Pretty self-explanatory.
fireflies
all the things
we said we’d do
long slow trips round
oz’s wide open roads
revisit our favourite corners
of hobbit-country : discover new ones
christmas in talinn
a cabin under the aurora
form our own theatre
company crisscross our plays
round the country
take on : the world
tell more of our stories
to each other
perhaps possibly perchance
find peace
but i didn’t even get to see : the fireflies
down the bottom of your back yard
My two wallowversaries are quite close together this year — Good Friday & Easter Sunday. GF being Day 1 of the Festival of Grief, ES Day 2. Each year I don’t know whether I’ll write about my grief on the date it happened or the day. Some years it’s both. The interesting thing about choosing a theme for the month is it makes me approach topics I’ve written about countless times with fresh eyes. Such as this …
to pin a wish
my only-ever astral child
my first star girl
my free spirit
my whispered wish
only briefly tethered
postmarked but never delivered
addressed but never sent
never faded
never dimmed
always present
in my heart
would’ve loved you
with my whole soul
every ether of being
guided you from child
to woman as best i
cradled you
comforted you
held eggshell close
gifted free range
love love loved
walked you down
any aisle — assuming
i could see given
my eyes are waterfalls
simply imagining
such moments
the first wish i’d make
if any benevolent genie
ever give me a chance
my beautiful wondrous
astral-only child
my heart was torn away
the day you ran red
down your mother’s legs
A fun little exercise whereby I describe the things I’ve done today in more abstract ways via unordinary day alchemy; ie, went to the shops & bought vegies might be unordinary day alchemised to hunted in the long cool aisles for prey that cannot outrun me. Fear not, the examples in the poems are better (I hope 😂)
on an unordinary day
i now have
half a dozen doorways
to new nowhere rooms
if only i can get them home
two notebooks which float
more stories i own
but likely never know
two big volumes of all
the old words of once were
somewhere silky
to rest my migraine
& learn new dreams
plus a full tank to take me there
BONUS POEM: April 7, 2018
A poetic love fable. Inspired, this may come as no surprise, by the fact that Venezia has somewhat scrambled my otherwise fairly reasonable compass. Conceived on one bewildered journey; completed on several others when I set out to deliberately wander writing lines in my head as I went …
The poem so far I’m most pleased with 😁
[2019 edit: even more pleased with it following a few tweaks 😁😁]
*****
The 1000 Ways to San Marco Piazza
my love lives in Dorsoduro ; I, in Castello ; & every morning ; she promises to meet me ; in San Marco’s Piazza at sunset ; she says if we find each other there ; our love will last
if I had the talent ; I’d pen a postmodern novel ; telling of the thousand ways ; we never meet ; a short chapter ; a paragraph; even just a line, a single word ; about how my unerring ability ; to lose my way ; dooms me ; where every route I choose ; is wrong
the one where I see her on another Ponte, chase her, see her on other Pontes, but I never get closer ; the one where every Calle is a dead end ; the where I find a letter on the cobblestones from her to another ; the one where I fall in ; the one with a Calle so narrow my shoulders touch each wall, closer, closer, till I am wedged tight; the one where I meet another who might in fact be : the one true one
nights thick with the stink of summer tourists ; nights where the waters are still obsidian; nights when I don’t want to leave the house ; nights when I am dying to ; muggy shirts sticky nights ; wet winter nights ; nights where la Serenissima is a dream ; nights where only it is
& maybe ; one night ; when I least expect ; I will arrive ; & so will she ; & we ; will meet
Hmmm, I wrote this yesterday (Friday, in the early post midnight hours before going to sleep) & having written it, didn’t think of it all day. Clearly I thought I’d posted it. Just as clearly coming online tonight to post today’s (Saturday) I did not. Thank gawd NaPoWriMo is nearly over for another year.
Apropos: the good old Facebook rehashed memories thing has shown me that it’s about this time every year I write a NaPoWriMo post saying how I’m feeling sick, & true to form, have been fighting an ever-increasing sore throat all day … Poeting is hard
eggdreaming
& so at the end
of another weary
day flutter home
shake off shoes, feathers
fold away wings
strip down to skin
climb into my tangle
of sticks, soft fabrics
fall into fitful sleep
where if lucky i will
dream once more
of my lost eggs
Arrrggghhh! Can’t seem to shake this subject. Despite several poems worked on today, the two I was considering for today’s post somehow didn’t seem to stack up, so had to go for this fallback. New subject matter tomorrow, I promise (I hope).
