Day 16 – fire (& stone)

Spent a large chunk of my writing time today trying to craft a pome comparing & contrasting the fire at Notre Dame with the fire in our climate. While many parts worked, a few did not & I realised longer would be needed to resolve the kinks.

However, while researching the idea I came across another, far less known story, which led to this …

*****

holy houses

in less widely covered news, the revered
al-asqa mosque in east jerusalem
was also struck by (a far less dramatic)
blaze at the same time as notre dame’s
inferno in france — damaging solomon’s
stables beneath a corner of temple mount

here’s a thought:
perhaps god is trying to tell us something

BONUS POEM: April 16, 2018

The theme persists.

*****

immemorial

stone is worn
moss softens
lichen gathers
chiselled lines
flatten
it rains hard
the sun shines
& pretty soon
everything
is forgotten

Day 15 – sadness (always sadness today)

29 years today.

*****

home, less

the home is new
but sadness stays

my old heart yearns
for all the birthdays

that never came
.

.
BONUS POEM: April 15, 2018

Today. Every year.

*****

goldfish kisses

in the back of memory
monks monophone softly
as fish shivers pianoforte
glockenspielling my spine
these tingling goldfish kiss
past present & forever
into one molten lovechant
calcium dissolving moment
lift me up-in-to you
a been apart too long
old friend reminder

the sadness builds
I wait
to come home

Day 14 – silences (& more silences)

Familiar theme. Unfamiliar ending.

*****

Sunday afternoon farm sounds

mostly sleepy silence
a suite of breezes
of differing thicknesses
cartwheeling leaves
bone-crunching lawn dogs
young pup’s yips
unsure what’s going on
mad gabbing of parrots
lonely cry of a duck
searching for the lost flock
solitary desolation
of the only crow around

the soporific drone of man
whether high sky, dirt disturbing
or distant roadway rumbling
a forgotten radio
playing to a shed of ghosts
the irritating digital pings
as new words arrive
at my mother’s phone

& my beautiful grandmother
humming made up melodies
& starting sentences
memory won’t let her finish

BONUS POEM: April 14, 2018

Bit of theme developing. Oh well, it’s part of the reason behind the trip …
NOTE: minor 2019 edits to improve flow.

*****

looking for Ambrose in the Torringtons

start in lush Merton sunshine
where we are confident one is sown
yet six of us, crisscrossing, find nothing
except freshly cut grass, lichen
& boredom blooming like mushrooms
— so five leave as one goes on
to the Torringtons three: Little —
unclear if any were ever planted here
regular — where a football pitch garden
implies looking for needles that might
not even be in this granite haystack
for not a single 18th century date’s
visible beneath time’s smoothings
whereas ironically Great — no longer
seems to exist. realise I need simply to enjoy
the moss path beneath my feet
settling sunbeams on my skin
& be reassured that if Ambrose et al
even still care, I have tried.
moments later I pass a bus full of silly
young people preparing for a wedding
which seems eminently appropriate —
reassures me I made the right choice.

Day 13 – sport (& fashion)

For about a decade of my life, Saturdays in Autumn & Winter meant sport: football & netball. For the first time in forever, that’s how I spent my Saturday.

*****

Autumn day

it’s as if I’ve just finished playing u/17s
& we’ve come down to watch our girlfriends
(or more likely) those we wish were —
except the ones i played with are fat & bald
& the girls i once fancied, grey & chubby

everything else — the tinkle of coins
as goals rustle metal nets; the wild calls
of support; the choc of ball on court;
insistent whistle chirps; the scent
of homemade soup; kids queuing
for lollies too excited to choose;
others sausagerolling down the mound;
stars of yesterday cunningly disguised
as grandmothers; repeated complaints
about the too cold wind — the same

the minor differences — infinitely
more stylish uniforms; better hair
cuts (only one mullet); & everywhere
smartphones plastered to every palm

sadly there’s still that one jerk
father cheering too hard; screaming
pressure pressure; always over
aggressively; threatening to blow
his gasket; as if a gold medal
is on the line

BONUS POEM: April 13, 2018

A slightly lighter toned pome, just for some variety.

