2015.30 - Unsuitable

My darling now I must confess
That I don’t love you any less
Than I did before
It’s just: I wasn’t sure 
If my passion was under duress. 

It seems, as your best friend opined,
That I’m just not that way inclined.
See, your bits aren’t like mine –
Does that make me a swine?
To continue would be quite unkind.

Yes, that’s right – I am “one of those”,
Born this way – it’s not something I chose.
It’s not you, it’s me,
You can keep the CDs...
There’s no chance of a lift, I suppose...?

No, you’re right, I’ll just be on my way
After all, there is no more to say
I’ll be gone in a trice,
You won't have to ask twice –
Out there it’s a gorgeous new day.

2015.29 - Afon Tam

She says she wants to be a stone
The weight of care is hers alone
Tree calls out to sky
Water beckons why
My fire won't
Bring her home.

_________

I've been meaning to play with Welsh poetry forms for a while. This is a clogyrnach.

2015.28 - Harbour

I think I've nicked the first line (or something very like it) from a song I heard tonight by Rrose Sélavy, but she said I could have it, so that's okay. :) Check out her music - it's glorious! :D

_____________________

Shadows ripple under my skin.
You have touched off tremors
With the brush of your voice.
We are vibrations answering
Age-long echoes.

I know you sometimes
Want to run, escape your bones;
You twitch percussion
And I itch to clutch your wrist,
Whisper: hush, breathe,
Summon the hardest virtue,
Everything will come,
This too shall change,
All debts are paid,
Pile these heartfelt platitudes
Across your lap.

But, when the high winds take you,
You can only stomach
Semaphore and Morse,
Coarse-grained patterns,
The most casual of plans,
Permissive maybes.

And I will blaze in the grazing
Glance of you,
Feather-passioned,
Unimagined.

2015.27 - Shades of Bentley

Hereward the Wake
Ate a lot of cake;
Drowned his face in orange squash
Then refused to have a wash.

Rosalind Franklin
Liked to straighten lank pins;
Decorated lampposts
With things that looked like damp ghosts.

Stephen Hawking
Loves to watch a cork spin;
Doesn't know why,
If you ask him, he will sigh.

J.K. Rowling
Will often stop for bowling;
Gets fed up as hell
When asked to do a spell.

"Syd" Barrett
Imitates parrots;
When asked if he likes cages
Says: well, it's all the rage, yes.

Susanna Clarke
Goes punting after dark;
Sings carols to the bats,
Says they have some lovely chats.

2015.26 - Typical

Quick work eludes Robert
Today - Yvonne’s upset is
Occluding PowerPoint

And sadness doesn’t feature...
Great - Hilary’s just knocked:
“Later?”

“Zap Xiangyang,
“Call Vienna, Bob -
“NOW: meltdown!”

Momentarily numb
Bob vascillates, caught:
Xiangyang zipped?

Lurching, knowing
Jian holds grudges,
Face drops,
Sighing absently.

Phones Oliver,
Intimidating underling:
“You twit - remember Ecuador?!”
Wilts quietly.

2015.25 - Guides

We have rambled rivers,
Picnicked up trees,
Known the salt savour
Of true hunger,
Lost the map, and
Made our own ways.

We have carved curves,
Following the gentle, unexpected
Way of seams and grains,
While they have slapped
Metal rules on thin paper,
Applying architecture.

They summoned canals,
Eschewed fords for bridges,
Dismissed hills,
And took their best shot
At regulating sunset.

And sometimes
We turned out to be
Collecting twigs,
While they printed certificates,
Presented themselves.
And why not?

They have inspected the
Serried rank of plantations
And never found them wanting;
We floundered in mudpits
And learned new terms for it,
And why not?

They sit in straight lines,
Stacked like cups,
While we wanderers
Excel at getting lost.
And why not?

Because the world is wide,
Smiling at satnav and dowsers
Alike, and I like being lost
With you, knowing that we
Can find our way out of anywhere,
And that, anytime we like,
Will find our way back here,
To the clearing with the
Tiptoe view of the sunset
We never even photographed.

2015.24 - Logbook

Today in the Allographic workshop (Finding the Narrative, with Matt MacDonald), we put together twelve words/ phrases between us with which to make a poem. They were: sand, running, flocculent (thanks, Emma!), it, 2001, Caribbean, the sensation of cat's fur under fingertips, Justine, green, teeth, winnowing,  bloody.

I cheated slightly (you're supposed to work all the words in explicitly), but hey...
___________________

2006:

Your footsteps are already fading,
The sand winnows into plumes,
Ash-breathed, kiting westward.

2005:

We have said nothing,
Loud enough to break glass.
I suck silence from between my teeth,
Start to make lists.

2007:

I still run, hunting calf-burn,
Celebrate heat in the clang of
Ambitiously green liquids in
Frictionless bottles.

2004:

I coo between gritted teeth,
Inch, bark-bellied, as you advise from below,
Summon the sensation of cat fur
To reaching fingertips, clench thighs against
The trembling.

