Tag Archives: damage

Day 10 — seroja

There’s a cyclone off WA just hanging round waiting to say hi to everyone. The fact that it’s in an area where cyclones don’t normally reach; or that it’s hard on the heels of the previous cyclone are all just little blips in the system, surely.

seroja

on the west coast
one cyclone is about to eat
the residue of the previous one

……………………………… wild air is flexing its muscles
……………………………….. ready to tear through homes lives
……………………………. power grids whatever gets in its way

……………………………… crazy rain & rare dangerous
…………………………..wind are lining up to greet the coast
……………………..& the ocean’s keen to explore as far as she can

………………………………… all in an area where such things have been fairly rare 
………………………………… but where they’re going to become all too common


Day 09 – failure (& failing)

NOTE: Two long exhausting workdays meant poems were written on Tues & Wed just not posted. Aiming to catch up now.

09 Alby Blue

Inspired by reading about one of the greatest failures in human history … 

*****

failure 

i.
useless bachelors degree.
unemployed, unemployable.
career going nowhere,
sabotaged by professors
who dislike the class-cutting
cocksure student.
deeply depressed.
burden to his parents.
contemplates suicide.
even worse ; considers
becoming insurance agent.
unwed girlfriend pregnant.
illegitimate daughter.
can’t afford marriage.

this is Albert Einstein 1901-1902

special

ii.
sits in dusty patent office.
daydreams about riding
his intergalactic beam of light.
publishes first paper on
special theory of relativity.
— inverts perception of universe
world turned on its head. 

1905, just three light years later

 

 

BONUS POEM: April 9, 2018

An accumulation of titbits I read while researching this high point of western art.

*****

David’s Achilles 

decades ago
on the instruction
of Nani (a 16th-century
Venetian painter’s model)
a deranged man
hammered the foot
of a master
damaging the giant
giant killer’s toe

every shattered fragment
collected & restored

moral outrage aside
the attack enabled
scientists to learn
the Carrara marble
was full of tiny holes
causing speedier degradation
than other marble

but the giant slayer’s
own demise might be
those who love him
endless microvibrations
created daily by the million
footsteps of iPhone raising
selfie-stick swinging
aficionados

09b toe

Day 09 – poem about damage

1

If I said I understood everything I wrote, I’d be lying. Today’s effort comes from a form of poetry-generation; a pome-making game I guess. The steps are simple.

1. Make a series of lists (using prompts).
2. Choose one element from each list.
3. Find a way to combine them in one pome.

Ergo, below…

surveying the damage

through the window
yellow leaves cover the lawn
on the table bread is dark
brown like chocolate
— the wind blew all night
forcing doors & knocking
knick-knacks from sills

too cold to emerge
from beneath blankets
so the water did what it must
— spend the morning
throwing all my books
into a pulping machine
they’re useless now

 

Day 02 – poem about hermits

02 in_my_magnifying_glass_01_by_coollekotten-d4jgu83

case study #7

she makes peace with past tears ;
ignores the radio’s roster of sad songs
background faint which seek to suck
her into sinkholes she’s spent years
climbing out of ; sliding back in
– a triumph just buying milk

he prepares a packet-free meal ;
washes a load sans tissue-in-pocket ;
actually eats the watermelon before
it emulsifies in its clingwrap shroud
– little victories by most parameters
but he’ll take them ; gladly

& so we assemble our fragments