Author Archives: gareth roi jones

April 15 – Day Fifteen: halfway there

Technology makes life pretty awesome for writers.  (When it works of course.)  I am a big fan of Dropbox. All my writing is saved in there & I can access it from anywhere there’s interwebs. Sadly, Dropbox is clunky when it comes to editing, so I use Plain Text, which syncs with Dropbox.  With this PlainText/Dropbox combo I can write a poem on the beach on my phone, edit it on the iPad at a friend’s on the way home & when I open it up on my desktop, the latest version is there, raring to go.  It’s brillo.

Autocorrect, however, while brilliant much of the time, doesn’t always know what I want to say.  Today’s poem was influenced on a whim, by the quirk of autocorrect. 

I was sitting on a bench with the pooch, people watching, sunset waiting, after a nice long walk on the beach.  I started to take some notes on a possible “people watching poem”.  I began with “The girl who squeaks like a bird”.  Except my fat fingers didn’t quite type that.  It didn’t cope with the next phrase either … & an idea was born.  I immediately created some rules.  Well two.

1. Think of the entire line in advance & type as quickly as I could without pausing or backspacing.
2. Accept whatever autocorrect suggested.

Some lines have more autocorrect influence than others, some lines are made gibberishy by the auto; some, somehow more profound; & some just thrilled me no end when they appeared.  No lines have been edited (this also means it’s more fun/less work than a regular poem – haha!)

Esplanade Cavalcade (autocorrected)

The girl who squeaks like absurd,
as her patents ignore her
& talk over her head

The brothers who clamber along Hyde rocks,
one of them finds a cram she’ll,
the it get doesn’t want to look

The ring tonight ting yin
gets bike riders

The yummy mummy jogging
with babying pusher
& a well behaved chic lab trotting alongside

The lesbian couple who u saw
being affectionate on the beach before,
now sadly walking diary,
barely together

The cute teen girl in a purple jumper
who smokes at us as she passes,
park duly more at Chester than I

The woman with the jock terrier
who’s bum bounced a nubs of its own
as she briskwalked away

The overlay earnest woman admiring
the moshav art on the rocks
who stops to tell me to look at one further up
called “the last snapper”

The lonely guy sitting on the bench
playing with this phone instead
of watching the sub set,
or the blood mob riding behind him

*****

 

I couldn’t decide which image to go with … so I’m going with both.

 the last snapper

 

posing on a rock

 

Both images by moi.
Top: “The Last Snapper” cooperative association of Israeli smallholders art.
Bottom: Posing on a Rock. (Such a good boy)

April 14 – Day Fourteen: in the time it takes

This is an experiment in playing with time.  How it is at once: past, present & future.

… time is measured differently here …

on the near side of midnight … i drive through the town of childhood …
see pickles sitting in shadow outside the pub in the main street
just as he would’ve done a quarter century ago, when i moved away
i know now, i never really left

… less than a summer afternoon in memory later …
two foxes, an oval apart, cross the road in front of me
appearing in my carved tunnel of light, before running out

… in less than the time it takes for a ute to roll …
another car’s lights go from stabbing the stars, to my eyes
shocked, i forget to turn off my own high beam
the community radio station keeps playing sufi music in the darkness

… sitting in mum’s car with my first crush watching the a-grade
listening to songs that would later make me wince, talking about escaping …
as a star falls

… in the time it takes to fly through a dead woman’s house …
a kangaroo startles by standing up in the middle of the road
he seems to consider tackling the car head on, i see his muscles bunch
but i swerve, he leans back slightly & we avoid — narrowly

… in the time it takes to fall in love with a christian girl
wishing she wasn’t so religious nor so cute …
i remember telling a story today about one wonderful ex-girlfriend
which painted me poorly & my sister gurgling “& you wonder why she left”
“no i well know why she left” i countered, but now, here, in the black night
confronted by truth, i cannot remember why any of them ended

… in the time it takes for a fat boy to swing back on his chair …
i wonder what getting away got me, wonder whether if, like pickles
i’d be happier if i was still sitting outside the pub of my childhood

… in a moment no longer than my first kiss …
my little petrol pump lights up orange as we reach the city’s edges

 

after his day of running, chasing & playing, the dog sleeps the whole way home
untroubled

*****

 starry_night_by_alexruizart-d3khue9

Image: Starry Night by AlexRuizArt.

