The poetry volume I read today had several Mirror Cinquains in it. This is a mix of a standard Cinquain & a Reverse Cinquain. So, using the usual syllable counting convention, a mirror cinquain = 2,4,6,8,2 blank line 2,8,6,4,2 syllables. I’m not usually a big fan of form poems, they feel too forced unless you’ve got a lot of time to tweak them (which you don’t get in a NaPoWriMo when you’re working). Nonetheless I thought I’d give it a bash. There are lines I wish I could alter (ignore the scansion) which might happen in a future version.
Orpheus’s last song
lament sad bobbing head song sung sans vocal chords always singing his beloved’s name loudly
even death could not prevent him from it despite decapitation sings as it floats to sea
Day 17 – TIR my gran
It’s the anniversary of my gran’s birthday today. To remember her, I looked for some Facts About Grandmothers & found a variety of sites ranging from dry statistics “78% read the newspaper” type thing to wildly subjective. However the one I have chosen appeared on several pages & is without doubt, true. (I have not chosen the most obvious fact: No love is as special as grandmother’s: it truly is unconditional.)
Grandmother Fact #1: they cook the best food
christmas lunches tuna mournays corned beef swimming in white sauce thick pea & ham soup egg sandwiches, taken from the freezer, then toasted even just Continental Hearty Beef soup straight outta the packet tasted ambrosial from her kitchen
what would this vego grandson give for the chance of one more meal with his gran
Just playing round with a passage from Book IV of Virgil’s The Georgics where he describes an incident surrounding the Big O following his failed attempt to restore Eurydice to life (he claims he that O lamented for seven whole months).
nightingale
a nightingale nightly cries amongst the shadowy poplars
lamenting the loss of her chicks stolen as i saw by some hard-
hearted ploughman (what need has he of three featherless chicks
callously snatched from their nest). the mourning songstress weeps
her song throughout the night all night, every night, repeating
her miserable notes relentlessly pierces all peace with her pain
wails all night, fills air all around with melancholy protestations.
unlike Orpheus, she has not forgotten how to sing
Day 16 – TIL a lot of flamingo related fun facts. (In point of fact I have lots & lots of bird facts, that I almost put a dozen of them into one megapoem, but this flamingo triptych seems to work quite well…)
flamingo triptych
i. there are more fake flamingos on Earth than real ones
ii. flamingos pair for life some stay mated for 50 years or more
nice that flamingos are 12.5x better at partnering than i am
iii. you probably know a crowd of crows is called a murder
& an assembly of owls is a parliament (or wisdom, or study)
but life gets really joyful the day you discover a flock of flamingoes is a flamboyance
With Big O & Eurydice being the theme this year, it feels a little like every day/poem explores the issue of grief so at times I’m not sure whose writing what about whom or when. The only thing I am sure of is why.
dream
always know when you dream of me — it’s why i never sleep.
abandon the rasping light of day to pretend you’re calling my name.
the hazy lamps murky blue dragging me from the road.
walk on without knowing the way repeating thought eternally fast, faster.
tracing back black stone steps down again into echoing caves.
the dog by the great gates barks three times, or once each.
the blood river creases & curdles with endless ponderous energy.
always knowing i’ll never find you — we exist in incompatible worlds.
