Tag Archives: eyes

Day 18 – poem about gloamings

golden_autumn_ii CROP

Today was a tiring day with a meeting in the morning, work on technical/production documents, phone calls & planning, pulling information teeth from my reluctant-to-divulge-information director, along with a printer cartridge which needed replacing at a crucial time, all meant my brain wasn’t really in a poeting frame when 8 o’clock rolled round & I realised I hadn’t written anything postable yet.

Feeling uninspired, I used an old trick — flicking through an art website I like, typing in keywords (like “firefly”, “serenity”, etcetera) until “autumn leaves” brought me to a website of a lovely French photographer who was obsessed with both the season & the “golden hour” which meant her page was full of golds, & glowing light, rich decaying reds, browns, & yellows.

So I assembled a page & a half’s worth of picture description (me describing what I see in the photo), photo titles (or parts of), & words/phrases lifted from the mostly French comments below the photos & run through google translate, which I arranged, tweaked, edited & tried to shape.

The result is this narrative through images. I know it probably needs a solid edit to help make it, make “sense” — & I’m not sure about the last line which originally I took out because it felt like it was from another pome, but I missed what was lost & so put it back — anyhoo, NaPoWriMo is about writing a pome a day, not about masterpieces. (At least that’s my excuse, & I’m sticking.)

Autumnus

your hands : overlap : your face : letting go : the place remains : imaginary : you handstand : in puddles : hair caught on blossoms

the leaves of my manuscript : waterfall over the balcony : stare at blank pages : sunbeams on my skin : my house : then the sky : pity the sun : that must go down : every night

we look at the stars : & talk til 2am : different themes : on the same thought : the same person : yearning for sunshine : in different clothes

wildness in your eyes : crackles through : everything seems to be twirling : ambiguous : diminished

i lay in the field : among flowers : asleep : my book : across my face

this is the link : to us : i am me : & you are nobody

you could : hide beside me : & i could : hide inside : maybe we just like fixation : this is the madness : melancholic nostalgia : beautiful : but full of sad memories

please don’t : wake me up : i need time to dream : everything deep : so i’ll remember forever : the days we spent : together

child of the autumn : child of the leaves : child that can never be

Guilty Pleasure or Blatant Disregard for one of our Most Valuable Assets?

On Day 15 of NaPoWriMo15, I posted that I only had (by my conservative estimate) 2,376 books left to read in my life. Over the last 2 days I have perhaps wasted one of those books by flicking into a work of pulp fiction adventure thriller technobabble; an airport novel; a bestseller in other words, read by millions. Sure the characterisation is thinner than the paper it’s printed on, the dialogue clunks along like my first car did & the plot, well actually the plot was a bit thin in this one — which is a shame, cos that’s kinda what you read these type of books for. Evil brother & sister wanna restore the Ottoman Empire, blow up Istambul, find Christ’s sandals — sorry dude, but I need a mite more than that…

In order to try & salvage some redeeming merit from the six or seven hours I gave to this brick, I have created a short yet whimsical piece of poesy.

The author, whose name will be revealed shortly, seems to think the only way to communicate emotion is through the eyes (this only gelled into realisation for me on pg 210, after which I started to take notes heehee).

For this exercise I replaced all sight related words with scent related ones. See mate, you can communicate stuff with other senses …

*****

Clive Cussler Nose (Eyes) Best

some worked (well one did):
his nose instantly flaring in horror

some sort of work (varying degrees of sense & successability)
his nose lost and soulless
cold determined odour in Marie’s nose
a scent of anger searing his drowsy nose
a stern sniff from his dark nose expressing his will
tall tall pale-skinned men with hardened dark noses
the red-nosed anger in the man bordered on the psychotic

one was poetic, if strange
falcon-nosed man

some were silly in the original, & remain so
he would sniff at Dirk with rage, then his nostrils would pong over into a thousand-mile whiff
he calmly smelled back at her with a scenting nose that danced above a deep scar on the right side of his jaw

& one was so silly in the original, no change was need
a dull light seemed to burn through Dirk’s eyes, though his lids were tightly closed

*****

owen___the_nose___wilson_by_rwpike-d39der7

PS Happy Birthday Buddy

Day 17 – when biography becomes poetry

This poem is inspired by a fellow NaPoWriMo-er whose site I was checking out. Her biog read almost like a poem (whether intentionally or not I couldn’t quite tell). But I loved the idea & wanted to try it for myself. It was a truly wonderful experience trying to describe yourself, not in the dry blurby words of biographical accomplishment, but in the much more playful & liberating medium of poetry. I have a feeling this really is only a first draft. It came very quickly & I know there’s probably 100 more lines that could be written. I need to write them, then cull back to the best dozen or so. None-the-less, today I don’t have time for that so this is whatcha get …

*****

gareth: a draft poetical biography

there’s almost always music playing in my head

my brain tries putting every experience it has into a poem
— sometimes successfully

i cry at stupid dog videos on facebook

i prefer barefoot to shoes

i love stones, shells & driftwood

i have a sweet tooth i’m trying to starve

i was born an hour late & have been trying to catch up ever since

night driving in the country is a zen meditation

i know i could stop being a hermit if i make a concerted effort
— i think

sunglasses & i don’t get along, i’ve lost every pair i’ve ever owned
— (the last pair took less than a day)

i want to spend one night in a lighthouse during a storm

i want to live in New York at least once, Iceland twice & Lothlorien forever after that

you tell me my eyes change colour from deepest black
— to a goldenhoneyhazelbrown
— (though i’ve never seen it)

i knew i was hurt, though i didn’t realise how much till we met

more than anything i want to be happy
— except i don’t know exactly what will make that happen

*****

Roker_lighthouse_5_by_jonboy247