Tag Archives: real life

Day 30 – April Thirty: two, for the price of one

NaPoWriMo is over for me for 2014.  There’s no need for an introduction cos I say it all in the poem.

NaPoWriMo 2014 meta-poem

i.
this last, a self-referential postmodern effort
where i talk about writing the poem itself
& how even finding the title proved elusive
vacillations between the technoesque
“rebuild”, “reboot”, even “re-de-construct”
to the cliched “fresh start” & “new day”
& the punning “imperfect storm”
it’s been a challenging month on a life front
wherein i survived easter (always a dark time)
dealt with banal bureaucracies who
(simply because they weren’t paid for several months)
disconnected power & phone
was unable to use an expired credit card
risked not being able to drive as my car
was 3 hours away from being unregistered
being cancelled from my artist payment grant
because i hadn’t attended a meeting
searched for long lost medicare & healthcare cards
(finding one out of two) almost missed out
on participating in my new course of study
owing to a clerical error…

… but all that changed today
when my long awaited tax refund
magically appeared in my bank account
& the clouds parted & the sun shone down
& life almost did, literally, start again

ii.
yet despite enduring
all that Real World guff
i’ve scribed & posted
30 poems in 30 days
played a few word games
some less successful than others
received some moving feedback
gone from 0 to 50 followers
(thank you all) & been viewed
over 470 times in 11 countries
all of which helps make my first
NaPoWriMo a true blast

i feel exhausted
sad
drained
strangely addicted
wishing for a few more days
wishing Day 16
had a bigger response
& i could reveal the punchline

i’m gonna miss it like mad
because while i published 30 poems
there’s at least another 30
in various solid draft stages
& 30 more abandoned ideas
that might warrant revisiting
when i have more time & energy
so all in all, a profitable month

it’s good
to be
a poet

 

BONUS POEM:  I began this month with a poem about stars. I want to end it the same way, except this is just about one star. My favourite one.

 

latecomers to the sunset

people continue to stop    suddenly
iPhonestruck    fumbling in awe
to snapcapture    the wild gold
firestorm    our universe is  flaring

it’s glorious  admittedly   but i keep
thinking    half-smugly  half-sadly
you should have been here 
15 minutes ago

*****

 2014-04-30 23.49.30

 

Day 28 – April Twenty Eight: over the top obits

Some months ago, one of the finest actors of our/any generation died after an incident with drugs went wrong.  At the time there was much speculation about what caused it. There was also an abundance of slightly sickly, sentimentalising of “the soul of the tortured artist”.  

Back then, I PDFed a few of the finer examples I read. Today I tweaked & played with some of the more sick & sycophantic phrases, shaping them into a homage to suffering. (I have not acknowledged my sources, for fear of embarrassing them.)

I ran out of time to finish it, but there’s something there I like.

Beautiful Helplessness

addiction haunts every artist
barely disciplined helplessness
we’re all familiar with darknesses force
if we keep the poison away, the elixir is lost
if we had everything there would be love, no desire
art mends what life shatters, so escape into our creations
torment & talent are inseparable

all the d words appear
drugs, done in a dark places in despair?
artists who’ve done deals with their demons
or rather rock star hubris, deliberately courting death
an arrogant doubtlessness they’re above the rules, above odds

the Faustian pact where only utter self-annihilation suffices

hostage possession obsession carnage

the price of prodigious creative vitality is premature & public mortality
fleeing from pain, transfigurance enables endurance of suffering
solitude & uncertainty are part & parcel of artistic expression.

banal
romantic
hyperbolic
tosh

not all great artists suffer

*****

 2014-04-28 23.51.50

Day 26 – April Twenty Six: I’ll be caaaaalllllllllllllling you!

I actually had a pretty good draft of this poem completed by midday.  Then I drank some wine.  Red wine.  Very rich plummy chocolaty tasting red wine.  It’s now just after 11pm.  (There’s a lesson in there somewhere!)