*****

lemmingwear

The North Face
clearly seems
to be the current
accoatrement
of choice
for the fashion
conscious
rambler

— or it would still be
if not for the fact
my mother
recently bought
one each
for her & dad
sending stock
prices tumbling

as if from a cliff

Day 12 – hares (& old stones)

Been playing round with some hare-inspired poems. This is my reconstruction of a West Country legend of a witch who takes the form of a white hare.

*****

white hare

while hunting : in the afterbones : of night : her siren warning : sways over the valley : a white hare warms me : goldeneyes gleaming light : look away look away : must not stare : into her eyes : or my soul : she’ll steal : a swift shadow approaches : white haired woman : wooing me : face of ashen grey : begging me to stay : look away look away : white belly : dancing bare : on the heather : from dusk till dawn : hounds bray

look away look away

BONUS POEM: April 12, 2018

Part of the holiday experience is visiting places my ancestors left a century or more ago. This is one of them. EDIT: formatted lines the way I wanted them to look last year, but couldn’t owing to facebook.

*****

wandering round the churchyard at St Winnow

good Cornish stone sprouting
grey
among green dandelions
& wild cowslips
long ago some single
still yet-to-be great
great great great grandparents
left what they thought a harsh life
for one with more
hope
in the far off dust
of Australia

a short prayer away the Fowey
flows south
like silver slate

I walk over lusciousness
wanting to make amends
for a hiccup of snow amongst
stones so weatherworn
& lichenloved
they’re illegible
we vow we’ll remember
forever
when a generation
or two is the most
most of us get

so though I might be
treading on
ancient ancestors
given the perfection
of their forgetting
place
I don’t believe
they’ll mind

~ Interlude ~

Been having a few issues with my computer this week. 2 hours Saturday night trying to prepare blog page, over 3 hours last night. Running slow, loading slow, despite turning off/restarting, clearing stuff off to try & make it run faster. Almost felt like giving up & abandoning NaPoWriMo this year. The poems are being written okay, just getting them onto WP has been a headache. But then, something strange happened. Woke up this morning, fired up the old boy … & everything seems to be working fine. So who knows. Maybe it just didn’t wanna work on the week end.

So the past three days’ worth of poems will now follow in quick catch-up succession (cross fingers) …

Day 11 – intertextuality (& introspection)

Book Club selection this week was Water for Elephants.

*****

big top potpourri

granted Water for Elephants
has been read before
but the deja vu familiarity blends
into The Night Circus, Cirque du Freak
numerous history of circus books
from when I was researching
my play The Menagerie of Broken Flowers
(later renamed Ugliophobia)
countless kids books by Enid,
others starring Paddington, Olivia, etc;

dozens of celluloid iterations
The Greatest Show on Earth,
Marx Brothers, Freaks, Elvis
probably worked at one in
the mid-60’s, a misunderstood
troublemaker; U2’s dreamlike video
to All I Want Is You; even Dumbo ;
& of course the exquisitely surreal
dustbowl drama Carnivale.
Plus: managing a kids circus;
working for Cirque du Soleil;
meeting many of Australia’s
talented carnies & contemporary
circus artists

means the words & situations
all blur together to fabricate
a simulacrum of surely every
eternal childhood dream

BONUS POEM: April 11, 2018

Final David-inspired pome (for now?).

*****

marble thoughts

schoolgirl groups
giggle, turn away
countless digital zooms
capture closeups
of my junk

others slide out
the extensions
on their ubiquitous
selfie sticks
pretend to balance
me on their palms
or once again
point how small
my tinkle is
(won’t even deign
to mention how cold
his studio was in winter)

some do little more
than click & walk on
one more cultural
checkpoint ticked off
the list

a few of these awful
smartPhone snaps
are even well framed

miss the days
people
actually looked

Day 10 – let down (& queuing up)

NOTE: Two long exhausting workdays meant poems were written on Tues & Wed just not posted. Aiming to catch up now.

