Tuesday poem: Budgerigar redux
October 26, 2015
Budgerigar
Ten million green commas punctuate blue sky,
quick breaths of swooping wonder, multiplied.
Water-hole is your target; liquid rope pulls you
and the whole emerald sky is diving,
as miniature bodies scoop down to pool.
Your individual markings have taken you
further than native flight; outside the Louvre
I saw you, cold, trying to break in, as pointillist
as Pissarro, but so acrylic in your finish.
Proud but damp escapee from French balcony,
regretting the lost seed and the found liberty.
Plump and fresh, I have heard you were good eating,
a winging fast food charred to a turn;
as far from stringy battery chook as fingers in the fire.
Most know you singly: whistling in cages,
bowing and bobbing, rattling plastic mirrors.
Driven mad you ring and ring chink-chinky bells
or make love to that hard, hard-to-get reflection.
What joy to see you
just once, as you swoop,
one stitch amongst the tapestry,
a blade of grass in feathered turf carpet,
magically landing,
transforming dreary waterside
with that fallen sward of Eire.
Swift dragon of twenty million wings,
fluorescing with your simple, beak-filled joys.
P.S. Cottier
As to the redux, this poem was posted here once before, a couple of years ago. But it deserves a new airing. The photo shows my new budgie, more pastel than the wild bird’s near-emerald. He was bought with the seeds of poetry. I am now spending my life moving his cage around and letting him out in safe places, away from my dogs.
His name is Chomp.
Next week I promise to use words that rest on a thin perch of ideas, as the last twos paras were totally and tragically Facebook. Status: idiotic.
In the meantime, fly your way to New Zealand. (She inserts something witty and slightly patriotic about rugby finals. There is a poem to be written about that, but not here, not this week. Though ‘The Ode of David Pocock’s Calf’ has potential. I’m seeing Victory born from its swelling pregnant muscles.)
Tuesday poem: A parachute of avocados
October 19, 2015
A parachute of avocados, plunging through dipping air;
fifteen seconds to wonder if persimmons would have been a better choice;
five seconds to understand the grounding nature of vegetables;
and you plant yourself, scattered red nasturtium, sprinkled on salad of lawn.
P.S. Cottier
And they say that salad is good for you! I think this weirdness started because I was thinking about how silk-worms (from the cocoons of which parachutes can be made) eat mulberry leaves.
I read somewhere that the plural of avocado can be avocadi, but that’s just ridiculous. And if anyone points out that avos and persimmons are fruit, not veggies, I shall have to use the word ‘pedant’. Just sayin’
Possibly less surreal imagery has been posted by other poets. Read the works of the other Tuesday Poets around the world by pressing here.
You could also colour in the balloons in the picture light green, if that sort of thing is your cup of guacamole. Now I’m off to construct a helicopter of carrot sticks.
UPDATE: Thanks to Helen McInlay for noticing that I had spelt nasturtium incorrectly! All good now.
My life in crime, or a Thunderbolt from the New (England)
October 12, 2015
I had some exciting news recently. My poem ‘Criminals who are no longer criminals’ was awarded first place in the Thunderbolt Prize for Crime Writing, run by the New England Writers Centre. The poetry judge, Les Murray, liked the clarity of the poem’s descriptions, which is particularly cool given that the poem deals with a group of ghosts. These are the ghosts of people convicted of crimes now repealed, including homosexuality and witchcraft, and I wrote of them meeting outside courts.
Chair of the New England Writers Centre, Sophie Masson, interviewed me and the interview can be read at her blog. I talk about the inspiration for the poem, which was the way we (meaning Australia) deal with asylum seekers. Also about what sort of poetry I like, and further details of my life of poetic crime. There is a link to the actual poem, at the Armidale Express.
As usual, Old Book Illustrations provided the perfect image, seemingly dealing with the process of composition.
I am now off to buy a budgie with the winnings. No Tuesday Poem from me. Unless you chase the link above, that is.
UPDATE:
The poem can now be read here.
Tuesday Poem
October 5, 2015
Today I edited the hub at Tuesday Poem, based in New Zealand, and posted a fascinating prose poem called ‘Before’ by Janette Pieloor. Read Janette’s poem by pressing here.
Tuesday poem: Fernando Pessoa shaves
September 29, 2015
Fernando Pessoa shaves
— and needless to say, the mirror
has three leaves. So at least
twelve chins require scraping
(for they all go beardless,
or at least, sometimes so)
and one, or four, can’t always
leave, to visit the barber.
Eight hands, a lively polvo,
attempt to shave straight,
but, let’s face it (ha!)
straight is not really
in their repertoire.
It is disconcerting when a man
metamorphoses from Fernando
into Alberto between nose and chin
as one uses a blade as blunt
as omniscience. Little rivers
open up, and flow into each other.
In one mirror-wing, Álvaro bleeds
and in the other, Ricardo winces.
The eight hands become twice twelve
in the trinity of glass.
In the corner of one wing,
see that crack? One, or four,
become a jigsaw, no, a galaxy
of Fernando and his others.
This is the image which one might
or could, possibly call true.
The eye of one bends into
chin of the other; a quiet, crazed
Picasso, but with a line less sure.
He had never belonged
to a crowd. Except to himselves.
P.S. Cottier
Poet’s note: Fernando Pessoa’s main heteronyms included Alberto Caeiro, Álvaro de Campos and Ricardo Reis. He also wrote as Fernando Pessoa. ‘He had never belonged to a crowd’ is from the Preface to The Book of Disquiet, by Pessoa (or Bernando Soares) tr. R. Zenith.
who left the drawbridge down?
I’ve been thinking about heteronyms and pseudonyms and all the nyms lately. What is authenticity? Are anonymous comments any less valuable than attributed ones? Is pronouncing the death of the author pretty damned silly, given that multiplicity has replaced a singular notion of the self?
Also, where do seriousness and play merge? In this poem, they merge in a mirror. They also merge in sandpits, if you’ve ever watched children play, or can remember being a child.
Do head over to the Tuesday Poem site, for a further dose of poetic goodness, blended to perfection. Read the works of the other Tuesday Poets around the world by pressing here.
