Toe in the Water

Unimportant Reflections

Unimportant Reflections

Years ago, in the early seventies, I had a friend who was an artist. Actually, I had a few artist friends since I was one myself but that is not the point of this story. Nor is the fact that my artist friend remains my friend, although he is no longer an artist. Both of us ceased to be artists round about the same time and this was also in the early seventies.

He became a photographer, having realised that it was easier to press a button than to wield a paintbrush. And I became a writer because I was better at that than painting.

One day I shall write a full description of my friend, Phil, but I’m not quite ready for that. There are still things about that strange little character that I haven’t understood. At the moment, I want to concentrate on the lesson I learned from his photographs. When the bug bit him, he bought himself a camera and a Volkswagen camper and proceeded to disappear into the wilds of Africa for months at a time. On his brief returns, he would always drop by my place and show me the photographs he’d taken.

They were amazing. Most photographers, when finding themselves in Africa, proceed to take photos of big game, herds of antelope, elephants and the things that they think define the continent. Not Phil. His photos were of dilapidated general stores out there in the bush, miles from anywhere, and always decorated with Coke advertising signs. He eventually built a large collection of such photos. They are, in fact, much more representative of the true Africa than anything else I’ve seen.

Alongside these, Phil was also creating a portfolio of close up pictures, recording the things that we walk past every day without noticing. Such things as a tiny flower in a patch of moss, a dash of coloured lichen on the side of a pebble, an ant trying to fight its way out of an ant lion’s trap. They were miniature masterpieces, far better than any of his paintings It was as if Phil lived in an entirely different world from ours and he saw things in a way so unexpected that they could not fail to fascinate me.

When I first saw some examples of Phil’s paintings, I was struck by the quality of innocence that somehow oozed from them. I created a painting in homage to this and, although mine was much cruder than his, I think I captured at least some of the essence of that aspect. In his later photos of miniature life, I saw something else, and I think much of my writing has been influenced by this.

It was Phil’s eye for the beauty in the most humble and ordinary things in life that, so often, I try to express in my poetry. He taught me that nothing is too small to be commented upon, to be enjoyed and celebrated. So, if I write of a tiny black beetle on a bathroom floor, or a miniature scab on my left leg, I am only pointing out the wonder of these things beneath our notice. And I have Phil to thank for that.

For this month, Elle - on hiatus has resurrected her contest, Dirty Poetry. Being enamoured of anything different, I went along to have a look at this strangely-named beast. And it was in inspecting it that I realised that, if I deliberately expanded the definition of “dirty poetry” beyond what I think was intended, I had a poem or two that could be classified as such. I entered my reflections on the aforementioned scab and now wait to see if it gets kicked out.

To me, there are few pleasures in life greater than picking off a well-ripened scab. It’s the flirting with pain, I think, proceeding at just the right pace to feel the exquisite part of the pulling away from skin, without tipping over into the ouch area. Yes, it’s dirty in that we don’t usually talk of such things. Even now, I can hear my mother yelling, “Don’t do that - you’ll leave a scar!”

But I bet you know exactly what I’m talking about.


Word Count: 701