Tag Archives: love

Day 23 — Marlowe MashUp + History

In the past week I’ve read the same poem in three different anthologies. It’s unusual for me to have read so many anthologies during NaPoWriMo (normally it might only be one or even none, I tend to prefer volumes by a single poet) but I’ve felt a stronger desire for variety this month — & anthologies definitely give you that. Except in regards to this poem. I took it as a sign. 

Today’s poem is a tweak on the Shakespeare focus I usually have on this day. It is a reworked version of Marlowe’s, The Passionate Shepherd to His Love. 

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The Passionate Capitalist to His Doom

Come frack with me and be my doom, 
And we will all the world’s riches groom, 
Those Valleys, groves, hills, and fields, 
Woods, or steepy mountain yields. 

And we will tear up every rock, 
Strip the Shepherd from his flock, 
Pump our waste into River waters 
& so Create infertility in our daughters.

Poison aquifers, ramp up your ire, 
Enable tap water to be lit on fire: 
And if these pursuits fill you not with gloom, 
Come frack with me, and cause our doom. 

Capitalist Bastards shall rip and plunder 
Turn the world utterly asunder: 
If these delights in thy mind do bloom, 
Then frack with me, and cause our doom.

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Day 23 – TIL  some things about Christopher Marlowe

Marlowe: A Potted History 

Marlowe’s nickname was Kit
& like a more modern KITT
was a Knight Rider who served 
as one of the Virgin Queen’s spies ;
a shadowy flight into the dangerous 
world of a man who did not exist.

Was once arrested for counterfeiting 
coins in Holland ; a crime punishable 
by death, but … nothing happened.

Some say : he should’ve been
executed for his terrible
translations of ancient verse
particularly Ovid’s book 
of love pomes , Amores.

Symbolically killed in 1593
cos Bill Shaxpere no longer 
had time to be both him
                                         & himself 

Day 22 — calefaction + comfort zones

Too often, my first drafts while researching topics are a bit heavy-handed, a bit dry. This one I like because it’s more ethereal. More elegant. I probably shouldn’t post it in its entirety. But I must: I like it. And the Poetic Factoid is just fun.

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The Horse-Powered Apocalypse 

She doesn’t rustle branches.
Hair doesn’t ruffle.
She doesn’t arch up like a wave.
Earth doesn’t tremble.

She is subtle, predatory.
Something almost unholy.
She sneaks, thief-like
but ends by committing assault.

She is vital, active, brutal.
Kills more every year than guns.
Yet we rarely consider her.
We scoff at and scorn her.

She is extreme. She is coming
Correction.       She.   Is.   Here.

*****

Day 22 — TIL about comfort zones

rift valley thermostat

as a general rule
our genes love heat
preferring desert 
island paradises
to ice-covered 
coldilocks zones

the majority of times 
when we can choose 
how our air is conditioned 
preferred temperature 
is a low humidity 22°c

a combination 
that closely resembles
humanity’s east 
african birthplace 
where we first walked 
hundreds of thousands 
of years ago

Day 21 — dominion & Dominions

This is a poem/idea I’m pretty pleased with. It took a few goes to find exactly what worked best, but when I figured it out, I was extremely chuffed. It’s a visual poem which I think by using less, says a lot.

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Extractive Dominion 
Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. Genesis 1:28

1. 
 xtractiv 
B  fruitful and multiply, and r pl nish th   arth and subdu  it: and hav  dominion ov r th  fish of th  s a and ov r th  fowl of th  air and ov r  v ry living thing that mov th upon th   arth.

2. 
 x rac iv 
B  frui ful and mul iply, and r pl nish  h   ar h and subdu  i : and hav  dominion ov r  h  fish of  h  s a and ov r  h  fowl of  h  air and ov r  v ry living  hing  ha  mov  h upon  h   ar h.

3. 
 x r c iv 
B  frui ful  nd mul iply,  nd r pl nish  h    r h  nd subdu  i :  nd h v  dominion ov r  h  fish of  h  s    nd ov r  h  fowl of  h   ir  nd ov r  v ry living  hing  h   mov  h upon  h    r h.

