Author Archives: gareth roi jones

Day 10 – this I believe to be true

Respect and pray on nature background

As well as writing several poems every day, I’m reading at least one book of poems a day too. A couple of days ago I read little known Portugeuese poet Fernando Pessoa’s Selected Poems. He frequently uses Petrarchan sonnet structure & I was admiring how nicely those poems hung together. When I was trying to work out how to format the initial blurrrgh of ideas spewed out in the first draft, I was surprised to notice I had (apart from 2 lines in the wrong positions) written a miniature one of my own. Sans rhyme. Which is a good reason why poets should read other poets’ poems.

It’s always funny how you start off with an idea of a poem is going to go, only to watch it veer away from you. Funny, but exciting too. This one came pretty quickly … & is perhaps the one I’m happiest with so far this GloPoWriMo.

*****

the fidesvirus

not all pandemics
start in wet markets
or an insect’s sting
or a species-jump

& they don’t spread
by sneezing or particles
left on a hard surface
or in the blood stream

they are created by us
disseminated by us
& they infect only us

& regardless of conviction
— none are protection from
a truly committed pathogen

Day 09 – have trade will travel

ESY-032331823 - © - jc_cards

There’s more verses half written for this poem, but I couldn’t work out where they should go. This is a WIP.

*****

Homo economicus

for over 40 years free trade has been touted
as the solution to all social & economic ailments
— trade is really code for countless uninvited invaders

the Chinese went to Africa for sorghum
brought back camels then used them to establish
one of the greatest invader routes ever — The Silk Road

Columbus traded (if that can be the term)
European disease for New World gold — yet
smallpox, measles & tb killed more than sword or gun

hitchhikers today hijack the best transporters
money can buy — shipping containers which daily import
thousands of animals, insects, microbes & diseases to ecologies

ill-equipped to deal with them — because profit is paramount
& preventing illegal human immigrants is far more pressing

Day 08 – recipe for mourning

08-tuna-mornay

I’ve been saving this idea for a day when I was low on energy & creative juices. Sadly I was hoping it would be a little later in the month. That said, it’s tough churning out a poem a day even when 100% healthy: to do so while ill is an added challenge.

It’s definitely an unusual “poem” … a cross between a recipe & a list poem … with, I hope, an unexpected sting in the tail.

recipe for tuna mournay

Part 1:
Ingredients

1. Fish
common
anchovy, barracuda, grouper, flying fish,
cod, common sea horse, king mackerel,
Spanish mackerel, common sea bream, 
colourful
white marlin, grey triggerfish,
blue runner, rainbow runner,
black gemfish, bluefish, red drum,
greater amberjack, black ruff, yellowtail,
named for other things
sailfish, swordfish, lancet fish, puffer fish,
goosefish, porcupine fish, monkfish,
sunfish, pilotfish, dolphin fish, needlefish,
spurdog fish, Cuban dogfish,
longbill spearfish, bigeye cigarfish, stone bass,
strange
Bermuda chub, opah, escolar,
leerfish, tripletail, Murray eel,
pomfret, bigeye thresher, wahoo,
bonito, cassava fish, spotted skate,
manta ray, devil ray, 
shark
bignose, hammerhead, Galapagos,
sandbar, night, sand tiger,
copper, blue, (great) white, mako

2. Reptiles
turtles
loggerhead,  leatherback,
green, hawksbill, Kemp’s ridley 

3. Mammals
whales
northern right, pilot, humpback,
beaked, goose-beaked, killer,
sperm, minke, sei, fin,
dolphins
common, striped, spinner,
Atlantic spotted, bottlenose,
harbor porpoise, 

4. Birds
albatrosses
Atlantic yellow-nosed, black-browed,
northern royal, shy,
gulls
yellow-legged, great black-backed,
herring, laughing, Audouin’s,
shearwaters
balearic, great, sooty, Yelkouan,
petrel
great-winged, grey, southern fulmar, 

Part 2:
Instructions

this is
a not-so-quick list
of some of the 145 species
regularly killed & discarded
while “fishing” for tuna
charmingly known
as by-catch

*List taken from Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals

Day 07 – the obsession that’s eating our planet

07 Doutielt3

One of the things I hope to do over this month is come at the theme PANDEMIC from a range of angles. Looking at, if possible, a little like a cubist Picasso painting where we can look at all sides of the subject at once. It’s still a bit stat heavy but this poem really is about the big elephant in the room. (Not it’s not really an elephant.)

