Garden Haiku – 30th August 2022

Passionfruit flowers
Precede overabundance
Jam jars are ready

Ripened or not so
Papayas can be eaten
Until sick of it

The rambutans red
Are all infested with ants
Inedible now

Avocado trees
Why do you never give fruit?
I want to smash you

My chillies just came
It was a surprise to all
Conditions perfect

26th Jun 2024 – Submitted to Weekly Prompts Wednesday Challenge


Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth.

Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

Today I’m grateful for:
The cookie I ate at House with my lunchtime coffee. It wasn’t particularly tasty or big but somehow it staved off any afternoon hunger so I ended up only needing yoghurt for dinner.
The best thing about today was:
Being able to talk to different students on a more personal level about more serious topics such as behaviour and respect. Even with the difficulties we have in communicating I feel as if I have their confidence in some ways.

I took this picture because I’d never seen the light on the lower mountains like this before. The sun was only just over the horizon to the east.

The Week That Was – 11th November 1979

Language Diabolic – 24th June 2022

Bring it together – the idea and the word
And stand behind the words said and heard

Smash it apart – the words and the real
So that fantasy is all that’s left to feel

20th Mar 2024 – Submitted to RDP Tuesday – Fantasy


If I am killed, I can die but once; but to live in constant dread of it, is to die over and over again.

Abraham Lincoln

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to have a runaround with some of my students yesterday. We were all happy to play.

The Rock Of Truth – 21st June 2022

Standing on the bank of the river
Sympathies for those floating by
Your tears will cleanse your heart
You cannot comprehend my cry

I am the truth as rock
Stood for a million years
Listening to your sad songs
Whispered between your tears

Empty is your heart and hand
A touch so inviting and smooth
Your house without mirrors
To view your soul to soothe

Long you looked in ridicule
Shackled to the ebb and flow
Grabbing onto sparkling gold
And screaming to never let go

Imagery inspired by a Khalil Gibran short story

15th Jun 2024 – Submitted to RagTag Daily Prompt


Our diversity is not a reason to hate each other. Quite the opposite, we must admire and respect it.

found at Khimushin Alexander, original unknown

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful that my brain was keeping me happy yesterday. It was a fun day at school with no teaching and lots of kids always wanting to talk with me.

Know-all – 12th June 2022

All I mean to say
There’s a bridge to Coolidge
No, all I really say to mean…
A man in a van can seem
Of age already, cameage
So many impressions
Of the ice man
And what do these clean sheets mean?
In need of a pep talk
As the all-o-gistics are denying caffeine
Living a schizophrenia dream
Sometimes Uranus is a bonus cup
But there’s no need to be jealous of the world

If you know, you know.


It is not what happens that determines the quality of our lives, it is what we choose to do when we discover that the wind has changed directions.

Jim Rohn

Band members:
Lionel Beyet: Bass, Samples
Yves Vranckx: Bass, Samples
Vincent Desantos: Drums
Saxophone on Ghost Whale by Bruno Margreth:

Recorded by Mehdi Ayari at Magasin4, Brussels, 20 & 21 January, 2022
Mixed; by Raphaël Terlinden, April-May 2022
Mastered by Nicolas Beyet , June 2022
All tracks by Ghost:Whale
Artwork by Mr Lib

Respect to labels that support us, love you:

FRANCE/BE:
P.O.G.O. – pogorecords.bandcamp.com
FRANCE:
Bonobo stomp – bonobostomp.blogspot.com
FRANCE.
Bitume Records – bitumeprods.bandcamp.com
SWISS:
Urgence Disk – www.urgencedisk.ch – urgencedisk@bluewin.ch
THAILAND:
Tenzenmen – tenzenmen.bandcamp.com
USA:
Forbidden Place Records – forbiddenplacerecords.bandcamp.com
SPECIAL EDITIONS:
SWEDEN
A special edition handmade digipack limited at 33 copies is available in by Clouded Mind Records
cloudedmindrecords.bandcamp.com
USA
Tape edition is available by
The Ashton Velvet Rock Club Recording Company (USA)
avrcrc.bandcamp.com

OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL
www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKC3oFN97AA&list=PLFtGH3IdUh26ETJy1_bdR9bGrHAw4qVym&index=2


Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful that I can use Facebook to stay in contact with my old students and I can watch them grow and develop into adults over the years. It’s a very amazing feeling to be a part of their journey, even if it is only a small part.

