Today’s pome was written while exhausted. It’s both pretty simple & pretty self-explanatory.
the things we do
love comes
in many slices
including standing
on your feet
for 8 hours
selling pizzas
after vowing
years ago
never to work
the wrong side
of the oven
ever again
After working 8 hours, plus a 2 hour drive to town then 3 & 1/2 hours of playreading, I was feeling somewhat frazzled yet curiously sleepless. My flight north was early morning. This is what escaped in those solitary hours.
killing time
shadows slide : behind me : into walls & dumpsters : as i drive the desert : that is : the city : cbd at night : killing empty hours : before my pre : dawn flight
an angry : drunk : couple stagger : a younger couple : trundle home in tandem : on one of those insidious scooters : left lying : like litter : all round : the barren streets : he in what appears : at a glance : to be a tux : she’s kilt-wrapped : in a large tartan : cape? : a single woman : walks : the traffic island : like a tight wire : rather than brave : the footpaths
past old homes : the few that still : remain : ones that haven’t : been converted : into doctor’s waiting rooms : or knocked down : so a big super : market chain : has an entrance : to its under : ground : car : park
nip : down to the sea : smell the beach : salt : the dog & i : once walked : every day : happy
this quick trip : rips through : high : lights : of past lives : before i fly off : to an : im : possible future
A slight little poem about a couple of different variants of love. (Also the first poem I’m attempting to post/upload via my phone rather than desktop).
candypants
finally finished moving house yesterday
after three & a half long years
rediscovered my old yellow purple pink & blue
60s psychedelic striped skin-tight Saville Row pants
back from when legs were thin
gut didn’t exist & butt was defunct
i’d love to be able to fit
into them one more time
but even more than that
i’d die to be that man again
A list poem, that in turn, contains several ideas/lines that might themselves become their own poems this month.
the weird love,
the tyrannical distance,
the disparate time zones,
the clashing schedules,
the near twenty years,
the roller coaster that never coasts,
the bicoastal bipolar,
the unromantic romance,
the life-is-not-a-fairytale,
the beautiful beast,
the beastly beauty,
the attractive repulsion,
the anxious agony,
the unmated souls,
the singing universe,
the sparkling shiver,
the cold silence,
the nagging thorn,
the out-of-sync hearts,
the half-made promise,
the broken chain,
the joke that bombed,
the unequal exchange,
the one word reply,
the stranger in the bed,
the intimate inmate inside the head,
the reluctant endearments,
the belligerent confessions,
the definitions of love,
the expectations on love,
the ramifications if it is love,
the very real ghost of another …
A somewhat lighthearted pome for an otherwise rather emotional day. It’s also 9 years & one day since my housemate brought Chester home to live with us.
me or the dog
high on one
of my shelves
a book titled
as per this poem
jokingly perhaps
or perhaps
genuinely concerned
my significant other
bravely asked:
which would you choose?
i told her
i’ll call you
the very day
the dog dies
Written early enough but owing to the exhaustion brought about by the poem’s subject matter from the day before followed. by two tiring shifts the following day meant it was unable to to posted before the allotted hour due to the poet falling asleep almost immediately upon arrival home.
moving love
(for Sarah)
everyone dreads
that phone call
from a friend
or loved one
who wants to know
if you’re free on Sunday
(just for a couple of hours)
so when someone
actually helps you:
pack carry load
bags boxes crates
ungainly ugly furniture
tatty bric-a-brac
& misc junk that
honestly should’ve been
ditched decades ago
but most of all:
wait patiently while
poor logistical decisions
regarding the stowage
in the trailer are trialled
fine tuned & discarded
before again gently
suggesting the idea
they first shared
15 minutes earlier
& which works
— perfectly —
perhaps makes it
the most moving love of all
In my Glo/NaPoWriMo world, Sundays are generally reserved for some poetry fun & games … still it feels a little weird to be playing games already, only three days in. None-the-less, rules be rules. Today’s poem was pretty easy because I’ve been listening to him a lot lately — & love is pretty much all he writes about. However, I also set myself some additional rules with the structure itself which complicated things somewhat.
Prize for the first person who can guess who & what I’ve done (except you Mike 🤣🤣🤣).
for the love of Murray 1
pronouns
let you go no more
you pick me up
you give me something
because of you
fly with you
with only you
thought i was
fall your way
give me your love
take me down
bail me out
hold me steady
found my place
my time
if we never dance again
we’ll be the fire
My housemate & I saw the play Constellations tonight. It was his choice because as the program states: Payne’s script presents a series of vignettes centring on two characters across various parallel universes — the same setting & conversation, but different outcomes each time. This unconventional love story set in the quantum multiverse has us asking: What if there are infinite versions of you & I? And what if there are multiple universes pulling our lives in a myriad of different directions? — & he has been toying with similar themes in a play he said he wants to call the final last night of our lives. (I think it’s a great title & might even pinch it if he doesn’t produce something soon. Fair warning given!)
