For Ukraine… — A new and topical poem
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How this came about
I'd always had higher priorities than writing more poems since I wrote The Horizon Watcher in March 1995. After many purges over the years, I published the full collection of the remaining poems of mine in 2015, under the title of The Horizon Watcher — The Collected Poetry.
But then, in March 2022, two powerful major factors converged upon me to create another poetic utterance:
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My Project Fix the Human Condition, in which I'd been working through deep (subconscious and indeed universal) levels of consciousness to identify, and initiate the fixing of, the underlying main causes of human dysfunction and irrationality, on a (supra-)universal scale, and
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The unspeakable hideousness of the current war of that ruthless despot, WAR CRIMINAL and major threat to world peace Vladimir Putin and his henchmen, against the Ukrainian people.
During February and March 2022 it was becoming more and more clear that my unprecedentedly bold and adventurous project was showing signs of beginning to bear fruit (I and a few individuals reporting back to me were experiencing some very positive effects in our own respective functioning and life experience), and that we were getting close to a point in the project where its powerful 'humanizing' (actually self-actualization) effects would presumably be rapidly becoming noticed world-wide, and even stopping wars and other abominations as people came more and more to their senses.
Frustratingly for me, and sadly for the rest of us, from my spring 2023 viewpoint it appears that the widespread major changes in human mindset and behaviour for the better are currently blocked except in the case of exceptionally 'open' and aware people — pretty-well exclusively a modest proportion of those with no soul.
If I'd really stopped to think about it, that was fairly predictable because it was pretty obvious to me that the underlying misconfigurations in consciousness would have more or less universally set up deeply ingrained patterns of brain function (and even structure), which would require individual ongoing use of the sort of methods I present on my Clarity of Being site in order progressively to clear them. Unfortunately the hugely vast majority of people are affected by such patterns in such a way that they're unmotivated to do anything significant to bring about such change in themselves.
That doesn't mean that my potentially world-changing project is a failure in its primary purpose, because when people reincarnate, at least into new planetary civilizations, they would presumably be free of those patterns in their brain function, and thus could at last manifest as powerful, rational and completely positively motivated full humans, and healthy, fully functioning civilizations could emerge then for the first time in all of 'Existence'.
Meanwhile, it was continuing to appal me that one individual of unsound mind could be allowed not only to commit such an enormity of atrocities upon the people of a peaceful neighbouring country on the basis of that individual's paranoid and egotistical delusions, but to be a major threat to world peace and indeed to the continuation of Humanity on this planet.
Like so many others, I was deeply touched by some of the news reports of the war on BBC radio, from their intrepid war correspondents, and was wondering whether perhaps I might compose a short and intense music work in response — perhaps something in the vein of my De Profundis Clamavi — A Cry From the World, which closely followed the '9/11' terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre in 2001, though actually it was intended to be a response to any and all the horrors perpetrated by the underlying human dysfunctions. so is just as relevant to the current situation as to '9/11'.
In the event that idea was probably not going to get followed up for practical reasons — but then on 16 March 2022 I was getting some new inner excitements arising, apparently because further very positive changes were occurring within my system as a result of a further step in the processes in deeper consciousness initiated by my rather mind-boggling little project.
That night I got a bit of sleep initially but then, as hadn't happened for decades, I was assailed by an 'overactive mind' state that was focused on various lines and images of a poem coming up, which were clearly purposeful and intending to work out into some sort of poem as a little loving gift to the Ukrainian people — and, I think really also to the real, decent Russian people who are mortified at what their autocracy is doing in their name.
The following day I wrote down those lines / ideas that I still remembered, and then worked it out, with further lines accreting, as though it were a brief symphonic fantasy. Some of my poems, and especially all my novels, were composed as though they were symphonic music compositions.
My poetry style — blazing its own trail
This poem is typical of my mature style and approach to form and structuring — though flexibility and variety of approach, and giving a wide berth to the pointless constraints of the various poetry traditions and fashions, has always been one of my hallmarks, every poem or other creative utterance of mine being something of an experiment, an adventure, to see what I could build up from the initial starting elements, bringing in different layers of meaning, which often speak out from between the words, the phrases and the lines.
To me, regular metrical rhyming verses or stanzas are a relatively crude and superficial — I even dare insult the masses by saying 'primitive'! — means of poetic utterance, shielding people from all the inspiring and horizon-broadening unexpecteds and unknowns that add real meaning and inspiration to our life experience. I look beyond the comfort zone of the familiar and the repetitive that the majority compulsively stay within.
A fair proportion of my poems are dramatic and even 'shocking' in their intensity — but here we have another side — more characteristic of my view of everything nowadays, with much deeper understandings, and a playful deceptively quiet gentleness of tone. No neat rhyming line endings, but a fair number of discreet interconnections through use of partial sound-alike words or phrases, conveying worlds of nuance and 'inner meaning'.
after their daughter's sudden endin the second line becomes
our friend till all waters come to an endmuch later. And see how many such partial sound-alikes there are for 'Ukraine'. Some are fairly obvious, but others are pretty subtle and may escape your direct notice first time round, but would still be having an effect on your overall impression of the dream-like picture being painted.
Many people just mechanically reading this, or indeed many of my other poems, would perceive little or no rhythm in the respective piece. The truth is, each is rhythmically conceived, but the rhythm is flexible and varied, giving masses of nuance of effect that regular metrical poetry could never achieve.
