~ Interlude ~

Been having a few issues with my computer this week. 2 hours Saturday night trying to prepare blog page, over 3 hours last night. Running slow, loading slow, despite turning off/restarting, clearing stuff off to try & make it run faster. Almost felt like giving up & abandoning NaPoWriMo this year. The poems are being written okay, just getting them onto WP has been a headache. But then, something strange happened. Woke up this morning, fired up the old boy … & everything seems to be working fine. So who knows. Maybe it just didn’t wanna work on the week end.

So the past three days’ worth of poems will now follow in quick catch-up succession (cross fingers) …

Day 11 – intertextuality (& introspection)

Book Club selection this week was Water for Elephants.

*****

big top potpourri

granted Water for Elephants
has been read before
but the deja vu familiarity blends
into The Night Circus, Cirque du Freak
numerous history of circus books
from when I was researching
my play The Menagerie of Broken Flowers
(later renamed Ugliophobia)
countless kids books by Enid,
others starring Paddington, Olivia, etc;

dozens of celluloid iterations
The Greatest Show on Earth,
Marx Brothers, Freaks, Elvis
probably worked at one in
the mid-60’s, a misunderstood
troublemaker; U2’s dreamlike video
to All I Want Is You; even Dumbo ;
& of course the exquisitely surreal
dustbowl drama Carnivale.
Plus: managing a kids circus;
working for Cirque du Soleil;
meeting many of Australia’s
talented carnies & contemporary
circus artists

means the words & situations
all blur together to fabricate
a simulacrum of surely every
eternal childhood dream

BONUS POEM: April 11, 2018

Final David-inspired pome (for now?).

*****

marble thoughts

schoolgirl groups
giggle, turn away
countless digital zooms
capture closeups
of my junk

others slide out
the extensions
on their ubiquitous
selfie sticks
pretend to balance
me on their palms
or once again
point how small
my tinkle is
(won’t even deign
to mention how cold
his studio was in winter)

some do little more
than click & walk on
one more cultural
checkpoint ticked off
the list

a few of these awful
smartPhone snaps
are even well framed

miss the days
people
actually looked

Day 10 – let down (& queuing up)

NOTE: Two long exhausting workdays meant poems were written on Tues & Wed just not posted. Aiming to catch up now.

Frustratingly, the universe slowed me down today (on my longest work day). But instead of allowing it to frustrate me (for too long), I played a little game with synonyms & metaphors to pass the time.

*****

deflated

feeling flat
sequence of entire
day scuppered
now under pressure
cancel first shift
plan how get to rest
done what began as
bright bubbly morning
had its mood pricked
spare at home, also flat
insurance overdue, not
renewed resilience resilience
pump yourself up
can’t be blowed
too deflated to even finish

but sitting in solitude
on back road silence
waiting for a saviour
not really speaking to
slowly
stone of stillness
inner tube of tranquility
pneumatic resolve
bones of birds
lift me skywards
a gnostic spark
ascending

BONUS POEM: April 10, 2018

After a scare with their prepaid Skip the Line tickets I finally saw my mother (Old Ma Jones) & my niece inside, when I thought, WTH I may as join the end of the queue & see how long it actually takes. Seemed a shame to be so close & not even try.

I was starting to doubt the wisdom of that reasoning, however, when after 15 minutes we had not even turned the corner … to get to the corner … where we could see how far we still were from the entrance.

Nevertheless, in just over an hour, I was inside gazing on a truly exquisite work of art. This poem is not about that, though there are a couple of possible David-themed poems perculating around which may pop up here later this month. This pome is about:

*****

Standing in the line to see David with 10,000 others

have to keep
reminding my
small country
consciousness
that this is
only the start
of turista season
— the shoulder
before the peak
summer months
really get things
swinging

if this throng
is shoulder,
i’d loathe
being here
for belly season

Day 09 – failure (& failing)

NOTE: Two long exhausting workdays meant poems were written on Tues & Wed just not posted. Aiming to catch up now.

