A reindeer bone carved
In the reindeer's likeness
Saddle quern
Loom-weight
Spindle whorl.
A chalk phallus
A lump of chalk
With heavy curves bearing
The image of woman.
A necklace with blue beads
of Egyptian faience, black ones
of Kimmeride shale.
Slingstone
Cannon ball
Cartridge.
A phallus carved on the church wall.
A statuette of the virgin.
A coin worn headless,
with a disarticulate horse
Cartwheel
Crankshaft
flash bulb
a bust of the death-god
cast in imperishable alloy.
Jeremy Hooker
The Heritage Trust
Preserving the Past for the Future
About Me
- Littlestone
- Studied art and design at Swindon School of Art, Wiltshire, England and afterwards Japanese painting and calligraphy at Kyoto University of Fine Arts, Kyoto, Japan. In 1966 I was a lay monk at the Zen Buddhist temple of Ryozen-an in Kyoto and practiced under the guidance of its Director, Ruth Fuller-Sasaki and senior monk Dana R Fraser (co-translator of Layman P'ang: A Ninth Century Zen Classic). Also present at Ryozen-an was the author and poet Gary Snyder. Gary Snyder was one of the first Westerners in Japan to study Zen Buddhism and was the inspiration for Jack Kerouac's book, The Dharma Bums. I was assistant conservator (paintings) at Kyoto National Museum from 1969-1980 and Chief Conservator (Eastern Pictorial Art) at the British Museum from 1980-1986. Japan Foundation Fellow 1973-1974 and Fellow of the International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works since 1985.
1 comment:
Thanks to Thelma Wilcox for drawing my attention to this poem; she writes elsewhere, "...it is from Jeremy Hooker's "Soliloquies of a Chalk Giant; the giant in question being the Cerne one. There are many poems in the book as the giant muses on the passing of time..."
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