There is so much in this Jamie. Especially poignant for me, the last two lines of The Flicker, captured so eloquently: ‘What will be the last word I remember? What will be the first word I forget? ‘ I see my whole life and time of being as a flicker … fragile and almost not there, but still can’t be dismissed. Beautiful writing.❤️
I love it- makes me think of the opening line of a soap opera my mother watched while I was growing up - The Days of Our Lives- “Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.” 🙏❤️
I adore the choice of words you've made. This morning, I saw your poetry book around the house and found myself thinking about poetry letters. I would love to send out my newsletter by email and a shorter version on paper. I would also love to see your handwriting on those poems, so they can stay closer to me—to pin them up on a wall like a painting, because they are landscapes of your mind.
I adore everything about this post, and this part truly stayed with me:
"Memory is elusive. Words are inadequate to capture it.
Is language halfway between remembering and forgetting?"
And also:
"Dark gives way to the flicker of light. The other senses give way to sight.
Are we here to remember? Are we here to forget?
Both look back at the past."
Beautiful—just beautiful.
I wrote this in my journal for the full moon ritual. Thank you for your light; it is surely one to remember and to keep warm along the way in this short life of ours. I will hold it close.
Thanks Katerina! Does anybody use paper anymore? I love its touch. I think you have a great idea with your newsletter and handwriting. Landscapes of soul.
It is a blessing to be able to share words and poetry. Poetry only exists because of the failure of language. Language maybe always lives somewhere between remembering and forgetting. Poetry is what poetry does to us regardless if we wrote the words or not. I’m honoured that these words brought some full moon reflection for you. You have a gift with your writing that helps me see my own reflection. Time flies so it seems. Those moments where it stops are what I remember. Thanks for Being- Here 🙏❤️
Thank you, Jamie, Being- Here 🙏❤️ The gift we have is that we meet each other, we mirror, we share, and we grow. I stopped at "poetry only exists because of the failure of language"—wow, it made me think of so many things, especially how we often rely on our rationality, when in fact, the most beautiful, moving experiences lie beyond it. Time flies, and this made me think of a quote:
“Remain very glad and grateful for all this—yet none of it hits me as did that night sky full of stars.”
Thank you so much, Jamie, for sharing ‘The Flicker.’ I love how your voice beautifully inhabits those fleeting, in-between moments - the space where night becomes day, memory blurs into forgetting, and existence finds itself suspended between what was ... and what is yet to be. Your flickering words remind me of the beauty and complexity when in times of transitions. In pure synchronicity, I titled my very first poem, aged nine, 'The Flickering Candle'.
The flickering candle! Thank you Deborah! Thank you for seeing all the flickers in those spaces between the words. Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow. Night. Day. Dark. Light. Remembering and forgetting. Is this journey just one big transition? Is it just one big widening circle? Keep rippling Deborah. We feel it. Thanks for Being- Here 🙏❤️
Crikey Jamie, and Conrad. Good. You, we, might have been here before: the light flickered then, that time. Your words contemplate; poetry meditates time; darkness has the heart of the matter.
Off the top of my head response as usual.
NB The first good books I read were opening glimpses into Conrad and Austen found 'by accident' quite late on in the school library. Later... where was the heart in Edinburgh, the gun at noon, or London when the fog shroud came up the river, shipped on the tides, in the dark manifests?
Ah Phillip! The “See” Captain could write! Heart of Darkness- Lord Jim. Conrad’s heart of darkness is a red thread through this post. As usual you see things that others do not. A northern English mystic flickering his magic wizardry in the words of wisdom. Thanks Phillip! You make it better. Thanks for Being- Here 🙏❤️
Thanks Jamie, you dig deep and you have sent me on a search for lost wizards and lightning in the Age of Enlightenment, shocks and electrical nature, as if I wanted also to dig deep, like Jeremy Naydler whom I reviewed a while back.
I hope readers can focus on the inspiration of your words, so please readers ignore if you will this very long story. It was just before I came to Conrad.
