The setting sun painted the chalky grey blue horizon
in sensuous swirls of pink, orange, purple and gold,
looking furtively down at its flickering tar road reflection
in a glimmering multicoloured oil spill, for clues.
Oct 29 2008
Doubt, Un-doubt
Doubt
Nebulous potential poetry swirling hazily in my mind
broken mirror splinters of things I've seen, heard, believed
They surface more than once, taking over the verse,
and I irresistibly write of no more than what I know
Where do I draw the line between admirable poet's trademark
and stagnant over-used recycled rubbish?
Un-doubt
One of many minds filled with poetry-stuff, I am
seeing a fraction of the world,
living a moment of its time
writing an inch of its verse
So I write what I can
Any poetry I don't write
someone, sometime else, will.
Oct 29 2008
Nebulous potential poetry swirling hazily in my mind
broken mirror splinters of things I've seen, heard, believed
They surface more than once, taking over the verse,
and I irresistibly write of no more than what I know
Where do I draw the line between admirable poet's trademark
and stagnant over-used recycled rubbish?
Un-doubt
One of many minds filled with poetry-stuff, I am
seeing a fraction of the world,
living a moment of its time
writing an inch of its verse
So I write what I can
Any poetry I don't write
someone, sometime else, will.
Oct 29 2008
Integration
A crumpled brown paper bag of a leaf
knocked uncaringly one afternoon
by a passing gust of fate
clattered unexpectedly at unassuming feet
that were headed purposefully to Calculus
I, blameless, stopped
watched it backwards
The leaf levitating,
fluttering up to to the grasping gnarled fingers
to live green and grow swiftly younger,
disappearing into the bark of the tree
The air thick with swirling masses of fallen leaves
whole groves of trees wheezing in the dead,
their limbs fantastically shortening
Shrinking down to timid saplings
then to tiny leaves sprouting uncertainly from the soil
then disappearing into the earth
I stood still for a moment, math class forgotten,
a blank expression on my face
as my mind constructed cinematically for me
the planet incredibly diminishing and ceasing to be
the solar system quietly dissolving into an unflattering speck
the galaxy unapologetically and violently collapsing onto itself
The cosmic motion picture wildly playing backwards,
stars and galaxies and quasars and whatever I used to be
racing inconceivably towards
a single
bright
point
of
Oct 28 2008
knocked uncaringly one afternoon
by a passing gust of fate
clattered unexpectedly at unassuming feet
that were headed purposefully to Calculus
I, blameless, stopped
watched it backwards
The leaf levitating,
fluttering up to to the grasping gnarled fingers
to live green and grow swiftly younger,
disappearing into the bark of the tree
The air thick with swirling masses of fallen leaves
whole groves of trees wheezing in the dead,
their limbs fantastically shortening
Shrinking down to timid saplings
then to tiny leaves sprouting uncertainly from the soil
then disappearing into the earth
I stood still for a moment, math class forgotten,
a blank expression on my face
as my mind constructed cinematically for me
the planet incredibly diminishing and ceasing to be
the solar system quietly dissolving into an unflattering speck
the galaxy unapologetically and violently collapsing onto itself
The cosmic motion picture wildly playing backwards,
stars and galaxies and quasars and whatever I used to be
racing inconceivably towards
a single
bright
point
of
Oct 28 2008
Robert Brown, Army Surgeon, Botanist, Fellow of The Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge, Woke Up One Morning
Dust reflecting light,
a liquid presence of moving white stars
burning bright and pleasantly vanishing,
the harmonious tide swirling gently and tolerantly
Unmindful of the watcher,
unconcerned with the world's monocotyledons and British Museums and shipwrecks and obscure species of Australian flora
A window, a beam of light,
and the earth dancing up to meet the sun.
Oct 22 2008
a liquid presence of moving white stars
burning bright and pleasantly vanishing,
the harmonious tide swirling gently and tolerantly
Unmindful of the watcher,
unconcerned with the world's monocotyledons and British Museums and shipwrecks and obscure species of Australian flora
A window, a beam of light,
and the earth dancing up to meet the sun.
Oct 22 2008
Leaving Home
I write a poem
How much does it owe its existence to me?
a careless word from another, an image or a thought inspired it,
and as it soon as it leaves the safe womb of my mind
to the harsh clinical whiteness of paper,
it is imprinted, exposed, vulnerable
in a dimension of its own making,
forever out of my reach
Can it only ever mean what I meant it to?
and people interpret it differently,
see something in it that in it I shall never see,
taking away a part of it from me for their own
Or can I say, fondly, my poem's growing up?
Oct 19
How much does it owe its existence to me?
a careless word from another, an image or a thought inspired it,
and as it soon as it leaves the safe womb of my mind
to the harsh clinical whiteness of paper,
it is imprinted, exposed, vulnerable
in a dimension of its own making,
forever out of my reach
Can it only ever mean what I meant it to?
and people interpret it differently,
see something in it that in it I shall never see,
taking away a part of it from me for their own
Or can I say, fondly, my poem's growing up?
Oct 19
Ghosts
I stumbled upon a book of poetry in the library,
words cautiously hedged away in some anonymous corner
until the torchlight of chance or intuition moved my idle fingers to it
It fell open on a page, the shape of the unknown poem stenciled onto it,
a mass of language composed by an unimportant human
whose whole existence was merely a book on a shelf amidst other books on a shelf
I wandered, unconsciously, my mind on the books uncomfortable under my arm
the edges of my thought on the clamouring jungle of other books waiting impatiently in line,
until a word or a string drew me in
The book unforgivingly heavy and unforgettably familiar in my hand,
the poem fully on my mind
and the being that constructed it in another time
resurrected,
standing for a quiet, understanding moment with me
looking down benevolently at a book of poetry
in a library.
Oct 19 2008
words cautiously hedged away in some anonymous corner
until the torchlight of chance or intuition moved my idle fingers to it
It fell open on a page, the shape of the unknown poem stenciled onto it,
a mass of language composed by an unimportant human
whose whole existence was merely a book on a shelf amidst other books on a shelf
I wandered, unconsciously, my mind on the books uncomfortable under my arm
the edges of my thought on the clamouring jungle of other books waiting impatiently in line,
until a word or a string drew me in
The book unforgivingly heavy and unforgettably familiar in my hand,
the poem fully on my mind
and the being that constructed it in another time
resurrected,
standing for a quiet, understanding moment with me
looking down benevolently at a book of poetry
in a library.
Oct 19 2008
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