Tag Archives: song

Day 18 — a whispered love letter + piles of books

Pretty self-explanatory: a pseudo-letterpome.

whisper


dearest love : though : you : cannot hear me : nor feel me neither : (i fear) : i’m only a little : behind you : close enough to reach : out : to clasp your hand : if i could : (if i was allowed) : if the sensation : of my white hand : passing through yours : did not eerie me out : so i silently : wait : stepping softly : behind you : (waiting, hoping ) : for day light : to appear : (perhaps) : for you : not to despair

Day 18 – TIL about my relationship with books

Tsundoku 

the joyful gleeful wonderful
act of acquiring books 
& not reading them

           … yet …

i’m a tsundoku sensei
believing there’s always tomorrow
& failing that — next life

Day 17 — Orpheus’s last song + Grandmother Fact #1

The poetry volume I read today had several Mirror Cinquains in it. This is a mix of a standard Cinquain & a Reverse Cinquain. So, using the usual syllable counting convention, a mirror cinquain = 2,4,6,8,2 blank line 2,8,6,4,2 syllables. I’m not usually a big fan of form poems, they feel too forced unless you’ve got a lot of time to tweak them (which you don’t get in a NaPoWriMo when you’re working). Nonetheless I thought I’d give it a bash. There are lines I wish I could alter (ignore the scansion) which might happen in a future version.

Orpheus’s last song


lament
sad bobbing head
song sung sans vocal chords
always singing his beloved’s name
loudly

even
death could not prevent him from it
despite decapitation
sings as it floats
to sea

Day 17 – TIR my gran

It’s the anniversary of my gran’s birthday today. To remember her, I looked for some Facts About Grandmothers & found a variety of sites ranging from dry statistics “78% read the newspaper” type thing to wildly subjective. However the one I have chosen appeared on several pages & is without doubt, true. (I have not chosen the most obvious fact: No love is as special as grandmother’s: it truly is unconditional.)

Grandmother Fact #1: 
they cook the best food

christmas lunches
tuna mournays
corned beef swimming 
   in white sauce
thick pea & ham soup
egg sandwiches, taken 
   from the freezer, then toasted
even just Continental Hearty Beef soup 
   straight outta the packet tasted 
   ambrosial from her kitchen

what would this vego grandson give
for the chance of one more meal
with his gran

Day 16 — nightingale + a trilogy of flamingo fun facts

Just playing round with a passage from Book IV of Virgil’s The Georgics where he describes an incident surrounding the Big O following his failed attempt to restore Eurydice to life (he claims he that O lamented for seven whole months).

nightingale


a nightingale nightly cries
amongst the shadowy poplars

lamenting the loss of her chicks
stolen as i saw by some hard-

hearted ploughman (what need 
has he of three featherless chicks

callously snatched from their nest).
the mourning songstress weeps 

her song throughout the night
all night, every night, repeating 

her miserable notes relentlessly
pierces all peace with her pain

wails all night, fills air all around 
with melancholy protestations.


unlike Orpheus, she has not forgotten 
how to sing

Day 16 – TIL a lot of flamingo related fun facts. (In point of fact I have lots & lots of bird facts, that I almost put a dozen of them into one megapoem, but this flamingo triptych seems to work quite well…)

flamingo triptych

i. 
there are more fake flamingos 
on Earth than real ones

ii. 
flamingos pair for life
some stay mated
for 50 years or more

nice that flamingos
are 12.5x better at 
partnering than i am 

iii.
you probably know 
a crowd of crows is called 
   a murder

& an assembly of owls
  is a parliament 
  (or wisdom, or study)

but life gets really joyful
the day you discover a flock of flamingoes
   is a flamboyance

Day 16 — the honeymoon is almost over

Northing much needs to be said about today’s poem.

the distance between us 

when you fly over it : really is extreme : but we’re talking : more : than mere geography : more than : dry flood plains : & barren dirt : for despite the multitude : of commonalities : we gleefully discovered : initially : it seems : different :: lifestyles : environments : modes of communication : (one of us : is loquacious : overshares ; one only gives : information : when crowbarred out) : risk-taking : bravery quotients : willingness to dream : desires for happiness : even : love levels itself

: mean :

since this morning : our souls tread softly : on the shells of grey : shrike-thrush eggs : crushing all song

Day 21 – wind (& other noises)

21 autumn.jpg

Sometimes they come from I know not where.

*****

the wind tree

on various out of the way
locales round the world
they hide — like the one
high on a hill near my home

i call it the wind tree
but it might
have other  names
long forgotten

i like to climb
right up on it &
let myself hang

i go to hear it sing

some say this is where
the wind begins
i believe here, it ends
after racing the sun

you are often
at the wind tree
or in it, or around

you use my visits
to play melodies
upon the bridge
that is my bones

some days i go
 to the wind tree
& some days,
     the wind tree,
           comes to me

BONUS POEM: April 21, 2018

For a few days, living a London idyll. 

*****

soundproofing

the creaks
I don’t know
still startle

strange birdcries
strangle silence

pigeonwing applause

helicopters dance
every dawn

subterranean
tummy rumbles

halfheard whispers

conversation detritus

strangers footfalls
creaking up my stairs

opening doors
slamming doors
in rooms
with no doors

a woman washing dishes
in my cupboards

kids voices call
through windows
but not mine

all this life
lived underneath
next door’s buttons

21b london roof.jpg