(The form of this poem is a diamante. I thought I would try to compose one and and possibly will never try again, although a diamante does have fairly strict rules – which is something I like!)
Pigs
muddy, mucky,
rooting, snorting, grunting,
pigged-out, unfettered, stylish, carefree,
galloping, cantering, trotting,
saddled, haltered, fettered,
horses
To hear the poem read aloud click HERE.
This is the second poem for the year. The form of this poem and tomorrow’s as well is from France and called a Kyrielle.)
These carriers of teeming life,
How quiet the ribboned waters go
Then tumble rocks in jagged strife.
Yet still the mighty rivers flow.
Farmers milk their herds of cows;
They moo, and eat, and fart, and low;
And all the shit escapes somehow,
Yet still the mighty rivers flow.
Factories on the river side
Exude their waste, no fuss or show.
Dead fish no longer need to hide,
Yet still the mighty rivers flow.
The farmers’ farms have said goodbye.
Factories closed: financial woe.
All is dead and withered dry
Yet still the mighty rivers flow.
To hear the poem read aloud click HERE.
The lake, as waterfowl take flight, falls into silence.
Limitless stars appear; the night falls into silence.
Sports fields and schoolyards ring with songs of children’s laughter;
Summer lawn with no such delight falls into silence.
The burgeoning kowhai tree in spring weeps golden tears;
Winter shade shedding lustre bright falls into silence.
Parents watch each child leave to face uncertain futures;
The pathway, steps that fall from sight, falls into silence.
Lovers for the first time disagree on little things;
Each, baffled how to solve such plight, falls into silence.
Trains approach with clatter and clashing of steel on steel;
Tumult passes; the scene of might falls into silence.
And Bruce, his time perhaps nearing certain certain-end,
Defying fading of the light, falls into silence.
To hear the poem read aloud click HERE.
The song I heard you singing falls more blazing than the sun.
The woodlark in the coppice calls more blazing than the sun.
It’s little things that seem to joy our peace-filled days and yet
any sullen silence quick-galls more blazing than the sun.
Children frolic on back garden lawns with shrieks of laughter,
and then a bee stings one who bawls more blazing than the sun.
Wings of butterflies, rasps of crickets, hung webs of spiders,
the ordered world of ants, enthrall more blazing than the sun.
The distant haze of blue, line-dancing mountains row on row
makes late afternoons stop and stall more blazing than the sun.
The tiny flower, unnoticed, hidden, nameless, lost, unknown,
outshines the fields of peonies tall, more blazing than the sun.
And Bruce, his song so incomplete without your voice to sing,
entrusts you hear his words, though small, more blazing than the sun.
To hear the poem read click HERE!
My cat woke me at four each morning.
She would jump on the bed and claw the pillow
right next to my eyes.
I would wake, fearful for my sight.
Would I never again see the day slip over the hill?
Would I never again see the moon slip over the hill
or the barley field wave in the wind?
Perhaps by patting the cat I could doze a little longer.
Bloody cat.
Fourteen years ago,
on a night I could not sleep,
I rose from bed at four and fed the cat.
Breakfast at four became her rite, her right.
Bloody cat.
Last year she was sick.
The veterinarian said
“That’ll be one hundred and thirty dollars please.”
I gave up wine and stuff for a month to pay for it.
That bloody cat was more of a nuisance than I ever imagined.
Last week she died.
If she came back I’d let her scratch out my eyes.
To hear the poem read click HERE!
You are such a lucky cat! said Leopold to his cat, Heidi.
Heidi was sitting on Leopold’s lap while Leopold typed.
You, said Leopold, will become a famous cat! You will be known all over the world as the cat that sat on my lap while I typed out my poetic masterpieces. You will be mentioned in every biography of me, and perhaps, if you’re lucky, there’ll be a photo. In fact, I shall take a photograph now of you on my lap. There! Perhaps such a photo might even grace the cover of my volume of poetry.
With a great deal of breathless anticipation, Leopold sent his collection of poems to a publisher. Perhaps, suggested Leopold, the cover could include a picture of my cat? The poems were rejected. Who buys poetry books these days, asked the publisher?
And then the cat got stuck up a tree and had to be rescued by the fire brigade. They hoisted a great big ladder in front of a huge assembled crowd. The press was there. Heidi’s photo was splashed all over the front page. It didn’t even say who the cat belonged to.
Selfish feline.
Kingfisher waited near fish-filled stream and flashed blue fire.
Distant thunder grumbled to a scream and flashed blue fire.
A welder melded into shape tough unbending steel;
this artist’s arc launched one steady beam and flashed blue fire.
The frantic horse’s metal shoes on stony gravel
broke the silence of the morning’s gleam and flashed blue fire.
Massed irises turned their heads towards the rising sun;
yellow, purple, peach, rose, white, and cream, and flashed blue fire.
And Bruce, patience at an end with this and that and things,
saw this growing mound of stifled dreams and flashed blue fire.
To hear the poem read click HERE!
Falling in love is sort of like
being diagnosed with sugar diabetes.
It’s kind of like a sugar overload
and the body can’t cope with all the syrup fast enough
so it results in a sticky mess
and you end up
chucking the baby out with the bathwater.
Falling in love is sort of like
weeding the garden;
there’s a great vision of magnificent blooms
further down the track
but there’s the inevitability of pulling flowers out
with the weeds
and chucking the baby out with the bathwater.
Falling in love is sort of like
you know
it gets more complicated than you think
and it completely stuffs up your life
because you should be finishing an assignment and
instead you end up spending all night trying to make
something to chuck out with the bathwater.
Anyway, despite my warning,
by the time you realize you’re in love
it’s too late. You’re completely caught in the net.
Every song on the radio is about you. The only way out
is not to get up in the morning
or to move towns and that’s tantamount to
chucking the baby out with the bathwater.
Be warned! Love’s sort of like a horse and carriage:
every wedding’s followed by a marriage.
It’s not that you can’t do it;
it’s just that so many for a thousand different reasons blew it.
To hear the poem read aloud click HERE.
Let’s face it:
most people don’t have a clue
what Ezra Pound is talking about.
Quotiescumque manducamus panem hunc…
That doesn’t mean to say he’s not a great poet;
many who like Pound (who loved Hitler)
understand Pound’s poems, aren’t dumb,
and find his poems accessible.
I don’t.
Itis apis potanda bigone.
He’s such an intellectual.
All those different languages
and so many references to mythologies and stuff!
Cryptus rushes onward,
‘tis zucchinis for Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort.
But look! Look! Listen!
He had a big influence on others, Eliot for example;
Eliot wrote about cats.
If I ended up in the same place I started
I’d know there was a wrong turn somewhere.
Quotiescumque manducamus panem hunc makes even a cat look academic.
Meow.
Methinks
the emperor has no clothes.
Itis apis potanda bigone.
…um …er …oh …
It is a pis pot and a big one.
To hear the poem read aloud click HERE.
It’s raining on my pomposity.
Now my pomposity’s all wet.
It’s a monstrosity.
Precipitation precipitates with considerable velocity.
There’s no stopping ‘locity
with or without an apostrophe.
Perhaps I should try reciprocity.
But rain falls with such ferocity
it makes reciprocity preposterously an impotossity.
If I’d been born a rhinoceros I’d have a lot more rhinosity.
I tell you, once my pomposity gets wet
I get filled with ridiculous verbosity.
It’s a philosophical atrocity,
especially when stuck inside
on yet another rainy day.
To hear the poem read aloud click HERE.
Weave a Web 