Day 07 – the obsession that’s eating our planet

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

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)

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

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

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

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

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

Day 30 – endings (& fairy tales)

Toyed with a couple of ideas, none developed very far, when I realised I’d almost written a poem over the past 29 days. Took the titles & laid them out one after the other & they make a kind of sense. Couple of stabs at rearranging lines & adding words to help soften the occasional harsh transitions, but in the end, just went with the order they were produced, unadulterated, in a self-referential, albeit imperfect, found poem.

*****

the end

i.
the present twilight ; a long ago perfect day ; the speed of light

ii.
the many things we see in the moon from our flying machines on an unordinary day

iii.
to repair with gold failure deflated ; big top potpourri white hare

iv.
autumn day sunday farm sounds home, less holy houses day of birth ; Jubilate Canis (shout out to my dog)

v.
absence wallows the wind tree ; game of poems will never end ; senescence lest we forget ; game of moans intertextuality ; last day of holidays scans the end

BONUS POEM: April 30, 2018

Looking back over the bookface, it seems I never actually posted a Day 30 pome last year. WiFi was possibly an issue, but it was also a big travel day. None-the-less, checking my master file it seems there were three pomes drafted that day (or at least, begun) so as a special End-of-Month Bonus … I’m going to share all three (after each gets a wee tidy up).

*****

silver 3

in an outer suburb
of Bad Wildungen
on route to Kassel
where the Grimm Boys
collected, collated
& reconditioned
so many of their tales

a silver 3 heliums
its shiny foil
way to freedom. sadly
tonight someone will
be recelebrating their 1st
rather than their 13th

initially think it’s a bird
a rook or raven or some other
portentous feathered omen

seek personal symbolism
you can see signs
in anything — so i do

being in Fairy Tale land
naturally i see in
the wayward ballon

the three bears;
the little pigs;
three wishes;

three sons, two who fail,
one who saves everyone;
rules of three everywhere.

& always
always always
three dead babes

°°°°°

for the trees

i.
being here where they were
has forever altered the way
I’ll read the Household Tales
for now I understand — forest

why so many stories are set there
why so many journeys go through
for there’s forest on every third hill

a forest around every third corner
a forest bordering every third field
& road … & river … & valley

& where it’s not a forest
it’s a grove, or a copse
or even just a stand

no wonder there are
so many woodcutters,
with so much wood to cut

likewise there are so many
kings, queens, princesses & princes
when beyond every forest
may well be a new kingdom

ii.
i also comprehend having
walked in
Hansel & Gretel’s forest
that it’s so much darker,
blacker & gloomier than I could
ever have understood
from the desert’s
edge ;

Little Red’s, while
ominous
has infinitely more colour
a variegation of verde;

& seeing the virulence
with which things grow here
can well understand how
quickly thorns could over
come
Sleeping Beauty’s castle

°°°°°

Märchenstraße

I believe some of these towns
heard there was a wagon
grabbed their bands
& just jumped on

Cos their connection
to anything Fairy Tale
seems grimly tenuous
(& that’s being generous)

Day 29 – silence (& smiles)

Worked on a poem about the multiple Goldilocks zones that our world occupies, a long conceived concept, but it’s more complicated than anticipated, so this is a Plan B pome.

*****

Scans

Spent several hours sitting
next to a subdued stranger
often in stilted silence

Trying not to talk about
the hot topic of the day
even though it’s all
that occupies us

Trying extremely hard
not to compare contexts:
lives alone, never married
only an aged mother
in rapid decline
also living alone nearby
father mercifully taken
down swiftly by two
strokes in succession

Trying not to project
forward into my
unfriendly future

& failing miserable

BONUS POEM: April 29, 2018

A quiet moment of cross-cultural communication.

*****

Homemade

many things
have thrilled me
this past month
but perhaps
nothing so much
as this breakfast
when I pointed
at the apricot jam
& said in my best
Australian German
“hausgemacht?
sehr gut”

the “ja” & brief
blossom of a smile
to the otherwise
surly waiter’s face
was like a bee
abseiling my spine

Day 28 – holidays (& queues)

After a hectic week, this is just a simple little word sketch of part of my afternoon.

*****

last day of holidays

a dozen monarchs dancedrift
in pepperscented air ,
translucent against blue ;
my neck crane tracks
their unscheduled flightpaths .
the holiday happy kids
next door bubbleblow ;
while in the lofty gum above ,
a crow mocks their efforts ;
his chainsaw pull laugh
repeatedly kickstarting the air .
…………
…………

…………
…………

BONUS POEM: April 28, 2018

Travel, sightseeing, culturfying yourself is predominantly about standing in queues with people you’d prefer not to be seen in public with.

*****

Queue

from the French qarrsewhippe
a late 16th century heraldic
term meaning to “quickly despise
the people nearby; this stupid
attraction; the whole goddamn
country; indeed every living
human being on the planet”

i say every since you’re the fool
still standing seemingly forever
in this purgatorial procession
of humanity’s dregs
who fail to comprehend
basic tenets of hygiene
conversational volume
or personal space to view
a monument of no doubt
dubious merit in the first place

SPECIAL 3 DAYS TO GO BONUS POEM

To the jerk in the queue in front of me

almost coping with your incessant
OCDesque side to side pacing
& intermittent backwards bump
into me despite the large gap
i’m attempting to keep between
us since your first unexpected
incursion into my discomfort zone

but honestly, if you don’t care
to keep possession of the lint
from your shorts’ pockets
when exactly did you realise
it was what i want
blowing over me

gareth roi poet boi

gareth roi's playful poetry place

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Day 07 – the obsession that’s eating our planet

Day 04 – the flat curve round the corner

Day 03 – the falling of the sky

Day 30 – endings (& fairy tales)

Day 29 – silence (& smiles)

Day 28 – holidays (& queues)

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