For A Moment – 10th June 2022

Softened by the sounds of reminiscence
Wrinkles remain around teary eyes
Grateful to hear words of confirmation
Previously hidden in reluctant compromise

Inspired by my students telling me that they wanted me back as their teacher.


What possible good can come from ignorance about other people?

Robert Greene

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to the gardeners who transformed the out-of-control garden in exchange for cash and Amy’s parents who oversaw them and left me delicious food.

International – 7th June 2022

Each preaches supremacy
The strong over the weak
Diversity is shunned
Minorities must not speak

Talents for demagoguery
Making movement extreme
Stoking international mayhem
To fulfil the collective dream

Protecting elite interests
A collapsing rule of law
Dictatorship in disguise
And the inevitable coming war

5th Oct 2024 – Shared with Ragtag Daily Prompt – mayhem


Information is abundant, it’s the desier to learn that’s scarce.

Naval Ravikant

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to be tested every day by my lazy crazy students. What a trip! Thank you, coffee!

Me Vs You – 24th May 2022

Is a choice between two evils
Even a choice at all?
And the middle is mediocre
If that’s where the chips fall
The balance of all power
Remains in the hands of a few
So the systems maintain
If the parties are one or two
Where corruption can be stamped out
And happiness prevails
Any system promoting self-interest
Will be the one that fails


The real object of pity is the person who has never been through adversity.

Seneca

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to meet all my new students yesterday. They all look cute, happy and expectant.

Once The War Is Over – 18th May 2022

When it’s decided nothing is decided
What is left over will remain divided
Rewritten histories and redrawn maps
Humanity adjusts to new handicaps
Once the war is over it’s only just begun
Here comes another, and another one
Victory propaganda, revisionist extolling
Amounts to nothing as the tanks keep rolling


I am here, living, and in the depths of my existence there is a thirst and hunger, and I find joy in partaking of the bread and wine of life from the vases which I make and fashion by my own hands.

Yusif, The Tempest by Kahlil Gibran

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to see all my students again. They make me happy and I’m already back to dreaming about them and thinking about our classes. It’s like my brain switched on again.

Sit Quietly – 30th March 2022

Hold still, slow down all thoughts
Soften eyes and ears
A mind racing around all sports
Bends on one’s fears

Sit quietly, letting contentment in
Soften ears and eyes
Craziness begone, deep breathing begin
Hear the word of the wise


Don’t be a coward. Have the courage to be afraid.

Günter Anders

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to have some smart students who make me laugh a lot and bring me great joy when they want to learn.

A Cola – 22nd March 2022

A life born of consumption
My guts bubble in excitement
My body has these nightmares
Of a past now forgotten
Perhaps returned and crushed
Repurposed and reused
When you look inside
I’ll pop bubbles on your nose
Soon my existence will be elsewhere
As another form of recycling
No more thoughts

Inspired by the ‘Everything Is Alive‘ podcast. Won’t someone please think of the cola!?


Unlucky is the man who is born with great expectations and who finds nothing in life quite up to the mark.

John Burroughts

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to Amy’s mum who cares and does little bits and pieces around the garden.


Well, yesterday disappeared quickly, was enjoyable though uneventful. I played guitar for a while after two days of skipping it and managed to nail a couple of parts I was struggling with before. I’ve managed to control my upset when I don’t get it right and can go again and again.

I contacted Champ to find out what we’re supposed to be doing these last couple of weeks and he told me the schedule was done for next semester so we can start planning and he also confirmed that I would be staying. A new challenge though, will be more classes with 2/6 and 2/7, both classes with around 35 students. I won’t get to see my smaller classes as much – only 2 hours a week each and I told 3/9 and a couple of them were quite upset that I won’t be teaching them much – which is reaffirming for me. I hope that their new teachers challenge them as much as I did.

Baitoey contacted me, she said that she was sad because now she will have no one to talk to. I reassured her as much as I could and also talked with Boss again a little. They both have problems at home, which is frustrating to see and desperate for them.

Since seeing the schedule I’ve been thinking about what I want to teach. I think the M2 classes I’ll carry on what I started with them in M1, adding in a little more variety. For M3 (grade 9), I’m thinking about doing some lessons about inspiring people/young people. I’ll see what I can find.