Frustratingly, the universe slowed me down today (on my longest work day). But instead of allowing it to frustrate me (for too long), I played a little game with synonyms & metaphors to pass the time.

*****

deflated

feeling flat
sequence of entire
day scuppered
now under pressure
cancel first shift
plan how get to rest
done what began as
bright bubbly morning
had its mood pricked
spare at home, also flat
insurance overdue, not
renewed resilience resilience
pump yourself up
can’t be blowed
too deflated to even finish

but sitting in solitude
on back road silence
waiting for a saviour
not really speaking to
slowly
stone of stillness
inner tube of tranquility
pneumatic resolve
bones of birds
lift me skywards
a gnostic spark
ascending

BONUS POEM: April 10, 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.

I was starting to doubt the wisdom of that reasoning, however, when after 15 minutes we had not even turned the corner … to get to the corner … where we could see how far we still were from the entrance.

Nevertheless, in just over an hour, I was inside gazing on a truly exquisite work of art. This poem is not about that, though there are a couple of possible David-themed poems perculating around which may pop up here later this month. This pome is about:

*****

Standing in the line to see David with 10,000 others

have to keep
reminding my
small country
consciousness
that this is
only the start
of turista season
— the shoulder
before the peak
summer months
really get things
swinging

if this throng
is shoulder,
i’d loathe
being here
for belly season

Day 08 – cracks (& crows)

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

Day 07 – ordinary days (& extraordinary nights)

A fun little exercise whereby I describe the things I’ve done today in more abstract ways via unordinary day alchemy; ie, went to the shops & bought vegies might be unordinary day alchemised to hunted in the long cool aisles for prey that cannot outrun me. Fear not, the examples in the poems are better (I hope 😂)

on an unordinary day

i now have

half a dozen doorways
to new nowhere rooms
if only i can get them home

two notebooks which float

more stories i own
but likely never know

two big volumes of all
the old words of once were

somewhere silky
to rest my migraine
& learn new dreams

plus a full tank to take me there

BONUS POEM: April 7, 2018

A poetic love fable. Inspired, this may come as no surprise, by the fact that Venezia has somewhat scrambled my otherwise fairly reasonable compass. Conceived on one bewildered journey; completed on several others when I set out to deliberately wander writing lines in my head as I went …

The poem so far I’m most pleased with 😁
[2019 edit: even more pleased with it following a few tweaks 😁😁]

*****

The 1000 Ways to San Marco Piazza

my love lives in Dorsoduro ; I, in Castello ; & every morning ; she promises to meet me ; in San Marco’s Piazza at sunset ; she says if we find each other there ; our love will last

if I had the talent ; I’d pen a postmodern novel ; telling of the thousand ways ; we never meet ; a short chapter ; a paragraph; even just a line, a single word ; about how my unerring ability ; to lose my way ; dooms me ; where every route I choose ; is wrong

the one where I see her on another Ponte, chase her, see her on other Pontes, but I never get closer ; the one where every Calle is a dead end ; the where I find a letter on the cobblestones from her to another ; the one where I fall in ; the one with a Calle so narrow my shoulders touch each wall, closer, closer, till I am wedged tight; the one where I meet another who might in fact be : the one true one

nights thick with the stink of summer tourists ; nights where the waters are still obsidian; nights when I don’t want to leave the house ; nights when I am dying to ; muggy shirts sticky nights ; wet winter nights ; nights where la Serenissima is a dream ; nights where only it is

& maybe ; one night ; when I least expect ; I will arrive ; & so will she ; & we ; will meet

gareth roi poet boi

gareth roi's playful poetry place

Menu

Tag Archives: NAPOWRIMO

Day 16 – fire (& stone)

Day 15 – sadness (always sadness today)

Day 14 – silences (& more silences)

Day 13 – sport (& fashion)

Day 12 – hares (& old stones)

~ Interlude ~

Day 11 – intertextuality (& introspection)

Day 10 – let down (& queuing up)

Day 08 – cracks (& crows)

Day 07 – ordinary days (& extraordinary nights)

Menu

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this: