Tom Green - Musician and Composer

Tom Green - Musician in Thornhill Bridge Community Garden, London

Photo: Paul Conneally 2013

I had lunch with musician Tom Green in a little Italian cafe come restaurant around the corner from Kings Cross Station. Tom and I have been friends for over 30 years first playing together in the UK post-punk band DUM DUM DUM around 1980.

Tom went on to play and record with The Orb and as Another Fine Day producing along the way one of the seminal ambient albums of all time LIFE BEFORE LAND

Recently we've started doing a little writing and recording together again including Won't You Tell Me How To Mend This Broken Heart. I'm sure that we'll be working together again soon on new material and I can't wait.

After our meal we retired to Thornhill Bridge Community Garden for a chat by the canal before I had to leave for a planning workshop for Holocaust Memorial Day 2014.

Tom returned to his Brixton studio to work on the soundtrack for an up and coming new film.

Here's looking at you Tom till the next time we meet - sooner the better!

Paul Conneally

Loughborough 2013

Sweet Chestnuts

If you are in or around London St Pancras International Station and you have a little time visit the British Library.

It’s right next to the station on Euston Road. In fact if you need the toilet and you’re in the station I’d advise a trip next door. Do what you need to do for free in comfort and close proximity to Shakespeare first folios and other treasures.

The cafe is good and the exhibitions usually worth a look. Of course it’s also a place for serious study but me I’m generally there for the being there, a coffee and to people watch until it’s time for my train back north.

sweet chestnuts
the security guard
waves through my bag

Paul Conneally
London 2013

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE HAIBUN WITH PHOTOGRAPH

This Unsteady Heart

this unsteady heart 

the rhythm of heavy rain 

on an umbrella 

Paul Conneally

http://t.co/oBx2NR4Gen

haiku poetry 

Longer Shadows - Loughborough

longer shadows 

a sign in the park that says 

don't feed the pigeons 

Paul Conneally

Loughborough 2013

After Work Drink

after work drink 

a sweep of starlings 

over Wandsworth Bridge 

Paul Conneally

http://t.co/zDtNBeulEm

Old Church

old church 

trees swaying 

side to side

Yr6 pupil at Bridge Junior School, Leicester

Haiku Hands - Paul Conneally 2013

http://burnthewater.wordpress.com/2013/09/30/old-church/

A Cock's Crow

a cock’s crow
the farmer’s son and his girl
walking warm
out of the green stable
two young horses

Paul Conneally

From the tanka series After Fern Hill

Easy Mother Expletives

outrageous crime victims do plastic

over the gym-shy marriage

before you put uniform in a bottle

pupils win hollywood sick boy

quite advanced elephant dung and seaside u-turn

right time to sunday music system

executive pension plan options easy as print

you go in bank friday

liar at college is just heroine

unworkable ex-prisoners play comfort

rest help us plant wednesday show

grrrl power – thrown out spare time

remarkably easy mother expletives deleted

grass becomes the woodstock

come magnum write off fans to be

film under attack before gm foods

the best knew some were check-a-go-go

A ‘SHREADLINES’ piece by Paul Conneally, Loughborough Market Place 2000

"passers-by are asked to pick five pieces of cut-up newpaper text out of a bag at random
then to make a headline or shreadline using three or more of the pieces
then to stick it to a piece of found cardboard
the finished piece is both a literary work and a visual art piece
it should be read out loud with a strong rhythm and a good pace
preferably in a public space like a busy market place or town square
go and do it now
or go and make one in your town centre”

Paul Conneally

http://burnthewater.wordpress.com/2013/09/27/easy-mother-expletives/

The Wrestler's Top Knot

the wrestler's top knot 

falls loose 

paulownia leaf 

Paul Conneally

http://t.co/aYMV8jHS8T

Sea Urchin

sea urchin 

a fresh fish each day 

from the boy next door

Paul Conneally

http://t.co/fW6QqFEzBf 

    

Some Saint's Day

some saint’s day
the smell of bread from
a closed-up bakery

Paul Conneally

http://burnthewater.wordpress.com/2013/05/26/some-saints-day/

Photograph: Paul Conneally – Fayence – France

haiku poetry architecture wabi sabi shops food and drink photography

On the Green

they call for him
the slightly bigger boys

to ‘play out’
and ‘bring your ball’

out on the green
the big green by the main road

now you be careful
and don’t swing on the saplings

Paul Conneally

http://burnthewater.wordpress.com/2013/09/22/on-the-green/ 

REUNITED WORLDS by R.N.FOSTER

Reunited Worlds - R.N.Foster

Reunited Worlds tells the tale of two space explorers, thousands of years in the future, who are sent out to find other worlds inhabited by humans. Their mission goes disastrously wrong when they encounter a medieval world and inadvertently affect the course of a major war. The story is told from both the perspective of the explorers and from the viewpoint of those who they encounter. 

