Day 17 – tops (& tails)

An auspicious start to the day. Happy 95th Birthday gran.

*****

day of birth

air of gold  sky of water
bow of rain  leaves of blood
   a promise of home

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BONUS POEM: April 17, 2018

One of the highlights of the trip is seeing these little critters first hand. Pookie you’ve got a lot to answer for.

*****

the shadetails

now seen : a dozen, more?

frozen tension : quicksilver bounce : flag fluttering frenzy : the business end ; of the gymnast’s ribbon : electrified question marks

still every time : there’s a flash : a furry pulse : an extrapolated heartbeat : I experience : a silken thrill : of my own

17b squirell tale

Day 08 – cracks (& crows)

08 kintsugi-et-kintsukuroi-philosophie

The kintsukuroi meme popped up on my feed again today, It’s a common one that does the SM rounds fairly regularly, but is no less profound for that. I’ve thought about trying to write a pome about it previously, today I gave it the good old red hot crack. It’s not there yet, but I ran out of time.

*****

to repair with gold 

the philosophy is poignant : the aesthetic exquisite : the reality, harder to craft : repair broken pottery with powdered gold, silver, or platinum : mixed with lacquer : the precious metal seams : among the reassembled detritus : supposedly somehow : stronger : more beautiful : for having been broken

i doubt : the proof of fragility : together we dropped : three pots : which broke me : for over two decades : lived too long : with cracks, lines, chips, flaws, scratches, breaks : broken lines : deep trenches : the breaks, the knocks, the shattering : the fragments : too often my baked clay : wished to dry up : crumble : fall to pieces

unlike with Japanese artisans : if your pot breaks : only you can apply the lacquer : today i feel : the joins i’ve made : might be silver : perhaps one day : i’ll be strong enough : to transmute : those luminous lines to gold

 


 

BONUS POEM: April 8, 2018

Lines & images jotted down over past 3-4 days. Finally assembled & fine tuned today.

*****

Snug Voyeur 

every glimpse thrills me.
secret knowledge
hidden when you’re here,
temporarily abandoned;
your harsh full stops
& half-hearted commas;
like warts  like growths  like blisters;
blood clots in the cerebellum
conglomerate of cancer cells

collected sticks  stark
architectural recreations;
high amongst the skeletal
fog framed silhouettes,
reworkings of capillaries
tweaked bronchial tubes;
punctuating the forever
potential for new life.

when the leaves return
when the blossoms bloom
when your long flight
returns you home

08b clot

Day 15 – poem about the least dark thing I wrote today

end_of_the_sea_by_xiaoxinart-d5nq1eb

This weekend (& this date in particular) is always difficult & painful & poignant & ugly. So too was most of what I wrote today. I have attached the least bleak piece, regardless of its merits. In a slight deviation from practise, I’m also using the picture that inspired the poem as the choice for today’s NaPoWriMo blog pome. I frequently write (first drafts at least) from artworks, but when I do I prefer not to share the image for fear of overload; that both pieces will fight each other by saying too similar a thing, but I don’t have the energy to find something more abstract tonight.

wyndhame

somewhere cerebellum deep : everyone : wants : their own : fantasy castle : storybook sentence : painting lifted : from the pages of childhood : rooves of saltwater green : gold stone isolation : glinting : beautiful exile : at the end of the sea : the edge of the world : but few : are brave enough : to truly live there : among cloud fragments : erosion : bewildered fish : suddenly plummeting : & the perpetual fear of falling

Day 30 – April Thirty: two, for the price of one

NaPoWriMo is over for me for 2014.  There’s no need for an introduction cos I say it all in the poem.

NaPoWriMo 2014 meta-poem

i.
this last, a self-referential postmodern effort
where i talk about writing the poem itself
& how even finding the title proved elusive
vacillations between the technoesque
“rebuild”, “reboot”, even “re-de-construct”
to the cliched “fresh start” & “new day”
& the punning “imperfect storm”
it’s been a challenging month on a life front
wherein i survived easter (always a dark time)
dealt with banal bureaucracies who
(simply because they weren’t paid for several months)
disconnected power & phone
was unable to use an expired credit card
risked not being able to drive as my car
was 3 hours away from being unregistered
being cancelled from my artist payment grant
because i hadn’t attended a meeting
searched for long lost medicare & healthcare cards
(finding one out of two) almost missed out
on participating in my new course of study
owing to a clerical error…

… but all that changed today
when my long awaited tax refund
magically appeared in my bank account
& the clouds parted & the sun shone down
& life almost did, literally, start again

ii.
yet despite enduring
all that Real World guff
i’ve scribed & posted
30 poems in 30 days
played a few word games
some less successful than others
received some moving feedback
gone from 0 to 50 followers
(thank you all) & been viewed
over 470 times in 11 countries
all of which helps make my first
NaPoWriMo a true blast

i feel exhausted
sad
drained
strangely addicted
wishing for a few more days
wishing Day 16
had a bigger response
& i could reveal the punchline

i’m gonna miss it like mad
because while i published 30 poems
there’s at least another 30
in various solid draft stages
& 30 more abandoned ideas
that might warrant revisiting
when i have more time & energy
so all in all, a profitable month

it’s good
to be
a poet

 

BONUS POEM:  I began this month with a poem about stars. I want to end it the same way, except this is just about one star. My favourite one.

 

latecomers to the sunset

people continue to stop    suddenly
iPhonestruck    fumbling in awe
to snapcapture    the wild gold
firestorm    our universe is  flaring

it’s glorious  admittedly   but i keep
thinking    half-smugly  half-sadly
you should have been here 
15 minutes ago

*****

 2014-04-30 23.49.30