another dark poem!

My younger daughter always questions me as to why I write such dark poems when I am a happy person! The answer is that sometimes they just happen! This one came when I saw my own shadow but felt it had its own form apart from me.


shadows bleed over my feet and into
my heart , as I walk the path home.

grey shapes seep around me
as fears  take form -
they accompany  me, face me,
below, in front,
in the cracked spaces.
I see them.
as they vanish,
reappearing  in different places
caught between the fading light .
Somewhere they are real,
 I could touch them,
suck them in and taste them
as they chill my veins.

A sudden light, a curtain opens
and they are gone; only I know
they are there - always behind me
they have strangled my own shadow
and taken its place,
inseparable,
engorging
me.

interconnectedness

So I am now doing a taught Masters in English through the OU and loving it! Antigone and intertextuality , translation and diaspora here we come! But in my journey I am coming across such interesting connections and here is one I want to capture. In studying what Paz has to say about translation he illustrates with a poet whose  inherent experiences  bleed into the new text - he cites Wallace Stevens and his lines of poetry resonated with me immediately, Then I was looking at Twitter as is my wont at the moment and I followed a link to Christopher Reid, ex editor of Faber and Faber who has a new book coming out in February, In an article about him, his old tutor at Oxford said that he learned about Wallace Stevens from the young undergraduate Reid. Here is Reid's description of poets like Stevens - " they write about reality but in slightly fantasised and disguised terms. There was a metaphorical and allegorical inventiveness in them "
It is strange how someone else's words come to you just when you are seeking them - that is how I would describe my style and indeed I wish I had had them in my pocket when I was asked at the Poetry Library fair what kind of poetry I write! Fascinating connections!

paris review

I should be working but got distracted reading a really good interview with Julian Barnes, now winner of the Booker Prize after being on the short list four times.

Julian Barnes, The Art of Fiction No. 165 Paris Review 2000

Worth a read as to what literature means to him and his attitude to writing.

National poetry day 2011

National Poetry Day today and I am so immersed in my first week of the Masters that I haven't written a poem for a while.
Let me offer  this one to mark the day.

The hands of the clock
melt , dripping down
into the pool of my tears
turning clear waters into inky dark.
Time disintegrates as I watch
the veil between two realities torn.
Yesterday, the hours were safe
minute by minute,  ticking
 invisibly  in our love.
But now, there is no time
no beating heart
regulating my soul.

I am studying the concept of intertextuality and wonder whether this thread of thought ties in with my favourite writer Virginia Woolf,  - her concept of streams of consciousness and her playing with the absolutes of Time in Orlando.

seeing in between the spaces

I have just read a paper on" influence" for the OU and I have a wry smile at the poem below. In this I give the merest of nods to Allen Ginsberg's brilliant poem "Howl," and also to the poems of a friend of mine who taught me to see the spaces between reality and unreality.

Do you dream of me?

Last night I dreamt, again, of you -

the kind of dream that shivers

between imagination and reality.

Maybe our dreams, tinged by the rose

of dawn, will embrace

 hovering in that magical space

 where we compose our  lives.

Where truth blends seamlessly

across boundaries, unlimited by reality;

where desire soars and hands reach out

unshackled from the cuffs of conscience;

where a thousand blind eyes watch the fire

 of passion igniting our  minds;

where sanity and madness combust

and silent voices shout aloud;

where angels fly unheralded

waiting to be seen

and oceans pause as the earth tilts

unexpectedly ;

where we conduct our own music

imprinting  notes on the dewy air

whose echoes are remembered

 in the morning;

maybe then we will wake and find, in our own unreality

reality.

the latest poem

Recently I was at a party and watched two strangers in conversation - each one was puffed up
and trying to assert himself over the other - this is what I saw!



In that blue translucent dusklight
as the day dies into cool reflection,
surrounded by the hum of  quiet conversation
I watch as two egos face off
 in the dust beams.


I see their silver shadows rise to stand apart,
 faces hidden behind  polite society vizors.
They swirl huge, steel tipped swords
against thickly embossed shields,
 the ghostly metals crunching  
as sparks separate into airy dust.
Silent shouts drown each other out,
bending the airwaves, distorting thoughts
into fractured patterns

The drawingroom carpet soaks up the blood
disguising it in red and gold paisley;
 Soft  velvet curtains wrap around  their cries
smothering the battle in quiet civility.
The vacant faces of the guests
with painted doll smiles, unaware of
 the invisible struggle for supremacy
dancing above their heads.

Gradually, I see the silvery shadows dissipate
blown out by sudden, embarrassed laughter
and a jovial handshake.

And, just like the scent of the lilies
in the clear glass vase on the side table,
I remain a silent witness,
 nothing more than perfume.

polyphonic style

Having achieved a 2:1 in my Open University Honours I am delighted! Now also I find I have a moment to write and continue my thought process on a new style of poetry where the reader has to choose to follow the interruptions asked by the asterix leading to additional information within the subject of the poem or to read it afterwards. My daughter's second year final piece was to create a beautiful tutu inspired by Swan Lake and she got her friend to dance in it for her. This led to the next poem, inspired by the idea of her friend dancing so elegantly in a public band stand for all to see, with ballet steps from the famous Swan Lake.

The Swan

Over today’s stage,
echoes of history in your feet, you dance.

Melting into movement your graceful body bends,

pointed feet tracing light patterns over the floor;

fine white feathers formfit your body

fragile frayed silk floating upon air.

Slender arms, like wings, embrace the sun.

Exquisitely, you dance,

a silent  illusion;
you become her - 

the swan.**

I stand, watching them film her

in the outdoor bandstand.

The park is full, yet at the centre, reflected in all eyes

this beautiful bright ballerina in flight. 

I turn to go, suddenly this dull, ordinary day

now, unforgettably,

extraordinary.

**Swan Lake is a ballet, op. 20, by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, composed 1875–1876. The scenario, initially in four acts, was fashioned from Russian folk tales.^[1] it tells the story of Odette, a princess turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer's curse.The ballet received its premiere on February 20 [O.S. March 4] 1877,^[2][3] at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow as The Lake of the Swans.