Once again thank you for coming! And I hope you enjoy this momentary distraction please leave your comments or thoughts. They are most welcome!

Saturday 26 November 2011

The Mundane Manifestations of the Bedroom

I haven't written a truly unpleasant poem in a while. I had the first line floating in my head and wasnt really sure what to do with it.

I heard someone cough obscenely loudly...as members of my family are often known to do. I admit the thought in my head was brutal and cruel...do I pondered not experiencing it myself all the foul noises and sounds encountered in the thrawls of intimacy.

I hope you enjoy this exploration of forbidden thoughts.

The Mundane Manifestations of the Bedroom

You cough like a strangled dog
Grotesque wrangled worm
Foul loathsome creature
Why must you haunt my sheets

Twenty Long nights and mornings
Where you assaulted me with your musk
Twenty long days shuffled behind a too hot body

The sheets are dirty so I
Go to the laundry
The sheets once more are fouled
As always I go

Rabid animal
Demon spawn
Lazy succubus

Who while drunk on semen
Lazily succumbs to deepest slumber
You roll and roll about
Tumbling your sweat and faecal remnants

Twenty days
Twenty years
Twenty sleeps
Too few dreams

Movements of the Night

All the dark faces
All the loneliness
All the promise of this night

Lost on me
Lost because of what I am
Of the shadow that I've become

Flags families and memories
Other people call their own
I can wait though till I drown
Tonight in this sorrow

Walking along this street
And I wonder always is the world
Really this bigger than me
Or Is life simply my own dream

A dream a fading thing
A wisp or step on the road

To trail or to gleam
Something for myself
Something for my own
To lift my chest and my heart
Make it lift and make it roar

But the darkness and the emptiness
Drowns it all and now
I am still alone.

Tuesday 22 November 2011

He Walks the Dunes

I wrote a poem when I was back in year 7 in school. It was called the journey and I really loved writing it. It did everything I loved in star wars or adventure. It took a hero to exotic places and through intense personal trials and more importantly it isolated then and forced them to confront the dark.

I recently watched all six star wars movies and craving to capture that sense of adventure and wandering and facing heroic trials I wrote this next poem. It's also very much a tribute to my earlier poem the Journey.

So without further waffle I present:

HE WALKS THE DUNES

Broken cartilage reveals a dark sneer on his brow
Caught across the dunes and the light
Seeking out his destiny between the days and nights
Till it all comes blowing out of him
Tumbling out over the sand and up the hills that roam and roll

The endless stretches out in his eyes
The corners or the horizon are the same as the dust at his feet
On he plods treds trudges
Not to anywhere he knows
Nowhere to go no signs
Just a simple pursuit of life

To live to drink to eat
These things he both wants and needs
His bones weak now snapping
His eyes once clear now hazy
Coated in a film like webbing of
A great spider that might live here
In the endless featurelessness

What comfort does night bring or can it?
Can it cool and calm torn ligaments
Does it mend broken tissue
Infested and rotted as the sand which darkens and howls at night

Empty
The word that fits perfectly in a world
filled to the brim in sand and wind and evaporation

Through death in despair
Through mortality and the after
Into the featurelessness here and the absence there
He walks across the dunes

Sunday 20 November 2011

Two Wretched Men sit defeated by the Poolside

This is a poem recounting a particular memory I encountered on the weekend. I actually was requested to write a poem about a friend and was lacking inspiration when I remembered a very whimsical line my friend S told me "my body does represent the demise of humanity". I think it gives you an idea of the kind of melodrama we incorporate into our conversations.

We had a typical men fisticuffs off in y pool. S and I being too weak alone took on the almighty T. He ultimately defeated us we were too dismal to defeat such a Titan. But it was a fun battle and I hope you enjoy the poem.

TWO WRETCHED MEN sit defeated by the poolside

My body does represent the demise of humanity
Quoted a grim facade of my friend
A grim expression and grim end
To a fight that should it have ended different might have crowned us both victors alas it was not so
No the tiger of the waters was destined to swallow us in his mammoth grips and so completely destroyed were we
All now left to do is to move on and let the titans have their war
For us we are on the sidelines until called upon
On the sidelines till a fight finds us again and maybe again shall we have a shot and opportunity
To overcome the tiger once more

Wednesday 16 November 2011

Earth-Sex

Continental gyrations
Shifting plates and spasming
Lava vents spewing
Ripe and red and
Forming new mounds


Death of a Bird by A D Hope

I just had another read of Hay Fever, I love how it deals with such a grim topic as death and time in such a seemingly distant and contemplative way. I suppose I should say another thing about A D Hope, he's very good at creating images and motifs that run through his poems, like the scythe in Hay Fever. I really fluked upon him going through an anthology of Australian poems, but while I glossed over most poems something hit me about A D Hope and I think after reading Hay Fever again it's more than an intellectual appreciation. As I said poetry for me has to deal with something human and if you'll read Hay Fever closely you'll aslo notice the way A D Hope plays with what the scythe means in his poem and he also does some interesting things with the sounds of words and some nice enjambment on lines that run on to the next (ah, I think secretly that's my favourite form of play, someone who likes to be naughty with their words...give me a break people I'm a poet and this is what we get excited or dare I say Itchy about).

