The Zen Bruiser

one hundred trees
how small this blister
on my thumb

Paul Conneally

done with fighting
she leaves her husband
by text

Paul Conneally

HER EYES ARE WILD
paul conneally & debra woolard bender

warmer than summer
underneath the haystack
the English tongue

she drinks beer　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
from the supermarket
in the town square
feeding potato-chips
to pigeons and sparrows

how far I’ve travelled to find
one need replaces another

her dog growls
at midnight revellers
coming too close
as she sleeps soundly
in the shoe-shop doorway

the night in my hair
turns black
burning stars

paul conneally & debra woolard bender

all that’s left
of Mother’s Day
a wabi sabi rose

- Paul Conneally

ONE UPRIGHT ARM

We move together along the disused railway track
towards the top of the Swannington Incline.

“Don’t look the dog in the eyes. He don’t like it”

one upright arm
sustains the cheek
come walk with me

when things go wrong
there’s always the hedgerow

Paul Conneally 2011 

From ‘Health Walk’ with Nita Pearson ‘Whitwick to Swannington and Back’ May 2011

Previous post in this series “So Looked Cecilia’

—————————————————

Notes

The line:

‘one upright arm sustains the cheek’

Is a fragment from “HOW RICH THAT FOREHEAD’S CALM EXPANSE” by William Wordsworth. Wordsworth tells us that the poem HOW RICH THAT FOREHEAD’S CALM EXPANSE was inspired by a print at Coleorton Hall, North West Leicestershire. Mrs Wordsworth’s impression was that HOW RICH THAT FOREHEAD’S CALM EXPANSE was also written at Coleorton Hall despite William’s note that it was written at Rydal Mount in the Lake District.

HYPNOTISED

We pass by graffiti daubed concrete. This former mining area has high unemployment. Local youths have become recruitment targets for right wing groups such as the BNP and English Defence League.

Most ignore their advances. Ignore all politics. Some succumb.

Painted words bear witness to their corruption.

under this bridge
weeds grow from the walls
an old flame

such intercourse
brings on a humbler mood

Paul Conneally 2011

——————-

Transform Snibston has reported the graffiti to North West District Council who will hopefully now look to support the Swannington Heritage Trust to clean it up. Transform has also reported the racist terms to the Hate Crime Unit. We’d encourage anyone that finds such material to do similar wherever you live in the UK or the world.

If you live in Leicestershire you can report racist and other hate crimes HERE:

https://forms.leics.gov.uk/af3/an/default.aspx/RenderForm/?F.Name=hswrn4i0ma1&fs2s=ivrTyRMjhWU&fs2c=ooqovKDKoV2&fs2svr=AFE8

NOTES

The three line haiku towards the end of the Hypnotised haibun was written on the Swannington Incline during a Health Walk with Nita Pearson from Whitwick to Swannington and back and was placed first in the Cities of Green Leaves Ginko No Kukai organised to garner support and raise funds for relief for victims of the Japanese Tsunami 2011. Funds raised went to:

Architecture for Humanity
Japanese Red Cross Society
Ngo Jen Official Website
Salvation Army in Japan

Hypnotised comes out of the interaction and connections set up between Conneally, the people on the walk, the area walked through and the William Wordsworth poem ‘How Rich That Forehead’s Calm Expanse’.

Wordsworth walked this area many times when he lived with his familly at Coleorton Hall Farm and during his regualr visits to stay with his friend Sir George Beaumont at Coleorton Hall. Wordsworth tells us that the poem was written at Rydal Mount and inspired by a print at Coleorton Hall. Mrs Wordsworth however says that by her recollection the poem was actually written at Coleorton not Rydal Mount.

Paul Conneally is Cultural Forager for Transform Snibston, Snibston Discovery Museum, Coalville, Leicestershire, UK.

SO LOOKED CECILIA

Nita leads us up the bridle path from Hermitage Recreation Ground towards the sound of traffic.

Tells tales of past and present. Of fields to the right that developers want to get their hands on. Of protest groups and petitions.

We reach the kerb. Stephenson College and Coalville to the left.

Nita’s head turns both ways and we follow.

so looked Cecilia when she drew
an angel from his station

across the road
and down Spring Lane
wild garlic

Paul Conneally 2011

From ‘Health Walk’ with Nita Pearson ‘Whitwick to Swannington and Back’ May 2011

——————————————————

Notes

So Looked Cecilia is a haibun. Haibun is a Japanese form of prose containing linked verse - usually haiku or tanka - interspesed with or following the prose. During my walks through the area, including this one led by Nita Pearson, I feel close to Wordsworth. He walks with us. He walked extensively all around this place when he lived at Coleorton and at other times when visiting his friend George Beaumont at Coleorton Hall and his son John Wordsworth when he was parson at Whitwick Church, living in what is now The Old Vicarage Residential Home.

The lines:

So looked Cecilia when she drew
An Angel from his station;

Are from “HOW RICH THAT FOREHEAD’S CALM EXPANSE” by William Wordsworth.

Wordsworth tells us the poem was inspired by a print at Coleorton Hall, North West Leicestershire. Mrs Wordsworth’s impression was that HOW RICH THAT FOREHEAD’S CALM EXPANSE was also written at Coleorton Hall despite William’s note that it was written at Rydal Mount in the Lake District.

Paul Conneally Transform Snibston Cultural Forager

More Ren (Connections) and Notes:

1. Cecilia is a female given name of Latin origin meaning the way for the blind.

2. St. Cecilia is the Patron Saint of Music and St Cecilia’s Feast Day is November 22nd

3. The Benedictine Sisters of Saint Cecilia are a group of women consecrated religious sisters. These women shear the lambs’ wool used to make the palliums of new metropolitan archbishops and the Pope.

sunshine and sleet
the car park guard’s apprentice
gives me a ticket

Paul Conneally

stifling heat
I become aware of
my tight trousers

Paul Conneally

cutting his throat
with her mobile phone
the morning sun

paul conneally

in every other garden a burnt out car or two

old refrigerators pushchairs and bike wheels

that some of these houses are still homes is hard to take in

mums call out to children playing soccer with an old tin-can

my grandfather lived on a council estate like this

flowers on the front carrots and onions round the back

late afternoon
a line of old cherry trees
each side of the street

Paul Conneally

i’ve freed haiku from that fuckin’ sound of water

almost Valentines
the sound of a dog
tied to a lamp post

Paul Conneally
Loughborough Market Place

after-work drinkers
the cold outside
locked in

Paul Conneally

out by the bins
one man tells another
it’s his son’s birthday

Paul Conneally
2013