THE POET TODAY, NOTWITHSTANDING ALL THE DISCOVERIES OF SCIENCE, AND THE ACCUMULATED LEARNING OF MANKIND, ENJOYS NO ADVANTAGE OVER HOMER. (Henry David Thoreau)

"Where is the literature which gives expression to Nature? He would be a poet who could impress the winds and streams into his service, to speak for him; who nailed words to their primitive senses, as farmers drive down stakes in the spring, which the frost has heaved; who derived his words as often as he used them - transplanted them to his page with earth adhering to their roots; whose words were so true and fresh and natural that they would appear to expand like the buds at the approach of spring, though they be half smothered between two musty leaves in a library - aye, to bloom and bear fruit there, after their kind, annually, for the faithful reader, in sympathy with surrounding Nature."

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[The above text, is, of course, by Henry David Thoreau. It was written circa 1850/60. It struck a chord with me, as i'm sure it did my father, a little bit of an antiquarian when it came to literature and the arts, from whose little Penguin Edition book, sent to him from Australia, by Retta, in 1999, i copied-out this paragraph. My father said he did not care for "modern poetry". The most modern he got was to read the poetry of Thomas Hardy and William Barnes, due to the fact that we moved to Dorset, from Hampshire, in 1986. He was not interested to browse through my own library, under his own roof. i note this, not to disparage, simply to give  you, the blog reader, a little background snapshot. i am so pleased that  these books of his find a friendly place amongst my own. And i feel there are worthy contemporary poets whom Thoreau would applaud, just as i applaud Thoreau himself, writing some 160 years ago.]

 [The present-day Goldy Hermitage was my father's house from 1986 to 2006.]

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bernard hemensley

11 / September / 2015

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MY REPORT FROM BRIDPORT for K.

The tanned guy alongside me with a woman looking like an original member of Kerouac's rucksack-revolutionaries now moreso a man-of-the-world but weary in late afternoon heat said he was Swiss in answer to my question and the accent he said was swiss-german.
i played a long shot and asked if he knew of swiss poets & poetry. 
A little he answered.
Have you heard of Franco Beltrametti i asked.
Yes he said.
He said YES!!!
What are the odds of THAT i thought. i'm here at the Bus Station in Bridport in Dorset waiting for almost an hour for a bus to little ol' Weymouth and the guy alongside sharing a dilapidated wooden bench knows of Franco Beltrametti! In fact he's been to Riva San Vitale. We know the same references. We know the same names. Snyder. Kyger. Koller. Welch. He's met William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg....etc...etc..
i ask him his name.
BERNHARD he says.
BERNHARD!
His name is Bernard with an "H".
My name is Bernard H.
Ha  ha  haaaaaa!
Such a happenstance.
What are the odds?
A chance in a million.
But chance is the nature of all connections throughout all of time.
Life is a chance.
To be born in human form is more than chance it is truly miraculous.
Synchronicities abound if we have but the eyes to see.
One vast Indra's Net of connectivity that touches and links everything.

There was an accident on the bus route on the road at Chideock. Thus all the buses were delayed and i ended-up sitting beside a "retired" poet who would not tell me his surname who knew of an obscure poet called Beltrametti as did i. We had also both published him.
This did not "happen for a reason" as some people like to think. i am not of that persuasion.
Life happens said Robert Frost.
It just happens.
Bernhard said he would email me.

We shook hands as he and "his" woman got-on the first bus out of there to Lyme Regis as they'd done enuf waiting and looked so wor(l)d weary.
And i was scared shitless sitting upstairs on a bus travelling at the speed-of-sound in the opposite direction to Dorchester a few minutes later.

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bernhard hemensley

GOLDY HERMITAGE

09 / 09 / 2015

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MY REPORT FROM GREENHILL BEACH for K.

Cross-legged on the stones mountainbike on its side absorbed by bluegreen sea & small white rolling surf that crests the waves and there's a whooshing sound not as sonorous as at Chesil it's a gentling whoosh that's comforting with its regularity over the stones.
There's a group of 6 people to my right not so far away that i don't know what's going-on with a casual glance or two but i cannot hear voices not even from the 3 babies 2 can negotiate the pebbles to the water unaided while the youngest other crawls mighty fast only to be retrieved before getting to the sea i mused that maybe they were Mormons the man had a big beard it was hard to say which of the babies was with which of the 2 young women or if they indeed were all his the man went swimming plunged-in quickly without changing or stripping-off his shorts & "T" shirt then changed into fresh things when he returned after a few minutes and laid-down on his back in the sun.
3 seagulls in view and white sails far away and some sorts of vessels glinting indicating their presence nothing else to inform the eye that there is anything even there.
Clouds accumulating ringing the bay from the hills but the sun should see-out the afternoon and early evening without any interference.
Elderly man instructs child on the art of skimming stones that bounce on the waters while an elegantly dressed blonde snaps fotos lovingly but the exercise is soon terminated as the child does not appear to have the co-ordination required and they joggle up the beach to their café only to return a few minutes later and repeat the performance & 2 passing pale shirtless teens trying to light-up roll-ups in the breeze pitch a few stones hurriedly with equally no real aptitude. 
i look-up from my hurried scribbling to see a paddle steamer out at sea i do believe it's of the Red Funnel Line with 2 red white and black striped funnels it's halfway across the bay and so far-out i could easily have missed it i see a yacht cross its bows at extremely close quarters but it's hard to gauge from the shore at such a distance and by how far it missed i do not know.
i've been here about 1 hour i've eaten my 2 mandarins i've read a little more of the little book by Thoreau (Walking) i brought with me and earmarked a passage to post on my blog and it's relatively peaceful and uninhabited on this part of the long beach and i think Riley would've equally enjoyed a life such as this!

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bernard hemensley

GOLDY HERMITAGE

8 / SEPTEMBER / 2015

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