Death of a Bird is a very different poem to Hay Fever, it has none of the levity of Hay Fever, but the same darkness. It is again a poem very much about death, but it feels less personal. It isn't so much about A D Hope's personal secrets, but something he's witnessed and feels strongly about. Death of a Bird, is exactly what it sounds like, but it's also a fascinating journey poem as well.

Also check out this very informative blog. If you want to understand the actual influences and hear about an actual conversation with hope go to this website, it's also where I found the text for this poem.

Death of a Bird

For every bird there is this last migration;
Once more the cooling year kindles her heart;
With a warm passage to the summer station
Love pricks the course in lights across the chart. 

Year after year a speck on the map divided
By a whole hemisphere, summons her to come;
Season after season, sure and safely guided,
Going away she is also coming home; 

And being home, memory becomes a passion
With which she feeds her brood and straws her nest;
Aware of ghosts that haunt the heart’s possession
And exiled love mourning within the breast. 

The sands are green with a mirage of valleys;
The palm-tree casts a shadow not its own;
Down the long architrave of temple or palace
Blows a cool air from moorland scraps of stone. 

And day by day the whisper of love grows stronger,
That delicate voice, more urgent with despair,
Custom and fear constraining her no longer,
Drives her at last on the waste leagues of air. 

A vanishing speck in those inane dominions,
Single and frail, uncertain of her place.
Alone in the bright host of her companions,
Lost in the blue unfriendliness of space. 

She feels it close now, the appointed season:
The invisible thread is broken as she flies;
Suddenly, without warning, without reason,
The guiding spark of instinct winks and dies. 

Try as she will the trackless world delivers
No way, the wilderness of light no sign,
The immense and complex map of hills and rivers
Mocks her small wisdom with its vast design. 

And darkness rises from the eastern valleys,
And the winds buffet her with their hungry breath,
And the great earth, with neither grief nor malice,
Receives the tiny burden of her death.

Hay Fever by A D Hope

I feel like I should have posted this already, but you know what I'm sick of, people praising the same poets. It seems like no one except poets and a few nieche readers understand how far and wide poetry is. For me what I adore about poetry is exploring secret places, but not only that as my tutor Martin Harrison said in Poetry Workshop poems should be about play as well.

Playing with the dark stuff, whipping out hillarious puns (well ocaisionally), playing with the rules of language, playing with the supposed structures of poetry, challenging yourself and challenging the reader. To me these are all ways of playing, but I also like poems that are vivid, but not in an old school sort of bush poet way. That's what I loved about A D Hope's poetry, he's an Aussie like me and honestly, he is an amazing poet. What do I like so much about his poetry, not only does he gravitate between more sprawling structures and tighter stanza fare, which I think is always an important.

He's got a real honesty and there are secrets to be found in his poems. The stupid secrets of his childhood, memory and heart. Honestly if a poem isn't capturing something powerfully and wonderfully human, I'll admit, I want to glaze over a bit, which is probably whyI roll my eyes at the idea of bush poetry, but anyone reading this feel free to post a rebuttle...I'll admit it's harsh, but a poem needs to explore something personal and raw I think for it to effect me.

That's why increasingly, I've moved back out of an odd experimental phase and back into realising that exploring one's humanity is much more than being emo and I think that's what this poem does so well. To me Hay Fever is a mixture of nostalgia and secrets and warmth and maybe just because I finished up itchy, there's something sticky and sexual in there too (hey I'm a guy so help me).

So it's my pleasure to show who I consider to be one of the less mainstream, but awesome Modern Australian Poets. Anyway without further ado here is Hay Fever by A D Hope. As the internet is acting all annoying on me, I'll have to give you a scanned copy of the poem. Anyway, expect some more A D Hope coming soon.

 P.S There's also another intriguing layer to this poem and it's something I actually wrote an extended essay on...but I'll leave that for another post. Enjoy!