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/353978

RN FOSTER contacted us to say: "There is a more in-depth synopsis of my book on my website ....
http://www.rnfoster.com/reunited-worlds/  "

Fresh Flowers

fresh flowers

a bee follows me back

into the kitchen

Paul Conneally

Loughborough 2013

http://burnthewater.wordpress.com/2013/08/19/fresh-flowers/

'haiku for the people'

Display Clearance

Display Clearance - Paul Conneally 2013

For many people Sunday is a trip to the DIY store or better still a garden centre.

Often the big DIY shops incorporate a garden centre, a cafe too serving up a version of Sunday lunch. It's almost a day out.

I'm not knocking it. I'd encourage everyone to give it a go as an entertainment if nothing else. Leave all your money, except what you might need for emergencies, at home.

Take a notebook and pencil, one big enough to make sketches and diagrams in too. You never know what you might find to tickle your interest, your fancy, your creative juices.

Try not to have a set plan of action but strive to not follow any directions indicated by instore signs. In Ikea for instance enter via the till section, the exit and track back into the shop from there. This is easily done, don't worry about being told off, you won't be, and if you are, well ignore them.

View the experience in the same way as visiting a gallery or museum.

Take photographs, make sketches, write poems.

If something really grabs you appropriate it as a new work. Give it a title, write it on a piece of paper and label the piece. This will hopefully encourage new interpretations by other visitors, shoppers, of what they are seeing.

Don't leave until you have created, revealed, at least one new work.

Enjoy yourself.

Paul Conneally

Loughborough 2013

Hanging Around - L'Espace De L'Art Concret

'Hanging Around' 

Paul Conneally between readings at L'Espace De L'Art Concret - Mouans Sartoux 2013

Coneeally read in the centre grounds during the Yves Klein and super modernist architect Claude Parent show of 2013.

“Consider how boring it is within our homes. The kid stays in the assigned kid’s room while the grown-up sits on an inherited couch in another room. We’re completely overfurnished. What would it be like on the other hand, if space were understood more playfully, more free, if movement and being in a space also could mean climbing, reclining, sliding?”  - Claude Parent

CLICK HERE FOR ARTICLE "Claude Parent the Super Modernist Architect" art haiku poetry France portrait Artist Poet

Artists Anne-Marie Culhane and Jo Salter and Finn with the Full BloomRenga Platform

Artists Anne-Marie Culhane and Jo Salter with Finn standing by the Full Bloom Renga Platform. The platform was designed and hand crafted by Jo Salter spefically for the Full Bloom Renga.

Throughout the day Master Poet Paul Conneally and Host Poet John Hall were joined by vistors to Cotehele on the renga platform to write together a Renga poem. 

A Renga is a Japanese collaborative linked poetry form related to haiku poetry and dating back many hundreds of years.

The Full Bloom Renga is a piece devised for The National Trust Full Bloom Festival by Anne-Marie Culhane with Paul Conneally, Jo Salter and Alec Finlay.

www.orchardnetwork.org.uk/renga/ 

Welcome to St Tropez

Travelling to St Tropez in summer is better by sea than road.

A shuttle service runs every 15 minutes between Sainte Maxime and her more famous neighbour. Out across the Golfe. Sit inside if you don’t want to get wet, especially on choppy days, outside for exhilaration and the view.

You go to St Tropez, when you’re on the Côte d’Azur, because you feel you have to. In the season it’s as much a theme park as any other.

Day-trip in August if you must but come back, if you can, in October or April. Savour the difference.

first boat of the day

a dolphin shifts

port to starboard

Paul Conneally

St Tropez 2013
Burn the Water

http://youtu.be/Kh2FRFhS7QY

Grilled Sardines

Everywhere on the Côte D’Azur lays claim to a little bit of Pablo Picasso.

On a short dérive, a walking without purpose around Antibes, I come across the Musée Picasso.

The museum is closed as it’s a Monday. There is no big sign to say so and I watch several couples and a family trek up the ramp to the entrance and then back down again.

Pablo appears on huge wall hangings in Mougins, Cannes, Antibes, Monaco. Most often in just his vest and boxer shorts. So much so, that I’m shocked to see him in Cannes, in a suit and tie, getting out of a car at the film festival.

grilled sardines

a one-man-band

dressed as a giraffe

Paul Conneally

Antibes July 29th 2013
http://burnthewater.wordpress.com/2013/07/29/grilled-sardines/

The Baker and the Biker

such short shadows
the baker asks the biker
to remove his helmet

Paul Conneally

Read the haibun here: http://burnthewater.wordpress.com/2013/08/03/the-baker-and-the-biker/