Inspired by reading about one of the greatest failures in human history …

*****

failure

i.
useless bachelors degree.
unemployed, unemployable.
career going nowhere,
sabotaged by professors
who dislike the class-cutting
cocksure student.
deeply depressed.
burden to his parents.
contemplates suicide.
even worse ; considers
becoming insurance agent.
unwed girlfriend pregnant.
illegitimate daughter.
can’t afford marriage.

this is Albert Einstein 1901-1902

special

ii.
sits in dusty patent office.
daydreams about riding
his intergalactic beam of light.
publishes first paper on
special theory of relativity.
— inverts perception of universe
world turned on its head.

1905, just three light years later

BONUS POEM: April 9, 2018

An accumulation of titbits I read while researching this high point of western art.

*****

David’s Achilles

decades ago
on the instruction
of Nani (a 16th-century
Venetian painter’s model)
a deranged man
hammered the foot
of a master
damaging the giant
giant killer’s toe

every shattered fragment
collected & restored

moral outrage aside
the attack enabled
scientists to learn
the Carrara marble
was full of tiny holes
causing speedier degradation
than other marble

but the giant slayer’s
own demise might be
those who love him
endless microvibrations
created daily by the million
footsteps of iPhone raising
selfie-stick swinging
aficionados

Day 08 – cracks (& crows)

The kintsukuroi meme popped up on my feed again today, It’s a common one that does the SM rounds fairly regularly, but is no less profound for that. I’ve thought about trying to write a pome about it previously, today I gave it the good old red hot crack. It’s not there yet, but I ran out of time.

*****

to repair with gold

the philosophy is poignant : the aesthetic exquisite : the reality, harder to craft : repair broken pottery with powdered gold, silver, or platinum : mixed with lacquer : the precious metal seams : among the reassembled detritus : supposedly somehow : stronger : more beautiful : for having been broken

i doubt : the proof of fragility : together we dropped : three pots : which broke me : for over two decades : lived too long : with cracks, lines, chips, flaws, scratches, breaks : broken lines : deep trenches : the breaks, the knocks, the shattering : the fragments : too often my baked clay : wished to dry up : crumble : fall to pieces

unlike with Japanese artisans : if your pot breaks : only you can apply the lacquer : today i feel : the joins i’ve made : might be silver : perhaps one day : i’ll be strong enough : to transmute : those luminous lines to gold

BONUS POEM: April 8, 2018

Lines & images jotted down over past 3-4 days. Finally assembled & fine tuned today.

*****

Snug Voyeur

every glimpse thrills me.
secret knowledge
hidden when you’re here,
temporarily abandoned;
your harsh full stops
& half-hearted commas;
like warts like growths like blisters;
blood clots in the cerebellum
conglomerate of cancer cells

collected sticks stark
architectural recreations;
high amongst the skeletal
fog framed silhouettes,
reworkings of capillaries
tweaked bronchial tubes;
punctuating the forever
potential for new life.

when the leaves return
when the blossoms bloom
when your long flight
returns you home

Day 07 – ordinary days (& extraordinary nights)

A fun little exercise whereby I describe the things I’ve done today in more abstract ways via unordinary day alchemy; ie, went to the shops & bought vegies might be unordinary day alchemised to hunted in the long cool aisles for prey that cannot outrun me. Fear not, the examples in the poems are better (I hope 😂)

on an unordinary day

i now have

half a dozen doorways
to new nowhere rooms
if only i can get them home

two notebooks which float

more stories i own
but likely never know

two big volumes of all
the old words of once were

somewhere silky
to rest my migraine
& learn new dreams

plus a full tank to take me there

BONUS POEM: April 7, 2018

A poetic love fable. Inspired, this may come as no surprise, by the fact that Venezia has somewhat scrambled my otherwise fairly reasonable compass. Conceived on one bewildered journey; completed on several others when I set out to deliberately wander writing lines in my head as I went …

