What has been made of the horizons surrounding Kelston?

Worth picking up on this phrase from last week, as Kelston was situated between the Roman settlement at Bath (Aquae Sulis), for the hot springs (see above, now with DJ) and the villa at North Stoke to the west of the city.

The following (found!) verses address thoughts regarding surroundings and horizons, far from home, on the torn edge of empire.

Their footprints remain amongst so many others; all part of the story, the palimpsest of the hill.

A Legionnaires Lament

Nothing at night seems familiar

the night jars at my heart,

in a darkness unimagined

questions slowly start.

Nothing at night seems familiar

stars are cast under a spell

If the land spoke out in this empty night

what stories might it tell?

Nothing at night seems familiar,

my plough is broken and lost,

searching for sweet Cassiopeia,

drowned on the seas we crossed.

Nothing at night seems familiar,

but by day, these shells at my feet,

are the same that I saw in the vineyard,

where the roads to the mountain meet.

But nothing here is familiar.

mired in this damp earth.

I stand on the dust of kings long past

and I calculate their worth.

Notes from North Stoke. 61 AD.

These days….

the air, the light, so wet.

the mind folds in

upon itself.

This low saddled land

no artist drew

far from paradise

childhood knew.

Sun with no light

fire with no heat-

weaker wine

and tougher meat.

Skin fades.

We grow pale,

birds watch us turn earth.

Crops fail.

Lights on low hills

cross the valley at night,

fearless brown dogs

walk by at first light,

respite to the north

and steam from the earth,

but the sky just brings rain

for all rain is worth.

(with it) wind - rattles tiles

that won’t lift leaves

that rot in the corners

like errant thieves.

Rain approaching (again)

soon to fall,

no sense of our gods here.

no sense at all.

I wait upon summons-

my return to Rome.

I see the lights on the hillside

guiding me home.

September 19 there’s a gathering of Three Cane Whale, Boss Morris and myself in the Barn on Kelston Round Hill. Come and join us, come and see. 1800 for a walk to the summit. 1900 for the dancing, the words and the music.

Many thanks for reading, as ever, Jon x

A girl walks a dog at the field edge

all thought of words unspoken,

the last flags of day are torn on the west

and all the clouds are broken.

Once a day was a wave in the corn,

lines drawn across the sand.

I can hear the harbour wall sigh

from 20 miles inland.

We all have access to a patch of ground. Any patch of ground has history. Nature, and more recently people, have crossed it, dug it, fought for it, died for it.

There is always a deep imprint that it takes time to reveal. Layer upon layer of time has covered rock and earth with footpath and field and hedgerow, with concrete and buildings and road. Great joy and horror may have occurred there.

Kelston Round Hill is, just that, a round hill between Bath and Bristol, standing high above the river Avon. Kelston Roundhill sits high up on the saddle between Bath and Bristol and is a local landmark for both cities and beyond. It’s conical shape and distinctive clump of trees is visible for miles, where it sits at the tail end of the Cotswolds escarpment. As a child I felt I could see the world from up there.

Its compass provides four points of reference; the Cotswolds to the north, The Mendips to the south, the Brecon Beacons stand out dark, across the mighty western Severn, and eastwards the white horses of Wiltshire can be seen against the hill.

It is a palimpsest. Since the great seas flowed away, it has held the layers of thought of those who have swam, walked, sat, and lived there. The dark soil and yellow stone are full of shells and fossils, of life that once swam across these hills when it was the sea bed, turning back upon themselves in the warm waters. Like all our landscapes, it is older than time.

And once waters receded and millennia passed, anything that could stand upright would’ve climbed it, to see what a little further height might add to their understanding of the land around them. Nomads, herdsmen across the great land bridge chasing game westwards, seeking caves for the winter; flint knappers, traders on the great path south that led into the warm swampy waters of Bath, pulling their flints from the Avon below the hill where it still bore salt.

There would’ve been those who looked to settle and build encampment, able to see who or what approached, and draw their water from the springs on the northern flank of the hill. I see them sat on Kelston watching the fires and smoke on Stantonbury and other iron age forts and camps across the woodlands to the south. Then the Romans, then the Civil war look out, the refuge for those escaping a bombed city who had already evaded bombed cities. And on and on. Not a history lesson ... no need. Simply a note of footprints, steps uphill and then down, writers’ poets, the highest esteemed to the brilliant unknowns, the workers, the lovers, the lonely. All tired, curious, inspired.

