26/07/2009 by Peter Sewell.

I publish this poem at different times in different places just to keep it alive - it is far and away the most moving poem I have ever read, and vies with Poe’s ‘Raven’ for my favourite piece of writing! Enjoy.

Snake

A snake came to my water-trough
On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat,
To drink there. In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark carob-tree
I came down the steps with my pitcher
And must wait, must stand and wait, for there he was at the trough before
me.

He reached down from a fissure in the earth-wall in the gloom
And trailed his yellow-brown slackness soft-bellied down, over the edge of
the stone trough
And rested his throat upon the stone bottom,
And where the water had dripped from the tap, in a small clearness,
He sipped with his straight mouth,
Softly drank through his straight gums, into his slack long body,
Silently.

Someone was before me at my water-trough,
And I, like a second comer, waiting.

He lifted his head from his drinking, as cattle do,
And looked at me vaguely, as drinking cattle do,
And flickered his two-forked tongue from his lips, and mused a moment,
And stooped and drank a little more,
Being earth-brown, earth-golden from the burning bowels of the earth
On the day of Sicilian July, with Etna smoking.
The voice of my education said to me
He must be killed,
For in Sicily the black, black snakes are innocent, the gold are venomous.

And voices in me said, If you were a man
You would take a stick and break him now, and finish him off.

But must I confess how I liked him,
How glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet, to drink at my water-trough
And depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless,
Into the burning bowels of this earth?

Was it cowardice, that I dared not kill him? Was it perversity, that I longed to talk to him? Was it humility, to feel so honoured?
I felt so honoured.

And yet those voices:
If you were not afraid, you would kill him!

And truly I was afraid, I was most afraid, But even so, honoured still more
That he should seek my hospitality
From out the dark door of the secret earth.

He drank enough
And lifted his head, dreamily, as one who has drunken,
And flickered his tongue like a forked night on the air, so black,
Seeming to lick his lips,
And looked around like a god, unseeing, into the air,
And slowly turned his head,
And slowly, very slowly, as if thrice adream,
Proceeded to draw his slow length curving round
And climb again the broken bank of my wall-face.

And as he put his head into that dreadful hole,
And as he slowly drew up, snake-easing his shoulders, and entered farther,
A sort of horror, a sort of protest against his withdrawing into that horrid black hole,
Deliberately going into the blackness, and slowly drawing himself after,
Overcame me now his back was turned.

I looked round, I put down my pitcher,
I picked up a clumsy log
And threw it at the water-trough with a clatter.

I think it did not hit him,
But suddenly that part of him that was left behind convulsed in undignified haste.
Writhed like lightning, and was gone
Into the black hole, the earth-lipped fissure in the wall-front,
At which, in the intense still noon, I stared with fascination.

And immediately I regretted it.
I thought how paltry, how vulgar, what a mean act!
I despised myself and the voices of my accursed human education.

And I thought of the albatross
And I wished he would come back, my snake.

For he seemed to me again like a king,
Like a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld,
Now due to be crowned again.

And so, I missed my chance with one of the lords
Of life.
And I have something to expiate:
A pettiness.

Taormina, 1923

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

22/07/2009 by Peter Sewell.

I’m off sick. Between now and early next year I should be having a shoulder operation and a knew knee - yes I meant to do that! My beading is renowned for being tensioned to within an inch of it’s life, and with this stupid shoulder I can’t even get a decent grip on the thread let alone tension it, so I have to lay off the extreme beading for a bit.

So, the point of this is to say that although you may not see much new stuff for a while, it doesn’t mean I’ve stopped beading! It just means I have to draw my ideas instead of making them…………………for now.

I shall try to keep you updated without descending into the depths of hospital anecdotes and constant pain updates, I might even get out the Blackwork I’ve been keeping from you all!…………………..didn’t know I did Blackwork did you?

Now, where’s me funny piccy……….?

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

13/07/2009 by Peter Sewell.

I got my new chessboard………………………sycamore and holly board from Chris Fox of works-in-wood.co.uk, and pyrography art decoration from my mate Si of woodtattoos.com. What a team! I needed a large board with 50mm squares to accommodate my oriental rat set, and had almost given up on getting one, it was only a chance remark to Si - and his willingness to accept a challenge - that got it made! Si put 30 hours of work into the pyrography, and it’s also going to be featured in the last chapter of his imminent book, so fame beckons!

As a small contribution towards the amount of work he put in, his wife Jane now owns ‘Elinore’ - that’s as it should be.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

08/07/2009 by Peter Sewell.

………………..say nothing at all.

Which is why I shall remain quiet about LloydsTsb, The Beadworker’s Guild, blondes who think I’m mentally subnormal because I’m doing 30 in a 30 limit  past the school which probably has their kids inside, the Inland Revenue telephone line which lets you press numbers for five minutes and then cuts you off because everyone’s having tea, morons who think anyone under the age of 70 uses a walking stick as a fashion accessory, and the bloody BNP.

So I won’t mention them.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »