve landed pretty smoothly into village life

and village life is, for me, the best of India

...

i thought i was going to the big town, Ratnagiri

yet here i am

over the hill from the city

in the easyness

...

i thought i’d stay, maybe, two days, before moving on

yet it’ll be more like seven

here at the Konkanratn Homestay

...

so here i sit

while birds twitter and bugs buzz and eagles soar

and all is good

though, by rights, maybe it shouldn’t be

i mean, nothing has gone well today

yet its pretty pleasant to be extra weary

and have nothing needs doing

...

so where should i begin

on my list of woes that failed to woe me

the suckingnesses that did not sink me

the downs that did not down me

where should i begin?

the terrible nights sleep?

or the failure to find a next berth after here?

that my gout is up to 7, if not 8?

or with the impossibility of linguistic communication?

or maybe with my aching legs ?

yet i just walked 20k

pretty much by mistake

and the question i kept asking myself

towards the end of yet another venture begun

as an epic saunter

yet concluded

as an epic trudge

the question i kept asking myself was

why don’t i feel tired?

how come my head is impervious to so much of this relentless sun?

because i walked in the high heat round midday for almost six hours

at least, when i wasn’t waiting, with hopping frustration, for a

bus i didn’t know how and where to get

or taking a quick luxuriating break in a chai shop

so i really should have been, and should now be

a sight more tired than i was and am

for which i have no explanation

while the stark language issue is at the heart of much of this unsuccess

for few of the locals speak English

some passing travellers in the restaurants might

but the locals out there in the boonies

they don’t

and you know what?

it was very the-boonies out there in the woods beyond the mangroves

where i was looking for a homestay or three

with no map

for i had, crucially, elected to leave my tablet back in Killa

so it was rather galling to finally get back

after the final trudge

down the drab big-roaded last gasp of Ratnagiri

up the leafy green hill

through the wide gap in the walls of the old fort

and down the quaint rock steps

back to my homestay

and my laptop

yes it was rather galling to find

that my instinctive navigation was pretty damn good but

alas

just not quite good enough

for i had

in fact

at one point

been right near and even between the three target homestays

[a homestay being a low-rent b’n’b]

the places i could go stay
out there in the jungly woods by the Aare-Ware beach

[pronounced, unlikelily, “arry-warry”]

each of which must have had no signage

like none

because i can now see on the map where i walked

and, yeah, i was right close to all of them

so i could’ve got sorted for next place to stay

but i wasn’t

and aren’t

and only traipsed on, oblivious

to wander up that beach

fail to communicate with a local

digging / stealing sand from the beach

by loading it onto a big cart to be pulled by two

enormous white oxen

and therefore getting the wrong directions

as has happened many times before

because, in India, you have to watch it with getting directions

because Indians, i believe, think its rude not to try to help you

even if they don’t know

which cultural-difference has had me wandering a few farflung boonies in my time

yet it wasn’t the wrong directions that sent me out at 9 a.m.

through the filthy rubbish-caked industrial fishing village / town

for miles along that long winding green sun-dappled road
through those friendly smiling waving villages

over those expansive bridges, with their wide-open vistas of river and mangroves

down that attractive lane of trees and occasional houses

along the huge empty beach

up that next attractive lane

which suddenly ended for no reason

next some abandoned prawn farms [i think]

meaning i had to proceed

while getting bloodied by passing thorns

on a smaller and smaller lovely country path

which, to my amazement,

suddenly issued me out on to the main road...

so, to cut a very long story shorter

what i’m trying to say to you is that

despite the fact i achieved nothing

consummated no plan

found no next

and only wandered a highly convoluted road to nowhere and failure

for twenty whole kilometres minimum

under a proper hot sun

and clearly defeated myself by not taking a means of navigation

what i’m saying is

that this

the fishing town, the winding road, the chai shops,

the river bridges, the orchards, the thousand greens

the lanes, the beach, the omelette, the wood, the bus back

was all good

this, was a great day

...

...

...

