Sunday, August 10, 2008

SAVE SWIMMING (a poem) 7th December 2005.

SAVE SWIMMING!
--Swimming to the tenth lock.
by Steven Pratt


"The forces which produce the branch-angles of an oak lay potent in the acorn. Similar lines of resistance, half curbing the out-pressing vitalities, govern the branching of rivers and of nations. Thus a nerve, a wire, a roadway, and a clearing-house are only varying channels which communication forces for itself. This is more than analogy, it is identity of structure. --Ernest Fenollosa. Chinese Written Character As A Medium For Poetry.


The decision to close the baths is in direct conflict with advice from Sport England, whose survey proved that Dudley as a whole has poor provision of sporting water space. Our club swimmers and juniors have great prospects for achievement in 2012, - http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk


Swimming knows no grammar,
Paddling a verb; action--infinite flux of process.
Splashing to guard our swimming life!
Running finngers through a complex liquid media,
Flames and two words swim from my mouth:
Swimmajic edutainment.

Like the sudden up-blaze of fountains
Youth sprouts with harmony in water,
I learn't Swimming from pink dolphins.
In the womb i did the backstroke.

Where else can you immitate frog-kick or
Beautiful butterflie strokes with a simultaneous dollfinn kick?
The Midland District championship sponsored by Esso;
Swimming through oil, i don't think slow. Guess so?

Human moves as porpoise, hydrodynamically
You see swimmming around the blackcountry canal grooves
I picked up a slime-like scent of the transitive smells from
Industry and poverty slushing about together. Still.
Black Country cheer no matter the weather.

Times are always hard as nails around these stolen parts
Not much spacetime for music, poetry and Heart,
Most generally speaking this damn near whole wreakin
Belongs to corporate capitalist old farts. Listen up
Nuckle down, think for yourselves and start speaking.

Your mind underwater attenuates itself naturally
To local enviroment, Swimming should be guarded
And protected against injustice, misrepresentations
And exploitation by governments.

Ever thought of sport for all?
Free swimming facilities for every man,
Women and child on the planet?
Just do it! Feed and cloth the world, help some of the others!

My name and signature have not matured since the last time i wrote
Yet Today i swim like a boat, afloat i write
Swimming not winning to save us from a tidal wave of tree-paper.
Black Country revolution in the minds of the people.
Swimming is action. Speaks for itself. Fluidhydrodynamics.

Swimming is metaphor, illuminated by the structure of its language
Soaking wet facts, springboard statistics - tumble turnovers
Almost naked with nothing to hide. Easy glide past tiny bubbles
Troubles melting, everchanging. Swimming is a new language.

Swimming has meaning, its etymology is constantly visible
And in touch with the entire skin-suface, at all times.
It retains the creative impulse and process, visible and at work.
Swimming like a fish, in scales called meters or sometimes yards.
Feet?

Seven leg beats to one breath
Gasping for oxygen, again
Seven kicks from each flipper
No gills, must breath oxygen
Swimming for liquid fitness
Seven propelling swishes
Pushing, pulling hydrogen,
Swimming is hard to swallow.

""Is" comes from the Aryan root as, to breathe.
"Be" is from bhu, to grow."

It seems likely to me that General public facilities
Are shutting down because the tyranny of mediaeval logic
Has turned our thought into bright Lego bricks.
Underwater everything changes due to atmospheric changes.

Leisure swimming, free and easy basking
Times are great in the Black country
Leisure time and a leisure calendar enforced by the
Leisure center between the eye socket.

Rigorous exorcise for lung-bags and deep breathing apparatus
Legs, arms, neck, feet and torso too.
Mind body spirit submerged with the other,
Blood pumping and circulating; nutrition for the chakra leisure
Centers. Swimming for immortality, the final secret,
Take of your cloths and jump in. NO DIVING.

No running, no petting, no bombing, no pushing, NO PARKING!
Life savers barking for health and safety reasons:
No embezzling, no insider-trading, no cheating, No smoking.

Double standards and double speak cannot touch me, my
Swimming troubles drowned, washed away with each stroke,
Pushing from the past, pulling into the future
With each stroke i visualize Chinese written characters.


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