Tuesday Poem: Walking out of the bar (Seventh…)
June 20, 2016
Walking out of the bar
(Seventh in a long series of nasty little poems)
There is a place that humour goes to die
like superannuated elephants.
The three part joke:
first this
than that
then punchline.
No final mild tingle
can ever atone
for the violence done to the ear
the appalling cringe of taking time
and parking a huge lump of
premeditation there.
People, mostly men,
dump these jokes like turds
to mark the boundaries of thought.
This is a funny! It moves like a funny!
So it must be funny!
You never shed boredom, m’dear.
You just packed it into a new shape;
a triangle of sludge, which you call
a joke. There is no jazz
to such a thing; no quip.
You play your lardy triangle
with a tardy limping tongue.
I listen for inadvertent puns,
or simply walk away.
Far better rude than bored,
says the woman in the beret,
unbearably self assured.
She’s walking out of the bar.
P.S. Cottier
Over at Project 365 + 1, I just posted a poem about the gym which I like quite a lot. It has the optimistic name ‘Four times a week’. Aspirational, one might say. This was poem number twenty for that project, so I will do another ten days. It makes the gym seem easy, I must say.
Upon reading Henning Mankell’s Wallander novels
It’s obvious —
the weather is the culprit.
Endless snow, or waiting for snow,
or discussing if it will snow,
or wading through medieval mud,
down hidden, slushy roads.
And those other nights
that are nights in name only,
quite midday bright.
The wonder is that there are Swedes
who don’t murder each other.
(Not to mention the Danes.)
P.S. Cottier
I read very little crime, and have been surprised how much I enjoy Henning Mankell’s Wallander novels, which I have read in a huge glut. Only one to go. So clever how he lets the reader know more than the detective for most of the books.
The Adventures of Aloysius Humblebrag
Aloysius Humblebrag knows little of finance
(Yet his shares would make a Malcolm weep).
Aloysius Humblebrag believes in process
(But his poems are only seen in the Best Places).
Aloysius Humblebrag hates blogs like football
(Though he once wrote a villanelle about football
called “Aiming For Smaller Posts.” So amusing!)
Aloysius loves the working classes
(in Theory, which is an island near Manus).
Aloysius doesn’t read much written by women
(All this stuff about gender is so tedious, he opines.)
Aloysius Humblebrag has composed his epitaph,
and just managed to edit it to tombstone size.
(We all pray that he will publish that very soon.
I, for one, will give it a most positive review.)
P.S. Cottier
We all know poets like Aloysius, I’m sure.
Now I am dragging my exhausted carcass off to try and also write a poem for 365 + 1. We’ll see if I can last a month; there are people who have been doing it for six months! That site is well worth a look, although I am finding the process of writing something every day difficult. Like Aloysius, I love the emphasis on process (really, in my case), but the process must be made concrete during this time, which is challenging. (The concrete need not be set, but it must at least be mixed and trowelled.)
This blog remains my true sweetheart.
Death to all poetry gardens!
In my garden I grow hebetude
just near the wistfulsteria.
The nodding fields of dilligafs
raise two-petal fingers,
yellowed with gorgeous nicotine.
(They hate the word roseate,
beloved of neat poetry gardeners.)
Then the rose ate the budgie,
and westringia strangled the cat.
P.S.Cottier
Looks a tad roseate to me
I’ve become heartily sick of a certain type of Very Nice Poem which moves too easily between description of nature as a mere pretty thing and the poet’s (often fairly tedious) personal reflections. Doesn’t mean I won’t write one again, but I will slap myself with a tulip as I do so.
In June I will be attempting to write a poem a day at another site; more on that soon. I’ll also keep posting at least once a week here. So now I’m off to tend the worm-poem farm, to help with the fervid compostition.
Next week: Less puns.
So if you’re also a poet…
May 3, 2016
No poem today, but I thought I’d share information about some great poetry prizes.
Firstly, the Australian Catholic University has a competition on the theme ‘Loving Kindness’. When I first heard the theme, I was less than rapt, but the more I thought about it, the more a poem wriggled out from between the words, until it demanded to be penned in the seedy corral of a poem. This contest is open to Australian citizens, permanent residents, and overseas students studying in Australia. Here is the link. Closes early June. There is a nice, really well catered, ceremony held in Melbourne at which the (generous) prizes for this are awarded. I was placed third last year and read my poem there. A book of entries was produced too. Entry is $20. And, no, you don’t have to be Catholic, or of any other religion (although you can be!).
Secondly (and this one is open to all poets writing in English) there is the University of Canberra Vice Chancellor’s International Poetry Prize. There is no theme for this one. Again, there are great prizes, including a tidy $15,000 for the first place getter. However, some may quite reasonably baulk at the entry fees for these prestigious competitions ($20). There is a discounted rate for university students, and there is also a separate free competition for students in Year 11 and 12 at an ACT or NSW school. There are also cash prizes for this one, and ‘winners will be invited to attend the IPSI Poetry on the Move festival where they will be invited to read their poem and a chance to meet some excellent poets.’ And possibly some mediocore ones! That is not compulsory though.
There is yet another competition being offered through the University of Canberra too. This is the Health Poetry Prize, which is only open to Australians, and the poems must be on the theme of ‘Living Life Well’, which also sounded vaguely off-putting to me at first glance, until I noticed that the poem could also deal with barriers to ‘Living Life Well’. So there is no need to use that foul word ’empowerment’…This one is $10 to enter, and seems like a great initiative.
Of course, everyone who has ever written a poem in English, and their more literate pets, will enter the international Uni of Canberra one, which makes it the most competitive. (Given that ‘everyone’ has a credit card with at least $20 left on it.) These things are a bit of a lottery (however well qualified the judges are), but if you get a decent poem out of the process, it may be worth it.
My own view of poetry competitions is that if the topic catches my eye, I’ll have a go, but I won’t force a poem out because there is a competition. I have written about the whole economy of competitions elsewhere. (At Overland.)
Have fun!
PS Cottier 