Traveller

(Cheryl Garner, 2013)

The seats are broken, nothing fits,

The angle of the light is wrong.

I wonder why the rain is dry,

I wonder why the words are wrong.

 

I left the station weeks ago,

Now float between two points, alone.

I feel the rail beneath my hands.

I taste the metal of the earth.

 

The sky has opened, slit its mouth,

And spilt its meaning on the dawn.

Its nether life has split my soul,

Down here between the buckled tracks.

 

I float between two points alone,

Between two worlds: there’s nothing more.

 

Journal Entry – 24/11/1998

what makes a journey worthwhile? Arriving at one’s intended destination, roughly on time? Well, that’s the last couple of seconds taken care of. But what of the journey? The whole Journey?

Of Ithaka…

Engagement… being in a time (not a place)… to live as a verb, to be and to do.

 

Photography by Cheryl Garner (2013)

Poetry by thecheesewolf (2013)

Train Journal by Gavin Jones (1998)

 

Wandering

(Cheryl Garner, 2013)

 

I took a train to see the world.

Each station brought me something new:

An angle never seen before,

A chance of colour, shape and sound.

 

I don’t suppose you saw me go:

Just couldn’t see the world like that,

Just couldn’t see the grey old dust

As tracks which led to somewhere grand.

 

I took the train and saw the sky.

You’d never know the blue I saw.

A destination never holds

The freedom of a wandering heart.

 

I don’t suppose you missed me much:

For after all, to you I’m dust.

 

Journal Entry – November(?) 1998

I broke my journey today. Not because of any whim, simply that the train we were on was late, and I figured I might be able to catch a faster one from Bradford.

People seemed lost, or panicked. I hadn’t seen them like this before, and I wondered what would happen if the trains just stopped for good. how would they cope? For that matter how would I cope? There seemed to be some kind of togetherness breaking out, but it was kind of with a sense of irony…

…I don’t believe this is only a matter of months since all that happened, and nothing yet seems to have settled…

 

Photography by Cheryl Garner (2013)

Poetry by thecheesewolf (2013)

Train Journal by Gavin Jones (1998)

 

 

Passengers

(Cheryl Garner, 2013)

So who is there to hear our sighs?

Our tears will go unnoticed here,

And we will pass, as angels pass:

Unseen and in the end, unloved.

 

And who will take this track with us?

Another lonely soul who sits

And traces light on passing clouds,

With nothing left to lose or win.

 

And we will fill out hollow eyes

With all the dust which fell from stars.

And we will cling on to the hope

That someone here will share our weight.

 

So who is there to dream of us,

To hold our hand, to make this stop?

 

Journal Entry – 25/11/1998

Is this what you want from an autobiographical passage? Anecdotes and blood, history and soil? Well, my tracks are not to be found here, in the earth of lineage. The chances of there being a bench left with my name on it are limited. Such, as they say, is life.

I knew you. I thought I did. But maybe all that was there was a mirage – a fear that beneath all of the love and (worse) sadness, there was simply a hollowness. A nothing. I thought I knew you, but maybe all I knew was my own attachment to indifference.

 

Photography by Cheryl Garner (2013)

Poetry by thecheesewolf (2013)

Train Journal by Gavin Jones (1998)

 

 

Reflection

(Cheryl Garner, 2013)

In you he finds the space to be,

So obvious for all to see.

You sit together on the seats:

You’re sharing thoughts, not needing words.

 

I watch you, wonder if you know,

And wonder if you’re growing cold.

He’s gazing down upon your hands:

You know he is: he often does.

 

And then, I’ve gone a step too far:

Not you, but me I’m reading here.

You catch my eye, then look away.

He only needs to touch your hands.

 

The thoughts pass on, the words have gone:

The two of us are miles apart.

 

Journal Entry – 20/11/1998

Appropriation takes up the task… will fail to understand and misuse… as in detail… there can be no understanding in literature. Appropriation is an inevitability, neither positive, not negative in itself… take, reuse and re-apply. Run the risk of misapplication… it is possible… inevitable.