...

in other news

i used to say

one beer is a waste of money

five beers is a valid investment in your own future

...

but now i say

one coffee is a waste of money

five coffees is a valid investment in your own future

…

…

yet there’s currently no beer

and little coffee

in my life

…

…

…

in other news

if you see the second photo

half of which is light

well the next thing that happened was …

i got walloped and drenched

right there

by a freak wave

like had never happened to me before

and was lucky to keep my footing

and this is one of my cheapest

...

“THE NEW ENGLISH HISTORY SYLLABUS”

one thousand years of glorious history ingloriously distilled

...

from last summer’s show

a performance on Gabriola Island

as part of the Gabriola Island Theatre Festival

...

enjoy

...

...

...

this is an old poem

i did for almost twenty years

from 1994

...

i must have done it hundreds of times

and reprised it for last summer

as i thought the hour show needed something

SHORT FAST LOUD FUNNY AND MAD

...

...

...

in other news

i just invented an ancient legend

You Cannot Leave Split Until You Have Been Everywhere Twice

...

for i’m in Split

in Croatia

an imperfectly horrible day

in this fabulous city

...

the rain belting

the air cold, the wind colder,

the sky a grey slab

and all extending through the daylight hours

with my long glamorous walk round the westward head

Marjan Park

uneversetoutfor

due to the unwelcoming and unforgiving grimness

...

...

while

if you haven’t been to Split

the Old City is actually the Roman Emperor Diocletian’s Palace

become, over the slow changes of centuries

the stari grad, the old town

so the alleyways and squares and unseen lived-in rooms

are the old halls and passageways and quarters of the ancient palace

which lay empty for centuries

until the Slavs who would become the Croats moved in

making it possibly the most successful “squat” in history

...

its fabulous

it even has two sphinxes

and while it might have been a big palace

its a small city

so, last time i was here, 2008

i worked out the best way to go anywhere in Split is

to head in entirely the wrong direction

with conscious counter-intuitivity

because

here its much better to travel, to walk, than it is to

arrive anywhere

so if you head straight there then you are there immediately

which is much too soon so...

you...

head...

the wrong way and

delay arrival as

long as possible

by reversing

and right-angling

and left-angling

to go down those gorgeous

and fascinating

alleys

and head round those corners

and past those stones

and up those steps

and then, quite possibly, why-not

you do the same thing all over again

...

so i just invented an ancient legend

about Split

a.k.a. Spalato

which says

You Cannot Leave Split Until You Have Been Everywhere Twice

...

...

while the Old Town

where i’m currently sheltering from the battering downpour

just west of the Old City

and stretching towards Marjan Park

is also gorgeous for the idle wander...

the oblique corner turns

the old stone, the old walls

the Dalmatian restaurants

the back-tracking

the alleyways off alleyways

the downsteps, the upsteps

so, at some point

i’ll have to brave the

teeming downpour

...

...

...

...

in Other News

Zagreb tomorrow, 5th

to fly Mumbai, 6th

after which plans get progressively more ill-defined

while, down in Maharashtra

Ratnagiri beckons

yet its a complete unknown

i don’t know if beach life is

possible

and i’ll be by myself and i’ll know

no-one

?

...

...

in other news

i finished this post

while eating to easy repleteness

a really rather excellent Dalmatian meal of

best tomato soup ever

and

cuttleflish [squid?]

small broad beans

and best polenta ever

all paid for
hurrah

by the proceeds of
international poetry
i.e. The Bucket, this
...

...

so here i go

next step the next step

next stop the next stop
…
…

how are they experiencing The Bucket?

...

this is an exciting question

for there has never been anything like The Bucket before

700+ short ideas poems stories verses fragments and ideas again

presented digitally at random

...

and therefore, whatever The Bucket’s readers are going through,

they are first to go through it

...

for we could not and did not know what The Bucket experience

would be

we could not and did not know

how readers would read it

and we still do not

...

would readers...

read many in one go?

keep the Bucket tab open?

read one and then pause?

read a few?

or would they drench themselves in it?

...

therefore we are now opening a chat thread
HOW IS IT FOR YOU?