I came to the Quantocks in Somerset, in the West of England on a bike when I was 16. Porlock Hill loomed in my mind as a 1:4 climb and for reasons unremembered now chose to cross the hills a different road. I had not heard in those days of The Man from Porlock, or Coleridge and the Wordsworths brother and sister founding their Lyrical Poetry alliance, 'Romantic Poetry' no less, walking there. Nor did I know of 'the Wizard of the Quantocks', the unfortunate scientist Andrew Crosse, whose misplaced notoriety as a galvanic creator of life, perhaps inspired Mary Shelley, and Dr Frankenstein. (We have just passed World Women's Day I believe and many reminded themselves of Mary's mother, Mary Wollstonecraft.)
So we journey from incredible science to poetry and generative continuity and back in the flicker of time. After the Quantocks that day I came to a moorland confrontation with a lost swarm of honey bees who had presumably lost their queen. It was a shock encounter that was to change my life, a juncture to live with.
Yours is a voice Phillip I never tire from. Your stories I never want to end. A wisdom born of helix mystery in a fire of existence of a life lived. You are contagious. A spark of lightning that flickers into a faith of goodness yet to come. Keep painting in words. The swarm has a story to tell. Something tells me those bees found you for a reason. We are the poem. 🙏❤️
I read this twice, and listened to your reading too ~ an extra-ordinary experience I don't often take the time for ~ ... funny how the briefness of the flicker invited me to linger...
So many memorable lines, especially this (but not exclusive):
Thanks Veronika! You make me smile. Life is a profound, hilarious, sensuous mix indeed. We lick the batter off the beater. At some point we figure out how to cook from our own recipe. Thanks for flickering here with me. This gift of language. All she remembers. All she forgets. Somewhere in between you’ll find me. Thanks for Being - Here. I look forward to your series finale on that flicker- of self. 🙏❤️
I'll be thinking of licking the batter of language from the beater when I make 'my epic chocolate cake' later today...
But before that I'll have to get that 'finale' ready for posting tomorrow ~ it'll be the official 'introduction to Synchronosophy' ~ and if there is anything left to say after that, there will be an epilogue too... 🙏 ✨
Your writing is one hell of a chocolate cake! I’ll lick the batter off of your language tomorrow! I look forward to the “Introduction to Synchronosophy” and the epilogue! Something tells me that this poem will never end. Keep writing. We need you. Bless you 🙏❤️
Good morning Jamie, As the moon shades and gives way to the the seeping orange light of another day I listen to your poem. I love body as messenger in it. I am currently writing about the body being the first receiver, and its collaboration with the mind. "Memory is elusive" — yes, it is of the mind and body, different memories of the "hair of the dog, that bit me" — that gave me a smile, "those old stories - left over from the night before" ... "nosing into a tantric taste of resurrection blended by time." I feel the illusory-ness of time weaved throughout, and smile about the seeming illusory existence we have in considering "what will the world remember about me?" This pokes me to smile again — as perhaps our very soul observes the totality of our human existence as experienced through out mind and body, enjoying every taste and feel of it as we "lick the batter off the beater". Thank you 🙏 💜 😊
Thanks Simone! You are so kind. A soul journey indeed. Only experienced through body, mind and heart. Gates. Sometimes we catch a glimpse of soul. Am not joking - I see the curtains move now. A different kind of attention and seeing. Smiling as I lick the batter off the beater of this gift. Every taste. Smell. Sound and touch. Thanks for your wisdom. 🙏❤️
Ha ha 🤣, lovely Jamie. I hope you can feel my laughter. There was a bit of blind swinging action in my house this morning 🤣🥰. It just might be John, he would love the quirkiness of your poem … though he was never quick to concede to a hangover 🤣, so was all for the hair of the dog. 🤦♀️😂🍺🍻
"To see a world in a grain of sand. And a heaven in a wild flower. Hold infinity in the palm of your hand. And eternity in an hour." ... and now to see a whole contemplation of metaphysics in a candle-flicker as well. The universe is indeed forever expanding - and I'm grateful at least one poet is on the case to capture the sense of it. Great writing, Jamie.
