Mike in Finland

Sunday 26 May 2013

Magnifying Glass



Since this blog started life as a poetry blog I reckon it´s time to post a poem. This one is from my collection, Midas Touch, published by Ward Wood Publishing. I have played a little trick in line 3. As is well known, there´s a certain kind of language, or diction, I should say, which is outlawed in contemporary poetry. Archaic terminology has no place in poems written in 2013. The basic premise is quite reasonable, of course, but my inner devil loves to break rules. `Greensward´ is a word that would not be accepted by most editors, quite rightly, I have to admit. Lovely, therefore, to smuggle it in as `green sword´. Heh, heh.


Magnifying Glass

At school we´ve all looked into one,
hovered it over a blade of grass
and seen the green sword´s cutting edge.

We´ve peered at the tips of our fingers,
the geography of whorls writ suddenly large,
and followed the Nile across green and yellow
to Abri, El Khandaq, Khartoum.

When the boy at the back raised his to one eye
and winked hugely, we laughed,
but the side of his face
stepped out of itself.

At arm´s length it made trees shrink
and stand on their heads,
a single leg pointing up
into a grassy sky.

Tuesday 21 May 2013

Decrepit



Here´s the view at the end of my garden. I call this one `decrepit´, but is it art?


Tuesday 7 May 2013

Happy with my new Kindle



I received my Kindle reader last Friday and have been getting used to it. I have to say, I´m dead impressed. I´d heard good things about them from friends who had them so my expectations were quite high, and they haven´t been disappointed. I got the most basic, cheapest model and at the moment I still think it answers all my needs, but I wouldn´t be surprised if I start to hanker after something a bit more sophisticated once I get used to the one I´ve got, and begin to find out more about the extra features on more expensive models. But let´s see.

At the moment I´m reading V.G.Lee´s Diary of a Provincial Lesbian and enjoying it enormously:



A great read. Highly recommended.

I´ve started adding volumes to the Kindle reader. Got my own novel and poetry collection, of course, and a copy of Dickens´ The Old Curiosity Shop and Byron´s Don Juan, both completely free. I haven´t had time to look at them properly yet, but at a first glance the Byron appears to be formatted quite satisfactorily. And I´ve paid for a copy of Vonnegut´s Slaughterhouse Five.

I´ve been amazed by the selection of entirely free books available. In addition, many other books are so cheap that they almost feel free. But not all. There are some titles where the Kindle version is more expensive than the paperback, which I don´t really understand.

Anyway, whilst I´m sure I will still buy and read `real´ books, I´m certainly a convert to the Kindle reader. I´m looking forward to travelling this summer with a couple of dozen books that will fit into a jacket pocket comfortably.