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

Day 27 – intertextuality (& instagram)

Yet another poem about the joys of reading — which took on a life of its own. And even though the last line might be a wee bit much, I still love it.

*****

intertextuality

a startling line of text hooks me sideways
from ancient sword & sorcery Cimmeria
arcing me skywards, belly to the sun;
into other stories, real world experiences
& perfumes, already lodged in synapses flash
light silver-gilt sparkles quivering
from networked neural nest to another;
whirlpooled into the closeted green
dirty underwater of the Black Forest
where we each tread our paths on the way
to Red’s Grandma’s little log cabin.
breathing heavily behind a tree, see her skip
basket-swinging foolish innocence knock
of knuckle on the old crone’s red door

— but miss what happens next when a tap
on my shoulder reveals one angry looking
wolfskin-wearing weapon-wielding woodsman
…………
…………

…………
…………
BONUS POEM: April 27, 2018

Self explanatory.
NOTE: 2019 edit. Various minor tweakings & enjambments to improve the pome.

*****

#nofilter

despite gut-dropping
disappointment upon discovering
every shot of the castle
I’d ever seen had been
carefully crafted to crop
………………………………………… out
all neighbouring car parks,
camper vans, hotels, the town,
tour buses, & souvenir shops
I’m relieved to realise I need
not set an Instagram filter
on the sublime Andrews-esque
middle-earth mountains
……………………………………………beyond

Day 26 – harps (& axes)

Came across the phrase “brother to dragons, and companion to owls” a couple of times in the past week (once as the title of a book I recently bought & was about to put on its new home: instead it’s now on the TBR pile) & wondered what it meant. So I did a wee search & located where the phrase came from … & though this didn’t help me understand what it means, it did inspire me to do a reimagining of the text around it into a semi-satisfying pome. It also feels slightly synchronicitous given we are 1/3 of the way through the final season of Game of Thrones.

Note: Although I played some games with it, I was more interested in creating a new thing which worked than maintaining the meaning of the source material.

*****

Game of Moans

a harp mourns, my flute only weeps.
skin peels & baleful bones burn.
dragonbrother, owlcompanion.
mourn, but not beneath the sun
speak in assemblies, seeking help
constant churning, cannot rest;
days of affliction confront me.
hoped for good, only evil came;
looked for light, howling darkness fell.
wept the troubled, soulgrieved the needy
— yet none stretch a hand to my ruin
when I plea for help in my distress.
.
.

BONUS POEM: April 26, 2018

A pome about 2 sorts of home, written far away from both.

*****

Axe

i.
Our old rollie-smoking
Barossadeutsch neighbour once
told me, jokingly I suspect,
surrounded by sweet-smelling
wisps, about his favourite axe.
What a good axe it was.
How it’d been his since
boyhood; & he’d only
replaced 4 handles
& 2 heads in 60 years.
O wonderful, incomparable
eternal axe of his youth.
They don’t make em
like that anymore.

ii.
Feel like that ageless
axe — always waiting
for my head replacement
to continue being
the same old new me
of my youth

Day 25 – reasons (& relations)

Because Anzac Day always falls during NaPoWriMo, I often myself writing about it owing to my many & varied (often conflicting) emotions about it. I think I could quite easily publish a chapbook of just Anzac Day-themed poetry.

Once again, this is not the poem I set out to write, that one remains half completed needing more time & more research to complete. It is conceivable that parts or all of this poem may one day make their way into that more encompassing piece.