2008:

A blue-and-white summons:
Justine has friended you.
Gape at the warmth of shallow waters,
The sudden fan of creases
I will never feel beneath my thumb.
Find myself on the driveway,
Stale cigarette smoke tugged into my lungs.

2003:

My kitchen is a haven of strange scents,
Abruptly, I am someone with a steamer,
And buckwheat tea.
You dab dots of jerk seasoning,
Suck your finger, grin.
The steamer falls, to be attended later.

2009:

"Wow, where did you learn that?!"
I lie with a nameless book.
'Flocculent' is your word - a nest of
Tiny morning dreads.

2002:

I emerge into cotton mouth,
Iron filing dregs like sweet penance.
A half-known ache pulling me to my right,
Your comma shape a gravity well.

2010:

He packs the bloody space with cotton wool,
I breathe the bitterness of
Doing the right thing.

2001:

You are salt water on my chest,
A shuddering warmth calling my arms,
A coiling strike upwards at my throat,
A tsunami in slow motion.

2011:

I click, gaze, scroll west,
Ease shoulders into unfelt heat.
It's good to see you made it, after all.

2015.23 - Shifting Gear

Birds experiment -
The time has come to challenge,
Ring in new changes.

Neighbour is hammering -
The time has come to peg out
New territory.

Candidates tell us:
"The time has come to fix things!"
Recycling mounts.

2015.22 - Sea and Mountain Call

Home is where the heart is, so
I'm trapped in a limbo,
Rhapsodising on (at least) two themes,
Absent on a wing of thought,
Eddying in an echo of regret,
Tied with loving bonds,
Hand and foot and throat.

2015.21 - Gloriana

She has seen the past
And she wants no part in it,
Glimpses the smallness
That she rejects with every breath
In the relentlessness of
Other people's pessimism.

She does not know what she wants,
Yet,
Only what she doesn't -
Dullness, the fading of
Her name and face.

She was born for glory,
To be a sharp outline against
The backdrop of the rest of them,
And she thinks she's ready
To be literally monumental.

And she finds it does not stop,
That being good enough is never
Good enough,
And that a warrior must learn
To trade and craft
And train, and be placating.
And that sometimes best means
Finding someone better.

But she wages war on the mundane,
Battles bland,
Grabs for grand,
And stands, alone,
The way she always meant to,
Burning, and learning
To take the pain of light.

__________

I was reading about Hatshepsut, the longest-reigning female Pharoah. It's fascinating, especially the way she managed her own legend, but she was also genuinely brilliant, and did an amazing number of things that changed Egypt's fortunes for the better…

2015.19 - Half-day, April

Zephyrs seem to bless me;
Dress-down Friday
Flings me, beribboned into
My kind of sunshine.

There is nothing to fight.
Scents are gentle;
Sounds of city bustle
Blend together.

Everything's adventuring -
Crows and footballs,
Ants and bare arms,
Blossom, grass, guitars.

There's a holiday haze
To the town's fumes,
I'm being lured to lay my head,
Rest on this bench, regretless.

Junk is jaunty,
Garbage is art,
It's all part of the
Wide day's pattern.

We are flattered by
Wary, warm light,
The flight of cut grass,
And the season's first ice cream.

2015.20 - Red: Take Action

Shall I compare you to the winds that howl?
To downpours that make every step a chore?
I’d illustrate the thunderstorms that prowl,
And twisters flinging dust around and more.

When held against the misery you bring
The metaphor of weather’s pretty tame
There’s no umbrella of which we could sing
To stop you putting avalanche to shame

They say that no disaster’s truly done
Until the aftermath is all put right
Our clean-up, mate, has only just begun
To undo all your damage done last night.

I will not speak your name, or see your face
You cannot ever get back my good grace.


_________________

Every year in April I do a new sonnet, building up (wearing down?) my resistance a poem at a time...

2015.18 - Ask Me Tomorrow

Another one from #PoetryToGo, this time a one-word challenge: “`Happiness´. Can you write something from that?”

“Well, yes, but it could head off in all sorts of directions, so: what does happiness mean to you?”

“People leaving me alone.”

“Er, I can take a hint, if…”

“I suppose that´s quite rude, but I didn´t mean you…” and she went on to rhapsodise on what I can only describe as the serenity of solitude, the peace to think about past and future rather than present, requested a 10-ish line free verse poem, manually typed on green card:

_________________

Walk me into light.
This silence sings,
And brings me into a
Core of peace.

Release the busy clutter,
The bright bustle of polyphony,
The drowning questions,
The apologetic constants.

Here I can hum
The one note of me
Suspended in the grace
Of continuity.

2015.17 - A Message

One from #PoetryToGo - the brief was from talented local storyteller Marion Leeper, who's been joining us for NaPoWriMo this year. She said she wanted to give me a challenge: a terzanelle about political cross-dressing (she'd just been to see a talk by Steve Bell of the Guardian). The poem needed to be put in a party-neutral poster form for Marion's window.

Behold the result:
______________________________

That mannequin you might well label Queen,
But not the one you think that you all know.
(Some people find that sort of thing obscene.)