Day 15 – NTBLAILabout more than a forgotten letter of the alphabet
In Celebration of &
the ampersand’s formed from the ligature of the letters ET — the Latin word for “and”
… & the term “ampersand” is a corruption of and (&) per se and which literally means “(the character) & by itself (is the word) and”
… & this small odd looking character was actually once (kind of) the 27th member of the English alphabet*
… & when reciting the alphabet in the 1800s long-suffering schoolchildren would sing-song-say, “X, Y, Z, and per se and” so the students were essentially chanting “X, Y, Z, and by itself and”
… & being lazy children this was routinely slurred to the mondegreen ampersand & thus entered common usage
… & there’s a graffiti & in Pompeii from 79 CE
… & when it appears as &c where it means etc. (the ampersand time travels back into its E & T bones)
… & in screenplays, an & denotes a writing team [the word and designates the writers wrote separately, read: someone rewrote, & if there’s more than three ands on a credit, it’s a good sign you should probably stay the hell away from that movie]
… & when creating new type faces the & character allows designers to inject a little joie de vivre & artistic flair into proceedings
… not to mention some quite nice poets really love it & if that’s not a cause for celebration — then there isn’t one
*the thorn and the wynn are also membersof the Former Members Of The Alphabet Club but sadly we don’t have time (in this pome)to learn what led to their demises
2 Bob’s worth: a bonus poem
i. Jerk Bob that old bundle of chuckles the joy-killing chump Robert Hartwell Fiske in his dreary, dull AND utterly unreadable Dictionary of Unendurable English: A Compendium of Mistakes in Grammar, Usage, and Spelling with Commentary on Lexicographers and Linguists believes ampersands should only exist in proper names, business names, book titles, and the like never in place of the word and
he further opines: aside from the hurried, the only people inclined to use & in place of and are those who have scant sense of self and scant sense of style, and believe using & somehow swells them both.
ii. Lovely Bob Robert Nares in his far more charming highly erudite & intellectual work A Glossary; or, Collection of words, phrases, names, and allusions to customs, proverbs, etc., which have been thought to require illustration in the works of English authors, particularly Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Vol. I. A new ed., with considerable additions both of words and examples believes the ampersand’s calligraphic qualities make it a compelling design element that can add visual appeal & personality to any page.
For someone who loves this myth, I’m really struggling for quality content. Wondering if I should abandon it for something different for last half of the month. The Poetic Factoids, however, remain a treat to create.
lost with, out haven
since : losing, you twice : in, two worlds : one green, light : one shadow, mist : find myself : lost : always, wandering : looking for a, home : that, never approaches : heart : out, of land : out of, hope : out, of, tune : every moment : miss you : more, than human heart : should : or can : this side, madness
Day 14 – TIL how deeply brain & body are connected
vocalisations
when your “inner voice” whispers wisdom deep within the wetness of your brain tiny muscle motions trigger in your larynx
no wonder i suffer so many sore throats after my multiple personalities have had their say on every conceivable topic
the muscular cacophony leaves my chords, exhausted
I’m really struggling to find Big O’s voice in this project. I’ve tried not writing in first person but it comes off very cold (which I suppose could be good thing) but I always end up flipping it back again. Worse, the words which are coming out are far more banal than the ideas which sound in my head. Frustrating, yes. Unusual, no.
the shadow of today
one long year ago i was abruptly evicted from your world for no good reason
no reason at all really
after foolishly
trying to rescue you & failing
which i suppose was all just a half-cocked attempt to save myself from insanity’s solitude
now i am worse than i was before
having forgotten how to sing
or even — why i once did
Day 13 – TILI learnt about birth & lightning but not maths
the odds of — giving birth to a baby at 12:01am on January 1 are around 1 in 526,000*
which is roughly the same as getting struck by lightning
the odds of — giving birth to a baby at 12:01am on January 1 while getting struck by lightning
involves — knowledge of maths way way above my pay grade
Trying to capture theclaustrophobia of going underground.
gē
resting
i don’t know how far i’ve come no idea how far to go only know the path seems to be thinner the path narrower the way darker the stones heavier above me
try not to think of the weight of all that earth & rock & mud & shale & clay & gravel & scree & boulder & slate & soil, sod, clod, loam, silt, dirt, turf & dust
point
Day 12 – TIL about pandas & dairy
buttergrams & buttermetres
A newborn giant panda is about the size of a stick of butter.
Since when did butter become a socially approved measurement unit?
In which case (for context):
I weighed 31.23 sticks of butter & was 10.23 buttersticks long at my birth!
