The Poetry Bus poem – don’t forget it’s leaving from here next week!

Thanks a million to Niamh over at Various (http://variouscushions.blogspot.com) for this week’s prompt. I’m not the best with numbers or instructions, but I persisted until eventually I came up with the answer . . . . . 55. Right?

Just kidding. This week’s prompt actually forced me to come up with a new poem instead of digging into the archives, so double thanks to the driver. Very rough first draft below.

Re: Hi

We say hello, on the street,
you and I.
Years ago I might
have spent time
wondering what prompts
the wide-collared shirts,
the sharp flick of limbs,
those nimble pointy shoes.
What exactly it is you do?

Did someone say installations?
Once upon a time
that meant something,
along with the mention
of free wine at an opening
down on the docks,
or an afternoon sunk in drink
at the Central Hotel
on Georges Street.

I knew your type back then –
I even fancied you once,
back when we’d recite
T S Eliot as a joke.
I grow old, I grow old
I wear the bottoms
of my trousers rolled.
Who knew it would
actually happen?

Ps: THE BUS LEAVES FROM HERE NEXT WEEK
Come back soon for detailed instructions – and bring your torches, comfort blankets, and a bottle or two of holy water. You never know what you might meet.


pps: The image above is by Japanese artist Kumi Yamashita, who creates installation pieces through shadow play. In this piece, 3D numbers are arranged on a wall so that they cast shadows, which combined, create the illusion of a woman’s body.

The Poetry Bus is leaving from the Swiss Lounge

The poetry bus is being driven by Swiss at www.theswisslounge.blogspot.com this week, with some really great picture prompts.

The images there kept pulling me back, partly because I just couldn’t figure out what that spherical, moony looking thing was.

Was it the moon? Was it a planet? Was it the inside of somebody’s body? That’s what I eventually decided on, but at one stage I was convinced I could see ducks in there . . . .



Endoscopy

Psssssssssssst !

See that down there?
That’s a whole world
right there.
Armies are formed
and destroyed.
Frontlines are
laid to waste.
And all
in a matter of days.
Remember that chilli you ate?

Shhhhhhhhhh.

Listen to it detonate.

Late for the Bus

This week's Poetry Bus is leaving from Rachel Fox's blog, www.crowd-pleasers.blogspot.com, on the first stop of it's blogwide tour. I'm going to be driving it sometime in April (must check the date!), but in the meantime here's my (very late) offering for this week's.

I've been away until today, so I'm posting one of the first poems I wrote when I started writing poetry in 2007, (mainly cause it's the only one I could find with any 'word' connection.)

The pool

This is a time of fasting;
of denying myself
my daily fix
of bread and wine
and concrete lines.

The lean days set me free
quite unexpectedly
to stumble across
a midnight pool
that draws my thirsty eyes.

Here on its bank,
I plunge my arm in,
again and again and again
and grasp great armfuls of words
that clamour deep in me

They ask me in silvery voices
to cut them - gut them,
set them free.
So I kiss them
and say
ssshhhhhh - go gently.

Totalfeckineejit

This is not a protest poem

But it is an angry poem.

Having had a look at the poems the other brilliant poetry bus poets had to offer this week, I decided I'm being a bit cowardly.

Rachel Fox's post in particular was really inspiring (www.crowd-pleasers.blogspot.com/), and it's made me think a bit more about the way that I write poetry.

Having said that, this poem is not a protest poem.
Buuuttt TFE did ask for vitriol and venom and anger, and this is possibly the meanest, angriest poem I've ever written.


Barren thoughts

Look at you there with your bovine stare
and that thing in your arms you’re carrying as
though you’re not quite sure who put it there.
Oh please . . . . Don’t you dare look so wan.
If you hadn’t opened your legs like you did then those kids
you’re so dazed by wouldn’t even have been born.

Besides, do you think I’m a fool?
Don’t you think I can see your pride too?
Oh I see it alright, gleaming in there,
in your dumbstruck eyes and your unadorned face
that smugly tells all you don’t need any help
from my kind of war paint any more.

You’re a mother. A breeder. A queen.
You’re a sow with her suckling pigs.
Bowed by the weight of your new-born child . . . Well
at least I still walk straight and tall.
See? Look at me! Back unbent, chin held high. No years of weight-lifting
great platter faced children like yours.

I’d hate to think what you must look like inside
after pushing each one of those out.
Did you manage a break between birth
and concept? Or was there just no time to spare?
No failures for you, then - no clots of bright blood
lost down the loo of some A&E ward.

Just children, their small mouths like slaps in my face,
as you walk past, your bright brood in tow.

Chickening out on the Poetry Bus

I found TFE'S poetry prompt (www.totalfeckineejit.blogspot.com) this week really hard. Most of my angry poems are personal, and having toyed with the idea of posting one here, in the end I decided against it.
Instead here's a poem that's a little angry, and a little snide, and a little bitter, (pretty much the way I feel after a drunken night out).


The morning after


Did you think you were a witch?
Or some class of enchantress?
With your ‘lazy grace’ and
unbrushed hair and those big hips?
Did you?

When you came into a room
did you really think all eyes were on you?
Did you believe in your conceit
that voices lulled because
of you?

Well now you know - you were never
what you saw in your head.
And all those moments spent
wondering what was being said?

Nothing.

Well, not about you anyway.

All Aboard . . . . .

It's Poetry Bus time again, only this time we're catching a train.
To meet all the other passengers visit Totalfeckineejit's place at www.totalfeckineejit.blogspot.com.

All aboooooaard . . .


Victoria Station

TFE's Poetry Bus is on the roooooaaad

This week Total Feckin' Eeejit's prompt was very deep and meaty, prompting lots of dark thoughts and pondering. Here's me offering, (as usual I'm late)



Night and day

There is a rhythm
to the way the grass
moves,
as a unit,
a mass of millions
of blades
that slice
through the air
like knives.

There is a beach
not far from here
where people walk,
back and forth,
yanked
from their lives
like metal filings
by the tide’s
invisible pull.

There is a woman
who opened her mouth
and all that came
out were snatches
of tunes
borne by the waves
of the radio playing
on the windowsill
next to her bed.

There is a sense to the way
that things grow,
to pennywort blooming
on a stone wall,
to celandines starring
a shaded bank,
to a body cast
deep into the soil,
to night eating day.