Tonight’s play was interesting without being awe-inspiring. But given it explored themes of love in occasionally unusual ways, there was some useful material that had me both thinking during the play & on the drive home. With that in mind here’s a pome-in-progress; structural inspired by the play — ie, in vignette form & using rhythm, repetition & some images from the play.
lessons from Constellations
(vignettes about love)
i.
love is knife edge sharp
love is knife edge hard
love is a knife
i am knifed
Et tu
ii.
the dangerous act
of loving someone
leaves you alone
with your fragility
iib.
perhaps even frail, guilty
for there is always
one other who comes
between us & our egos
iii.
we remain perpetually
lost among the great
mechanical quantumness
of love forevers
we blithely step through
those ever sliding doors
some into happy afters
some into miseries unending
some into sunlight
some into death
supernova bright
we still try
iv.
night ships
titanic dinghies
missing their chance
thieving time
as they crash
into everything
but the ice
v.
always peeking
doors of death
despite the possible multiplicities
& symmetry of circles
there is no formula for love
all we have are
our imperfect hearts
& fireflies brief lives
Once again, as if to round out the month, the poem I had been planning to finish the event with is not the one I’m publishing tonight. Again, an article I read about 100 year old New York serviceman who died due to complications with COVID19. This led to me playing with voice & POV & trying to put the scant biographical facts I had about him into a poetic first person monologue. Which lead me to research more about him. Thankfully the first article I read was the least evocative & I found some beautiful stories/snippets in other obituaries.
As much as I liked the other idea, it seems right & fitting to end with this moving personal story that spans the centuries.
*****
Philip Kahn: a semi-imagined poetic obituary
everyone should understand by now history always
replays versions of itself for its own amusement.
he was born at the end of the war to end all wars
— then fought in the next one that came along.
on the ground, at Iwo Jima, survived snipers — & a booby
trap which blew him 15 feet from where he stood.
from the air, over Japan, flew B29s & dropped
bombs — then carried their weight the rest of his life.
he helped the Twin Towers go up
— then like everyone else, watched them come down.
married in 46 & remained happily wed
— until Rose’s death last summer.
yet always — he carried a void with him.
i was that void. Samuel. twin. died 1919.
taken by two pandemics — a century apart.
a life lived — & one that only watched.
the irony of our deaths — is my brother
& i are bookends on a shelf that never ends.
While I don’t think this poem works as well as I hoped it might, I was keen to complete because I thought it an interesting idea & I wanted to try & show in semi-poetic sense how acts of non-isolation impact others. Given a chance I’d restructure the first part giving me more flexibility in part 2. And once this month’s all over, & I’ve recovered, I might just do that.
Here’s the link to the first part if you want a refresher.
*****
Quarantine: part 2
what Donnie did this week
1. the days in bed didn’t help
he ended up being rushed to hospital
where he’s spent the last week
on a ventilator …
a selection of consequences of the things Donnie did instead of staying home
1. Plane
several people at Donnie’s church feel unwell.
including the pastor who has performed three funerals in the past 48 hours.
the lady that prepares the community meals hasn’t come in for days
one of the cabin crew felt feverish in Perth a couple of days later
but had to work a flight back to her home Brisbane
before she could self isolate.
her housemates have been looking after her.
2. Shops
1st time. the check out girl who served him caught what Donnie has
— but as she’s a casual with no sick leave
she’s been at work every day since.
2nd time. the woman who used his trolley after him has a cough.
3rd time. when he coughed without covering his mouth
the butcher couldn’t avoid breathing some in.
3. Grandmother
his grandmother died
(though she has lots of loo paper in reserve).
4. Beach
thankfully Donnie encountered no one at the beach.
5. Haircut
his barber has come down sick.
his barber’s young son too.
& the mum of the kid next door who looks after him after kindy.
his barber’s son’s kindy teacher is sick, but has recovered.
her mother has not.
his barber’s parents are also feeling ill.
6. Bus
three passengers that Donnie coughed near are sick,
including one who has CF: she has been hospitalised
& is in a critical condition
one of the nurses at the hospital is so overwhelmed
he’s contemplating suicide.
the single mother he sat next to is having trouble breathing.
she doesn’t know who’s going to look after her young son.
two high school students had the virus without even really knowing.
their English teacher was not so lucky.
the driver has died.
7. Mates
Gary felt crook but kept going to work.
Gary’s boss has a fever.
Greg too felt a bit funny, but stayed home in bed.
Greg’s wife is now in bed too (& not in the fun way).
Greg’s wife’s mum dropped off some soup for them.
and did a bit of tidying up.
now she’s having trouble breathing.
Bill is fine.
today
… sadly Donnie
has recovered.
gareth roi poet boi 