It’s based on a few notes I made a couple of days ago while dealing with my electricity provider.

powerless

thank you for calling Genesis Energy
please listen carefully as the following options may have changed

to feel frustrated, please press #1
to wish to kill yourself painlessly, please press #2
to be treated like a nameless shleck, please press #3
to be shunted back & forth between a variety of different Customer Assistant Consultants, none of whom will actually assist you, please press #4
to slowly go crazy as you are tag-teamed by a duet of equally perky but highly irritating male & female announcers who banter delightfully as they tell you 28 different versions of — “for other ways you can make a positive difference with Genesis Energy including Solar Heating, please talk to one of our Customer Assistant Consultants … today“, please press #5
to be utterly infuriated by the repeated-every-7-seconds burst of bland but groovy funky elevator jazz music, please press #6
to have your query answered quickly & efficiently, please press #9
(we’re just kidding of course, there is no option #9)

you have selected #5
{click}
thanks for holding
{click}
we apologise for the delay, your call will be answered as soon as possible
{click}
your call is in the queue, and will be answered in approximately < 8 > minutes

*****

 Online-channel-powered-by-call-centres

Image: Call centre hell

Day 25 – April Twenty Five: “national identity day”

As I get older I understand Anzacs, Anzac Day & war more. I also understand it less. Hopefully this poem written at the Dawn Service my Papa used to attend when alive & which we go to in memory of him captures some of those understandings.

keeping the peace

bagpipes fight
the magpies
for supremacy
in cool April air
chilling autumn
leaves & evergreen
eucalypt alike
church bells bless
try to reconcile
that age old
oxymoronic misnomer
fighting for peace

aware what Anzac is
but still shocks
to see the guns
of the catafalque
party so close
reminds it’s more
than just speeches
stirring words
holidays
it’s also old men
getting under
standably drunk

*****

soldier

Image: moi

Day 23 – April Twenty Three: venting

April 23. St George’s Day. Famous day. Not the Shakespeare 450th birthday anniversary poem I was working on, but something more pressing & urgent.

In the Dark

Dear Power Company,

As I sit here
Surrounded
By candles
But mostly
In the dark
I just have
One question
How can you
Disconnect
My power
Without access
To the inside
Of the house
But you cannot
Reconnect it
The same way
The meter
Hasn’t moved
Since yesterday
When you shut
It off
You bunch
Of cocks.

Yours etc

PS Don’t think
I’m paying
The after hours
Call out fee
For this!

PS 2 sorry Bill
Your poem
Was looking
good too 

 

 

April 22 – Day Twenty Two: night visitors

Disturbing visitors last night inspired this. NB this still isn’t on word press despite being back in town is because I got back to discover my electricity has been disconnected. The glamorous life of the poet.

The Outsiders

I’m the proverbial snug bug in a rug
Bedcurled, thriller-reading when the attack begins
Intimate thunder that sounds far off
Yet feels close, frantic rain beating, never falling

As the numbers build, so too the sound
The fury, dive bombers splatting glass
On the neighbouring mesh screen, maniacal harpists
Frenetic playing to appease the wild god of light

Again & again they bash themselves
Over & over they wingertip strum
Till they fall to the ground, broken

There turn violent circles, overwound
tops hypercharged on red bull
Tyre smoking donuts by kamikaze hot rods

Already dying, despite only abandoning
Brownpaper sleeping bags hours ago

If the desire to embrace fire is so intense
Why not fly, Icarus like, at the sun

By the time dawn arrives, silver light filtered

By low clouds, dozens of wing-wrapped coffins

Sleep on

Concrete

*****

moth

Image moi. 

April 20 – Day Twenty: scottish inspiration

The following text is what I posted on fb that day.  Just realised I haven’t posted Day 20 – NaPoWriMo here. Came onto fb over an hour ago & got sucked into a quagmire of Easter posts, funny cat vids, ghost cars & a Guardian article “Top 10 Easter scenes in literature” which lead to several other Guardian articles I read until POEM OF THE WEEK Monday 7 October 2013.

The picture accompanying this online poem led me to write my own poem on a similar theme to Butlin (but less eloquently) & abandon the poem I had been thinking about/working on for much of the day.

