Day 08 – recipe for mourning

I’ve been saving this idea for a day when I was low on energy & creative juices. Sadly I was hoping it would be a little later in the month. That said, it’s tough churning out a poem a day even when 100% healthy: to do so while ill is an added challenge.

It’s definitely an unusual “poem” … a cross between a recipe & a list poem … with, I hope, an unexpected sting in the tail.

recipe for tuna mournay

Part 1:
Ingredients

1. Fish
common
anchovy, barracuda, grouper, flying fish,
cod, common sea horse, king mackerel,
Spanish mackerel, common sea bream,
colourful
white marlin, grey triggerfish,
blue runner, rainbow runner,
black gemfish, bluefish, red drum,
greater amberjack, black ruff, yellowtail,
named for other things
sailfish, swordfish, lancet fish, puffer fish,
goosefish, porcupine fish, monkfish,
sunfish, pilotfish, dolphin fish, needlefish,
spurdog fish, Cuban dogfish,
longbill spearfish, bigeye cigarfish, stone bass,
strange
Bermuda chub, opah, escolar,
leerfish, tripletail, Murray eel,
pomfret, bigeye thresher, wahoo,
bonito, cassava fish, spotted skate,
manta ray, devil ray,
shark
bignose, hammerhead, Galapagos,
sandbar, night, sand tiger,
copper, blue, (great) white, mako

2. Reptiles
turtles
loggerhead, leatherback,
green, hawksbill, Kemp’s ridley

3. Mammals
whales
northern right, pilot, humpback,
beaked, goose-beaked, killer,
sperm, minke, sei, fin,
dolphins
common, striped, spinner,
Atlantic spotted, bottlenose,
harbor porpoise,

4. Birds
albatrosses
Atlantic yellow-nosed, black-browed,
northern royal, shy,
gulls
yellow-legged, great black-backed,
herring, laughing, Audouin’s,
shearwaters
balearic, great, sooty, Yelkouan,
petrel
great-winged, grey, southern fulmar,

Part 2:
Instructions

this is
a not-so-quick list
of some of the 145 species
regularly killed & discarded
while “fishing” for tuna
charmingly known
as by-catch

*List taken from Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals

Day 07 – the obsession that’s eating our planet

One of the things I hope to do over this month is come at the theme PANDEMIC from a range of angles. Looking at, if possible, a little like a cubist Picasso painting where we can look at all sides of the subject at once. It’s still a bit stat heavy but this poem really is about the big elephant in the room. (Not it’s not really an elephant.)

*****

plague species

a mere ten millennia ago when we first
trick tamed cattle from wild aurochs
humans & those critters that would become
our domestic buddies (cows, chickens, pigs, sheep)
represented around 1% of earth’s biomass
wild animals (using the most basic maths)
represented 99% of all living creatures.

now humans & the beasts we own as pets
property or product are somewhere
between 96-98% depending on the study cited.
basically earth has been stolen from free-living
animals for those species we most love to pat
but even more so for those we lust to eat.
the plague has spread — & continues to …

Day 06 – close to home

Not much explanation needed tonight.

*****

hypochondranoia

in these anxiousladen : hypertensile times : over doctor googling : affects mental health : almost more than any virus : attacking flesh

a pre-exisiting history of weak lungs : can’t account for : this shortness of breath : when walking : into the next room : to make another cuppa ; every whimpered cough : bubbling up like lukewarm lava ; the-not-quite-hot : but-definitely-warmer-than-bugsnug : flushes ; the soft aches of exhaustion : in every cell ; the intermittent bouts : of nowhere-near-migrainial misery : but discombobulating enough : to warrant frequent napping ; all adds up : to not quite anything

simultaneously : not wanting to : over-react : read too much into it : complain : cos it’s probably nothing : don’t want to : over-whelm : the local medical centre : probably : just a hangover : from last month’s laryngitis : after all : other than living in a : designated cluster area : what chance has there been : to jump on : this global pan-wagon

Day 05 – my first ever 2 part GloWriMoPo(em)

Um, this still isn’t the poem I promised yesterday; that’s the “trouble” when there’s lots of ideas bouncing round all the time. (You might get that poem one day or you might not.)