I say to myself I understand the One Way Street. But life has its other… its motives are opaque.

 

Photography by Cheryl Garner (2013)

Poetry by thecheesewolf (2013)

Train Journal by Gavin Jones (1998)

 

Between Stations

(Cheryl Garner, 2013)

 

I sit between points A and B,

And watch the rooks begin to roll,

Across the fields, all scattered leaves.

We pass them by, they fill my mind,

 

With thoughts of wings and freer things.

We journey by the forest track

And see the beech and maple turn,

With golden branches trailed in shade.

 

And yesterday will come again,

With all the love and hope alive,

And none of this will then have been,

And we would take a different train.

 

I sit between points A and B,

I close my eyes and feel life pass.

 

Journal Entry – 15/11/1998

The train is quiet on the morning. In the evening it is noisier – full off chatter. I wish I didn’t know the reason for this.

The fields are full of birds today… rooks, a few magpies, starlings in gangs. The starlings are gathering for the winter. They will probably head off into one of those enormous roosts sometime soon. The fight out there will soon become deadly serious. We are all aware of it.

I’m not sure what music I would listen to today – if I could. For once in my life, music would not make a difference. It’s not going to change things.

 

Photography by Cheryl Garner (2013)

Poetry by thecheesewolf (2013)

Train Journal by Gavin Jones (1998)

 

 

off switch

(Cheryl Garner, 2013)

He sat alone in carriage four

And felt the depths inside his world:

It fell away and left him hung,

Some music making pointless sounds.

 

He saw the train in hidden ways:

In colours, shapes and sorrow dreams.

He saw it as it really was:

A metal box bereft of tales.

 

The other people on the train

All tried their best to look so calm,.

He felt them panic all around:

They looked for something true to hold.

 

He closed his eyes, the music played:

Too much to take, he switched it off.

 

Journal Entry – 21/11/1998

Just closing my eyes and being at least honest to myself about my thoughts.

On the front of a newspaper: another loss of innocence. The person next to me is marking primary school classwork.

Maybe to escape, to break from the inwardness. To find new areas to write into, to run into (or from). This page has ceased to be an environment for ideas, for anyone. And who am I now? A presumed me? An overt me – the one they all know? To find a new voice which – by its very dishonesty gets closer to the truth. Can I write away the tension in my neck? Can I make the world in my image – or find instead a new world. I know I shouldn’t be afraid: all is all and always was.

 

Photography by Cheryl Garner (2013)

Poetry by thecheesewolf (2013)

Train Journal by Gavin Jones (1998)

 

commuter

(Cheryl Garner, 2013)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ll see her standing in the rain.
The place, the time: they never change.
She hugs her bag in front of her,
Her toes are on the yellow line.

It’s rare to see her raise her head.
On days like this her hair is wet
And darker than its usual brown.
She stares on to the tracks, unmoved.

For years we’ve shared the same routine:
She stands, I wait – anticipate
Her being there, existing there -
A confirmation of our lives,

And how our lives are drifting by.
Her toes are on the yellow line.

 

Journal Entry – 17/11/1998

Where does this fear come from… the fear of travel? Every day a journey, there and back. A movement through space, there and back. But can’t escape myself and neither can anyone else.

 

Photograph by Cheryl Garner (2013)

Poem by thecheesewolf (2013)

Train Journal by Gavin Jones (1998)

 

Broken

(Cheryl Garner, 2013)

He broke his journey on that day.

No reason why, no thought before,

He simply picked his bag and left,

Four stops before the usual place.

 

And still without a question raised

He left the station, walked into

The town whose name he’d always seen

But never thought a real place.

 

He wandered on without a goal,

Just looking at the streets and shops,

And people on their way to work,

And none of it made any sense.

 

He stopped and stared up at the sky.

Same sky, same day: different life.