The time has come to dress up for the show,
To cover up this figure’s ugly fact.
(But not the one you think that you all know)

Although you know this smile is just an act,
You may not see how smoky mirrors serve
To cover up this figure’s ugly fact.

Don’t speak up and you’ll get what you deserve –
The Emperor’s bereft of honest thread –
You may not see how smoky mirrors serve.

Don’t let the bright lights turn your pretty head –
There’s something darker lurking underneath.
(The Emperor’s bereft of honest thread.)

In shiny shoes here comes a heavy tread –
That mannequin you might well label Queen.
There’s something darker lurking underneath.
(Some people find that sort of thing obscene.)

2015.16 - United in Rhyme

I blame Ian Barker, who captioned the attached photo of me as: '"...and then I choked him" [discussing a visit from UKIP to the stall]'

Warning: xenophobic and violent imagery to follow, along with the worst rhyme I think I've EVER perpetrated…
_____________

That candidate's a nasty man
He's got a lot of gall
To bad-mouth immigration
When he steps up to my stall

He says: "Is this poem foreign?
"For I shan't have none of that!"
I say: "That word comes from the Greek
"You narrow-minded prat."

I add: "While we're on the subject:
"With a surname such as yours,
"It's ten to one your family
"Came here from other shores."

"Never mind the fact that immigration
"Is far less to blame
"Than your old mates the bankers
"With their nasty little games."

I feel I gave fair warning
But he wouldn't stop his rant
So I put him in a chokehold
To inspire him to recant.

I helped him show his colours -
In fact, he was a couple -
A yellow little coward
Turned that hateful UKIP purple.

2015.15 - Detritus

Last night she found
A threadbare tennis ball
(and a penis)
By the side of the road.

Today the man with
Cosmos eyes circled
(and circled)
At the top of our street.

The penis was attached
But she took the ball home
(it sits on our sofa)
But that's not what I'm trying to say.

Maybe tomorrow
We'll find the spokes
(of the circle man)
Finally drifted, spinning no more

No-one has claimed
The mirror forlorn
(all bells and whistles)
That squats near the top of our street.

2015.14 - Save My Soul

Don't go.
I used to make you laugh,
Dizzy and late,
Turning through degrees
Of definition
'til we rotated into friends

Don't leave.
Remember the time
We sang you to tears
And you saw my other side,
Binding music into
Another rung in our DNA

Don't turn away.
Life crimped you early,
Dealt you a set of marked cards
And cast-iron boots,
But you marked your own path,
Carved chaos into compassion,
And learned how to stomp.

Just listen.
You sent me a text once,
That I treasured immeasurably,
Told me I was worth remembrance
So I'll send back that love,
Enfolded over years,
Softened in its creases
Where I unwrapped
And rewrapped its
Five-word package.

Please stay.
Because we value you
As more than all your pain.
Because we bear your mark in us,
Bright as birdsong
Where your love touched.

Just one more day.
And one more step.
And one more laugh.
And one more text.

"Don't forget:
"You are awesome."

2015.13 - Splinters

You are a beautifully-decorated
Electro-acoustic guitar,
Untouchably of another discipline;
In my memories
Stropping out tributes to
Other high-pitched men
With ephemeral tendencies
And death wishes.

You straddle two worlds,
Turning between workmanlike
And rockstar,
Refusing to choose.
You have travelled forth
And back, maybe as far
As you can, and now you stand,
A little dusty, taut lines sagging
As time wreaks its tricks

There is still time for new ones,
You mutter,
For tumbling licks,
And fretting stretching
Dreams into reality,
Tunes to mend all tears.

You strike tangled chords in me still,
Sometimes
But all I ever knew, in the end,
Was your weight,
And how to despair of your tuning,
My ears sharp to our dissonance.
Still, miles and years away,
I wish you well.

_____________

This technique was learned at a workshop run by Tina Sederholm, called "Extraordinary Conversations with Everyday Objects".

2015.12 - Devices

Green 

You whisper at night
Of theft, shine cruel light on all
My pitiful gifts

Gold 

One word can turn my
Head, spin me breathless in an
Endless mirror cave

Purple 

I squirm, caressing
Everything, dig deep, and come
Up sticky-fingered

Pink

Crammed to the rafters
I gape still, trying to fill
That elusive gap

Blue

If only I could
Stir myself to...

Orange

Less than the sum of
My parts, my heart hold no more
Space for charity

Red

Raze it to the ground,
Delight in the hollow thump
Of fists and bootheels


_______________________

There are traditional colours for these things, apparently, but I've chosen my own...

2015.11 - Sunday Chorus

Hark to the song of
The summer to come,
The deep-throated thrum
That's as welcome as bumblebees

See how the sleepers
Are quaking and waking,
No, I'm not mistaken:
They're breaking out daily.

The greenery rattles,
The shade loses thatch,
As a million grand schemes
They are starting to hatch.

In the gaze of the sun
There are things to be done,
And plots to be spun
Now that next door's begun.

Yes, the ode of the mower,
The whack of the hatchet,
Says winter is over
In blade-breaking racket.