4. 
 x r c  v 
B  fru  ful  nd mul  ply,  nd r pl n sh  h    r h  nd subdu    :  nd h v  dom n on ov r  h  f sh of  h  s    nd ov r  h  fowl of  h    r  nd ov r  v ry l v ng  h ng  h   mov  h upon  h    r h.

5. 
 x   c  v 
B  f u  ful  nd mul  ply,  nd   pl n sh  h      h  nd subdu    :  nd h v  dom n on ov    h  f sh of  h  s    nd ov    h  fowl of  h       nd ov    v  y l v ng  h ng  h   mov  h upon  h      h.

6.
 x   c    
B  f u  ful  nd mul  ply,  nd   pl n sh  h      h  nd subdu    :  nd h    dom n on o     h  f sh of  h  s    nd o     h  fowl of  h       nd o        y l   ng  h ng  h   mo   h upon  h      h.

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Day 21 — TIL about conflicting information about Dominions

the duty of Dominions

in a strange : etymological irony : the angelic order : known as dominions : lords of the lower choirs : humanity : have been variously ascribed : a range of roles : within creation’s : governance

but most often : their mission is to administer : our universe : control the elements : supervise sun, moon, & stars : keep the planets rotating : oversee seasons : every aspect of nature : basically

it seems : they have become : derelict : in their duty

Day 17 — fallow + souls

The Climate Change book I finished today concludes with several chapters on fertility — both the earth’s & the author’s. In so doing she mentions a beautiful word I have long loved & long wanted to use in a poem. That word is fallow. The poem isn’t quite there, though the verse I’m gonna share, is close. It also prompted a parallel poem instead of a Poetic Factoid.

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fallow

by growing single crops super-intensively
the brutal industrial-agricultural industry
has abandoned an ancient methodology
for keeping the earth fertile — they forget fallow

so desperate are they for continuous every increasing
crop yields they dump on (usually chemical) fertiliser, irrigate heavily 
& dump more chemicals on to kill the weeds, insects & other pests 
that thrive on monoculture

more traditional agricultural societies 
use natural methods to maintain soil fertility 
including allowing fields to lie fallow 
rest, regenerate and re-submit energy into the soil
often by planting nitrogen-fixing legumes 
like beans into a variety of crops grown side by side. 

but even if the moderns can’t do this
they can allow fields to rest fallow
let the dirt grow dormant, 
go quiet, move more slow
rest recuperate recharge

fallow also works in humans

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Day 17 A special +1 poem

A love poem with a difference. 100 years.

fallowsoul

Souls, like farm fields,
need to lie fallow for a time
before returning richer than before
so rest now in that far off fallow gold sea
— & may we meet again in the years that follow

Day 16 — missing fish + a trilogy of fish fun facts

There’s lots of research concerning the devastation caused by BP’s 2010 Deepwater Horizon 3 month long oil leak around the Gulf of Mexico. This poem, explores one of the least reported/appreciated consequences. One which didn’t make the news cycle because the effects weren’t felt for three, four, five years — but the experts, the fishermen of the gulf knew what was happening. [3 longish verses aren’t being published.]

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missing fish

missing fish don’t make 
the news ; there’s no dramatic footage

no bodies wash onto beaches
just thousands of bubbles of nothing

following BP’s deepwater disaster
fish embryos didn’t grow

…

missing fish don’t make 
the news … but they should

*****

Day 16 – TIL a lot of fish related fun facts. (Ironically, at this point last year I wrote my flamingo triptych which was one of the highlight poems of last season. Today I find myself with lots & lots of fish facts, so I decided to replicate the idea.)

fish triptych

i. 
something odd (& gross) is happening 
in the waters of Britain
— a third of all male fish are changing 
sex due to human sewage pollution

ii. 
Atlantic hagfish produce enough slime 
in a minute to fill a bucket — no, no
i don’t care about the size of the bucket
that’s all the information i need, cheers

iii.
fish “speak” using a variety 
of low-pitched sounds 

they grunt : moan : & boom ; hiss : 
& whistle ; croak : creak : shriek : & wail

they rattle bones : gnash teeth
noisemake by jiggling muscles : 

against : their swim bladder
— ahhh : kindred spirits : who knew?