...

we,

that is me,

currently in Zmijavci in the Biokovo Mountains

and Rebecca,

in Little Portugal in Toronto

we knew it would be a new reading experience

yet we could not

and did not

know what that experience would be

...

clearly, each reader would try it in new and differing ways

quickly, slowly

singly, many

yet, human beings being human being

they would each find their way

to a way

which most suits them

...

swiftly, cursorily?

lingeredly, studiedly?

...

one tab always open?

closed then re-opened?

or

two

or a few tabs simultaneously?

...

yet, we have wondered

would these ways be much the same?

or would everyone be different?

...

on phone?

on tablet?

at home?

out and about?

in traffic

alone by a riverside?

up a mountain or on the subway?

...

which have people found they like the best?

we do not know

...

do folk sneak a few seconds?

or lounge and wallow at length?

is it a morning thing?
a night thing?

an anytime thing?

...

we did not know

we could not know

we do not know

and it will be exciting to find out

...

and therefore this post

...

...

three four five thousand years of reading

and then comes something new

...

for it is new

it may not be of huge significance

may be only a very very minisculely minor adjunct to what has gone before

and it may not be a road to some great new art

yet, newness does lead to more newness

unforeseen newnesses lead to... unexpected somewheres
and The Bucket is intended to be a

whole vast stock of

ramifiable ideas

so... who can say?

...

...

while someone teetered on its brink and

before plunging in

asked

“once i’m in

how will i ever get out again?”

...

...

yet when we say

“in a great many ways this question is exciting”

that “many”-ness is gorgeous

full of opening possibilities

so are we excited?

clearly, yes

...

so, Dear Readers

How Is It For You?
…
first chat thread is… open
…
…
…
…
photo is the local football pitch
in a sinkhole
making a natural if small stadium
in the karst
here in sunny wintry Imotski
in the Biokovo Mountains of Croatia
right up by the Bosnian border
across the valley from my current abode
in the village of Zmijavci

…

photo by Ivana Protrka

...

and thanks or being here

at THE BUCKET OF UNUSED IDEAS

...

this is not a usual kind of Substack

so there’s one thing we’d like to make clear

which is

the difference between paid and not-paid

...

there’s The Bucket Of Unused Ideas

the whole reason for this

the 719 discrete pieces

in wholly randomised order

for your thought and entertainment
…

four examples are with this post

...

while the link to The Bucket

can only be accessed inside the paywall

and that link takes you out of Substack

to the Bucket itself

...

so that’s what the paid bit does

...

and then there’s the unpaid bit

of the Bucket’s Substack site

which is a series of posts

all, like this one

trying to encourage you to go through the paywall

and dive into The Bucket

for that unparalleled literary thing

...

...

so its great that you’re reading a post or posts

yet The Bucket

via the link

behind the paywall

is the actual thing

the unique thing

the new thing

the randomised digital never-the-same-way-twice thing

THE BUCKET OF UNUSED IDEAS

...

which we’d love to hear your thoughts on

...

...

the price is the lowest Substack will allow

30 CAD for a year

or 5 for a month

so this means you can read it for a fiver

which is definitely a

b.a.r.g.a.i.n

...

after all

you might well be going through a

literary experience no-one else ever went through

not just because

its different every time

but because

no-one ever

digitally randomised so many pieces

and unseen pieces at that

...

...

meanwhile

i wish you a pain free Christmas

...

this was written on my last day in Spain

Malaga

which i found surprisingly nice

despite the inadvertent super-long saunter up to the castle at dawn

...

though Seville is the wonder of this area

for Cordoba is great, a must

and Granada and Malaga are nice

yet Seville is one of the best cities on Earth

up there with Budapest and Prague and New Orleans and Edinburgh

and Varanasi and Montreal and Hanoi and...

...

...

while me

Zagreb… Winter Festivals in grand squares

where i’m off to some mountains i never heard of till a fortnight ago

and which i still could not place on an undetailed map

the Biokovo Mountains

?

...