 

Journal Entry – 19/11/1998

Who is to say what is anachronistic and what “just is because it is”? The is nothing intrinsically odd about how fields are arranged: they “just are”. If one landowner tried to straighten out their field, all hell would – more than likely – break out. People protect what is, no matter how absurd, no matter how bizarre the chance configuration of elements that produced such a ridiculous status quo.

Writing on a journey changes the way that I travel. Rather than sporadic and unfocussed thoughts I fill my time with words I can return to. It imposes a form upon my thoughts, which are by their nature scatter gun. I look up from the book and it is a kind of freedom, as if I am stepping out into some kind of dream. Then I return back to the blue lines of the page, and I am back into reflection and into the strictures of the world of writing: the world of work.

 

Photography by Cheryl Garner (2013)

Poem by thecheesewolf (2013)

Train Journal by Gavin Jones (1998)

 

Terminus

Cheryl Garner 2013 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And so it seems this all must end

In blue and gold and shattered glass,

In metal coils around the throats

Of mottled lives between the cracks.

 

What route I took I just don’t know,

It seemed so long and hardly changed:

No matter how, the rains will fall,

The storm will come and I will fall.

 

I have no questions left to ask.

Explosions in the sky can pass,

Explosions take my eyes and pass,

Explosions bring this to its end.

 

The summer lost its heart to me,

But I was cold and told it so.

 

Journal Entry (18/11/1998)

Because I was early this evening I am cramped on to an earlier train than usual. Because I was early out of work I will have half an hour waiting in Steeton for a bus. I could have waited inLeedsstation, but I had to run to catch this train. No time for well thought through decisions.

It is hard to hide this as I write. I have very little room for my arms because I am in the middle of a seat supposedly made for three (three children it must have been). This was because I was early, so early I was late.

It is hard to hide this, but important that I do, though why it is I am not exactly sure. I write to be read, after all.

Writing can be secret, can be about secret things, of course, but the act of writing should be. Most definitely. It is a question of time: time for the reading of others.

Control can be incipient, silent, shy. Writing kind of demands that kind of control. It is quiet until it is finished.

 

 

Photograph by Cheryl Garner (2013)

Poem by thecheesewolf (2013)

Train Journal entry by Gavin Jones (1998)

 

 

 

 

video poem for the piece Limestone Dales – one of the poems from the sequence The Song of Ondine.

This poem was filmed on location at various waterfalls around the Yorkshire Dales. The waterfalls of the Yorkshire Dales have long had associations with water spirits and elementals. It would be highly surprising if Ondine were not to be found hiding out behind one of these beautiful features of the limestone landscape.

 

 

 

The Things (Les Choses)

 

Video Poem: The Things (Les Choses).

Poetry by thecheesewolf (aka Gavin Jones), music by Joseph Kwasnik

Inspired by the writings of Georges Perec and Walter Benjamin, The Things (Les Choses) is a history of the everyday, of objects imbued with personal meanings and stories. The five poems together tell the tales of five objects which have formed part of my life (indeed part of me) for the last twenty or so years. The images were all filmed in my home on the Lancashire and Yorkshire border (in the North of England). The music, by Joseph Kwasnik, was recorded in the same room as the filming. In keeping with my other works, this poem looks at the central theme from a range of perspectives.

If you would like to read the poem, they are available at www.thecheesewolf.wordpress.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Trailer for the video poem “The Things (Les Choses)”. Music by Joseph Kwasnik. The Things (Les Choses) is a work in five parts, inspired by the writings and ideas of Georges Perec, Walter Benjamin and Gaston Bachelard.

 

 

 

 

Pen-y-Ghent and Language

A video poem for Walk Number 7 from thecheesewolf’s series Ten Walks. This piece was filmed on Pen-y-Ghent (The Hill of the Winds) in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, northern England. One of the main themes of this poem is language and naming – in this case the names of hills. Pen-y-Ghent is believed to be the Brythonic name for the hill – it is very similar to the Welsh for “Hill of the Wind”. Clearly there is a Celtic resonance in the name, and there are many remnants of the pre-”English” cultures of the Dales. Indeed, on nearby Ingleborough there are the clear outlines of ancient round houses, and just up the dale from Pen-y-Ghent itself are the remains of a small Roman outpost.  If you are ever in this neck of the woods, do try to check out Pen-y-Ghent, and the other hills around (Ingleborough, Whernside, Buckden Pike etc). It is a special place, and the food, wildlife and walking are all wonderful.