Mmmm! Its my great hope that in those beautiful silence, between the words, that our Souls are having their own extraordinary experience together, dancing each other. If only we could Be those silences and Souls in the now, what a gorgeous world it would be!! Thanks for sharing. XO
Beautiful, Jamie! Makes me think: without breath there is no flicker, without oxygen no flame at all. I love your ability to play with words and cover them layers deep. Just stunning. Just like the flame has several layers. 🥰
Thanks Sadhbh! Peeling back those layers is living into the questions. Cuoreosity. Sparks definitely are needed for igniting a flame. A mission. A movement. Soul fire! Thanks for Being- Here. Keep burning your flame! We need you 🙏❤️
There is so much in this Jamie. Especially poignant for me, the last two lines of The Flicker, captured so eloquently: ‘What will be the last word I remember? What will be the first word I forget? ‘ I see my whole life and time of being as a flicker … fragile and almost not there, but still can’t be dismissed. Beautiful writing.❤️
Thanks Alice-Ann. It goes so fast. Looking back all of those moments that time stopped are what I truly remember. Thank you for Being- Here 🙏❤️
Makes me think of one of those flicker books with a single image that becomes animated and moves as you flick the pages through… so too our lives. ❤️
I love it- makes me think of the opening line of a soap opera my mother watched while I was growing up - The Days of Our Lives- “Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.” 🙏❤️
I adore the choice of words you've made. This morning, I saw your poetry book around the house and found myself thinking about poetry letters. I would love to send out my newsletter by email and a shorter version on paper. I would also love to see your handwriting on those poems, so they can stay closer to me—to pin them up on a wall like a painting, because they are landscapes of your mind.
I adore everything about this post, and this part truly stayed with me:
"Memory is elusive. Words are inadequate to capture it.
Is language halfway between remembering and forgetting?"
And also:
"Dark gives way to the flicker of light. The other senses give way to sight.
Are we here to remember? Are we here to forget?
Both look back at the past."
Beautiful—just beautiful.
I wrote this in my journal for the full moon ritual. Thank you for your light; it is surely one to remember and to keep warm along the way in this short life of ours. I will hold it close.
Thanks Katerina! Does anybody use paper anymore? I love its touch. I think you have a great idea with your newsletter and handwriting. Landscapes of soul.
It is a blessing to be able to share words and poetry. Poetry only exists because of the failure of language. Language maybe always lives somewhere between remembering and forgetting. Poetry is what poetry does to us regardless if we wrote the words or not. I’m honoured that these words brought some full moon reflection for you. You have a gift with your writing that helps me see my own reflection. Time flies so it seems. Those moments where it stops are what I remember. Thanks for Being- Here 🙏❤️
Does anybody use paper anymore?
https://deepundergroundpoetry.com/forum/speakeasy/read/12656/
Thanks Josh!
Thank you, Jamie, Being- Here 🙏❤️ The gift we have is that we meet each other, we mirror, we share, and we grow. I stopped at "poetry only exists because of the failure of language"—wow, it made me think of so many things, especially how we often rely on our rationality, when in fact, the most beautiful, moving experiences lie beyond it. Time flies, and this made me think of a quote:
“Remain very glad and grateful for all this—yet none of it hits me as did that night sky full of stars.”
—Oliver Sacks, Gratitude: Essays
Thank you so much, Jamie, for sharing ‘The Flicker.’ I love how your voice beautifully inhabits those fleeting, in-between moments - the space where night becomes day, memory blurs into forgetting, and existence finds itself suspended between what was ... and what is yet to be. Your flickering words remind me of the beauty and complexity when in times of transitions. In pure synchronicity, I titled my very first poem, aged nine, 'The Flickering Candle'.
The flickering candle! Thank you Deborah! Thank you for seeing all the flickers in those spaces between the words. Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow. Night. Day. Dark. Light. Remembering and forgetting. Is this journey just one big transition? Is it just one big widening circle? Keep rippling Deborah. We feel it. Thanks for Being- Here 🙏❤️
Thank you for such beautiful words. I feel honoured to share in this widening circle with you. 🙏❤️
Crikey Jamie, and Conrad. Good. You, we, might have been here before: the light flickered then, that time. Your words contemplate; poetry meditates time; darkness has the heart of the matter.
