Day 29 – silence (& smiles)

Worked on a poem about the multiple Goldilocks zones that our world occupies, a long conceived concept, but it’s more complicated than anticipated, so this is a Plan B pome.

*****

Scans

Spent several hours sitting
next to a subdued stranger
often in stilted silence

Trying not to talk about
the hot topic of the day
even though it’s all
that occupies us

Trying extremely hard
not to compare contexts:
lives alone, never married
only an aged mother
in rapid decline
also living alone nearby
father mercifully taken
down swiftly by two
strokes in succession

Trying not to project
forward into my
unfriendly future

& failing miserable

BONUS POEM: April 29, 2018

A quiet moment of cross-cultural communication.

*****

Homemade

many things
have thrilled me
this past month
but perhaps
nothing so much
as this breakfast
when I pointed
at the apricot jam
& said in my best
Australian German
“hausgemacht?
sehr gut”

the “ja” & brief
blossom of a smile
to the otherwise
surly waiter’s face
was like a bee
abseiling my spine

Day 27 – intertextuality (& instagram)

Yet another poem about the joys of reading — which took on a life of its own. And even though the last line might be a wee bit much, I still love it.

*****

intertextuality

a startling line of text hooks me sideways
from ancient sword & sorcery Cimmeria
arcing me skywards, belly to the sun;
into other stories, real world experiences
& perfumes, already lodged in synapses flash
light silver-gilt sparkles quivering
from networked neural nest to another;
whirlpooled into the closeted green
dirty underwater of the Black Forest
where we each tread our paths on the way
to Red’s Grandma’s little log cabin.
breathing heavily behind a tree, see her skip
basket-swinging foolish innocence knock
of knuckle on the old crone’s red door

— but miss what happens next when a tap
on my shoulder reveals one angry looking
wolfskin-wearing weapon-wielding woodsman
…………
…………

…………
…………
BONUS POEM: April 27, 2018

Self explanatory.
NOTE: 2019 edit. Various minor tweakings & enjambments to improve the pome.

*****

#nofilter

despite gut-dropping
disappointment upon discovering
every shot of the castle
I’d ever seen had been
carefully crafted to crop
………………………………………… out
all neighbouring car parks,
camper vans, hotels, the town,
tour buses, & souvenir shops
I’m relieved to realise I need
not set an Instagram filter
on the sublime Andrews-esque
middle-earth mountains
……………………………………………beyond

Day 26 – harps (& axes)

Came across the phrase “brother to dragons, and companion to owls” a couple of times in the past week (once as the title of a book I recently bought & was about to put on its new home: instead it’s now on the TBR pile) & wondered what it meant. So I did a wee search & located where the phrase came from … & though this didn’t help me understand what it means, it did inspire me to do a reimagining of the text around it into a semi-satisfying pome. It also feels slightly synchronicitous given we are 1/3 of the way through the final season of Game of Thrones.

Note: Although I played some games with it, I was more interested in creating a new thing which worked than maintaining the meaning of the source material.

*****

Game of Moans

a harp mourns, my flute only weeps.
skin peels & baleful bones burn.
dragonbrother, owlcompanion.
mourn, but not beneath the sun
speak in assemblies, seeking help
constant churning, cannot rest;
days of affliction confront me.
hoped for good, only evil came;
looked for light, howling darkness fell.
wept the troubled, soulgrieved the needy
— yet none stretch a hand to my ruin
when I plea for help in my distress.
.
.

BONUS POEM: April 26, 2018

A pome about 2 sorts of home, written far away from both.

*****

Axe

i.
Our old rollie-smoking
Barossadeutsch neighbour once
told me, jokingly I suspect,
surrounded by sweet-smelling
wisps, about his favourite axe.
What a good axe it was.
How it’d been his since
boyhood; & he’d only
replaced 4 handles
& 2 heads in 60 years.
O wonderful, incomparable
eternal axe of his youth.
They don’t make em
like that anymore.

ii.
Feel like that ageless
axe — always waiting
for my head replacement
to continue being
the same old new me
of my youth

Day 25 – reasons (& relations)

Because Anzac Day always falls during NaPoWriMo, I often myself writing about it owing to my many & varied (often conflicting) emotions about it. I think I could quite easily publish a chapbook of just Anzac Day-themed poetry.

Once again, this is not the poem I set out to write, that one remains half completed needing more time & more research to complete. It is conceivable that parts or all of this poem may one day make their way into that more encompassing piece.