April 13 – Day Thirteen: SUNDAY SILLY (part ii) [Family Caricature]

Today’s effort is inspired by a family lunch.  

Disclaimer: It is intended as Caricature Poem only. No resemblance to any person living or deceased is intended (except Aunt Ricky).

family luncheon

sitting down for yet another never-ending family luncheon
i notice what a truly unsightly gaggle we are as a clan

nana’s lazy eye, which double crosses her every time she’s tipsy
dad’s weak chin, still there, despite trying to hide behind a beard

mum’s jagged line of perpetually decaying dental disaster zone
grandpa’s bushy black eyebrows waggling like warring caterpillars

uncle frank’s franciscan friar’s bald patch, a tonsure reflecting god’s light
papa’s broad potato splodge nose, an elephantine red pontiac hit by a brick

sis’s dumbo ears, which if caught in a tornado would transport her to oz
aunt ricky’s wine&pizza-fuelled paunch — no, not 7 months preggers!

gran’s, actually granny is the most attractive one at the table by a country
mile … so nothing to say (besides it’s her birthday so i needs be nice to her)

while i admit i’ve inherited each & every of these delightful genetic quirks
i would stlil have liked the opportunity to pass the whole glad grabbag along
to the next unfortunate generation of freaks, causing equal amounts of angst
embarrassment remorse & bitterness … & the contemplation of plastic surgery

*****

100 lighting cake

Image: Granny using her cake candles to light her cancer stick.

April 12 – Day Twelve: anniversary (a year, a week & a day since you moved in)

The original intention was to publish this a year & a week from the day our lives meshed. The tech glitches described in such eloquent detail in a previous ~interlude~ prevented that.  So now it is online, a year, a week & a day since that wonderful day.  You’ve changed my life in ways I didn’t believe possible.

Belated Anniversary Poem

It occurred to me yesterday, I forgot an anniversary
A big one, too. A year together. A full year. Our first.
I’m not the man who wept last Easter. I am un-entombed.

I met you on a Monday, you’d moved in by Friday.
We met on April Fools Day, which some think’s funny
but for me is no laughing matter. It suits us perfectly

& even though I’m reasonably confident you’re okay
I forgot — no doubt not realising the significance either
for me it’s important to sing to the stars I’m the best

I’ve been since you came, the world’s broken in two
even to the point of my own personal timekeeping
symbology — AD is After Dog; BC, Before Chester.

Lick you!

 

 

*****

2014-04-13 21.47.56

 

Image: ChesterLickyTongue, by moi

April 11 – Day Eleven: out of nowhere

Today (as it was, Friday) was a challenging day.  I had quite a few attempts at things, none seemed inspired or inspiring. I was more interested in reading rather than writing for most of the day. I had ideas, but they just weren’t flowing.  Finally, I had to call an end to it & begin to get ready to catch up with friends & go see a (as it turned, rather strange, bland) production of Dracula.

In the shower, however, the first lines of this poem (“i hear voices in the water, singing in the shower stream”) made themselves known to me.  Others came pretty rapidly as the wonderful pounding heat soothed my stress away.  The fact that these lines were later bumped into verse 2 & tweaked a bit is of no consequence. The fact that I was almost late to the play because of the need to finish the poem, perhaps is …

company

at my old house. 3 sets of footsteps
would run away. when you approached
the front door. stop. as you unlocked.
then race to the back room. temperature’s
changed. for no reason. the back bedroom
was always colder. no matter the weather.

here, i hear voices. in the water.
people talking. in the shower stream.
singing. where the drain turns a corner
down deep there. below the bath
& it always feels. someone is near
not too near. perhaps. but close by.

not always, a good thing
for those. who live. alone.

*****

films_about_ghosts_by_lneprz-d4izjmu

 

Image: films about ghosts by LNePrZ

~ interlude ~

This is a quick note to advise the “technical difficulties” have been resolved. These were all legitimate technical issues & not a creative black hole including: a hectic weekend, being away from my computer, forgetting word press password & dropbox not syncing to the most recent draft of a poem.  I assure you, every day a poem was written.  These will now be arriving over the next hour or so, as I upload & format each new page till I am current.  Thank you for patience during this most trying of times (heehee).  I hope the end result is worth the wait.

NB if at any time you read anything you like, please feel to share, like, comment … or even subscribe.  All interaction with folks who read my poems, is both appreciated & inspiring.  (Even if you disagree/dislike something, I’d love to know why!)