*****

Lest we forget

i.
When Cousin George
declared war
against Cousin Wilhelm
in August 1914,
13 year old Australia,
a British Empire dominion
was likewise at war
— automatically.
We had no choice.

ii.
While many thousands of young
men eagerly rushed to enlist;
thinking it a grand adventure
to assist three spoilt imperial cousins
squabble over colonial interests;
Australia twice voted against conscription
as political parties split & formed new
alliances, elections were fought
& a Prime Minister resigned over
the contentious issue of our involvement.

iii.
60,000 Australian diggers
were treated for venereal diseases —
almost as many who were killed.

iv.
When the war was over
thousands of thousands of men
many with debilitating physical
wounds: torn limbs, gas-burnt lungs,
missing eyes, metal-sliced flesh;
as well as those enduring
post-traumatic stress disorder
back when it was much more
poetically named shell-shock:
the warhorror of bursting bombs
mates exploding next to you,
then days in the trenches
alongside their rotting corpses,
had to be re-integrated into a society
revulsed at the monumental destruction,
keen to resign the war (& too often
those symbols of it) to the past
& attempt to resume normal life.
Many soldiers kept their war silent.
But many of those did not
or could not
make the transition.

BONUS POEM: April 25, 2018

In France. In V-B. 100 years on.

*****

Idols

for many windswept years
it’s been our special story
entrenched in lore & legend

my grandfather’s uncle
his father’s younger brother
guts unpacked by a MG bullet

killed in the battle
to retake Villers-Brettoneux
early morning, Anzac Day 1918

however today I met three
families with the same story
all blood drained from it

like a carcass on the hook
plus the bone dry testimonies
of half a dozen more

which has simultaneously
made our special day
less & a little more so

Day 24 – glory (& well, more glory)

Thoughts which have been broiling round in my brain while driving round the Barossa these past few weeks as Vintage wraps up, have finally coalesced into a reasonable poem. (After a bit of a biological brush up on the process of leaf colour changing.)

*****

senescence

i
with the arrival of mechanical harvesters
the Valley lost much of its vivid autumnal charm.
over violent shaking of the vines strips a quarter
or more of the leaf cover & startles the remainder
into a state of shock. though improved technology
has recently reduced the trauma & restored slightly
the brilliant explosions, breathtaking feast-your-eyes
yellow-golds, gorgeous scarlets, cheekblushing-crimsons,
redhued-rubies, winedark-purples, outrageous-oranges.
but still, slowly, the old ways die.

ii
a smilier malaise is affecting the less prevalent,
but still present, deciduous population. normally
as daylight declines & the nights grow long & cold,
chlorophyll production slows as plants recycle
& ship to storage those molecules ready for next season.
the domineering chlorophyll, no longer in the ascendancy
allows the always-present but lushly masked
complex chemistry compounds called carotenoids,
yellows & oranges, to have their moment in the sun
(as it were); before the red, pink, & purple pigments
responsible for sunscreen, light protection & pest prevention
kick in to complete the slow motion fireworks display.

iii
but this year’s long dry summer means unhealthy
water-stressed trees seem to be cutting their losses
carte blanche by snap-drying then rapidly dumping
instabrown dry paperwisps; terraforming the sky
to the same dusty brown as the droughtbaked dirt
it mirrors

BONUS POEM: April 24, 2018

A place Mum & I had to visit. & somewhere I think I’d love to live.

2019 EDIT: minor tweaks to improve flow, rejambed enjambment, & various images given extra bite. All in all, at least a 50% better poem than previous incarnation.

*****

sitting on the Doc’s step

after driftwalking
half in the world
the rest in my own head ;
limbo rambling in
artfully framed narrative ;
& the much messier
more inconveniently laid
out reality ; I sit on
his fake slate step —
wanting ; wishing ; hoping
to someday leave
such a through
looking-glass legacy
for other daytrip
dreamers

Day 23 – swans (& folios)

Again, working on a longer poem today. Knew an hour ago I wouldn’t finish in time, so started a new one. Coming to understand, NaPoWriMo is less about the poems you finish this month — and more about the poems you’ve long wanted to start and will finish next month.