But this isn’t quite the poem I was hoping to present today either — hence the brillo idea of making it a 2 part poem. Part 2 will make it’s way onto these pages in a week or so. (I love it when form & content inform each other.)

*****

Quarantine: part 1

8 things Donnie did last week instead of staying at home

1. Disembarked the Ruby Princess … & caught a plane back to Adelaide
2. Bought some toilet paper, he had plenty … but was on the shelf so why not
3. Visited his grandmother, gave her a hug … & the loo paper too cos she was out
4. Spent the day at the beach … probably the last warm day before winter
5. Got his hair cut, sneezed once or twice … those chemicals always set him off
6. Caught the bus, coughing as he did … people looked at him, big deal
7. Returned to the shop three times … cos he kept forgetting things
8. Visited a few mates for a brew … though Bill, the bastard, wouldn’t let him in

What Donnie’s doing this week

1. Feeling under the weather … so decided to have a couple of days in bed

Day 04 – the flat curve round the corner

Was intending to write a poem based on exercise from yesterday’s Na/GloPoWriMo site. However, I spent so long collecting words (part of the task) that I had no time left to actually write the thing. So I’ll try & get to that tomorrow using the words gathered today.

So this then is a quick stopgap, started only an hour ago, based on one of the dozen or so ideas I’ve got stockpiled to work on this month. As such, it’s a bit rushed, but it’s okay. As I always say, Na/GloPoWriMo is not about crafting perfect poems but trying new things, having poems to work on post April; & occasionally if you’re lucky catching a lightning bolt or two in a bottle along the way.

*****

decurving

i.
the challenge with the whole lockdown
don’t leave the house, isolate yourself
curve-squashing philosophy is if it works
all the instant expert naysayers will neigh
see it wasn’t as bad as your henny penny
sky’s falling economy-killing hysteria predicted
— which although technically frustrating
is surely not as grave as the alternative,

ii,
despite this, some debate whether the cost
of flattening is really the lesser of the evils
— which in a way overlooks an essential issue
the fact that we as a species are living
way above our credit level & treating earth
as a giant hypermarket where we can grab
anything we want without needing to pay
— well, debts are starting to be called in.

Day 03 – the falling of the sky

Slowly working up steam. About Defcon 3 I’d say. Alert but not alarmed.

This doesn’t quite say what I was intending to say (or at least, not in the way I was trying to say it) when I started the poem, but it will have to do as midnight is approaching.

*****

not so little chickens

while the wet markets of Wuhan & elsewhere might be
(rightly) copping criticism as hotbeds for terrifying new
viral species-hoppers even scarier prospects face every
one of us at much closer distances to hearth & home

for our modern factory chicken facilities are now far closer
to laboratories than farms where the paltry poultry are more
like drug-addled addicts than the cutesy feathered friends
we envisage scratching round in green country gardens for grubs

today owing to genetic streamlining, stress, & overcrowding
vaccines, sulfa drugs & antibiotics are routinely added
to feed to combat the toxic bloodbath of immunodeficiencies
cancerous tumours, pus, faecal matter, & bacterial contamination

it is from one of these noble agribusinesses many virologists believe
the next great pathogen will emerge to indiscriminately kill
both fowl & man

Day 02 – the apocalypse tiptoes slowly in

Hmmm, another nice one. When does the apocalypse get here?

Patience, I’m going over some of the books I’ve been reading recently & gathering all the bits I need. Soon the dystopias will start.