“we” by the way

Is Rebecca Singh and me
…

x

this piece is from this year’s touring show

Adventures In Canadian Parking Lots

...

you might find a line or two of this

in THE BUCKET OF UNUSED IDEAS

only accessible via the link you will find behind the paywall here

yet The Bucket is 700+ pieces

wholly and digitally randomised

so it might take you a while to find them

...

...

though i messengered the link to The Bucket

to my pal Natalie

in Ottawa

it was the first time she’d heard of The Bucket

and yet

ten minutes later

after some speedy paying

and lucky dipping in the deep pond of randomised pixels

that is The Bucket

she sends me a screenshot

of a line she’s been wanting for years

and found in seconds

which is pure chance

...

...

a fiver Canadian will get you a month behind the paywall

which is a right bargain

and the opposite of steep

for what is a

errrr

new form of literature

unlike anything anyone ever did before

...

...

...

...

meanwhile

Rabat, the Medina

nice

except i’m convalescing from something tediously clingy

...

so i’m happily doodling the light days

right-angling around this maze

these tight streets

which have an amazing propensity

to turn you round corner after corner

lead you along stretch after stretch

and then confront you with a

dead-end...?

...

and where asking the next question

how can there be a dead-end after all that?

is also a dead-end

...

because it gets me

and probably would you too

gets me thinking

how can there be, in this tight urban squish

such a long series of alleyways that go nowhere

it disobeys the rules of time and space

well space, anyhow

because these old cities

Marrakesh Fez Rabat and more

[especially Marrakesh]

they have super-tight crammed Medinas

so i don’t see how they can

have long alleyways within themselves that

go nowhere

it don’t make sense

its bad maths

bad geometry

bad spatial logic

and good fun for the slow ambling head

drinking in the august doors

the mottled white walls

the flaking plaster

the hot-plated breads

the mouldy persimmons

the placidly doomed chickens

the cream cakes

the sizzling sausages

the mean-faced cats

the yawing square minarets

the low arches

the mint tea

the raib

the maakouda

the rfissa

and the much much unworded more

...

before i return to my riad

for the kind of binge-watching

that convalescing certainly permits

...

...

enjoy the clip

more to come

...

j

BECAUSE THERE ISN’T ONE YET FOR WHAT WE’VE CREATED

...

so, anyone got any new words?

any ideas

suggestions

neologisms

recyclable archaisms

comic acronyms

?

anything

?

...

there is no word for what it does

…

for The Bucket Of Unused Ideas

to be found here, beyond the paywall

is unlike anything that ever went before

700+ digital pieces

ideas poems jokes stories fragments

randomised

online

...

and that’s the key

the next one is always random

there is no order

or whole, for that matter

...

so i’m on the search

for a word for this thing

because

its so new there’s no word for it

it ain’t been defined

worded

confined

lettered

pinned

finished

...

for Nick’s unique program

which is the special sauce in this thang

has made it wholly random

...

so anyone got any ideas?

i got a few

and i’ll have no trouble coming up with a bunch more

yet

anyone got a kicker? a zinger? a banger?

a perfect?

...

maybe something completely unrelated and

errrr

random

?

...

while i could mention some of my thoughts

but i don’t want to steer the current

...

and the parameters

should you decide to follow any parameters

are

its NEW

its RANDOM

its DIGITAL

its LITERATURE

its VERY VERY MANY

and its NEVER BEEN DONE

...

...

...

...

in other news

Rabat...

at some point over the Summer

in Edmonton? or maybe Vancouver?

someone

and i cannot remember who

someone told me the old Medina in Rabat is great

and i got ten spare days

out of the cold

BLOODY COLD

fun-fevered

tourist mosh-pit

that is Marrakesh...

...

while the first time i ever came to Marrakesh

it was the HOTTEST place i’d ever been

...

and so the Coast seems a good idea

though there is Fez

and i been to Fez before

and Fez is marvellous

you will get lost...

but maybe i can go to Fez next

cos it ain’t so far from Rabat

so...

everything pointed towards...

who recommended it...?

it all pointed to...

Rabat

the Medina

and here i am

...

to split the hours between

Bucket-related screen-time

and wandering the new streets

and alleys and

i -don’t-know-what

of this new city

so here i go

next step the next step