*****

Will never end

Will you forever be
the quintessential
enigma-wrapped-
conundrum-encased-
paradox-generator?
or will your secrets
one day unfurl?
a swan ascending
from the mute stream.
so many want so much
from your cursed bones;
but so little remains
& it’s oh so easy
to fabricate tales
to suit our own
desperate desires

BONUS POEM: April 23, 2018

Unresolved & unfinished I think, but the others I wrote today don’t fit …

*****

First Folio

all this fuss
over a book
plenty of books
have existed
& been lost
& the world
continues on

at once
a little richer
& a little poorer
for having existed
yet been lost
which is which
you must determine

Day 23 – swans (& folios)

*****

Will never end

BONUS POEM: April 23, 2018

Unresolved & unfinished I think, but the others I wrote today don’t fit …

*****

First Folio

all this fuss
over a book
plenty of books
have existed
& been lost
& the world
continues on

at once
a little richer
& a little poorer
for having existed
yet been lost
which is which
you must determine

Day 22 – thrones (& fame)

Working on a poem that I knew wouldn’t be finished till very close to midnight when I realised I hadn’t watched episode 2 of GOT yet!!! So abandoned other poem for now & played a quick found poem with GOT episode titles. Several versions made.

Of course, I had to make it harder by choosing only one title per season AND keeping them in the order they aired. This is the best of the bunch. It almost makes sense. No extra words added. Made by trying to choose the most memorable phrase from each season’s options.

*****

Game of Poems, iv

Winter Is Coming
What Is Dead May Never Die
And Now His Watch Is Ended
First of His Name
Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken
Blood of My Blood
Beyond the Wall
Winterfell

BONUS POEM: April 22, 2018

The past isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be.
NOTE: edits made in 2019 to tighten a few phrases & tweak enjambment.

*****

Bunhill Fields Cemetery, London: another anticlimax

Bunyan gets a sepulchre, Defoe an obelisk.
yet your single flaking stone
isn’t even tickled by lush
London grass but choked
by drab pavers. not even here
the engraving says, your remains lie nearby.

the long imagined session
of cross-century communion
one bucolic spring afternoon
in a quaint ancient graveyard
turns out to be a rain splattered
overcoat complete with two hobos
drinking cheap wine & spitting.

why keep gazing back to these
inconsequential prisons over
looked by tawdry two bedroom
apartments & cheap office blocks;
containing IT startups
here yesterday, gone later today;
surrounded by tiny tidy lives
daily gazing dispassionately
over a non-eternal resting place;

neither caring, nor knowing,
the wonderful Will you were

Day 21 – wind (& other noises)

Sometimes they come from I know not where.

*****

the wind tree

on various out of the way
locales round the world
they hide — like the one
high on a hill near my home

i call it the wind tree
but it might
have other names
long forgotten

i like to climb
right up on it &
let myself hang

i go to hear it sing

some say this is where
the wind begins
i believe here, it ends
after racing the sun

you are often
at the wind tree
or in it, or around

you use my visits
to play melodies
upon the bridge
that is my bones

some days i go
to the wind tree
& some days,
the wind tree,
comes to me

BONUS POEM: April 21, 2018

For a few days, living a London idyll.

*****

soundproofing

the creaks
I don’t know
still startle

strange birdcries
strangle silence

pigeonwing applause

helicopters dance
every dawn

subterranean
tummy rumbles

halfheard whispers

conversation detritus

strangers footfalls
creaking up my stairs

opening doors
slamming doors
in rooms
with no doors

a woman washing dishes
in my cupboards

kids voices call
through windows
but not mine

all this life
lived underneath
next door’s buttons

gareth roi poet boi

gareth roi's playful poetry place

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Day 29 – silence (& smiles)

Day 28 – holidays (& queues)

Day 27 – intertextuality (& instagram)

Day 26 – harps (& axes)

Day 25 – reasons (& relations)

Day 24 – glory (& well, more glory)

Day 23 – swans (& folios)

Day 23 – swans (& folios)

Day 22 – thrones (& fame)

Day 21 – wind (& other noises)

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