Author Archives: gareth roi jones

Day 22 – poem about sunset

translucent strip

Running late. Not content with it, but need to publish something.

all the invisibles 

for a few translucent moments
every evening just as the sun
softly feathers down behind
the hills;
……………..& throws rusty angles
over the dog yard’s corrugated
roof;
………in those moments as our star
flutters ever lower, frail formerly
unseen spiderwebs illuminate
golden, tying the cyclone mesh
together more tenderly than wire;
slightly higher up, eucalypt leaves
thread together in molten lattices;
& beyond that, half way to the sky
it playfully irradiates dozens
of previously transparent tiny
bugs suddenly bringing them
all to unexpected life;
…………..…………….…….………a reminder
if needed of how much we’re always
surrounded by the invisible

Day 21 – poem about the dark

milky_way_panorama_by_bobby01-d48thle

Visits to my parents’ farm during New Moons have always been mystical. I like walking over land I cannot quite see. Beautiful blackness in all directions. Only the frail light of starlight millions of years old to guide my way (hell, that’s good, why isn’t that in the pome? haha).

I’m not satisfied with the last lines, but as I only started this an hour or so ago, I’m running out of time & will just have to let it stay as is for now.

source

i believe very little
but i truly believe
every human soul
should experience
true country dark
every 100 days, minimum

somewhere far from
a light polluted city
when the moon is in
recovery mode, & the earth
reflects back the black
birth of the universe

only alone in the vast absence
& endlessly reverberating silence
we find how much dark matters

Day 20 – poem about emotional maturity

dogaccino

Two thirds of the way through NaPoWriMo 2017 … & a light-hearted poem on a day when I just wanted to read & relax.

growth

people accuse
me of being
change-reticent

patently untrue
clearly they have
not observed

the blasé way
i now fingernail
a stray dog hair

up the slippery
side of my mug
after its quick

coffee dip &
continue sipping
unperturbed

Day 19 – poem about bed

19 autumn_feeling_by_bittersea CROP

NaPoWriMo continues despite a long day prepping for & running a production meeting. So the following formula: very tired + little creative juice = quick pome.

bed

you brought autumn into our bed
which was fine while the leaves

were still soft & smelt of earth
— now they crackle when i snore

& you are long gone though
i refuse to change the sheets

Day 18 – poem about gloamings

golden_autumn_ii CROP

Today was a tiring day with a meeting in the morning, work on technical/production documents, phone calls & planning, pulling information teeth from my reluctant-to-divulge-information director, along with a printer cartridge which needed replacing at a crucial time, all meant my brain wasn’t really in a poeting frame when 8 o’clock rolled round & I realised I hadn’t written anything postable yet.

Feeling uninspired, I used an old trick — flicking through an art website I like, typing in keywords (like “firefly”, “serenity”, etcetera) until “autumn leaves” brought me to a website of a lovely French photographer who was obsessed with both the season & the “golden hour” which meant her page was full of golds, & glowing light, rich decaying reds, browns, & yellows.

So I assembled a page & a half’s worth of picture description (me describing what I see in the photo), photo titles (or parts of), & words/phrases lifted from the mostly French comments below the photos & run through google translate, which I arranged, tweaked, edited & tried to shape.

The result is this narrative through images. I know it probably needs a solid edit to help make it, make “sense” — & I’m not sure about the last line which originally I took out because it felt like it was from another pome, but I missed what was lost & so put it back — anyhoo, NaPoWriMo is about writing a pome a day, not about masterpieces. (At least that’s my excuse, & I’m sticking.)

Autumnus

your hands : overlap : your face : letting go : the place remains : imaginary : you handstand : in puddles : hair caught on blossoms

the leaves of my manuscript : waterfall over the balcony : stare at blank pages : sunbeams on my skin : my house : then the sky : pity the sun : that must go down : every night

we look at the stars : & talk til 2am : different themes : on the same thought : the same person : yearning for sunshine : in different clothes

wildness in your eyes : crackles through : everything seems to be twirling : ambiguous : diminished

i lay in the field : among flowers : asleep : my book : across my face

this is the link : to us : i am me : & you are nobody

you could : hide beside me : & i could : hide inside : maybe we just like fixation : this is the madness : melancholic nostalgia : beautiful : but full of sad memories

please don’t : wake me up : i need time to dream : everything deep : so i’ll remember forever : the days we spent : together

child of the autumn : child of the leaves : child that can never be

Day 16 – poem about serenity

Paro Taktsang – Paro Valley, Bhutan

Been partaking in much thought (as I do this time every year); as well as a Firefly marathon, so themes of home & family have been percolating round for days. (The pome itself took about an hour; finding the right picture, close to five.)

Somewhere there is a house

whether facing a storm on a cliff ;
lost in a forest ; birdhigh in a tree ;
or underground browntangled among
ancient roots ; atop an old stone tower ;
even above an ocean where mountains
once used to be, before being washed away

But somewhere there is a house ;
where when i walk in, i have always been
where i know and am known ;
where there is no need to play roles ;
no need to keep pretending all is well ;
where those long lost are as they were

i know there is a such a house, somewhere

Day 15 – poem about the least dark thing I wrote today

end_of_the_sea_by_xiaoxinart-d5nq1eb

This weekend (& this date in particular) is always difficult & painful & poignant & ugly. So too was most of what I wrote today. I have attached the least bleak piece, regardless of its merits. In a slight deviation from practise, I’m also using the picture that inspired the poem as the choice for today’s NaPoWriMo blog pome. I frequently write (first drafts at least) from artworks, but when I do I prefer not to share the image for fear of overload; that both pieces will fight each other by saying too similar a thing, but I don’t have the energy to find something more abstract tonight.

wyndhame

somewhere cerebellum deep : everyone : wants : their own : fantasy castle : storybook sentence : painting lifted : from the pages of childhood : rooves of saltwater green : gold stone isolation : glinting : beautiful exile : at the end of the sea : the edge of the world : but few : are brave enough : to truly live there : among cloud fragments : erosion : bewildered fish : suddenly plummeting : & the perpetual fear of falling

Day 13 – poem about heat

sacks

So it seems the NaPoWriMo moral of the story is, post Thursday mornings beforehand, not think you’ll have time at the end of the night. Thursday is my Worstday; with driving, work, late night, driving; I arrived home half an hour before midnight, tired & with a slow computer so that when it ticked over to midnight, I just thought: I’ll do it in the morning. 

Not a 100% happy with this one, but the others I worked on (yester)today are i) for a competition  or ii) political so it’s a very short short list (i.e., it’s this one poem). The only editing I’ve done (to)today is shorten the title.

favourite sign of autumn

you can keep your gently goldenening leafs
your sugarysweet ripening grapes & all
your other dull stereotypical signs of autumn
i’ll stick with my little bag of wheat

in the old days we warmed em in the oven
my forgetfulness costing me at least two
now the agitation of microwaves does the trick
in 180 seconds stimulating water molecules within

& so for the next three, four or more hours
it gently leaks heat into my bed, against my leg
warming against the oncoming winter
reassuring me cold can & will be overcome

more organic than an electric blanket
(& less likely to incinerate) but sadly
more lumpy than a lover at 3am when I roll
— at least, I think it is, it’s been a while