*****

Lest we forget

i.
When Cousin George
declared war
against Cousin Wilhelm
in August 1914,
13 year old Australia,
a British Empire dominion
was likewise at war
— automatically.
We had no choice.

ii.
While many thousands of young
men eagerly rushed to enlist;
thinking it a grand adventure
to assist three spoilt imperial cousins
squabble over colonial interests;
Australia twice voted against conscription
as political parties split & formed new
alliances, elections were fought
& a Prime Minister resigned over
the contentious issue of our involvement.

iii.
60,000 Australian diggers
were treated for venereal diseases —
almost as many who were killed.

iv.
When the war was over
thousands of thousands of men
many with debilitating physical
wounds: torn limbs, gas-burnt lungs,
missing eyes, metal-sliced flesh;
as well as those enduring
post-traumatic stress disorder
back when it was much more
poetically named shell-shock:
the warhorror of bursting bombs
mates exploding next to you,
then days in the trenches
alongside their rotting corpses,
had to be re-integrated into a society
revulsed at the monumental destruction,
keen to resign the war (& too often
those symbols of it) to the past
& attempt to resume normal life.
Many soldiers kept their war silent.
But many of those did not
or could not
make the transition.

BONUS POEM: April 25, 2018

In France. In V-B. 100 years on.

*****

Idols

for many windswept years
it’s been our special story
entrenched in lore & legend

my grandfather’s uncle
his father’s younger brother
guts unpacked by a MG bullet

killed in the battle
to retake Villers-Brettoneux
early morning, Anzac Day 1918

however today I met three
families with the same story
all blood drained from it

like a carcass on the hook
plus the bone dry testimonies
of half a dozen more

which has simultaneously
made our special day
less & a little more so

Day 24 – glory (& well, more glory)

Thoughts which have been broiling round in my brain while driving round the Barossa these past few weeks as Vintage wraps up, have finally coalesced into a reasonable poem. (After a bit of a biological brush up on the process of leaf colour changing.)

*****

senescence

i
with the arrival of mechanical harvesters
the Valley lost much of its vivid autumnal charm.
over violent shaking of the vines strips a quarter
or more of the leaf cover & startles the remainder
into a state of shock. though improved technology
has recently reduced the trauma & restored slightly
the brilliant explosions, breathtaking feast-your-eyes
yellow-golds, gorgeous scarlets, cheekblushing-crimsons,
redhued-rubies, winedark-purples, outrageous-oranges.
but still, slowly, the old ways die.

ii
a smilier malaise is affecting the less prevalent,
but still present, deciduous population. normally
as daylight declines & the nights grow long & cold,
chlorophyll production slows as plants recycle
& ship to storage those molecules ready for next season.
the domineering chlorophyll, no longer in the ascendancy
allows the always-present but lushly masked
complex chemistry compounds called carotenoids,
yellows & oranges, to have their moment in the sun
(as it were); before the red, pink, & purple pigments
responsible for sunscreen, light protection & pest prevention
kick in to complete the slow motion fireworks display.

iii
but this year’s long dry summer means unhealthy
water-stressed trees seem to be cutting their losses
carte blanche by snap-drying then rapidly dumping
instabrown dry paperwisps; terraforming the sky
to the same dusty brown as the droughtbaked dirt
it mirrors

BONUS POEM: April 24, 2018

A place Mum & I had to visit. & somewhere I think I’d love to live.

2019 EDIT: minor tweaks to improve flow, rejambed enjambment, & various images given extra bite. All in all, at least a 50% better poem than previous incarnation.

*****

sitting on the Doc’s step

after driftwalking
half in the world
the rest in my own head ;
limbo rambling in
artfully framed narrative ;
& the much messier
more inconveniently laid
out reality ; I sit on
his fake slate step —
wanting ; wishing ; hoping
to someday leave
such a through
looking-glass legacy
for other daytrip
dreamers

Day 23 – swans (& folios)

Again, working on a longer poem today. Knew an hour ago I wouldn’t finish in time, so started a new one. Coming to understand, NaPoWriMo is less about the poems you finish this month — and more about the poems you’ve long wanted to start and will finish next month.