Princes Street
(Holding its cup out to “Nicolson Square” by Ron Butlin)

Frozen on the silvermirrored ground
& in diamond focused digital clarity
Behind us the steeples stepladdering souls
to heaven are fuzzy & drizzlefaded
Hands buried in jacket pockets
Or, better, gloved
Under the brolley, from beneath the hood, or beret
We all look without looking, from the corner of our hearts

We know she’s there, but if we pretend she’s not
We can continue our golden walk to work, unencumbered

She, huddling in her shrugged shrunken hug
has one red glove on her lap
Perhaps to better emphasise bare finger tips
holding the paper cup
Her eyeshadow sockets stare off
somewhere at knee height but at no-one’s knees
However, the detail I’m most drawn to is,
that, the edge of her dirtybrown blanket is wet

*****

The city and the city … a woman begs on Princes Street in Edinburgh.

Image: Princes St.  Source Page: The Guardian, Poem of the Week: Ron Butlin.

April 18 – Day Eighteen: Easter ghosts

I saved a bunch of articles I was planning to use/explore in poetic form during NaPoWriMo. Yet almost every day, something more “personal” gets in the way.  Good Friday (the day this was written, was one of them.)  This poem was written in the car on the drive between Adelaide & my parents’ farm.

When I re-read the poem for the first time since posting it on fb almost a week ago, the irony is, the poem itself has a huge hole. The one thing I always think about at Easter is not including, other than through indirect allusions.  Maybe it works, maybe it needs to be addressed in May, when NaPoWriMo is over & the editing process can begin on all these half begun, half completed poetical sketches.  I want to tweak it even now, but will save that for later & repost as first put onto fb.


What I think of when I think of Easter

Looking over the litany of Easters past
I recall very few moments of chocolates & egg hunts 
Haunted by decades of bright eyed moons

Floating down houseboat rivers, discovering cunnilingus
Climbing cliffs, faking falls, tomato sauce for blood
Church surfing with fish laughing at services
Glorious joyous days before he finally died
Driving overnight interstate thinking I was driving to true love
Some lost at the bottom of a bottle
Crashing cars in suburban streets
Several lazy long weekends at the farm
Amusing my nieces, annoying the rest
Walking with a black dog, before meeting my souldog

Tonight the moon’s a ruddy oblong egg
Low, ghosting the hills, as I drive north
What is life but a succession of wounds
Public crucifixions, little deaths, lying in darkness
Trapped beyond stone, & eventually rising to do it all again

What pains me are the holes
Years I can’t remember – when I’m the only constant
No other person or thing to act as yardstick
& the holes

Lovers lost, friends forgotten, children never held

*****

blood_moon_by_darkriderdlmc-d4rzhrg

Image: Dark Moon by darkriderdlmc @ deviantart.com

April 13 – Day Thirteen: SUNDAY SILLY (part ii) [Family Caricature]

Today’s effort is inspired by a family lunch.  

Disclaimer: It is intended as Caricature Poem only. No resemblance to any person living or deceased is intended (except Aunt Ricky).

family luncheon

sitting down for yet another never-ending family luncheon
i notice what a truly unsightly gaggle we are as a clan

nana’s lazy eye, which double crosses her every time she’s tipsy
dad’s weak chin, still there, despite trying to hide behind a beard

mum’s jagged line of perpetually decaying dental disaster zone
grandpa’s bushy black eyebrows waggling like warring caterpillars

uncle frank’s franciscan friar’s bald patch, a tonsure reflecting god’s light
papa’s broad potato splodge nose, an elephantine red pontiac hit by a brick

sis’s dumbo ears, which if caught in a tornado would transport her to oz
aunt ricky’s wine&pizza-fuelled paunch — no, not 7 months preggers!

gran’s, actually granny is the most attractive one at the table by a country
mile … so nothing to say (besides it’s her birthday so i needs be nice to her)

while i admit i’ve inherited each & every of these delightful genetic quirks
i would stlil have liked the opportunity to pass the whole glad grabbag along
to the next unfortunate generation of freaks, causing equal amounts of angst
embarrassment remorse & bitterness … & the contemplation of plastic surgery

*****

100 lighting cake

Image: Granny using her cake candles to light her cancer stick.