*****

slippage

what is being termed
social isolation by every
suddenly ultraexpert
medical practitioner
& socialmedia maestro
on the digital planet
sounds less like weeks
of solo soul hellage
cut off from the world
& all that other so-called
important stuff

& more like a couple
of normal gareth days
slipping stretchtinglingly
into several lazy idyllic
weeks of sublime solitude
— even if that slippage
means i’m not sure whether
it’s sunday or september
(so long as nasty things like
curve flattening & latest
statistics are somehow
over looked)

Photo: Villette enjoying a lazy autumn day at home, unaware of the term, “social isolation”. (Also, I didn’t realise she too is half-slipping until I uploaded the pic, so a double whammy)

Day 01 – tapping the zeitgeist

Well, April aficionados. It’s here again. Na/GloPoWriMo. Was wondering whether I should participate again this year given how exhausting it can be. But given it will be my 7th consecutive year participating & given there’s been a bit of a poeting drought recently & given that we all have plenty of time on our hands, I thought, well why not.

That said, I’m gonna try something I’ve not done for Na/GloPoWriMo before: that is, to write every poem around a theme. That theme is quite zeitgeisty but it is the thing my brain (& I’m sure many others too) is most occupied with at the moment.

So brace yourself for 30 fun-filled poems about the plague. Well, pandemics & other cheerful TEOTWAWKI style things.

A gentle one to lead us in. (The apocalypse comes later)

*****

chasey / 21st-century style

by the cries / next door’s kids
are inventing a new form of an old game
they’re calling out the rules
over the fence as they create
Audrey’s got coronavirus
& she’s got to catch us
& when you’re caught
you’ve got to isolate yourself

it’s ring-a-rosie all over again
which sounds fun for a while
till they realise being only 6
Audrey doesn’t understand
the rules of social isolation (like many others)

it ends the way all such games
have for millennia / arguments
a collision or other accident
a banged up knee / tears
& someone crying / running
/ to be comforted // by mum

Day 30 – poem about you

Thankfully NaPoWriMo 2017 has come to an end, for although I enjoy it, it’s always a relief when it’s over.

A couple of choices today from the things I’ve played with. One was a love poem in fragments. One about how country towns don’t exist anymore. Another about the city, under lights. All of which I’ve sort of done before (or variations of). So I’ve gone with something a little bit different: a “sequence” (?) of very short poems which all came out about the same time & all seemed to be semi-tenuously linked. Once I noticed they were coming I applied a 5 line rule to them, & re-edited them all into second person. Originally there were 10. Here are the best:

5 modern mini-faery tales where you are the star

i.
Using your red brolly
you hitched a ride
to the sky
to walk upon
the live wires of electricity

ii.
You carry a swarm
in your bloodbrown hair
ready to sting
all who displease you
into submission

iii.
You catch clouds in a jar
high above the trees
never thinks about how
it just
seems to happen

iv.
You wear ribbons
at your wrists, ankles & neck
all tied tight
to stop your appendages
falling off

v.
After teaching your elephant
to lift you on her trunk
you’ll focus on
tandem bikeriding
(once it’s been reinforced)

Day 29 – poem about mines

Good one gareth, mining the same old topics. Sheesh! Maybe next year’s NaPoWriMo you could try something different …

emotion mining

sometimes the people who enter our lives are of our own choosing
while others are introduced by loved ones who should know better

i.
i’ve spent the past 2 months with several
of my mother’s dearest most beloved friends
who have suckered me into their whirlwind
unconventional romance, their aching love,
heartbreak, their failed business ventures,
smuggling, revolution, trials, jealously, the death
of their firstborn & the wild beauty of life
on an old coast, & a few days ago, Francis
drowning alone in a dark place

ii.
only moments have passed since Ross began
the affair he’s been threatening for years. now
it’s been so brutally consummated i cannot
contain my shock & as a consequence Demelza
has determined to go unattended to a ball
where who knows what calamity will befall.
i’m too afraid to turn, begin the next chapter
of course i will, after zapping this cold coffee

iii.
but the greatest betrayal of all is my mother’s
for she knew these calamities occur, yet still
blithely offered me the first in the series leaving
me to experience the emotional rollercoaster
…………………………………………………………………….alone

gareth roi poet boi

gareth roi's playful poetry place

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Tag Archives: poetry

Day 08 – recipe for mourning

Day 07 – the obsession that’s eating our planet

Day 04 – the flat curve round the corner

Day 03 – the falling of the sky

Day 30 – poem about you

Day 29 – poem about mines

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