April 10 – Day Ten: something small

There’s nothing big about this one.  A friend argued with her horse.  I had surgery 2 weeks ago.  We all have our bruises.

bruise

all the colours have faded now
vivid reds & princely purples
the violet of betrayal
the blue silver fishscale gleam
the dull golding around the edges
as crushed capillaries let go their anger

yes, this fruitcup bruise has faded
like those before, crushed but unbroken.
the frozen peas remain in the freezer
for use in mornays & hearty stews

wait for the fading to start
from areas didn’t think you could reach
deep vein blue & red ventricle heart
the addicted galah-coloured striatum
& the bluesilverglow in every cell
that talks to the universe

*****

article-new-thumbnail_ehow_images_a02_2l_f3_treat-black-eye-bruise-800x800

 

A Black eye.  Image: ehow.com

 

April 9 – Day Nine: a change of tack

While at the launch of a book of poetry tonight, the phrase “eco-anarchist” lit a fire under a few things I’ve been thinking for some time. What is the place of poetry? Can it change the world? Probably not, but if it can challenge it, that’s almost as good.

The Redistribution Manifesto & Hit List

1.
Redistribution

The dam wall is about to break
It’s been building for a while
This resentment towards the so-called 1%
Really it’s a much lower number
Too long we’ve allowed them their dominance
The corporate capitalistic oligarchy
has been tried & found wanting.
Their socio-comic irrationalism
is getting in the way of our fee market economy
If free-trade agreements were not actually misnomers
& if globalisation brought equal benefits globally
but …

The solution is simple.
They’ve had their chance.
Been given ample opportunity to change,
yet they cling, confidently cling,
knowing nothing’s altered in 200 years
Other than increasing the odds in their favour
so why now.

The solution, I said, is simple.
Take back what’s ours.
Or just — take equality.
(as we’ve probably never truly had it)
The irony is that the right is actually not
What’s left of the left, needs to step up,
& grow a pair.
Militant actions are necessary.
Gandhi spoke of non-violent resistance
But the conservatives’ poster boy,
turned over tables in the temple.

It’s time to turn some tables.

My solution is simple.
Kill the rich. Just the ultras, for a start.
For the price of a few bullets
maybe a carbomb
great injustices could be undone.
I myself am willing to train.
Willing to risk eternity in hell
to free the millions, the billions.
Yes indeed, I’ll cop that
to prevent this inexorable dystopia.
Let’s try another route.
& if it’s built on a few
dead billionaire’s bodies, so be it.
Is their death worth more
than the millions in sweat shops,
& slave labour camps,
let alone the billions in
daily grind employment
that are not sweat shops
– yet still don’t provide
financial security.
Who would not, knowing
what we know now
& given the chance, have drowned a certain young Austrian
artist as he stood at his easel by the Danube River in 1900

 

2.
The Manifesto

1. Publish the hit list.
2. Reward the Redistributor.
3. Wait a week. If nothing changes, move down the list.
4. Anyone who gives away 20% of their wealth in each 7 day period, is safe for the following week.
5. Every so often, mix up the order. Keep em on their toes.
6. Repeat till extreme affluence — or extreme poverty — no longer exists.

 

3.
The Hit List: a first draft (the top 5)

0. Gates [$76 billion] even though he’s #1
he gets a short reprieve for already offloading
a fair whack of cash. & encouraging others to do so too.

1. A Walton is first. Doesn’t matter which of the 4.
[each worth between $34 & $37 billion]
Whichever one goes might make the others think fast.
Thus, a few birds, one stone. Oh! & tidy up Walmart salaries. Today.
Actually, scratch that. Tidy your third world workers salaries today.
You can fix your employees up tomorrow.

2. A Koch brother is next. [$40 billion each]
Again it doesn’t matter which.
(supposedly pronounced “Coke”, we know the truth)
One less sociopath in the world, is always welcome.
We’re just deregulating a few pesky wealth hoarders.

3. Although ex-Aussie Murdoch [$13.5 billion] is a relative minnow,
eliminating him early on could have nice knock on effects.
Watch the rabid Fox Newsrabbit “journalists”
fear monger their way out of that one.
Make sure an American Redistributes old Rupe
(They do, after all, have the right to bear arms)

4. Putin is in some lists as having a secret $70 billion in assets.
Not sure if it’s true, but ditto for knock on effects.
Can anyone say Crimea?