April 8 – Day Eight: The OFFICIAL entry: verbatim

So after the chopping & changing mentioned in the other April 8 entry, I finally got back to the main idea that had caught my attention during the day.

One of my HairyFooted One ring destroying Big Bellied Innocent Tiny people buddies (goes by the nick, RhubarbCrumbles) & I were chatting on Line about houses, where we grew up & whatnot (her & her husband, RL nickname Blokie, are soon to start building one of their own) when she mentioned she was on googlemaps. Actually on it. She even sent me a picture.

This intrigued me & I asked her for more info.  So she proceeded to tell me the story of her google mapping experience.  As she told me, (& by told, I mean typed in conversation with me, like an extended text message exchange) I begun to consider her story as a possible source for Found Poetry.

Now having friends who are playwrights, I was aware of the relatively recent theatre form, Verbatim Theatre (in which plays are constructed using the precise words spoken by people interviewed about a particular event/topic). I thought I could apply the same techniques to Poetry (I also hadn’t heard of it being done before in poetry. Naturally a later google search reveal it had; although the way I was proposing was closer in approach to Verbatim Theatre, than the more traditional Verbatim Poetry seemed to represent.)

So what follows is pretty much literally, word for word, Rhu’s story – presented in poetic form. The only minor tweaks I have made are: 1) taking out all my interjections (which, unusually, were relatively few); 2) even rarer, made slight adjustments to grammar, usually to better structure a reply to a question I asked & to make Rhu’s response flow fractionally better; 3) removed a few unrelated chunks where we talked about the game; & 4) twice moved a line to a different position within the poem.  Now if any/all of these break any cardinal VP rules, I care not. I was more interested in the final product than the process/technique by which I got there. That said I know I can confidently say, “These are at least 95% Rhu’s words, Rhu’s voice, if not higher”. The sculptors knife was only used very lightly.

As always, keen for any thoughts? responses? critiques? of this never-before-tried-by-me, poetic form.

google mapped
or the Alcester Rut

Amusingly I am immortalised in google maps
[Photo]
Taken the week I was leaving the UK (though I didn’t know it at the time)
I know it’s the week before I left because of the shirt I was wearing
I wore it once to paint the hallway
We sold it after my father died.

We left as we needed a change.
Alcester is a small town.
A very small village, technically a hamlet
Kind of like the Lou Reed song
Small Town
It might have been John Cale. Or one he recorded with him.
But the lyrics go something like
Growing up in a small town x3
You just wanna get out
We were stuck in a routine
And had always talked about moving abroad

US wouldn’t have been our first choice, but its where blokie had an opportunity
Yes. We have one brother each. No parents.
Friends are diversely spread across the globe and UK.
And those in Alcester were part of the rut.
We’d watch the footie in the boozer on a Sunday.
Blokie would play darts on a Tuesday.
And quiz league on Thursdays.
We’d still be doing that if we lived there.
So we moved.

It wasn’t a huge wrench.
I’m fairly pragmatic.
And it was exciting.
No tears.
Maybe a small lump in my throat for my bro.
And an odd drunken conv with one of my best mates who declared his love for me.
Like 1 day before u leave, what was I supposed to say to that! Other than awkward.
Probably better for him that I left I suspect.
I don’t want to be anyone’s unrequited love.
And no, no quickie.

US is pretty much as u expect it to be.
Inherently right of centre.
Money orientated
Family orientated.
More religious than I appreciated.
And a complete lack of understanding of anything outside their own shores.

How? Um.
Blokie loves google maps/earth.
If he sees a sports stadium or landmark on tv,
he likes to locate them and see whether its a good place to visit.
I guess he was just having a gander at Alcester, and there I was.

The first thing I bought with my inheritance
was a copy of the Times Atlas of the World for him.
That was a while ago though.
It props up the PS3 now.

 

*****

 

photo

Image: googleearth & RhubarbCrumbles