The poem so far I’m most pleased with 😁
[2019 edit: even more pleased with it following a few tweaks 😁😁]

*****

The 1000 Ways to San Marco Piazza

my love lives in Dorsoduro ; I, in Castello ; & every morning ; she promises to meet me ; in San Marco’s Piazza at sunset ; she says if we find each other there ; our love will last

if I had the talent ; I’d pen a postmodern novel ; telling of the thousand ways ; we never meet ; a short chapter ; a paragraph; even just a line, a single word ; about how my unerring ability ; to lose my way ; dooms me ; where every route I choose ; is wrong

the one where I see her on another Ponte, chase her, see her on other Pontes, but I never get closer ; the one where every Calle is a dead end ; the where I find a letter on the cobblestones from her to another ; the one where I fall in ; the one with a Calle so narrow my shoulders touch each wall, closer, closer, till I am wedged tight; the one where I meet another who might in fact be : the one true one

nights thick with the stink of summer tourists ; nights where the waters are still obsidian; nights when I don’t want to leave the house ; nights when I am dying to ; muggy shirts sticky nights ; wet winter nights ; nights where la Serenissima is a dream ; nights where only it is

& maybe ; one night ; when I least expect ; I will arrive ; & so will she ; & we ; will meet

Day 06 – flight (& caffeine)

Visited a place. Disturbing and awe-inspiring in conflicting measure.

*****

From our flying machines

On the outskirts of a calm country village
hiding in plain sight on nondescript dirt
is a testimony to an obsession writ large.
One man’s love of our avian imitation.
A huge game of aeronautical tetris;
wingspans laid across the dimensions
of his shed to determine how best
to accomodate two full size planes;
plus countless parts of engines, frames,
wings, tyres, cockpits, fuselages, noses, gun
turrets, dioramas & much other miscellania
I have no knowledge of.

And. The. Models. So many models.
Glass cabinet. After glass cabinet.
Into an infinity of dusty air.
Some in 1:72 scale. Some in 1:48 scale.
Others in scales my brain did not retain
because it had already overloaded
by this point and spent the rest of the visit
screaming over & over to my past & future selves

what have you done with your life
what have you done with your life
what have you done
with your life

BONUS POEM: April 6, 2018

A simple pome about an Italian favourite.

*****

Espresso of Sorpresa

three mornings in a row
three separate hostesses
have been surprised
when I request
Espresso

today I beat her
to the punchline
Americano
is only good
to wash

your face

Day 05 – the moon (& too much travel)

Another one of those last minute ring-ins (it is one of the blessings of NaPoWriMo — firing up the creative cogs after something of a lull).

After pottering round with two others pomes for varying parts of the day, this one roared at me about 45 minutes to midnight. There are other myths/folklores I would have like to have worked in but I stopped tweaking at midnight.

NOTE: the formatting may be a bit out of whack: Wordpress doesn’t cope too well with unusually spaced lines. That said, it is meant to be staggered, messy, abstract.

*****

the many things we see in the moon

over millennia in the long night darkness
human eyes, seeking patterns, discover them:

a weaving woman;
clusters of laurel trees;
an elephant jumping off a cliff;
  a girl
with a basket on her back;
many rabbits:
one working a mortar & pestle;
two fiery,
one self-sacrificing,
& one thrown into a sun;
yet one more carried by a crane;
innumerable frogs & toads:
   an immortal
goddess hiding
   in the likeness of a toad,
another hiding
   from a wolf,
   a marriage
broker for a Sky Maiden …

but of course it’s none of these
— it’s the Man in the Moon
sometimes carrying a bundle of wood
sometimes just his face (though many
Pacific Islander peoples see a woman)

the real mystery is comprehending how
others could see such bizarre things
when our interpretation is clearly correct