Day 15 —  FOGhead + radar 

The Festival of Grief feels somewhat lessened this time around. Perhaps partly because I. of the publication of my poetry books last year. And II. Because only one date falls into Na/GloPoWriMo timeframe. And just for today I’m ignoring the Poetic Factoid component to write a second free form poetical sketch.

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FOGhead

My foggy head has ached all morning
& I cannot understand why
Grateful outside is a slow still day
The only anniversary this year
As Easter Sunday was the last 
Mad day of a manic March

I sit underneath the sunshine
& hear the multiplicity of birds 
Who share my trees carry on
Countless continuous conversations
Always moving through air urgent
To be some where they are not

Whereas it is my everlasting wish
To be wherever you are when you went

*****

Day 15 – TI Ignored the Poetic Factoid assignment 

interdimensional radar

as much as i want 
to take pain relief
to less the graine

i also don’t in case
it’s caused by you 
trying to get through

Day 13 — omnibus: bills + books

Foray into politics & legislation-passing. 

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Big Uglies

While I understand the need 
for bundling pieces of like-legislation
into the same bill so Parliament 
doesn’t get bogged down passing 
thousands of unique, highly specific laws;

too often omnibus bills: bury 
controversial provisions; complex &/or 
controversial material (not all of which 
might have been adequately 
debated in either of the houses);
or hide pork barrel clauses
amid the thousands of pages.

Furthermore, their sheer massiveness 
& often quick adoption timetable
prevents parliamentarians from informing 
themselves concerning all relevant issues.

To me — these Big Ugly bills ring Big Loud 
alarm bells every time they’re proposed …

*****

Day 13 – TI  disagree with Professor Tolkien

*Not 
One book to bring them all
   and in the omnibus bind them

conversely & perhaps unsurprisingly 
i’m also not a huge fan of omnibus 
editions when it comes to books

books previously published separately
should under no circumstances 
be brought together as one volume

& not just because the paper’s cheaper
to lower costs — or that they weigh as much
as two household bricks off their diet

but because they lose both elegance 
& individuality when crammed together
between the same two mass-market covers

& this even applies to The Lord of The Rings
(Tolkien only grudgingly allowed it published
as three volumes considering it one big book)

— to me three is the absolute perfect number
even if Book IV The Ring Goes East drags till Faramir
& The Return of the King does kinda give it all away

Day 12 — denial + heart is a muscle

*****

These guys have been in my poetic sights ever since I first read This Changes Everything. I regularly cite the key tenet of this poem in discussion with CC deniers.

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Heartlessland

i.
one of the most strident 
climate change deniers
is american conservative 

think tank — & i use
those words advisedly — 
the heartland institute 

by rabidly rejecting 
the scientific consensus 
on climate change it has done

perhaps more damage than
even the trillion dollar 
fossil fuel corporations

that put us here

ii.
to the surprise of no one
this organisation took the coin 
of tobacco giant philip morris

spent the 90s discrediting 
smoking’s health impacts, the risk 
of secondhand smoke & fighting smoking bans

i guess that says it all

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Day 12 – TI Wrote some heart poems as easy as shooting fish in a barrel 

miles & litres

supposedly my heart pumps 
almost 7 litres of blood around 

the over 60, 000 miles 
of blood vessels in my body

every. single. minute.

& i’ve driven each. & every 
one of them
                      twice. 
          looking for the slightest
   signpost
that you still love me

BONUS #1 — above average 

the average heart
beat of a woman 
is (on average) 
8 beats a minute faster 
than a man’s
— assuming it beats
at all

(i always said 
you weren’t average)

BONUS #2 — all I want for Xmas

each year more heart attacks occur
on Christmas Day than any other

Monday, likewise, has more cardiac assaults
than any other day of the week

Lookout 2028 emergency rooms
when Christmas falls on a Monday!

Day 4 – trees & forests

It’s strange how often the poem you set out to write, morphs into something unexpected. I began the evening playing with climate “cliches” — things deniers say to disprove/discredit the science — & trying to tweak them into new forms. Which lead to a poem I’m pretty pleased with using a quote from Ronald Reagan (implementor of the neo-liberal “experiment” in America). Because I like its potential, I’m only going to share a few lines: the opening ones & ones near the very end to give a taste of it. 

