Despite mum’s interwebs being downgraded to dialup speed thanks to too many sons, daughters, granddaughters & Words With Friends addicts all being in the one wifi zone for the Easter Long Weekend, I have finally managed to catch up. Thanks for your patience. Hope the wait was worth it. Only five days to go. Can hardly believe it.
Day 25 – April Twenty Five: “national identity day”
As I get older I understand Anzacs, Anzac Day & war more. I also understand it less. Hopefully this poem written at the Dawn Service my Papa used to attend when alive & which we go to in memory of him captures some of those understandings.
keeping the peace
bagpipes fight
the magpies
for supremacy
in cool April air
chilling autumn
leaves & evergreen
eucalypt alike
church bells bless
try to reconcile
that age old
oxymoronic misnomer
fighting for peace
aware what Anzac is
but still shocks
to see the guns
of the catafalque
party so close
reminds it’s more
than just speeches
stirring words
holidays
it’s also old men
getting under
standably drunk
*****
Image: moi
Day 24 – April Twenty Four: spit-spot off to bed
I’m reading the biography of P.L.Travers (the woman who created Mary Poppins) – it’s a wonderful rich inspiring book (unlike Disney’s saccharine superficial movie). It sparks, tingles, fires & inspires so many ideas which I dash off as I read. This is the best of them from today.
night terrors
The children are frightened
of ceiling cracks
creaking radiators
& hot water services
which sizzle in the night
We calm them
with ancient tales
of transformation
flights against the sun
forest witches, & other grims
*****
Day 23 – April Twenty Three: venting
April 23. St George’s Day. Famous day. Not the Shakespeare 450th birthday anniversary poem I was working on, but something more pressing & urgent.
In the Dark
Dear Power Company,
As I sit here
Surrounded
By candles
But mostly
In the dark
I just have
One question
How can you
Disconnect
My power
Without access
To the inside
Of the house
But you cannot
Reconnect it
The same way
The meter
Hasn’t moved
Since yesterday
When you shut
It off
You bunch
Of cocks.
Yours etc
PS Don’t think
I’m paying
The after hours
Call out fee
For this!
PS 2 sorry Bill
Your poem
Was looking
good too
April 21 – Day Twenty-One: odes to the olds
Day 21. Still at farm. 2 poems inspired by my parents. Sorry the second one is a bit long, I didn’t have time to write a short one. I think they’re humorous, even if my folks don’t haha.
1.
Woman on Hill
my mother crabs across the horizon
slow pegging sheets & beach towels
a gangly crustacean
in a shabby dressing gown
her apparent aim
to block my view of the dawn
as retaliation
i roll over
turning away from
the surreal seascape
outside the window
& return to sleep
2.
Man in Well
today’s task: to reboard a well
the encasing earth is trying to reclaim
it’s a bigger job than he remembers
(he lured me here with the proviso,
it would only take a couple of hours
however, years of such requests
have taught me scepticism)
we measure the depth: 13 feet to the water
13 more beyond to the bottom
(the ladder only reaches 16)
after the mandatory jokes about
him “accidentally” falling in
& me destroying the latest will
he claims I’ve been written out of
we begin our bodgy job
tying ladders off against the wall
so they hang precariously
swinging tools down on bits of string
& clambering around, climbing up & down
we prop, we strut, we hammer, we nail
we brace, we saw, we dig, we board off
eventually getting the job done in reasonable fashion
did better than I thought we might, another admission
his couple of hours raging into five
the black jokes about hammers accidentally
dropping on his head or the safety rope snapping
endure for the duration of the operation
& made marginally more poignant
by the discovery half way through
a five foot long brown snake
has either chosen, or fallen, to make
the water his home (most likely the later)
& would swiftly finish him off
if the fall did not
*****
Image moi: Looking into the hole, pre-bodgy-fixup (if you look closely the snake is on the float on the bottom left corner)
April 22 – Day Twenty Two: night visitors
Disturbing visitors last night inspired this. NB this still isn’t on word press despite being back in town is because I got back to discover my electricity has been disconnected. The glamorous life of the poet.
The Outsiders
I’m the proverbial snug bug in a rug
Bedcurled, thriller-reading when the attack begins
Intimate thunder that sounds far off
Yet feels close, frantic rain beating, never falling
As the numbers build, so too the sound
The fury, dive bombers splatting glass
On the neighbouring mesh screen, maniacal harpists
Frenetic playing to appease the wild god of light
Again & again they bash themselves
Over & over they wingertip strum
Till they fall to the ground, broken
There turn violent circles, overwound
tops hypercharged on red bull
Tyre smoking donuts by kamikaze hot rods
Already dying, despite only abandoning
Brownpaper sleeping bags hours ago
If the desire to embrace fire is so intense
Why not fly, Icarus like, at the sun
By the time dawn arrives, silver light filtered
By low clouds, dozens of wing-wrapped coffins
Sleep on
Concrete
*****
Image moi.