BONUS POEM: April 5, 2018

Mine haven’t arrived yet, but I’m sure we won’t be like this. Probably needs a good edit which I don’t have time for (sorry for long pome, I didn’t have time to write a short one 😁 NOTE: this incarnation, edited)

*****

Pax Familia

visiting endless iterations
of the long dead past
taxes the best of us
today I touristed more
   tears, tantrums & hissy fits
   pleas to be carried
   how much longer whines
   and demands to go home
than
   statues
   artwork
   or archaeological knick-knacks

despite non fluency in your tongue
I get you are
tense annoyed fully aggro
or just plain over it

such is the beauty
of traveling solo
no one to blame
for arriving late
getting lost
taking too long to decide

no, I never do those things
have never done anything so foolish

Day 04 – time travel (& road rules)

Several poems started, then a last minute contender rushed in demanding to be completed with 37 minutes till midnight to go. Such is the joy of NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo.

Further complications were added when my wireless keyboard batteries went flat & I had to see if any of my dozen or so randomly distributed rechargeable batteries had enough charge to fire this badboy back up. 49 combinations later, little green light was go.

*****

the speed of light

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT:
for the foreseeable future my favourite
star is going to be 12 Ophiuchi
a main-sequence orange-red dwarf
BY Draconis-type variable star
in the east central corner
of Ophiuchus the Serpent Bearer

at around 83 percent of Sol’s mass
85 to 100 percent of its diameter
& being similarly as enriched
in elements heavier than hydrogen
as our sun it is a semi-sort kind of a twin
i guess, i don’t really know much
about the astrophysiwhatsit specs
the reason i’m interested in
this faint little blip of light
in a relatively unknown
constellation is simple

it is 31.89 light-years away

which means the light my eye
is trampolining onto the back
of my retina & zipping off up
the optic nerve to my visual cortex
left the star 31.89 years ago
which according to my (admittedly
roughly hewn calculations)

… is about 3 days before we first met

BONUS POEM: April 4, 2018

*****

Crash Course
(A Poetic Interpretation of the 12 Rules of Driving on Italian Roads)

1.
i’m just kidding of course
there’s no such list

Day 03 – valleys (& hobbitholes)

Reading a Carl Sagan book earlier, where he describes a perfect day from his childhood at a World Fair & got to wondering, what might a perfect day from my childhood be?

*****

a long ago perfect day

a sunday, naturally
they’re always sundays

autumn morning
cool but not too cold
not unlike today

overprotective mist
hugging the edges
of our tiny valley

book snug under covers
wasn’t a doona then
but in this memory
i’m stitching it so

hurried lunch
sardines on toast
tomato sauce
can’t be away too long
from the otherworld

back into bed
till tea

tinned tomato soup
heated in aluminium
saucepan on the stove
thinned with milk

fire in the potbelly
wood i probably chopped

not much mattered
beyond the old stone walls
indeed other than grandparents’ homes
i barely knew anything
greater than a dozen miles distant

except the stars of course
always the stars

BONUS POEM: April 3, 2018

Visited a place I’ve wanted to experience, since reading about it nearly a decade ago. It was as wonderful as anticipated, even if I was disappointed to discover they now have their own iPhone app. The world changes even when we wish it wouldn’t…

*****

Civitie de Bagnoregio

to live upon
a mountain top
alone
like many monk
incarnations before

a town of hobbit
holes on a hill
instead of in
if all mine i’d fill
every home
with books

if only

i were unaware
of the signs
of
land
slipping
away

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Author Archives: gareth roi jones

~ Interlude ~

Day 11 – intertextuality (& introspection)

Day 10 – let down (& queuing up)

Day 09 – failure (& failing)

Day 08 – cracks (& crows)

Day 07 – ordinary days (& extraordinary nights)

Day 06 – flight (& caffeine)

Day 05 – the moon (& too much travel)

Day 04 – time travel (& road rules)

Day 03 – valleys (& hobbitholes)

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