What have they made of these horizons? The Triassic sharks with no Quint to scare them, Mary Anning’s Ichthyosaurs swimming north with two flicks of their tail, ammonites as bicycle-wheel sized food, not partial stones on dusty shelves;

Later, what of the wolves and bears, the creatures lost to us; and eventually man, woman and child, what did they all see? Can an area of land hold a collective sensual experience? Is there a record buried, held somewhere of every perception; wind sound in the Calamophyton trees before the beech trees, the sight of hares and deer at dusk always at the very range and periphery of your view.

What of the cloud shape, and sunrise? The winter rains and the darkness rushing towards you out of the east.

All thoughts. Fears. Real to the thinker once, and now gone, into the hill.

Frequently altered and re used, rubbed smooth and rewritten, the hill remains. Bright yellow now, as yellow as the stone beneath it in this drought of a changing world. It is a point of reference; a beacon for those who live within the rivers of the Avon, in different towns and environments, but all able to see the hill, and do with that thought, as they will.

Taking a place and applying thought to it is a model that can be applied anywhere, certainly to any field in England , and once you’ve applied the thought and found the characters that fit; those you feel through the thin places in the corner of the field or over by the garages or the barns, it is yours; to peel back the layers , walk the desire lines, follow the debris –be your own laureate of your hill, your hedge or street , anywhere you are drawn back to by economics, by habit, by passion or by all the above. Be open to what has gone before, shape it and add on.

The Japanese word, ‘yutori’, means to simply be, to slow down and listen, and appreciate the beauty of nature - we are now reliant on ‘mindfulness’ which though worthy, has no earned place or depth within our culture and if owned at all, is only done so by those who can afford the time to do so. The need though is real. How to record what the impact of place has upon us?

We already possess the tools. By becoming more aware and increasingly mental travellers, walking through any environment is both a horizontal movement across terrain, transforming urban, suburban or rural life and also a journey down into the mysteries and unknown of the past. That sense of a mythical gothic where the past remains with us and shapes the present.

Choose your patch of ground. Be your own laureate - sit in your place. Walk until you get to rework it for yourself and regather fragments of story and song that have been scattered there. Be subjective. Landscape and stories will reveal themselves - others may slowly come forward. It will take time but it will empower you.

September 19 there’s a gathering of Three Cane Whale, Boss Morris and myself. Come and join us, come and see.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/three-cane-whale-with-very-special-guests-boss-morris-and-jon-hamp-tickets-1995645475338

More details to follow

Jon Hamp, Kelston Laureate 2015-date.

Steve McQueen

Barefoot she comes home

before the seven-o clock news.

Little finger hooked

through the black strap on her shoes.

And the quiet in her eyes

removes a need for other clues,

to sketch out how

things went along last night.

Any fool could understand

that it didn’t go as planned

and he’d been less

than she had hoped that he might be.

But the pavement is warmer than you think,

she smiles. The morning is awake

and this barefoot, morning promenade

may represent a great escape.

Many thanks as ever for reading. More info next week re Kelston and the great gathering for Craig Kenyon on 19/9/26. J x

A hard man when alone

but not much in between.

More anorak than Crombie,

more streetwalker than Queen.

Just one of the road crew, building the fence,

never a fortune teller.

Lacked the sense

to manage the takings, or fly the trapeze.

Chose to stay grounded and become one of these;

Just one of the road crew, building the fence, playing the strong man, cavernous pretense,

sat in the corner to watch rainfall,

in love with that soft

despair of it all.

Hoods over faces,

dream summer fades,

first love at first light, through green colonnade,

folds back into memory, through passages grey,

where the lost are lost, and none can stay-

in that green morning,

that lied to you then,

for it did not last,

and did not come again.

For one of the road crew,

checking the seats,

on the old ferris wheel

where earth and sky meet

Where the promise of night,

and release from the ground

builds a sad old symphonic

of industrial sound,

and taxi cars drop

at the edge of estates,

and motorways close

and breathe in and wait.

For one of the road crew

to turn on the wheel

and wish there was only

metal to feel

that the Anorak kept out

the worst of the cold

that the streets were worth walking

that our bodies weren't old

that all memories were golden

that we knew what to say

that we could retreat from the brink of betray.