April 20 – Day Twenty: scottish inspiration
The following text is what I posted on fb that day. Just realised I haven’t posted Day 20 – NaPoWriMo here. Came onto fb over an hour ago & got sucked into a quagmire of Easter posts, funny cat vids, ghost cars & a Guardian article “Top 10 Easter scenes in literature” which lead to several other Guardian articles I read until POEM OF THE WEEK Monday 7 October 2013.
The picture accompanying this online poem led me to write my own poem on a similar theme to Butlin (but less eloquently) & abandon the poem I had been thinking about/working on for much of the day.
Princes Street
(Holding its cup out to “Nicolson Square” by Ron Butlin)
Frozen on the silvermirrored ground
& in diamond focused digital clarity
Behind us the steeples stepladdering souls
to heaven are fuzzy & drizzlefaded
Hands buried in jacket pockets
Or, better, gloved
Under the brolley, from beneath the hood, or beret
We all look without looking, from the corner of our hearts
We know she’s there, but if we pretend she’s not
We can continue our golden walk to work, unencumbered
She, huddling in her shrugged shrunken hug
has one red glove on her lap
Perhaps to better emphasise bare finger tips
holding the paper cup
Her eyeshadow sockets stare off
somewhere at knee height but at no-one’s knees
However, the detail I’m most drawn to is,
that, the edge of her dirtybrown blanket is wet
*****
Image: Princes St. Source Page: The Guardian, Poem of the Week: Ron Butlin.
April 19 – Day Nineteen: the theme continues
Still at country retreat. Same Word Press issue.
This came in a white hot rush & has barely been touched. It’s almost Day 18: part 2. Or draft two. Or whatever. It’s a better poem than yesterday’s, that’s for sure. Was posted on fb 11 hours before midnight!!! I was impressed.
On at least one level the inspiration for today’s poem should be obvious.
Tomb
Buried. In darkness. Alone.
Wake surrounded. By the scent of aloes.
& bitter perfumes. All is dark, cold. Every
atom aches. Every muscle. Wine soaked.
Sinew & bone. I am sore. To my core.
The air smells. Mushrooms. Liquorice,
Damp smouldering wood. Eat the aloe.
Make myself sick. Eject the poison.
Wounded. In dark places I dwell. Alone
In a cave. Just me. & my angels.
*****
April 18 – Day Eighteen: Easter ghosts
I saved a bunch of articles I was planning to use/explore in poetic form during NaPoWriMo. Yet almost every day, something more “personal” gets in the way. Good Friday (the day this was written, was one of them.) This poem was written in the car on the drive between Adelaide & my parents’ farm.
When I re-read the poem for the first time since posting it on fb almost a week ago, the irony is, the poem itself has a huge hole. The one thing I always think about at Easter is not including, other than through indirect allusions. Maybe it works, maybe it needs to be addressed in May, when NaPoWriMo is over & the editing process can begin on all these half begun, half completed poetical sketches. I want to tweak it even now, but will save that for later & repost as first put onto fb.
What I think of when I think of Easter
Looking over the litany of Easters past
I recall very few moments of chocolates & egg hunts
Haunted by decades of bright eyed moons
Floating down houseboat rivers, discovering cunnilingus
Climbing cliffs, faking falls, tomato sauce for blood
Church surfing with fish laughing at services
Glorious joyous days before he finally died
Driving overnight interstate thinking I was driving to true love
Some lost at the bottom of a bottle
Crashing cars in suburban streets
Several lazy long weekends at the farm
Amusing my nieces, annoying the rest
Walking with a black dog, before meeting my souldog
Tonight the moon’s a ruddy oblong egg
Low, ghosting the hills, as I drive north
What is life but a succession of wounds
Public crucifixions, little deaths, lying in darkness
Trapped beyond stone, & eventually rising to do it all again
What pains me are the holes
Years I can’t remember – when I’m the only constant
No other person or thing to act as yardstick
& the holes
Lovers lost, friends forgotten, children never held
*****
Image: Dark Moon by darkriderdlmc @ deviantart.com
~interlude~
Apologies to those following this blog for the absence of new poems over the past 6 days. This was unexpected owing to three factors:
1, being away from my wonderful study over Easter
2, while being away, being unable to remember my WordPress password to be able to log in via iPad (the method by which I intended to fulfil my posting duties)
3, returning from Easter Long weekend away to discover my power had been disconnected, followed the next day by my phone (apparently large multinational companies don’t take too kindly to financially struggling poets not paying their bills!) Both are now reinstated & the catch up will begin.
The good news is, I kept writing over those days, posting each day directly as a Facebook status instead of linking this page to fb. So it shouldn’t take too long to update everything.
Let the deluge begin!
gareth roi poet boi 