London - and hey! Look at the date!

Blackfriar Bridge. We're walking along the Thames, on our way to Tate Modern (Girlfriend's photo).




The hustle and bustle of the main street through Notting Hill. But then, just a few steps away:


The peace and quiet of Notting Hill.



Kensington Gardens. We're sitting on a bench eating a sandwich. Behind us, the noise of the traffic. In front of us, as you can see; shimmering quietness.




The local wildlife. (Girlfriend's photo.)

The London Eye (Girlfriend's photo).





Tower Bridge (Girlfriend's photo).




The Cutty Sark-ship on (in?) Greenwich.

Where Lesbians Come From

It is true that lesbians do not have families;
we have pretend family relationships.
We do not have mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters;
our sons and daughters do not count at all,
having no families within which to rear them.
And our lovers - there's nothing in that
but something mocking truth;
for you know it's true
that lesbians do not have families, like you...

We emerge, instead, complete from some dark shell,
beds and beds of us (like oysters,
what else would I mean?)
sea-born on stormy nights
with the wind in a certain quarter.
We rise and wiggle, all slippery and secret,
curling and stretching and glad to be alive,
untangling our hair from the wind and salt and seaweed.
We steal clothes from washing lines,
and once it's daylight, almost pass for human.

Glowing into warmth in the sun or a hard north wind
we lick the salt from our lips,
for now. And smile.
We live for a while, in the light,
despite your brutal laws
and your wish that we were not here;
we return to our beds by moonlight
to nurture and foster the sweet salt shells
that give birth to our lesbian futures.
And there we plot, in our dark sea beds,
the seduction of your daughters.

-- Jan Sellers

This poem was sent to me from The Wondering Minstrels. I'll include the comment:

A marvellous poem. The mocking tone is done just right - funny enough to make you laugh at the absurdity of it, indignant enough to make you realise that it's not perhaps quite that absurd. The truth pushed just far enough to make it satire. The poem works because underlying its ridiculous narration is a deep sense of alienation, of feeling unwanted and other in a world where choosing to live out your sexual preferences makes you sub-human. Plus there's the deeply erotic oyster / salt imagery, of course.

I know practically nothing about Jan Sellers. The Virago New Poets (Virago Press, 1993, edited by Melanie Silgardo and Janet Book) from which this poem is taken scribes her as a "part-time adult education worker, full-time lesbian and intermittent performance poet".

I know a little bit more about the poet. Or rather, I'm guessing it's the same person:-)

Guess where we are going tomorrow?

Remember I lost a bet?

Will be back next week:-)

Photos from the North - part 3

The in-laws has a lovely, lovely dog. Sweet-tempered and playful. Their only worry is that she is too thin. They went to the vet and got advice on what food to give her. She gained a little more weight, but she's still quite slim. I suspect it is because most of the time she's behaving like this:







And like this.


















It is very hard to get her to look straight into the camera...


But we finally managed! I have to admit, in the photo I'm looking a lot more outdoorsy than I actually am:-) Hmm - is "outdoorsy" a real word?

Skylab

We've come so far, thought the astronaut
as he swam around the capsule in his third week
and by accident kicked a god in the eye
--so far
that there's no difference anymore between up and down,
north and south, heavy and light.
And how, then, can we know righteousness.

So far.
And weightless, in a sealed room
we chase the sunrises at high speed
and sicken with longing for a green stalk
or the heft of something in our hands. Lifting a stone.

One night he saw that the Earth was like an open eye
that looked at him as gravely as the eye of a child
awakened in the middle of the night.

Rolf Jacobsen

This poem is beautiful. I really like the image of the Earth as the eye of a child. At the same time, the poem makes me feel a bit uneasy. Like this poem, also by R. Jacobsen.

Photos from the North - part 2

The in-laws live very close to the mountains.


This photo is taken from the in-laws garden. You see that smoke? That's the dust made by huge boulders, that have just come tumbling down the mountain side. When it's snow, I know it's called an "avalanche" in English. But what's the word when it's rocks? In Norwegian: "ras". Anyway, it was awesome! It sounded like distant thunder. I wasn't scared, because I could see that the rocks wouldn't land near us. And also because my father-in-law merely glanced up at the mountain and said "that's just a small one". Then he went back to working in the garden. I was a bit more excited, and took like 20 photos, hee hee:-)

This photo is taken at around 1 AM. In July, the sun doesn't set. Still the sunshine or light during the night is different from daylight. It's softer, not so bright. I really like it. The first time I experienced the midnight sun, I was 13. My father and I travelled around Finnmark (the northernmost county in Norway), visiting relatives. I remember waking up at 3 AM one night, because of laughter and noise outside my bedroom window. When I peaked out I saw a local family, parents and three small kids, on their way to the beach for a picnic! I thought it was wonderful, it seemed very holiday-ish and fun.

Hang on

One day, as I was lazing in the sunshine, huge and oddly Syd-shaped clouds appeared on the horizon. A few minutes later the rain was POURING down. As I hurriedly put sun lotion, crime paperback and sunglasses into my bag, I suddenly remembered something: "Hang on - didn't I have a blog?"

This is the view from our veranda, late in August. The sun has just set.