5. Ingvar Kamprad [$53 billion] is next. Probably a nice guy,
but your top five position is for bringing us IKEA.

The rest of the list will be released, 1 week from today.
Brace yourselves.

 

 

April 8 – Day Eight: The OFFICIAL entry: verbatim

So after the chopping & changing mentioned in the other April 8 entry, I finally got back to the main idea that had caught my attention during the day.

One of my HairyFooted One ring destroying Big Bellied Innocent Tiny people buddies (goes by the nick, RhubarbCrumbles) & I were chatting on Line about houses, where we grew up & whatnot (her & her husband, RL nickname Blokie, are soon to start building one of their own) when she mentioned she was on googlemaps. Actually on it. She even sent me a picture.

This intrigued me & I asked her for more info.  So she proceeded to tell me the story of her google mapping experience.  As she told me, (& by told, I mean typed in conversation with me, like an extended text message exchange) I begun to consider her story as a possible source for Found Poetry.

Now having friends who are playwrights, I was aware of the relatively recent theatre form, Verbatim Theatre (in which plays are constructed using the precise words spoken by people interviewed about a particular event/topic). I thought I could apply the same techniques to Poetry (I also hadn’t heard of it being done before in poetry. Naturally a later google search reveal it had; although the way I was proposing was closer in approach to Verbatim Theatre, than the more traditional Verbatim Poetry seemed to represent.)

So what follows is pretty much literally, word for word, Rhu’s story – presented in poetic form. The only minor tweaks I have made are: 1) taking out all my interjections (which, unusually, were relatively few); 2) even rarer, made slight adjustments to grammar, usually to better structure a reply to a question I asked & to make Rhu’s response flow fractionally better; 3) removed a few unrelated chunks where we talked about the game; & 4) twice moved a line to a different position within the poem.  Now if any/all of these break any cardinal VP rules, I care not. I was more interested in the final product than the process/technique by which I got there. That said I know I can confidently say, “These are at least 95% Rhu’s words, Rhu’s voice, if not higher”. The sculptors knife was only used very lightly.

As always, keen for any thoughts? responses? critiques? of this never-before-tried-by-me, poetic form.

google mapped
or the Alcester Rut

Amusingly I am immortalised in google maps
[Photo]
Taken the week I was leaving the UK (though I didn’t know it at the time)
I know it’s the week before I left because of the shirt I was wearing
I wore it once to paint the hallway
We sold it after my father died.

We left as we needed a change.
Alcester is a small town.
A very small village, technically a hamlet
Kind of like the Lou Reed song
Small Town
It might have been John Cale. Or one he recorded with him.
But the lyrics go something like
Growing up in a small town x3
You just wanna get out
We were stuck in a routine
And had always talked about moving abroad

US wouldn’t have been our first choice, but its where blokie had an opportunity
Yes. We have one brother each. No parents.
Friends are diversely spread across the globe and UK.
And those in Alcester were part of the rut.
We’d watch the footie in the boozer on a Sunday.
Blokie would play darts on a Tuesday.
And quiz league on Thursdays.
We’d still be doing that if we lived there.
So we moved.

It wasn’t a huge wrench.
I’m fairly pragmatic.
And it was exciting.
No tears.
Maybe a small lump in my throat for my bro.
And an odd drunken conv with one of my best mates who declared his love for me.
Like 1 day before u leave, what was I supposed to say to that! Other than awkward.
Probably better for him that I left I suspect.
I don’t want to be anyone’s unrequited love.
And no, no quickie.

US is pretty much as u expect it to be.
Inherently right of centre.
Money orientated
Family orientated.
More religious than I appreciated.
And a complete lack of understanding of anything outside their own shores.

How? Um.
Blokie loves google maps/earth.
If he sees a sports stadium or landmark on tv,
he likes to locate them and see whether its a good place to visit.
I guess he was just having a gander at Alcester, and there I was.

The first thing I bought with my inheritance
was a copy of the Times Atlas of the World for him.
That was a while ago though.
It props up the PS3 now.