*****

plague species 

a mere ten millennia ago when we first
trick tamed cattle from wild aurochs
humans & those critters that would become
our domestic buddies (cows, chickens, pigs, sheep)
represented around 1% of earth’s biomass
wild animals (using the most basic maths)
represented 99% of all living creatures.

now humans & the beasts we own as pets
property or product are somewhere
between 96-98% depending on the study cited.
basically earth has been stolen from free-living
animals for those species we most love to pat
but even more so for those we lust to eat.
the plague has spread — & continues to …

Day 06 – close to home

Red V big

Not much explanation needed tonight.

*****

hypochondranoia

in these anxiousladen : hypertensile times : over doctor googling : affects mental health : almost more than any virus : attacking flesh

a pre-exisiting history of weak lungs : can’t account for : this shortness of breath : when walking : into the next room : to make another cuppa ; every whimpered cough : bubbling up like lukewarm lava ; the-not-quite-hot : but-definitely-warmer-than-bugsnug : flushes ; the soft aches of exhaustion : in every cell ; the intermittent bouts : of nowhere-near-migrainial misery : but discombobulating enough : to warrant frequent napping ; all adds up : to not quite anything 

simultaneously : not wanting to : over-react : read too much into it : complain : cos it’s probably nothing : don’t want to : over-whelm : the local medical centre : probably : just a hangover : from last month’s laryngitis : after all : other than living in a : designated cluster area : what chance has there been : to jump on : this global pan-wagon

Day 05 – my first ever 2 part GloWriMoPo(em)

Sick at home with high fever

Um, this still isn’t the poem I promised yesterday; that’s the “trouble” when there’s lots of ideas bouncing round all the time. (You might get that poem one day or you might not.)

But this isn’t quite the poem I was hoping to present today either — hence the brillo idea of making it a 2 part poem. Part 2 will make it’s way onto these pages in a week or so. (I love it when form & content inform each other.)

*****

Quarantine: part 1

8 things Donnie did last week instead of staying at home

1. Disembarked the Ruby Princess … & caught a plane back to Adelaide
2. Bought some toilet paper, he had plenty … but was on the shelf so why not
3. Visited his grandmother, gave her a hug … & the loo paper too cos she was out
4. Spent the day at the beach … probably the last warm day before winter
5. Got his hair cut, sneezed once or twice … those chemicals always set him off
6. Caught the bus, coughing as he did … people looked at him, big deal
7. Returned to the shop three times … cos he kept forgetting things
8. Visited a few mates for a brew … though Bill, the bastard, wouldn’t let him in

What Donnie’s doing this week

1. Feeling under the weather … so decided to have a couple of days in bed

Day 04 – the flat curve round the corner

04 The falling Curve

Was intending to write a poem based on exercise from yesterday’s Na/GloPoWriMo site. However, I spent so long collecting words (part of the task) that I had no time left to actually write the thing. So I’ll try & get to that tomorrow using the words gathered today.

So this then is a quick stopgap, started only an hour ago, based on one of the dozen or so ideas I’ve got stockpiled to work on this month. As such, it’s a bit rushed, but it’s okay. As I always say, Na/GloPoWriMo is not about crafting perfect poems but trying new things, having poems to work on post April; & occasionally if you’re lucky catching a lightning bolt or two in a bottle along the way.