 

if you would like to read the poem, go to www.thecheesewolf.wordpress.com, and look under the Ten Walks tab. Alternatively, click on the captions button on the video for a “sub-titled” version. this may not work on Kindles, for some reason.

 

A Breath (A Stream) – video poem

 

A video poem of the piece A Breath (A Stream). This video poem was filmed in the summer of 2013, and is of the upper reaches of the River Wharfe (Yorkshire Dales National Park, England). It is one of a series of video poems which I am making to accompany my 14 line poetry.

 

If you’d like to read the poem, the following link will take you there: www.thecheesewolf.wordpress.com

However, if you’d rather, you can click the youtube commentary box (bottom right of the video poem) and it will bring up the English “subtitles”. Just click it again to remove them. This facility doesn’t appear to work on Kindle, for some reason.

 

Enjoy!

 

a video poem by set around the site of a Roman fort on Mastile’s Lane, above Malham in the Yorkshire Dales.

The written version of this video poem can be found at:

www.thecheesewolf.wordpress.com

this video poem is copyright Gavin Jones 2013

Suburban Sylph of Crying Owls is a video poem for thecheesewolf (aka Gavin Jones)’s poem of the same name. This video poem features the artwork of Carine Brosse.

 

For the written version of this video poem, follow the link:

www.thecheesewolf.wordpress.com

 

this video poem is copyright Gavin Jones 2013

 

To praznino zapolnjujeva s pesmijo, in cvetovi, pticami in

ljubečimi besedami. Vendar v najini noči se vrzel vrne, in celo

solze se preprosto porabijo.

 

Dnevi in tedni vsak dodajo svoje vrstice, ki hladno zahtevajo

svoj davek, in tišina preganja nasmehe, ki jih tvoriva najine

solze ne bodo upočasnile potek časa.

 

Ne morem prenašati radosti, ki si jo zamudila. Tako tukaj sediva

in gledava sijaj žerjavice, ki drsi v pepel. Glasba potihne in

prepuščena sva

 

ničemur, samo spokojnosti, in solzam, ki se rojevajo, vendar

nikoli ne padejo.

 

 

Slovene version of the poem A Simple Song of Silence, translation by:

http://natasek.blogspot.co.uk/

 

trans. © Copyright 2013, Nataša Dolenc

original by Gavin Jones

 

 

Pungguk di antara bumi dan bulan

Menari di awang awangan

Meluncur, memanjat awan

Embun menanti penuh harapan

 

Mencabar deruan angin

Meniti malam yang dingin

Pandangan tajam menikam

Pabila bahaya mencengkam

 

Hilang seketika, tiba-tiba

Mengentap angan angan hiba

Terbang sayup, alah bergaya

Ajaib dan sungguh perkasa

 

Tiada yang anih lagi kerdil

Tiada yang mustahil.

 

 

Malay version of the poem “The Barn Owl”, translated by:

http://www.lapoesieparninotaziz.blogspot.co.uk/

 

trans. © Copyright 2013 ninotaziz

Original by Gavin Jones, 2013

Carine Brosse is an incredibly talented multimedia artist, living and working in the Yorkshire Dales. This is a detail of one of her artworks (part painting, part sculpture) based on my poetry.

alchemy

The Alchemy of Rains by Carine Brosse

The text for the poem can be found at:

http://thecheesewolf.wordpress.com/2013/01/13/the-alchemy-of-rains/

The website of Carine Brosse is:

http://www.onceuponatimeetc.com/

 

The Apple Trees is a video poem for thecheesewolf (aka Gavin Jones)’s poem, the written version of which can be found at:

www.thecheesewolf.wordpress.com

 

this video poem is copyright Gavin Jones 2013