*****

Will never end

Will you forever be
the quintessential
enigma-wrapped-
conundrum-encased-
paradox-generator?
or will your secrets
one day unfurl?
a swan ascending
from the mute stream.
so many want so much
from your cursed bones;
but so little remains
& it’s oh so easy
to fabricate tales
to suit our own
desperate desires

BONUS POEM: April 23, 2018

Unresolved & unfinished I think, but the others I wrote today don’t fit …

*****

First Folio

all this fuss
over a book
plenty of books
have existed
& been lost
& the world
continues on

at once
a little richer
& a little poorer
for having existed
yet been lost
which is which
you must determine

Day 23 – swans (& folios)

*****

Will never end

BONUS POEM: April 23, 2018

Unresolved & unfinished I think, but the others I wrote today don’t fit …

*****

First Folio

all this fuss
over a book
plenty of books
have existed
& been lost
& the world
continues on

at once
a little richer
& a little poorer
for having existed
yet been lost
which is which
you must determine

Day 21 – wind (& other noises)

Sometimes they come from I know not where.

*****

the wind tree

on various out of the way
locales round the world
they hide — like the one
high on a hill near my home

i call it the wind tree
but it might
have other names
long forgotten

i like to climb
right up on it &
let myself hang

i go to hear it sing

some say this is where
the wind begins
i believe here, it ends
after racing the sun

you are often
at the wind tree
or in it, or around

you use my visits
to play melodies
upon the bridge
that is my bones

some days i go
to the wind tree
& some days,
the wind tree,
comes to me

BONUS POEM: April 21, 2018

For a few days, living a London idyll.

*****

soundproofing

the creaks
I don’t know
still startle

strange birdcries
strangle silence

pigeonwing applause

helicopters dance
every dawn

subterranean
tummy rumbles

halfheard whispers

conversation detritus

strangers footfalls
creaking up my stairs

opening doors
slamming doors
in rooms
with no doors

a woman washing dishes
in my cupboards

kids voices call
through windows
but not mine

all this life
lived underneath
next door’s buttons

Day 20 – pity party (& binge bash)

This was actually begun as a poem for someone else … & took a wrong turn along the way, which improved it immeasurably.

*****

wallows

was happily wallowing, wallowing;
in my heart of broken glass pain;
my sad song that never ends;
my woe-is-me tale of eternal misery;
with my wounded soul lying in a cave;
like a hippo in mud;
like the proverbial pig;
like the …
when i got to wondering
what other creatures like a good wallow.
a quick interwebbing told me
elephants & elephant seals
warthogs & rhinoceroses
tapirs & bison all do; some deer too.

accidentally learning along the way,
it’s a comfort behaviour, free sunscreen,
insect repellent, wet brush to enhance
moulting & remove parasites; as well as
aids social cohesion & play in young animals.

by which, i’d forgotten my mopery
(though i was a good deal itchier)

BONUS POEM: April 20, 2018

After a scare with their prepaid Skip the Line tickets I finally saw my mother (Old Ma Jones) & my niece inside, when I thought, WTH I may as join the end of the queue & see how long it actually takes. Seemed a shame to be so close & not even try.

*****

shadowvale

I did not leave
myself all day
lost in the space
I’m always lost in
— from here
I glimpse
things stranger
than I have known
things I could
once have been
were it not
for the shadows
in the vale

Day 19 – absences (& returns)

The third of three pomes all exploring absence in different ways. While not completely successful, it is the most successful of the three.

*****

absence iii

every so often your absence
is more noticeable, like today

the removed from the rainbow
…a heart only air
the that is all hole
…a night without any stars
the bullet the glass
…a spine with every missing
the who cannot blow fire
…a fish without

BONUS POEM: April 19, 2018

It can speak for itself.

*****

Homecoming

swan wings : the saw of the air : the piece : oftentimes : of return : the peace : the safety of a new place : where no one : any one : has their way : but every one : will prosper : coming through the lock : reflection ripples : relentless birdsong : playing dogs : oars up & back : leaping into the unknown river : willowy light : birthplaces : spires into memory : across time : making a mark : that lasts

gareth roi poet boi

gareth roi's playful poetry place

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Tag Archives: #GloPoWriMo

Day 29 – silence (& smiles)

Day 27 – intertextuality (& instagram)

Day 26 – harps (& axes)

Day 25 – reasons (& relations)

Day 24 – glory (& well, more glory)

Day 23 – swans (& folios)

Day 23 – swans (& folios)

Day 21 – wind (& other noises)

Day 20 – pity party (& binge bash)

Day 19 – absences (& returns)

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