Another poem inspired by my housemate’s weekend activities, writing sitting, baking, as my iPhone screen overheated. I love today’s Factoid.
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Round 2: winter sports
admittedly it’s been over 30 years since i last donned the sprigs & dashed out into the mud as bewildered teenage boy in the middle of his gap year on his way to university still terribly uncertain of his own personality, his destiny
however
one thing for certain neverever sunburned watching or playing winter sports before like i did today sitting on the sidelines tentatively keeping score through the heat haze
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Day 20 – TILI’ve gone back to a fact I found a couple of days that I just couldn’t let go.
*bling*
one page told me pirates believed gold earrings improved their eyesight
& i didn’t seek corroboration because i so want this to be true i’d be crushed if it wasn’t
Today my housemate spent large parts of his day in other roles: netball selector & volunteer firefighter.
The serious poem began playing with synonyms … & then stayed that way cos I was too exhausted to work it further … but I think it’s kind of fun for a first draft. Reflects how I feel consuming lots of climate change literature.The factoid came when it was suggested (perhaps facetiously) that I should write a netball poem. Regardless, challenge accepted.
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9:burnonyms
1. our house is burning : on fire : alight : ablaze, blazing ; it’s going up : up in smoke : in flames : aflame : it smoulders : flares : flashes : flickers
2. we’ve burned all the letters : set fire to : set on fire : set alight : set light to : lit : set burning : ignited : put a match to ; kindled : incinerate : reduce to ashes : destroy by fire ; torch : inflame
3. we forgot to turn off the iron & nearly burned the sky : scorch : singe : sear : char : blacken : discolour : brand ; scald ; cauterise : calcine ; torrefy
4. our lungs burn with humiliation : be hot : be warm : feel hot : be feverish : be fevered : be on fire; blush : redden : be red :: go red : go pink : turn red : turn crimson : turn scarlet : flush : colour : crimson
5. our lip burns where our teeth have pierced it : smart : sting : tingle : prick : prickle : be irritated : be sore : hurt : be painful : throb : ache
6. earth is burning with curiosity : at what is still to come : be consumed by/with : be eaten up by/with : be obsessed by/with : be tormented by/with : be bedevilled by
7. some (but not enough) are burning with fury that so little is being done : we seethe : boil : fume : smoulder : simmer : be boiling over : be beside oneself ; be livid : be wild : jump up & down : froth/foam at the mouth
8. people differ considerably in the energy they burn up : use up : consume : expend : get through : go through : dissipate : eat up : exhaust
9. i burn to know what the secret is : yearn : long : have a longing : ache : be aching : itch : be itching : desire : be consumed with the desire : want : want badly : be unable to wait : be eager : be desperate : hanker : have a hankering : wish : crave : lust : pant : hunger : be hungry : be greedy : thirst : be thirsty ; have a yen : yen : be dying; archaic be athirst : be desirous
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Day 7 – TIL about an odd netball name
ball games, sprawling names
netball once was known as basketball — wait let me start again
in 1891 basnetketball began life with : just 13 rules as a 9 versus 9 game ; using an old soccer ball ; two wall-mounted peach baskets as goals & incorporated rules from duck on a rock (a medieval kid’s game played as a child)
for about 3 seconds it was called Naismith Game after its inventor — but he hated that & said “we have a ball & a basket: why not basketball?”
a female physical culture instructor tweaked several rules them to make them more decorous for ladies misunderstood others & called the resultant hodgepodge basquette
in 1893 : Madame Österberg who advocated : female physical fitness thereby better preparing : for motherhood not to mention : emancipation : generally tossed a version : of the new sport across the sea : to her English college students
tweaks a couple years later by American lecturer : Dr Toles played with waste paper baskets : on walls without lines : boundaries : or circles
more revisions : 1897 from another American teacher : Miss Porter moved outdoors : onto grass courts divided : into three zones : replaced baskets : with ringed : nets
hence : net ball which went : imperial thrown : to all quarters of the Empire caught in Oz possibly as early as 1897 though most say : turn of the century
despite being : netball : everywhere else the Aussies & Kiwis kept : the name women’s basketball : until 1970
at which point I can finally return to my initial remarks —
netball once was known as basketball in fact, it was still that when we Ango Panthers won our previous A-Grade premiership but. no. more. — we are now : reigning : BLG : netball premiers
Although it’s posted a few hours late, this poem was definitely written yesterday. (As Deb Dawson can attest — I was writing it while watched Tom Cruise play, well, um, Tom Cruise, in “Minority Report”.)
A full day, a bunch of drugs (painkiller & hayfever, I’m not that hardcore), a late night & a wishywashy internet connection when I got home prevented an on time posting. Soz.
Once again, the eventual outcome was not the intended topic. It seems so far every day I’ve had an experience which goads me into poetry-attemping mode. “Today” (Yesterday) was attending one of the few modern day equivalents of ritual, myth, celebration, collective communion we still have as a culture. I won’t say much more than that. See if you can work out what I’m doing before the end. Locals are going to be at an advantage to international readers… (so apologies to those three people — hahaha!)
Coliseum of the Crow
like Orpheus we began
by descending
into the bowels of hell
our coin to pay Charon
given us by a bank
to compensate
friends who lost
everything in a fire
cross the Styx
find ourselves
in a deserted
concrete mausoleum
half a dozen cars
where a 1000 should be
elevated into the arena
inside the new stadium
before the gates open
strange to be surrounded
by such vast emptiness
where crowds are
meant to congregate
we laugh out loud
at the surreality
then a siren sounds
startling us from
our spacestaring
the rush is on
we are washed away
by damned souls
for surely we are all
damned … believing
in the cult of the Crow
gareth roi poet boi 