Off the top of my head response as usual.
NB The first good books I read were opening glimpses into Conrad and Austen found 'by accident' quite late on in the school library. Later... where was the heart in Edinburgh, the gun at noon, or London when the fog shroud came up the river, shipped on the tides, in the dark manifests?
Ah Phillip! The “See” Captain could write! Heart of Darkness- Lord Jim. Conrad’s heart of darkness is a red thread through this post. As usual you see things that others do not. A northern English mystic flickering his magic wizardry in the words of wisdom. Thanks Phillip! You make it better. Thanks for Being- Here 🙏❤️
Thanks Jamie, you dig deep and you have sent me on a search for lost wizards and lightning in the Age of Enlightenment, shocks and electrical nature, as if I wanted also to dig deep, like Jeremy Naydler whom I reviewed a while back.
I hope readers can focus on the inspiration of your words, so please readers ignore if you will this very long story. It was just before I came to Conrad.
I came to the Quantocks in Somerset, in the West of England on a bike when I was 16. Porlock Hill loomed in my mind as a 1:4 climb and for reasons unremembered now chose to cross the hills a different road. I had not heard in those days of The Man from Porlock, or Coleridge and the Wordsworths brother and sister founding their Lyrical Poetry alliance, 'Romantic Poetry' no less, walking there. Nor did I know of 'the Wizard of the Quantocks', the unfortunate scientist Andrew Crosse, whose misplaced notoriety as a galvanic creator of life, perhaps inspired Mary Shelley, and Dr Frankenstein. (We have just passed World Women's Day I believe and many reminded themselves of Mary's mother, Mary Wollstonecraft.)
So we journey from incredible science to poetry and generative continuity and back in the flicker of time. After the Quantocks that day I came to a moorland confrontation with a lost swarm of honey bees who had presumably lost their queen. It was a shock encounter that was to change my life, a juncture to live with.
Yours is a voice Phillip I never tire from. Your stories I never want to end. A wisdom born of helix mystery in a fire of existence of a life lived. You are contagious. A spark of lightning that flickers into a faith of goodness yet to come. Keep painting in words. The swarm has a story to tell. Something tells me those bees found you for a reason. We are the poem. 🙏❤️
I wish.😊
Flickering words, flickering thoughts, flickering memories, flickering forgets...
I read this twice, and listened to your reading too ~ an extra-ordinary experience I don't often take the time for ~ ... funny how the briefness of the flicker invited me to linger...
So many memorable lines, especially this (but not exclusive):
"I can see my breath in the mist
of the old stories - left over
from the night before....."
Brilliant!
and instantly followed by this
".......…………………………Language
licks the batter off the beater
caught between the wine of years
nosing into a tantric taste of resurrection
blended by time."
What a profound, hilarious, sensuous mix! 💗🙏 ✨
Thanks Veronika! You make me smile. Life is a profound, hilarious, sensuous mix indeed. We lick the batter off the beater. At some point we figure out how to cook from our own recipe. Thanks for flickering here with me. This gift of language. All she remembers. All she forgets. Somewhere in between you’ll find me. Thanks for Being - Here. I look forward to your series finale on that flicker- of self. 🙏❤️
I'll be thinking of licking the batter of language from the beater when I make 'my epic chocolate cake' later today...
But before that I'll have to get that 'finale' ready for posting tomorrow ~ it'll be the official 'introduction to Synchronosophy' ~ and if there is anything left to say after that, there will be an epilogue too... 🙏 ✨
Your writing is one hell of a chocolate cake! I’ll lick the batter off of your language tomorrow! I look forward to the “Introduction to Synchronosophy” and the epilogue! Something tells me that this poem will never end. Keep writing. We need you. Bless you 🙏❤️
😅 🙏 ✨
"We live in the flicker" Joseph Conrad
The perfect quote to start your wonder-full heart, mind, and spirit contemplating the questions Jamie.