*****

decurving

i.
the challenge with the whole lockdown
don’t leave the house, isolate yourself
curve-squashing philosophy is if it works
all the instant expert naysayers will neigh
see it wasn’t as bad as your henny penny
sky’s falling economy-killing hysteria predicted
— which although technically frustrating
is surely not as grave as the alternative,

ii,
despite this, some debate whether the cost
of flattening is really the lesser of the evils
— which in a way overlooks an essential issue
the fact that we as a species are living
way above our credit level & treating earth
as a giant hypermarket where we can grab
anything we want without needing to pay
— well, debts are starting to be called in.

Day 03 – the falling of the sky

factory farm

Slowly working up steam. About Defcon 3 I’d say. Alert but not alarmed. 

This doesn’t quite say what I was intending to say (or at least, not in the way I was trying to say it) when I started the poem, but it will have to do as midnight is approaching.

*****

not so little chickens

while the wet markets of Wuhan & elsewhere might be
(rightly) copping criticism as hotbeds for terrifying new
viral species-hoppers even scarier prospects face every
one of us at much closer distances to hearth & home

for our modern factory chicken facilities are now far closer
to laboratories than farms where the paltry poultry are more
like drug-addled addicts than the cutesy feathered friends
we envisage scratching round in green country gardens for grubs

today owing to genetic streamlining, stress, & overcrowding
vaccines, sulfa drugs & antibiotics are routinely added
to feed to combat the toxic bloodbath of immunodeficiencies
cancerous tumours, pus, faecal matter, & bacterial contamination

it is from one of these noble agribusinesses many virologists believe
the next great pathogen will emerge to indiscriminately kill
                                                                                                                  both fowl & man

Day 02 – the apocalypse tiptoes slowly in

02 Villette

Hmmm, another nice one. When does the apocalypse get here?

Patience, I’m going over some of the books I’ve been reading recently & gathering all the bits I need. Soon the dystopias will start.

*****

slippage

what is being termed
social isolation by every
suddenly ultraexpert
medical practitioner
& socialmedia maestro
on the digital planet
sounds less like weeks
of solo soul hellage
cut off from the world
& all that other so-called
                         important stuff

& more like a couple
of normal gareth days
slipping stretchtinglingly
into several lazy idyllic
weeks of sublime solitude
— even if that slippage
means i’m not sure whether
it’s sunday or september
(so long as nasty things like
curve flattening & latest
statistics are somehow
                          over looked)

 

Photo: Villette enjoying a lazy autumn day at home, unaware of the term, “social isolation”. (Also, I didn’t realise she too is half-slipping until I uploaded the pic, so a double whammy)

Day 01 – tapping the zeitgeist

01 chasey

Well, April aficionados. It’s here again. Na/GloPoWriMo. Was wondering whether I should participate again this year given how exhausting it can be. But given it will be my 7th consecutive year participating & given there’s been a bit of a poeting drought recently & given that we all have plenty of time on our hands, I thought, well why not.

That said, I’m gonna try something I’ve not done for Na/GloPoWriMo before: that is, to write every poem around a theme. That theme is quite zeitgeisty but it is the thing my brain (& I’m sure many others too) is most occupied with at the moment. 

So brace yourself for 30 fun-filled poems about the plague. Well, pandemics & other cheerful TEOTWAWKI style things.

A gentle one to lead us in. (The apocalypse comes later)

*****

chasey / 21st-century style 

by the cries / next door’s kids
are inventing a new form     of an old game
they’re calling out the rules
over the fence as they create
Audrey’s got coronavirus
& she’s got to catch us
& when you’re caught
you’ve got to isolate yourself

it’s ring-a-rosie all over again
which sounds fun for a while
till they realise being only 6
Audrey doesn’t understand
the rules of social isolation   (like many others)

it ends the way all such games
have for millennia / arguments
a collision or other accident
a banged up knee / tears
& someone crying / running
/ to be comforted  //  by mum