But the fence needs erecting

bolts need tightening,

the load doesn't shift

becomes comfort and frightening

the gloves are warm

and the hat feels right,

for one of the road crew

where the fair meets the night.

……

commitments. Once . Coyote. Just 3 words. RIP

Thanks you for reading. As ever . J x

Watching the sun slip beneath mountains,

feeling the water cooling,

I push back towards the buoy to read

the necessary words

strewn through evening cloud

bannered over town.

Castles cut the coastline

in geometric wonder,

carved in times of swimmers in cool desert caves.

Bells ring in towers, in land,

drops of rain fall,

ships off-shore, swept off-guard.

Rain writes braille across the dry stone and returns to edit;

fleeting poems for the blind,

gifted transitory tales of the world’s creation, or purpose, or both.

The lights of town a ruined fairground, in dying heat

seen through the bottom of a glass.

Weary fireworks fade out, transparent sea creatures seen from great distance.

Lights for herders sat high on the hills.

Thank you as ever for reading. Changes coming in September regarding content, options for subscriptions and means to engage. No changes to weekly (usually!) poem though! They’ll still be here. J X

( photo used without permissions - but you all look fab!)

If this were a story of Spain……

it would sing

SING with the sound of a deep song-

in marketplaces where women call,

far out -across the sea to Atlas Mountains where their words may yet resound

It would bear its scars loudly in morning cafes once sun was up, and more quietly in countryside where the dead of both sides lie.

It would have nuns in white veils

awaiting their groom

waiting on song in silent rooms.

Silence and then singing,

Sound and then song

ghosts of long evenings unfulfilled.

Histories tap left running in the room we cannot find.

It would taste of burnt rice from the bottom of the pan,

crisp - fried brown in sticky stocky seafood - scooped from black metal by bread, and swallowed with wine - dry as hills that frame your table.

It would have dogs appearing at night,

running from some great fear in the desert

and blown out onto the road

by some cold wind unbidden.

And It would smell of leather and garlic as it always has

If this were to be a story of Spain then:

It would be written before the heat causes mountains to shimmer and ideas to slip.

It would be kissed by waitresses when it left the square

It would be as cold as the Sierra Nevada, white in the morning light.

Majestic backdrop to majesty.

It would be protected by Earl grey battleships behind the harbour walls at Cartagena

And powered by candy cane Soviet era power stations-

abandoned barbersticks on hillsides.

It would be a ghost story.

All the ghosts, of all the brigade, in the mist on the low hills of Guadarrama

It would echo in shells of bullrings holding hard memory of hard death.

Reflected in stone worn smooth by barefoot and sandal.

It would need to be about rain,

(rain at last!)

in the dry mountains where

goats on mountain roads,

and vertical slopes

sleep beneath arches-

It would be the driest land that you had yet seen

to make you dream of summer rivers and autumn woods

across corrugated brown fields.

-dry land, emasculated by restless ocean slapping twisted rocks

It would weep for Africans cycling old bikes to work in fields of polythene pinned to desert floors

The cover would be electric pink for Bougainvillea against white walls and blue skies.

The ink would be first-press olive oil green.

There would be peacocks in the trees

and orange light for end of day would rest soft on the basilica,

above the Roman theatre,

ammonite cat curled asleep against the hillside.

It would be light trapped in old plaster and the grey folds of statue’s cloak.

It would capture beauty of symmetry and mountain troll faced chaos.

When you were lonely it would send you postcards of bullfighters.

framed in sepia above Toledo bar.

Ever young, and brave.

It would be broken and beautiful.

Very old and very new each morning;

all at once

IF this were to be a story of Spain.

( it would live at El Rincon)

Thank you for reading (again, for some) Something new soon. As ever. J X

In Stitches

We walk

and stitch together what

frayed or loosened overnight.

Each step a thread.

A reconnection.

Track and pathway stitched to route,

– spooling onwards, knots loosening,
colours fly and fray and,

weave this tapestry of walking –

our story of blankets and quilts,

told by the softest edge of embroidered sheet.

How, as we walk

our threads may meet.

Thanks as ever for reading. Enjoy your walks. stay cool! Jx

Underground.

At the mouth
it’s winter breath
exhales to greet you;

‘Come on in’ it says,
‘It’s cold
down here’

And cold it is . Familiar.
Not quite Christmas, yet
September mists already rest
in hollows,

blurring twin handrails
of fairy light
to guide you

through this quick snap
of cold beneath
the burning ground.