I wonder if my clothes remember me? I will contemplate that today. ☺️
I will finish off by simply repeating your own words because they are perfect and mine will take away from what you have captured:
"I can see my breath in the mist
of the old stories - left over
from the night before. Language
licks the batter off the beater
caught between the wine of years
nosing into a tantric taste of resurrection
blended by time."
Thank you Jamie. ❤️🙏
Thanks for Being- Here Jo! Thanks for the kind words. Onwards we flicker! Thanks for being a spark. 🙏❤️
Good morning Jamie, As the moon shades and gives way to the the seeping orange light of another day I listen to your poem. I love body as messenger in it. I am currently writing about the body being the first receiver, and its collaboration with the mind. "Memory is elusive" — yes, it is of the mind and body, different memories of the "hair of the dog, that bit me" — that gave me a smile, "those old stories - left over from the night before" ... "nosing into a tantric taste of resurrection blended by time." I feel the illusory-ness of time weaved throughout, and smile about the seeming illusory existence we have in considering "what will the world remember about me?" This pokes me to smile again — as perhaps our very soul observes the totality of our human existence as experienced through out mind and body, enjoying every taste and feel of it as we "lick the batter off the beater". Thank you 🙏 💜 😊
Thanks Simone! You are so kind. A soul journey indeed. Only experienced through body, mind and heart. Gates. Sometimes we catch a glimpse of soul. Am not joking - I see the curtains move now. A different kind of attention and seeing. Smiling as I lick the batter off the beater of this gift. Every taste. Smell. Sound and touch. Thanks for your wisdom. 🙏❤️
Ha ha 🤣, lovely Jamie. I hope you can feel my laughter. There was a bit of blind swinging action in my house this morning 🤣🥰. It just might be John, he would love the quirkiness of your poem … though he was never quick to concede to a hangover 🤣, so was all for the hair of the dog. 🤦♀️😂🍺🍻
Who ever said they had a hang over lol 🤫😉🙏❤️
🤣🙏🏼🍺 just feeling it … 🤣
"To see a world in a grain of sand. And a heaven in a wild flower. Hold infinity in the palm of your hand. And eternity in an hour." ... and now to see a whole contemplation of metaphysics in a candle-flicker as well. The universe is indeed forever expanding - and I'm grateful at least one poet is on the case to capture the sense of it. Great writing, Jamie.
Blake just smiled. Thanks Josh! Thanks for the kind words. Widening circles! Rippling along and flickering into the fire. 🙏❤️
Oh, Jamie, this is beyond. What a wonderful weaving of words and sentiments that arrives with gusto not knowing where it is—incredible. Well done.
Thanks Jenn! 🙏❤️
You are quite welcome!
Mmmm! Its my great hope that in those beautiful silence, between the words, that our Souls are having their own extraordinary experience together, dancing each other. If only we could Be those silences and Souls in the now, what a gorgeous world it would be!! Thanks for sharing. XO
Thanks Danielle 🙏❤️
“Language
licks the batter off the beater
caught between the wine of years
nosing into a tantric taste of resurrection
blended by time.”
But one example of your writing that awed me. I kept wishing I could highlight like on Medium!
Bravos!
Thanks Jeni! Poetry enters into language yet is not of it. 🙏❤️
In that space between the no longer and the not yet. Reminds me of a definition of music
The door of Presence 🙏❤️
"Are we here to remember? Are we here to forget?"
Both are true at the same time.
Always. All ways. Thanks Perry! 🇨🇦 💪🏻🙏❤️
"What will be the last word I remember?
What will be the first word I forget?"
raw, beautiful, deep, probing. thank you.
Thanks Sam 🙏❤️
Beautiful, Jamie! Makes me think: without breath there is no flicker, without oxygen no flame at all. I love your ability to play with words and cover them layers deep. Just stunning. Just like the flame has several layers. 🥰
Thanks Sadhbh! Peeling back those layers is living into the questions. Cuoreosity. Sparks definitely are needed for igniting a flame. A mission. A movement. Soul fire! Thanks for Being- Here. Keep burning your flame! We need you 🙏❤️