love
a lonely : silhouetted against : the sunset : the city lights : the full moon : the sea : walking an old dirt road : the dawn of time : & its ending : all of these are her : sparks at her feet : lava footprints : laughing : always back turned : always leaving
Been partaking in much thought (as I do this time every year); as well as a Firefly marathon, so themes of home & family have been percolating round for days. (The pome itself took about an hour; finding the right picture, close to five.)
Somewhere there is a house
whether facing a storm on a cliff ;
lost in a forest ; birdhigh in a tree ;
or underground browntangled among
ancient roots ; atop an old stone tower ;
even above an ocean where mountains
once used to be, before being washed away
But somewhere there is a house ;
where when i walk in, i have always been
where i know and am known ;
where there is no need to play roles ;
no need to keep pretending all is well ;
where those long lost are as they were
i know there is a such a house, somewhere
So it seems the NaPoWriMo moral of the story is, post Thursday mornings beforehand, not think you’ll have time at the end of the night. Thursday is my Worstday; with driving, work, late night, driving; I arrived home half an hour before midnight, tired & with a slow computer so that when it ticked over to midnight, I just thought: I’ll do it in the morning.
Not a 100% happy with this one, but the others I worked on (yester)today are i) for a competition or ii) political so it’s a very short short list (i.e., it’s this one poem). The only editing I’ve done (to)today is shorten the title.
favourite sign of autumn
you can keep your gently goldenening leafs
your sugarysweet ripening grapes & all
your other dull stereotypical signs of autumn
i’ll stick with my little bag of wheat
in the old days we warmed em in the oven
my forgetfulness costing me at least two
now the agitation of microwaves does the trick
in 180 seconds stimulating water molecules within
& so for the next three, four or more hours
it gently leaks heat into my bed, against my leg
warming against the oncoming winter
reassuring me cold can & will be overcome
more organic than an electric blanket
(& less likely to incinerate) but sadly
more lumpy than a lover at 3am when I roll
— at least, I think it is, it’s been a while
An hour ago, I sat down & looked at the ideas I’d been playing with & groaned.
Why at this time of night, do I suffer NaPoWriMophobia: the fear that nothing I’ve worked on all day is worth sharing?
At the end of a regular day, if nothing’s good enough to share, um, well I don’t. (To be honest, it’s a fine line, because sometimes I write something I think is good/has potential, but I don’t want to share it because it might have a life at a competition or in a journal somewhere; & many such avenues frown on public broadcasting even on such a humble thing as a poorly subscribed poet’s blog.)
But then, I typed up half a dozen lines scrawled in my notebook after waking this morning, which grew into this moody piece. Not what I was originally intending to do with it (I don’t think) but something I am more than satisfied, even pleased, with.
nest
woven layers : accumulation : levels of detritus : leaves like slugs : webs pull the corners : closer : a comfortable chaos : treesurrounded : birdnoisewrapped : step over twigs : all wound through : with string : & stolen hair : windrunnels : wingflutter : cavesafe : eggless : empty : arrive : unlock with relief : discard shell : flop onto : feathersoft couch : to rest : regenerate : recubate
Um, yeah. Well. It’s getting ridiculous now.
I’ve been playing round with a couple of pieces again today, & I just kept coming back to a phrase a friend messaged me after reading Saturday’s poem which was, er, about the moon. She said, “I really want to frame this.” Being the sort of person who takes praise well, I replied: “what the poem or the moon, uh-hahahaha?” “Both.”*
& so, this.
the woman who wanted to frame the moon
not content
with mere admiration
through dark glass
no more
muted suffocations
in a shared over
crowded atmosphere
she wanted it
all for her own
something only
she could see
recompense for a life
too long lived
in shadow
**[legal disclaimer disclaimer: my friend is a lawyer so this only seems prudent]
I think I’ve mentioned before that during NaPoWriMo, I try & draft several pomes a day, testing out ideas to see what sticks … & hopefully finding an idea worthy enough to develop into some sort of acceptable first draft.
This very short pome began life as a stanza in a longer piece which wasn’t pulling its weight. I spent a long time playing with versions of it, until I realised, everything I was trying to say was in these lines. Less is more & all that. So I abandoned the rest; copied-&-pasted this bit into a new document & kept cutting*, playing with enjambment, alternative words, & finally titles; a dozen versions came & went before I stumbled onto the current choice which seems so ideal I wonder why it took so long.
Speaking of long, this introduction is so, only because the pome is so short & I wanted readers to feel like they got value for money 🙂
filtrate
he craves age
so everything
can be better
than it was, when it was
If I said I understood everything I wrote, I’d be lying. Today’s effort comes from a form of poetry-generation; a pome-making game I guess. The steps are simple.
1. Make a series of lists (using prompts).
2. Choose one element from each list.
3. Find a way to combine them in one pome.
Ergo, below…
surveying the damage
through the window
yellow leaves cover the lawn
on the table bread is dark
brown like chocolate
— the wind blew all night
forcing doors & knocking
knick-knacks from sills
too cold to emerge
from beneath blankets
so the water did what it must
— spend the morning
throwing all my books
into a pulping machine
they’re useless now
Arrrggghhh! Can’t seem to shake this subject. Despite several poems worked on today, the two I was considering for today’s post somehow didn’t seem to stack up, so had to go for this fallback. New subject matter tomorrow, I promise (I hope).
the gifts of the luni
every night the moon leaves me gifts
like a cat depositing nightkill on my mat
this week on the wall by the back door
a rectangular jewel box, waiting to be buried
above the kitchen blind, a sliver of laser light
as i stumble out for an insomniacal glass
repainting the window in my bedroom
into a mirror which reflects undreamt dreams
on the drive home it rezones the countryside
into a dimension far beyond the fourth
even its gilding of the boxangular city
until it is almost beautiful enough
to star in its own fairy tale
Some of my favourite poems come out of the dreams I have. Coincidentally they’re often among the easiest to write, even if I’m not always sure what they mean (the dreams I mean; I always know what my poems are about, huh-ha… ha).
night bike ride
you ride your penny farthing
along the lush lip of the moon
while I potter along beneath
pushing the chunky wheels
of my trike round hard as I can
without getting anywhere
soon you’ll be soaring along
the roadway of milky stars
& i’ll be watching you fade
Life can be such a poo the way it gets in the way. The first draft of this pome was finished well before 11am with intentions to tweak later in the day; but work, 2 & 1/2 hours of driving, that pesky niece again (thankfully the essay is due tomorrow, well today now) meant it’s had no chance for revision & is being uploaded a few minutes after my midnight. Ahh well, it’s a solid start that can be worked on later.
cheap paperback wonderland
though the pages are yellow, foxed
though the spine brittle
though the glue cracks
as each page tumbles over
transforming bound book
into loose leaves no matter
how reverentially i turn
despite the damage i inflict
upon this precious relic
long savoured by my mother
as one of her favourite fictions
i am once more lost this time
in revolutionary cornwall
as the industrial age fires up
weeping at love gone awry
wailing harder when reconciled
every so often wandering astray
at the way words no matter
the medium these upright lines
curious curves intermittent
dots & convoluted squiggles
repeatedly rearrange themselves
into emotional outpourings
that make them the greatest
of all wonders
gareth roi poet boi 