For a recording of me giving a reading of it, please see below the printed poem further below…
I'm sorry I can't translate the poem into Ukrainian or Russian — but actually any translation at all would lose a major part of the 'nuance magic' of the piece, because all the cross-connections between different parts of the poem created by use of 'partial sound-alikes' — a flexible, 'organic' sort of rhyming not tied to the traditional end-of-line — would be lost.
I've included the prologue and epilogue sounds that I've used in the recorded poem. There, those sounds are dovetailed-in.
For Ukraine — A New Painting On My Wall, In Which…
('prologue')
I love through pain
, as they say, under the shadow of the refugee train…
In sullen darkness wend their tomb-like trails; among the blocks they search in vain and search too far again after their daughter's sudden end…
I’m going to take my inner fire, which knows no limits, and place it there, where it’s still dark, smouldering, and very, very cold for those with no power and only dirt to eat.
A trusty dog stands to attention below the stars, shivering and wondering why, and wondering where.
— A dog that one grows to love…
Seeing that resplendent fire in the dog’s eyes, they named him Ukraine, after their weeping land, and with them he shares his fierce yet gentle fire.
Such is Ukraine.
I’m going to find the river of tears down there in the shivering rubble-strewn dark, armed with my inner fire,
And redirect that river’s flow so nothing’s wasted — so it'll grow new crops, new grains in the fields to feed those now cold and starving to the bone.
Determinedly, knowingly, dog Ukraine now nuzzles up against passing old man as a long-time friend.
AMAZING, baffling to behold! — This man’s somehow walking on just one leg, with no stick, labouring
— Struggling to carry the other, blown-off, leg in case sometime he might find out how to fix or glue it on again…
— Still on his way regardless, to play his part on a battlefield, in case he can make it in time to benefit somebody, somehow, on this troubled land.
Dog Ukraine gives him new fire, new inspiration — body strength sadly now fast to wane, but not his will, his inner fire…
Such is Ukraine.
In yet another dark rubble-strewn corner suffering a new and grievous pain,
Inconsolably weeps a Russian soldier, heartbroken at what he’d been made to do
— Being comforted by Ukrainian woman with blown-off arm — the husband insistently whispering in his ear “You’re a good, good, guy, made of the real human stuff! — This is not- your- fault, no matter where you fell! You’re our friend till all waters come to an end!”.
Such is Ukraine.
I'm going to go out to their country's troublesome neighbour, grab that regime there in my hand like a bunch of nettles, hold it up for the world to see—
— and deliberately DROP it, so it shatters into delicately flurrying clouds of spring blossom petals plus mysterious invisible 'something' they call 'peace', and another even more mysterious that the really smart call 'freedom'!
I’m going to go there soon some day, to meet and greet that fire-eyed free-wandering dog Ukraine, and all those who shared-around his precious fire-of-the-heart in the field for us all!
Then, effusively embracing, we’ll rejoice once more in the new and gentle spring dew, sun and rain, and wave our greetings to make much of the incoming joyful tourist train!
Yes, such is Ukraine…
('epilogue')
Reading of the poem by the Author on 23 March 2022 in Fernworthy Forest, Dartmoor, Devon, UK.
This was made in a fairly dense stand of more or less mature Sitka spruce trees, and I include two readings with different perspective. The recorder was in the same position for both, but I recorded about 2 metres and 4 metres distance from it. The closer recording is more clear, with less distraction, but the more distant one has a much higher level of (natural) ambience, including a very subtle reverberance (which comes to notice significantly at the loudest points), and gives a stronger sense of 'presence' and 'occasion'. I also gave that recording some pre-emphasis (weighting to the lower treble) to bring out my voice more clearly — something I'd never do for a natural soundscape recording in itself.
I built up these finished versions by copying and pasting the best parts out of several 'takes' that I made of both the close and more distant renderings. As I'm getting disconcertingly close to the princely age of 80, my voice lacks the degree of control it used to have — in particular, a certain 'old-age wavering', which I wasn't able to avoid altogether. Also there's often a slight hesitancy of details in my speech, which has been a lifelong issue. Both those factors prevent these renderings from being fully as I intended — a more steady and incisive voice would be much more effective, provided it were also sensitively expressive.
Closer — ambience subdued
More distant — ambience more prominent
The closer recording is also published as a YouTube video, which uses photos of my immediate surroundings in Fernworthy Forest while making the recordings.
Later note (July 2023) — My reading of that first line not up to scratch!
I was a little put out recently, on listening again to my renditions of this poem, because since then I'd got a much deeper feeling for the first line, which especially in the 'closer' version, I 'd rendered embarrassingly prosaically. Although the slower speed I used for that line in the 'more distant' version is more like how it would go for optimal effect, I hadn't significantly picked up on an implicit rhythmic quality of that line, so it falls rather flat. I'd now emphasize that aspect (it's how I naturally hear that line in my mind now).
The rhythm is actually suggestive of a refugee train trundling along jointed rails. Also, doing it that way, 'under' would be particularly emphasized, which would tend to give a sense of menace, because this is just following a menacing peal of distant thunder in the recording.
That would fit much better, then, with the next line, which is slow and dwelling on the sound of the words. Maybe I'll get an opportunity to revisit that location and do a few new 'takes' of that line there, and replace the old and prosaic with the new and more 'live'. — Or maybe I could record somewhere with almost no background noise or close reflections of the sound, so I could put that against a clip from ambience recordings I made during my session for the poem. We'll see…
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