Breeze at last.
Figures shift and appear,
subterranean colleagues,

cave dwellers
like yourself,
drawn back into the earth.

Ghost of 1104 to Bournemouth passes.
Full of creases, carriages of cigarettes and newspapers.

At the mouth, winter breath eases them outward, and on.
Creases settle to lowland hills.

Enjoy the heat! Find your shade. Thank you for reading. As ever. Jon x

I hear her singing in the cellar.

Clear note on flagstone.

I sit in the ruins and wait.

It’s not raining yet

but it’s coming.

No point in leaving now,

for the edge of the wood,

suspended latch on waiting gate.

Why leave now?

with rain in the valley

and ruins for shelter.

Why walk on?

When she is singing in the cellar.

Thanks as ever for reading. This for all who know and love this place. As ever J x

She bathed in the river.

He did not stare,

she was too tired

and he did not care.

Her underclothes,

her long dark hair.

Snowflakes in rivers.

Disappear.

We were never in love.

We were never here.

Enjoy your Solstice.

Thank you for reading as ever. J x

Old Friends

A stillness at the heart.

A bedrock of faith.

A place there is no falling from.

Working together in the summer lane.

A long green alley

leaning back into the past.

The beginning known;

Still, as clear

as birdsong.

Our end? farther on,

Where the lane bends a little.

There, beyond the bench.

Thank you as ever for reading. And thank you to all old friends. Farther on! as ever . J x

That Cornish moon.

Layered light on the west.

The moon; star speckled.

Bright in Cornish sky

with black Atlantic

waiting,

it’s long crepe-draped arms thrown open…

Open for the moon to fall,

fall with grace of feathers falling,

slowly, slowly backwards,

away.

That Cornish moon.

Remembered.

Above the valley,

light beneath arches and

on the river, there.

And then falling again,

behind black-blanket feathered clouds.

Veiled,

a fleeting hope to see her face again,

and then gone. Falling,

slowly, slowly backwards,

away.

Many thanks as ever for reading and thanks and love to all others in that field! Jon x

the dogs in long strings of black and white

follow the farmer on his roaring chariot.

He hits the cattle grid at speed and, desperate to follow,

they reduce themselves to a size they once were, and squeeze themselves, diving with feral grace through a gap in the gate beside the grid no dog should quite fit through.

Do they close their eyes?

The old dog ,

An unidentifiable hound, admires his dolphin- like companions and chooses ,with an old aunts grace to tip-toe rapidly across the grid.

His bulk reduced in different ways

Then all,

Gone.

Roar and fur and exhaust and paws,

pounding up the hill,

onwards towards their purpose, their work.

Their unthinking commitment to work and hillside task.

The great sodden arms of the green god

matted, hair threaded with downstream debris,

too heavy to lift above water.

The waters shout in the valley;

This is Avalon,

This is Albion,

the England of the green god

that the good comes from;

A wetland

green and beautiful wetland,

of woven lichen and moss.

So green this morning to be beyond this world.

This catkin beside lichen

leaf beside mould

Sun and cloud thrones, equally measured.

At the turn point;

the season’s pivot,

the ballerina’s pointed toe holding the earth in place

at one perfect point of connection.

THEN

the fall away, the movement - the flow.

But now, the moment.

all held in suspension

of light,

of water,

of sound

of river.

Thank you as ever for reading and deep thanks to all those who comment. Jon x

TWO SUITCASES LAUNDERETTE

Thought he might be going on holiday

two suitcases in the morning;

somewhere brighter,

a gin and tonic,

cloud surfing on a silver,shining jet.

But pulling up closer

watching through traffic,

he took those suitcases to the launderette.

Was wrong to assume and too detached to ask;

thought those cases might contain Hawaiian shirts

and a snorkelling mask.

Can’t say he was smiling

so, guess I should’ve bet.

On two old cases

For the launderette.

Thank you as ever for reading. Jon x

Good to share that sight of an island at the end of the street,

framed by red lights,

two characters ashore in a Conrad story.

The view across to Wales and the wide tide between.

The sense of the very last flick of youth’s tail when first we walked there,

now only memory.

The morning trails across the sand, cut deep by inland waters seeking saltier, deeper encounters with itself.