Itchy

What happens to you in the morning? What do you feel the deep laconic musings of existential existence...I thought not. Oh maybe you ladies do, but this poem is about my first thoughts each day before I wake. Sometimes honesty no matter how depraved is the poets ideal and there's a lot to be said for following the dictates and rhytms of the body. In any case enjoy this fun little romp entitled Itchy. An Itch I suspect everyone who has read this post has felt many, many, many times (whether they admit it or not)

Itchy

I have a perculiar itch
and an urge
I need to catch you
and catch it

I want to flow over you and
through you and into you
I want to stick and prick
and scratch

I want to lick and kick
and bite and
scratch my itch

I want to suck and plunder
and rip and draw blood and
scratch the itch

I want it to be raw and ripe
steady strong and tight
tasty like a memory and fragrant
like a running nose
and rancid rose

I have a perculiar itch
A desire to scratch
and one to pinch
I want to do all these things
but mostly I am animal
and I want to
scratch my itch

Tuesday 8 November 2011

Monster

Well every month of Jolly One-click has had a loose theme and at first I thought this month was themeless, but on reflection I'd say this months theme is all about change and adapting.

So in that vein is this poem. It's inspired by my earlier poem Hermeneutic it has that same disturbing quality, but at it's heart it the fear and the horrifying consequences of change.

Anyway everyone here is Monster I hope you enjoy.

MONSTER

There's a monster
He belongs to mummy
I'm too afraid to see him
He's always in her room
He makes her make sounds
He grabs her and attacks her
His hands move like hammers
They are strong and meaty

The monster sometimes speaks
And when he laughs his breath is hot
he has teeth that shine
His eyes are big and blue and
Sharp like razors

When the monster is there
Mummy makes strange faces
She looks like a girl
She doesn't look like a mum
She looks frightened and giggling

I do not like the monster
He doesn't breathe
He has no tail
No horrible name
No horrible breath
He is not bad
But he will not let my mother go
The monster has her in the bed
Hes hungry so is she
She's more Hungry than I realized and
Perhaps that is the most monstrous thing
That the monster is eating my mum
From the inside out tearing up everything ripping it all apart
And now it's knotting back together and there are so many tears and
So many holes
Holes that fill with something new
And something hungry wanting and needing to be filled
I am scared of the monster
I am scared of what he will do

Sunday 6 November 2011

Going Forwards

If there is any lesson I've felt and known more keenly this year its the lesson of how things keep changing. We are all our own free agents. Everyone makes choices everyday and there's no turning back from them. We don't even understand that when it happens...but I think eventually I'll come to accept how little is within my control.

GoinG ForwardS

Going forwards
Not going back
Going forwards
Staying on track
Going forwards
Moving on never walking back
Going forwards
No regrets no past just
Going forwards
Unknown possibilities and opportunity
Going forwards
Feeling always afraid
Going forwards
No chance for relief
Going forwards
People and places will pass and all you can do is keep
Going forwards



Horizon Driving

Some of the most magical experiences in my life have been listening to music while going on long drives. Perhaps the best is sitting silently beside a girl you love knowing both of you are loving the music and the feeling of watching the world pass by.

It's a feeling I miss and recently the
Movie Drive wanted me to try and capture that feeling. That feeling is Horizon Driving.

HORIZON DRIVING

Colours blurring kaleidoscope red blue green yellow brown
Flashes of red cherry
That dress of studded leather green
Blue summertime waves
Waves that swirl like your hair curls
Bright yellow wisps and ghosts floating in the air

Only going never slowing
Horizon driving
Cranking on the tar track
Reaching water reaching ground
Breaking speed breaking sound
Playing colours maroon and brown
Playing with your neck and your honey eyes

Sunshine and flecked light
Through the windows
Invading purple pink yellow orange and blue
Shadows mixing shapes of light
Shadows mixing shades of night
This is where we are horizon driving
Coasting to a point that isn't there
Soaring like wind blowing high in the air

Bread Crumbs

Welcome to November everyone, I'm not sure where this poem fits. I've actually been immersed in the soundtrack of Drive. It's 80s synth beats have inspires the next poem.

Id like to think this isn't a poem about a little girl at all it's just a feeling. That sense of trying to be normal when your world changes radically.

Bread Crumbs

Mama left us breadcrumbs
Daddy just left
Now we lie in bed
keeping quiet
keeping secret
being good

Brush your teeth
Jump into bed
Rest and rinse
Don’t forget
The bad gunky water is not for
Your mouth or your throat
But belongs in the sink

Dress nice
Play with the other boys or girls
Don’t talk first
Don’t interrupt
Don’t cry or get mad
Don’t hit or kick
Play nice be kind
Smile when your sad
Be happy life’s never too sad