Last in the Door — notebook

The River of Bees by W. S. Merwin

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

I love W. S. Merwin. He captures something fundamentally important about poetry for me: that it's beautiful. If you're going to read one poem today, I would suggest 'The River of Bees' since it is a poem that exemplifies this point, whilst also highlighting a big problem with much poetry, which is its inaccessibility. I'd say it is still worth the read for the beauty alone, but context does make the poem more accessible, and whether that hurdle is a problem I'll let you decide.

In fairness, taking 'The River of Bees' outside of its intended context, which is midway through the collection 'The Lice', doesn't do it any favours. But to be honest, even within the collection, I've had to read a fair few papers to get even a cursory understanding of what Merwin might have been trying to say. And this was worth it, because I now realise just how relevant Merwin and other writers from the 60s are to us today; the parallels to the Vietnam War and the MAD situation are pretty commonly discussed. But I also wouldn't have realised that the blindman was likely Homer or the oracle [Tiresias](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiresias). Homer is my choice since it was he who in a story was tricked by a riddle about lice, so that plus a man who "...stood singing / Of what was older" makes the most sense to me. I also didn't know that bees are mentioned throughout antiquity to indicate hard work and industry (Virgil dedicating an entire book of his Georgics to them), and also as creatures that exist in the liminal space between life and death. That you have to be that well-versed in the classics in order to access the surface-level meaning of the poem does not lend itself to widespread enjoyment, at least in my opinion. Which is a shame, since the poem is so nakedly beautiful in the way it reads; the construction and placement of phrases on the page, with all their unpunctuated ambiguity, draw me in every time.

One other thing. My dreams don't tend to have sound, which I believe is not uncommon, but since 'The River of Bees' is a dream poem, it caused an interesting situation. It wasn't until I showed someone else the poem that they pointed out how loud and chaotic a river of bees would actually be. Imagine the bees flowing like a river, agitated and angry — their buzzing would become almost deafening. And it is from this river that we find the "...noise of death drawing water"; it feels kind of on the nose for all the noise and chaos in the news these days.

W. S. Merwin — the poetry foundation

the cuts on my hand

Sun, 26 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Sometimes the fairy of motivation deigns to visit, and I have managed to get around to refurbishing and upgrading some of my guitars and those of a friend. It’s somewhat amazing how gross anything we touch for extended periods of time can get when not routinely cleaned (see keyboards). But two guitars from the depths of storage made pretty (the most important) and playable, with some fresh strings on some of my own, and then a long awaited bridge replacement on my Squier - an upgrade I would recommend to anyone who wants a floating bridge on a budget guitar.

the cuts on my hand
trace the footpath trodden by
afternoons well spent

i steal a moment
waiting on repetition
pen scratches paper

spring snapped back
on a guitar fighting rebirth
cuts close on my hand

how unbearable
he said of lightness and weight
the desk stays the same

Sometimes I think of AI development as alchemy, breaking down everything hoping to get something in return, not knowing what happens inside the flask.

a thousand words typed
the great working without form
like cranes in tribute

Haibun is supposed to be a travel journal, and as luck would have it my addiction to food and shelter is somewhat prohibitive in that regard. Then I think of mushrooms (I promise I’m going somewhere with this), and how travel is our feet taking us to new places while the roots of a plant branch out from the centre. One of the largest (the largest?) organisms on the planet is actually a fungi, it’s mycelium one giant connected network underneath the forest floor, out of our sight but creating an organism larger than we knew and impossible to understand.

the itch of my feet
i can’t turn inward
dust on my glasses

writing now i find
i forgot to fill my pen
still lying empty

sat behind the wheel

Sun, 12 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

I'm periodically reminded that i'm lucky enough to travel in this beautiful country, despite most of the things that make someone feel less than lucky to be living here. One of those things isn't really unique to Athens, but perhaps more noticeable thanks to the ever present layer of dust that covers everything. There's a shade of green you find in places like Arcadia, and Yorkshire for that matter, that brings into focus what is wrong with the green of a city. I've never figured out whether it sits on top, or if the plant breathes in the same crap that we do and turns a lovely shade of grey.

sat behind the wheel
waiting to begin the day
grey green leaves stare back

It is easy to point out our atrophied attention span (mind at the very least), and like Neo in the matrix when I ask why I can’t use my focus I am met with the answer: you’ve never used it before. Unfortunately I cannot simply download function-fu to my brain, so I am stuck with building the muscles the old fashioned way.

a delight to find
a turtle in the garden
again the car waits

If I ever start a band, I may end up calling it ‘suicidal Athenian pedestrians’ in honour of the people who amble through this city, blissfully unaware of the traffic around them, like a turtle shuffling through grass.

It is still raining, and one of my poetic idols did claim that “the dust of the world” still clung to him, much as it does to every surface of this city, the rain not only does nothing to help but rather deposits a lovely coating of clay to everything. New week, same muddy rain. It feels like a third dry country I have managed to bring a little bit of home to.

i watch the rain start
hoping for a bath instead
more dust

the desk unchanging
focus seems to float away
how unbearable

One thing I have been trying is to not have any music or podcasts on in the car, which does give me a little mental workout; and while its not like I have noticed anything I didn’t notice before, but it bring a little more immediacy.

i wait an offer
passed with the wave of the hand
wild grass splitting road