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see, you can tell

there's something going on

decisive

and indecipherable

a growing

world-shattering intelligence

it's all pixels to me. 

A J Ponder 

be afraid, be very very afraid.  You think computers are destroying our concentration spans for no reason...

ok fine.  Not much chat this week - I seem to be so far behind with everything but I have put up a little starter blog for my book on wordpress.  Thought why not try it out - and just a few hours/days later voila... http://wizardsguide.wordpress.com

 A.J. Ponder's work is also available through Rona Gallery, Amazon, and good Wellington bookstores

Tuesday Poem: Not a poem, maybe one day...

The sun was shining in the sky
shining with all its might...


But of course it's hardly the middle of the night - I swear with this shot I feel almost get sun-blinded just looking at it.   Of course if you're disappointed the rest of the Lewis Carroll poem is here but basically why is the picture even here?  The story goes like this - while flicking through some of my shots of Wellington I found this shot of Seatoun beach and remembered the Lewis Carroll poem - and then I remembered I'd tried to do a poem along similar lines but where two rich fellows are going to complain alot about the beach and then buy it and everything on it out from under the noses of everyone else.  It never really quite worked but it was fun - if you don't mind the beginning being wrong - and the complete lack of an ending....

...

The sun shining on the sea

Spied two suits out strolling

As crisp as they could be

With voices biting as the wind

pleats sharp as any knife

They assaulted everybody's dress

Your money and your life

The sand was sharp and sandy

The beach was far from clean

Our moneymen saw seaweed

and complained it was obscene...

And that's it so far.  I hope everyone has had a busy and productive week, and if the poem is lacking, the perhaps stop and enjoy the picture, it's one of my favourites - Seatoun beach looking absolutely gorgeous

 A.J. Ponder's work is also available through Rona Gallery, Amazon, and good Wellington bookstores

Travelling through 70's Mainland NZ

in the middle of the

patchwork flat

peeling in the sun

a cottage tumbled

far from the snowy peaks

hazy in the dusty distance

rats along the rafters

visitors at the door

far from the wind

the water

the bustle of the big

city across

and away

with fangled ideas

calf, dark curled lashes, blinking

and down the road

the main road

not a café

just a road stop

where you could have everything

you liked

even vegetarian

so long as

you didn't mind a little bit of bacon

rats, you can have your dust

calf, stay if you wish to be et

we're headed for the mountains -

maybe they can tell me -
why we left the sea

A J Ponder

This is a poem I've been working on really does in some weird way seem to capture one of our many trips through the South Island when I was quite young.  It would have been either late seventies of very early eighties but accuracy at this point is not going to be easy, nor particularly relevant, and although my memory of most of our other trips is almost non-existent this one stood out because of  an unscheduled stop at a place where the guy really did have rats along the rafters.  He opined that they (the rats) were quite entertaining and the walkways should be a more prominent feature of the house design.   And not so very far away some kind of diner, the only eating establishment for miles around - where Mum asked if they had anything vegetarian and the lady pointed to some kind of cheese muffin thing - with bacon.  A small amount of discussion, utter horror on both sides.  (Mum grew up with pigs on a farm, she might be a little lax about her vegetarianism when going out - but not when it comes to pigs the images of them being slaughtered still haunt her.)  Unstated was that there wasn't a heck of a lot of choice, it was that or the road... I believe we found something to eat - in the car. 


More of Richard Ponder's work can be found here
It's not of the hut in question as the background is clearly not the middle of the plains with miles and miles of flat land.  Gosh even thinking about all that flat land just seems wrong as I'm so used to being nestled in the hills of Wellington.  


A.J. Ponder  

 A.J. Ponder's work is also available through Rona Gallery, Amazon, and good Wellington bookstores

Winter Stores by Charlotte Bronte (as Currer Ellis 1846))

(or listen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edQh_CMr9zQ - the music's nice, but to me the voice seems a little too softly, softly)

We take from life one little share,
And say that this shall be
A space, redeemed from toil and care,
From tears and sadness free.

And, haply, Death unstrings his bow,
And Sorrow stands apart,
And, for a little while, we know
The sunshine of the heart.

Existence seems a summer eve,
Warm, soft, and full of peace,
Our free, unfettered feelings give
The soul its full release.

A moment, then, it takes the power
To call up thoughts that throw
Around that charmed and hallowed hour,
This life’s divinest glow.

But Time, though viewlessly it flies,
And slowly, will not stay;
Alike, through clear and clouded skies,
It cleaves its silent way.

Alike the bitter cup of grief,
Alike the draught of bliss,
Its progress leaves but moment brief
For baffled lips to kiss

The sparkling draught is dried away,
The hour of rest is gone,
And urgent voices, round us, say,
“'Ho, lingerer, hasten on!”

And has the soul, then, only gained,
From this brief time of ease,
A moment’s rest, when overstrained,
One hurried glimpse of peace?

No; while the sun shone kindly o’er us,
And flowers bloomed round our feet,—
While many a bud of joy before us
Unclosed its petals sweet,—

An unseen work within was plying;
Like honey-seeking bee,
From flower to flower, unwearied, flying,
Laboured one faculty,—

Thoughtful for Winter’s future sorrow,
Its gloom and scarcity;
Prescient to-day, of want to-morrow,
Toiled quiet Memory.

’Tis she that from each transient pleasure
Extracts a lasting good;
’Tis she that finds, in summer, treasure
To serve for winter’s food.

And when Youth’s summer day is vanished,
And Age brings Winter’s stress,
Her stores, with hoarded sweets replenished,
Life’s evening hours will bless.

It seems winter is passing - so fast - it's going by like a rocket - so that maybe the traditional Stark cry of "winter is coming" (in the book, Game of Thrones) is not a call to winter so much as a call to the winter of life - No wonder George R R Martin is so loathe to write in a hurry - he's busy squirrelling away the memories of autumn.

My thoughts are with everyone near Mt Tongariro, I'm hoping that the right decisions will be made and everyone will be kept safe http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/7426862/First-Tongariro-eruption-in-over-100-years 

A.J. Ponder  

 A.J. Ponder's work is also available through Rona Gallery, Amazon, and good Wellington bookstores