the gifts of the luni
every night the moon leaves me gifts
like a cat depositing nightkill on my mat
this week on the wall by the back door
a rectangular jewel box, waiting to be buried
above the kitchen blind, a sliver of laser light
as i stumble out for an insomniacal glass
repainting the window in my bedroom
into a mirror which reflects undreamt dreams
on the drive home it rezones the countryside
into a dimension far beyond the fourth
even its gilding of the boxangular city
until it is almost beautiful enough
to star in its own fairy tale
Some of my favourite poems come out of the dreams I have. Coincidentally they’re often among the easiest to write, even if I’m not always sure what they mean (the dreams I mean; I always know what my poems are about, huh-ha… ha).
night bike ride
you ride your penny farthing
along the lush lip of the moon
while I potter along beneath
pushing the chunky wheels
of my trike round hard as I can
without getting anywhere
soon you’ll be soaring along
the roadway of milky stars
& i’ll be watching you fade
I have been reading a few fairy tales most recently Scandinavian ones from East of the Sun and West of the Moon: Old Tales from the North (1914). This edition is gloriously illustrated by Kay Nielsen.
Today’s poem is breaking more than one of my self-imposed ‘rules’ – 1) it is not a cover image & 2) more than one illustration has inspired it. But given the rules are mine, I figure I can change em as I see fit.
fairy tale
she is the girl who understands
what the birds say when they sing
& if she has bad dreams, pretty birds
snatch them from her & fly away
she is the girl who can move
the moon with her eyes alone
& if her soul feels empty
stars come in close to comfort
she is the girl who dances with fairies
under leaves of endless autumn
& if her true love ever breaks her heart
they will torment him till his grave
she is the girl i loved & lost
once upon a time, long long ago
NOTE: image is a detail of she could not help setting the door a little ajar, just to peep in, when — Pop! out flew the Moon (pg 67) from East of the Sun and West of the Moon illustrated by Kay Nielsen (1914)
Not a poetry book today. I was taken by the cover of A. S. Byatt’s Little Black Book of Stories which I am reading on & off as the mood takes me. It took me today & I went, hmmm…
the trees delusion
a red carpet of leaves
leads into the forest
bright path into
darkness — above
my head either mist
or smoke or both
all those roads begun
but never completed
years of wandering
lost while everyone else
is getting where they
think they want to go
one day my less travelled
will pay off … one day
NOTE: today’s cover work of art is Forest Palace, Jóhannes S. Kjarval (1918)
Well the end of NaPoWriMo 2015 has arrived & I’m pleased to announce I have my first late poem for the month. I had intended to bookend the month with a less cheeky poem about Jazz (Day 1), & maybe even revisit “big angst over a relatively small number” (Day 15) & give you all a second BONUS POEM about the beauty of books/terror of how few reading days remain in all our lives. But my sickness, a drive to the country & back for a new job, & getting 4 poems into two competitions which closed today (30 April) meant it was all a best laid plans kind of day …
Instead you get a poem I’ve only really worked on since midnight (i.e. half an hour) but I’m simply too knackered to keep on with it — so you get it in its raw state.
Thanks for coming along the ride with me again this year. I had about 26 new people follow me this month which is delightful — & numerous likes from lots of my longer-time followers. Thanks NaPoWriMo for encouraging lots of lazyarse poets to get out & make some poems. Apart from the 31 I shared on here, I wrote another 20 or so, of which 3-4 are real crackers I hope could find themselves published sometime in the next 12 months. I’ve also enjoyed reading blogs of my fellow poeters around the world. Love ‘n’ light.
*****
missed
hammer horror films tell me
mist obscured landscapes
& skeletal silhouette trees
should feel funereal & spooky
but if i furrow deeper
into the fog of memory
which is my too-long-gone
childhood then i remember
deep cloud-descended days
brought comfort physically
& emotionally — warm inside
book reading by a wood fire —
when the valley filled
with smokewater
& my whole wide seemed
shrouded in the whispers
of imagination, the wisps
of dreams & the bleak border
between worlds blurred
as if i could step into it
arrive somewhere else
& never be missed
*****
A friend showed me a draft of her poem entitled ‘insomnia’. So the word was in my head. Mine is a very different beast (as indeed no doubt are the things which keep us from our slumber). I didn’t intend writing it, but when the images of the ‘same sweet ghosts’ arrived & hung around, as it were, my path was trod.
*****
insomnia
well past the witching hour —
cold air — crackles the dogsnores
— magnifies the pastacrunching
mouse in a kitchen cupboard —
(who last night i tried to catch
obviously without success) —
chills the toes on my right foot
— it’s always colder than the left
even under the doona — no idea why
— must resist sleep at all costs —
& all the while — the same
sweet ghosts that usually haunt
these long alonely hours of
pretending i don’t wish to dream
float above our heads — trying
to interest me in a game of
— remember this ? —
*****
gareth roi poet boi 