Today’s Poetic Factoid practically wrote itself as the idea/awareness has been in my mind ever since I read Peter Wohlleben’s The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate: Discoveries from a Secret World several years ago. There are so many cool tree facts I could write dozens of factoids & one day just might … one fact I couldn’t fit in this time, is that trees can recognise their own kin!

NB These poems were written yesterday, but when I startled myself awake at the keyboard at 12.22am I realised I needed to go to bed & upload them later. Hence, this…

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barking up

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago.
       The second best is today.

neo-liberals have long believed a tree is just a tree
how many must you look at to know a forest?

no doubt Reagan & his ilk never planted a tree
under whose shade — they never expected to sit

*****

http://www.tree.org

trees are connected : by their toetips
via : an underground fungal internet
the wood wide web : a mycorrhizal 
symbiosis of mutual benefit : root-clinging 
fungi aids tree absorb extra water & nutrients 
from soil : tree reciprocates by sharing :
tasty photosynthesised sugars

trees even text : messaging : when insects 
attack : the victim warns : trigger defences : 
networks have hubs : older : larger : “mothers”
connected to : hundreds of younger ones 
who send : excess carbon through the system
to understory seedlings : quadrupling
their chance of surviving

more evidence : of collective strength : over separatism 

Day 3 – energy + Eiffel

Ironically I’m sitting at the puta writing a poem about energy when I am exhausted after a very long day.

Two Notes:
1. Formatting is an issue (the poems don’t look as good as they do properly formatted in a word doc) as is often the way with WordPress.
2. The old maxim, sorry about the long poems, I didn’t have time to write short ones is particularly true tonight.

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Australian Energy                             —                          a call & response poem

Australia is 
the third-largest exporter of coal in the world 

no, it’s the biggest

home to two of the 10 largest coal mines in the world

four of the 10 

Australians believe  {of the total workforce} :
the coal mining industry makes up 11% 

in reality it’s just 0.3% 

oil & gas employment make up 20%

just 0.2% 

Australians believe  {of GDP} :
the economic value of the gas industry is 12.4% 

2.5%

coal mining contributes 13.6%

2.6%

50% of Australians believe  {of what we should be building} :
new gas power stations

only 21% believe we should be building new renewable energy projects

my apologies i was confused

let me try that again

50% of Australians believe:
new renewable energy projects

only 21% believe we should be building new gas power stations

the 2023-2024 Australian Federal Budget has been released 
fossil fuel subsidies (such as the Fuel Tax Credit)
– will cost the Budget over $41 billion 
over the next four years

significantly more than all the funded climate initiatives combined

despite fossil fuel industries being the past

& clean energy initiatives, the future 

(perhaps, assuming

we survive)

*****

Funfact Day 3 – TIL how to grow iconic French architecture 

Paris’s brutal metal heart
— the Eiffel Tower can be 
as much as fifteen to sixteen
centimetres taller in summer

{ thermal expansion heats the iron up
the particles gain kinetic energy 
& in so doing : take up more space }

think how tall she will get
when The Iron Lady starts 
experiencing month long 40+ degree days

when Ville-Lumière becomes Ville-Chaleur 
& Ville d’Amour becomes Ville d’Sueur

{ City of Light melts into City of Heat 
& City of Love drips into City of Sweat }

*****

Funfact Day 3 (bonus)  – TIL other Eiffel things

i.
the Tower was initially 
intended for Barcelona
but those pesky Catalans
thought it an awful eyeful (ouch!)
so Gustave pitched her to Paris instead

ii.
initially the French weren’t 
overly impressed either
metal-shaming her as
“useless & monstrous” 
“a stupefying folly”
& “an odious column of bolted metal” 

always something of a prickly loner
writer Guy de Maupassant 
dined every day at the cafe directly below 
— the only spot in Paris he claimed
he couldn’t see the damn thing

but they grew to love her
— as did the whole world
till she became what she now is
(like so many modern landmarks)
little more than Instafodder