Sunshine marks the end of the pier, all gothic-rotten, ghost music played through planks and girders,

distorted in tide, swept backwards/forwards relentlessly against the shore; a mocking motion of mortality.

And all this and more in the thinner places above the town.

First, the Iron Age fort that once held hope and friendship, like ours,

and thinner still, thinner than pages of their Steinbeck reprints, the ghosts of Americans, camped ready for what they thought they might be trained for,

the children returning unwanted; to the shores of the old kingdom;

the debris swept from the streets of Troy.

Here they camped, readying for what they could never be ready for,

from back across an ocean meant to protect them,

until men in rooms (would never enter) decreed there was still money in that old world,

so across that ocean wall the boys must climb.

And back they came; clumsy and heavy, full of a muscle built of beef and smoke and gum,

lonely and loudly proclaiming themselves as liberators.

Camped above Weston.

With the Chief.

The last night of their lives.

Thank you as ever for reading. Jon x

The grief that follows walking

Something left behind.

echoed footsteps

drum lightly on the old bones of the hill.

The light carves deepening

furrows in the shell

of distant faces.

Our shadows lean together

on a universal canvas,

of this and other, further places.

That’s it!

Thanks for reading, as ever, J x

A world of curves and spirals

Legends balance on serpent scales,
misty dragon, smoke-rings,
tractor wheels and barrels,
all kind of rounded things.

Curves of knolls and sloping tors
winding waking lanes,
funnels , vats and gunnels,
whirlpools at the drain.

The perfection of the apple,
the turning of the coast,
eyes of owls at midnight
that widen for the ghosts.

Only orchards stand in line,
waiting on the King;
but their world is curves and spirals,
made of rounded things.

Thank you Neil, thank you for reading, as ever . Jon

Third and last of a set about building a relationship with music. There was a beginning, an oceanic sense of the world of music , and art and so many things within our grasp. It is still a wonder, but Ahh the memory of this early days and who we were then…

1978. A need for Marvin Started

It was Clash in 78’.
Police on my back,
bedroom riot revolution
Mohican cul-de-sac.

Christmas present ’78.
Red car, white wall tyre.
Old songs, same passion,
emotion, wrapped-up, pure, entire.

One day I met her-
Then she left me broken hearted,
devoid of understanding,
a need for Marvin started.

Cos’ someone had to help,
interpret why she left,
how what you heard through grapevines
could leave you, torn, bereft.

The Clash were always calling,
but as a route map for the soul,
I looked west to Marvin.
to give me back control.

Thank you for reading as ever. JDB RIP!

was the only one I had and I played it inside out until the grooves were shallow.

But for all the magic of ‘Shake some action’ the teenage salaciousness of ‘Love comes in spurts’ or the drama of ‘New Rose’ the album revolved around Patti Smith’s masterpiece, ‘Piss Factory’.

Though raised around and exposed to some great singers; Collins, Baez, Mitchell, Armatrading, Nicks etc no one had ever told a story like this one, in this way . That hazy piano and late afternoon guitar , both of them running off into the evening while Patti opens her heart.

The album itself and its cover, its type font, its track listing were a great source of wonder and subject of discussion for my friend Jason and I - so much as this is about Patti and the imprint she left on me, it’s also for him, his kindness and his deep understanding of what music could do, and will always do for us.

Defeated and gifted (for PS)

Should I walk the banks of this river? Within the reeds, searching out baskets, frayed out hopes and some lost trace of benediction, as I watch cold waters rise,

cast adrift on ships set west on wave upon wave of broken flags - torn out - shredded by pills and smoke and powder. All gone, all dissipated- lost or flushed out through motel cistern into despair of early American holy western morning light - rolling gently forward as the stars go out and day steps out on stage.

There she is. Smiling and ever assertive still. Out there in the face of it. Waving. Ready to meet us on the beach and talk, walking against the surf.

Understanding power and the dynamics of power in word and image and the joy of song requiring no exposition.

We shall live again, and it will be better. We will all be better. Not as broken. Or petty.

No more walking through empty trains, tired, failing to keep pace with the blank rush of onward coalface night toward ocean and mountain and then nothing.

No more of that. Just love and hope. Sunken ships and treasures raised from the sea and set aright. A licence granted to create and be happy, and then be content within the act.

Waiting at the bar, head down for love to arrive and take you home.

THANK YOU FOR READING, AS EVER , JON.