A fragment of a song & a in-depth look at a very real phenomena for older Australians.
museless
i’ve lost my voice worse i’ve nothing worth saying the songs cannot be sung the notes no longer sound the words will not form the world is hoarse with my grief
Day 11 – TIL about a highly triggering word
useless
Ackwards is (allegedly) an old English dialect word describing a creature lying on its back that can’t get up.
I’d just like to say:
1. I’ll have you know I’m choosing not to get up, So, thank you very much
2. Get your damn camera Out of my room before I call the cops big time.
3. It’s a bit awkward that The only reference I can find To this on the whole internets is one. solitary. tweet.*
*Twitter! Now there’s a creature on its back that can no longer get up …
Played with a couple of Charon-related poems today. Big O pleading with Charon (& then from C’s POV). The one I found myself finishing was Dialogue poem as he connives a way to cross the Styx.
This excerpt is the last lines of the poem.
The Ferryman
You will not take my coin?
You cannot cross, coin or no. This is not a place for mortals.
Herakles crossed.
Herakles is a brute. He beat me up. I know you’re not like that.
No, I’m not. I start to sing.
I’m even more brutal.
Day 10 – TIL about cicadaian mating calls
buggy love buzz
over-aroused (if a trifle confused) female cicadas sometimes mistake roaring power tools for mating calls, occasionally even swarming sweaty men machoistically mowing lawns
— oh well, there’s one thing i’ll be safe from at least
A simple poem for Day 1 of the Festival of Grief; the second day of my annual wallowversary not till next weekend. Trying to combine my usual subject matter for this day with The Big O. It works okay. My Poetic Factoid has the potential to include words from other languages but I don’t really have the motivation to make it bigger today.
*****
underground again spent the day underground again as i do every day since losing you shouting across the river till my voice is hoarse but no one ever comes its against the rules been broken for me once already they cant be broken again no matter how great the agony how much i plead for mercy from the gods for once no creature listens to me the losing is worse than never having had you at all torture to have been so close to sunlight only to see you swirling dissolving disappearing down the sewer i will never sing again
Day 9 – TIL about taking photographs of Victorians
birdiewatching
where we say “cheese” as a prompt to make us grin
Victorians said “prunes” despite preferring to keep things in
Today’s volume of poetry was one of Bukowski’s I’d recently bought second hand but never read. Diving into him was like jumping into a lovely warm jacuzzi (where the water had just been freshly added & mine was the only body to have been immersed so it was all quite clean & hygienic thank you very much) — soothing, comfortable, relaxing, delightful, & I wondered why I don’t remember to read/reread my fave poets more often.
With that in mind, I set out to write a Big O poem in B style. I gave myself the added task of just stream of consciousing & not editing it (that can come later).
*****
wedding day goat song
why’d the god-damned fool girl go & step in a snake nest for anyway it’s the stupidest damn thing i’ve ever heard & i’ve been hearing stupid damn things all my damn life
& now the wedding guests are gone home & my amphora is empty but i’m still full so i step outside to take a piss come back in pick up the amphora realise it’s empty still empty swear at the fucking gods for their sick son-of-a-bitch senses of humour
look about for my lyre till i remember i smashed it after i found her dead (my second best lyre obviously i’m not quite so stupid as to smash Hecate)
decide i’m no where near drunk enough so set out to visit Calais & see if i can drown myself in his ample cellar
Day 6 – TIL the Scots can deal with forgetfulness
title tartling tartan-style
so the Scots have a word for that brief panicked pause experienced while you temporarily un-remember someone’s name as you rummage through the haggis-baggage of your overworked, irrelevant fact-clutching, bewilderbeasted brain
all well & good
tartle is not that terrible
after all — the name’s known you’re simply having trouble accessing the correct datapoint in the outdated software system of your cerebral substance
but do these paragons of polite protocol these pontificating Pict-progeny have a word to personify that bowel-clenching juncture when you realise you’ve already forgotten the name of the person introduced to you mere microseconds ago
gareth roi poet boi 