 

*****

 

photo

Image: googleearth & RhubarbCrumbles

 

April 8 – Day Eight: 4 bonus poems

Today was a bit messy.  Every other day I’ve known what  I was going to do by about midday.  Today I had a few false starts, & nothing was really grabbing me.  So I worked on a play instead, read some articles online, read Bill Bryson’s awesome chapter on Pronunciation, read a really interesting chapter on how Russia’s political instability is founded on a lack of any clear geographic demarcations between its Western border & Europe … & the “vulnerability” of St Petersburg & Russia now that the Soviet “buffer zone” of satellite Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania etc are now “independent” states.  Written a couple of years again, it shed interesting light on the current Crimea Crisis – but helped little in the poem creation caper.

So to a walk on the beach.  Which produced:

the blue seaglass sky

rain has kept all but the dedicated away
& we’re both a little stir crazy

thankfully this strip of salty dreams
is virtually deserted, even by the gulls

henley beach a zen meditation
the beach as onomatopoeia

water becomes sand, sand becomes sky
sky becomes water … & we drift between

lost on the wind, one lost in the wind
whispers of wings that cannot be seen

waves wash water over wet sand
the sucking sounds – sausages sizzling

in the seashell cemetery, exoskeletons sing
coral cartwheeling, a dead reef xylophone

& every piece of fairy seaglass i find
is washed out blue, just like the sky

*****

1. beach & chezz 1.seaglass

Images: moi

Which, while “nice”, felt like a pretty bog standard grj poem.  It will hopefully improve once April is over & I have a chance to tweak it.  (I particularly like “the beach as onomatopoeia” & will possibly explore that in more detail, sometime.)

So, home after a wonderful wet walk, & a quick stop to shop for essentials, generated this gem:

one of the disadvantages of tardiness

get home after wet beach walk, soggy
towel dry the dog, feed the dog
think about feeding myself, consider coffee
catch from an eye corner, the clock
WTH – where did the time go, calculate
we left here at 4, clock says 6.59
the reading starts in an hour
check the oven: starts in an hour there too
we couldn’t have walked for that long
would’ve said 90 minutes at most
& i only bought a few groceries
dammit! no time for food
put the frozen stuff away. & the milk.
scramble into shower, scrape face
wriggle into jeans, search for shoes
check phone.  wait.  what?  wait!
here the reading starts in 1hr47min
i really should turn those damn
kitchen clocks back — daylight savings
has been over half a week

 *****

clock_by_GruEliSm

Image: Clock by gruelism

This was followed by attendance at said poetry reading which had previously caused such panic in my efforts to get there on time.  [We shan’t mention, the act of sitting at the computer to craft said poem, almost caused me to run late (again, so to speak) for the reading. Sometimes, it seems time is destiny.]

A quick conversation post-reading & this was spewed forth upon my return home. (I had 2 hours to meet the midnight deadline.)

operational policy

my friend works for the government
in the bureaucracy … doing something
to do with housing – or something

every time he talks about it i wittily
pretend to fall asleep. people understand if i say
‘i sit at a computer’  he jokes … before going silent

till one day i overhear him spieling to a stranger
i work for the government in operational policy
we implement what the strategic policy department

decides is a good idea … we make sure it works
i see the woman’s eyes glaze over too
i sit at a computer. aaah, the joke still works

yes, but what do you actually do, she persists
um, my work means the most vulnerable
get what they need in order to live

i haven’t pretended to fall asleep since

*****

 

3. wooden_house_by_kleemass-d3jc2v7

Image: Wooden House by Kleemass

But this still didn’t feel like it.  So I returned to an abandoned effort from earlier in the day.

beyond pain
(Peaches Geldoff dies at age 25)

the deaths of celebrities are strange events
causing outpourings of grief from a deluded
General Population who believe they are somehow
“connected” just because they saw them lots on tv.
the deaths of not-really celebrities are even stranger.

while i sincerely feel the pain her father expresses
in his statement to the media, including the phrase
which titles this poem & others equally heartbreaking
Writing ‘was’ destroys me afresh &
our family, fractured so often, but never broken
the pathos is profound – his clan has done it tough.

what i do not comprehend is how the media
thinks poorly worded tweets from other
second rate celebs some of whom may even
have known the deceased are news — but FFS
Miley & Jamie — sad face emoticons are not
appropriate ways to express your condolences
when someone’s daughter, someone’s mother dies

*****

4. peaches only 3 in WA copy

Screencap moi:  “What’s up WA? – Why is it only 3 on your Reader’s Most Viewed????

But I still wasn’t happy … which leads to today’s Official Post (see new page)