Read Write Poem Prompt #116

Original Image Here

Carnival
At midnight
The carnival
fell to bed.
The ferris wheel
driver slumped
leg dangly over the
side of a faded
red car.
The mirror maze
man draped curtains
over twenty four
panes of glass
then another over
himself and lay
on the floor
to sleep.
In the haunted
house the ghouls
hushed their howling
and hung blinking
in the half light.

Under the even
ticking of a rusting
sky clock, the
silhouette of a
small girl with
candy floss in her
hand chased a
balloon through
the carnival's
dreams.

A Poem

Because it's been a while. This poem was a response to a Read Write Poem prompt. I have also recently written a second poem, a response to an article on the current government's plans to open up international investment regulations. Unfortunately I thought I'd emailed to my hoe address, but apparently not. Posting it will have to wait for another day. Neither are my best work, but it was so good to be putting pen to paper again that I think it's still worth having them online.

Spooky

When the cancer

spread to his brain he

began seeing five cent

coins on the floor.

My uncle spent hours

on all fours groping around

for the invisible currency,

keeping him happy.

After he died the same

coins materialised

in the corners of

our bedrooms and

sat gleaming on

our desks, shelves and

coffee tables,

gleaming in the

twilight, winking up

at us from the floor.

Read Write Poem: Wordle

I chose to write a poem based on the first prompt, using three words from the Wordle. The words that emerged first were "silence", "field" and "warm". My additional challenge to myself was to translate a physical feeling, a memory of sitting in my Wellington living room last night, into a piece of speed-written poetry. This is very much a rough draft! I tried not to think too much about the writing. I wanted to trust instinct to convey the sense of the moment.

Mornington
This night
silence is the
darkness.
The repeated call
of a Tui
in the valley
is the warmth
of dreaming.
The Vogeltown
Kaka fly screeching
where pine trees
were felled and
empty fields
were once
landfill.
The evening
is a held
breath,
each feather
a note from
an Oboe.

Read Write Poem: Word Fishing

The prompt for this week suggested we take words from different poems and use them to compose a poem of our own. I was going to do that but got distracted by the words 'word fishing' and ended up going somewhere else completely.

The stream in this poem is a real place and one I still return to occasionally. It is a place where childhood dreams still live on.

Word Fishing

Today we are going

word fishing

down at the

bottom of the garden,

by a curve in the

stream where the

water slows and

deepens and

where honeysuckle

hangs over the

algal odour of

silt and

mosquito larvae.

The words here are

long and dark

and lithesome.

They hide in dark

corners where

we tempt them

out with things

foul and ripe.

so that they swim

towards us

across pages

worn smooth by

seasons of flood.

The words here are

ancient.

They tell stories

of epic journeys

and the taste of

salt at depth.

They sing of

great migrations and

homecomings and

the comfort that

can be found in

a familiar place.

We fish for all

of these words.

We hold them

as they slide through

our hands leaving

their viscous

traces on skin,

falling into

red plastic buckets

where they turn and

twist into knots.

We fish for

these words but

we do not

consume them.

A word eaten

becomes bitter

and gristled.

Words returned

to the stream

continue to

dance and

journey and

tell their

stories in a

dark pool

in a cool corner

where water runs

slow at the

bottom of the

garden.

Read Write Poem: Dark Summer

Totaranui Beach, Golden Bay
Summer 2007

Summer Holiday
That day
we walked
too far and
the tide covered
the rocks
on our return.

We timed our
wading with
the waves,
oyster shells
cutting our feet.
A sting-ray swam
nearby.

Back on the
beach the surf
pursued us
into the
sand dunes where
Katipo hid
waiting.

There were sea
lice in your
togs and
sunburn stung
so that the
elastic from
your underwear
bit at your legs.

We had dinner
at Cobb and Co
and Dad got
food poisoning
from the mushrooms.

It was the
worst day
of the summer.

And a bonus, seeing as the Read Write Poem girls were sweet enough to provide me with my own prompt. I had already started working on the original prompt, but their generosity could not be overlooked!

Winter
In Wellington
we dwindle,
shrink to fit
between the rain,
to duck beneath
the wind.
We slow -
houses growing
cobwebs,
drafty villas too
cold for movement.
We hide in bed,
preserve energy instead.
Yes, we know these are
not tropical isles.
And yet here,
no double glazing,
central heating.
Such ridiculous
luxuries!
We are
snow-covered
hills and sleet
carried across
the water from
the Kaikouras.
We are waiting,
waiting for the
storm to pass,
the wind to die,
the sun to shine.
We are waiting
for the Shining
Cuckoo, the
orgiastic Tuis
of the spring.
We are waiting,
but we,
the antipodians,
are survivors.
Here at the
Southern end
of this Northern
isle.

Read Write Poem: Telling Stories

Another Read Write Poem piece. I'm still a week behind, prompt-wise. This is my response to prompt #31. This prompt is a story about telling a story. I have in mind a poem I would like to rework, so may try that tomorrow so that I can also post a response to prompt #32 this week.

Elephant
He once claimed
to have looked after
a troupe of elephants
in a circus.

Afterwards we were never
sure whether this was a
flight of fancy but
we couldn’t put it
past him.

Our father was the
type of man you could
imagine standing on a
bed of straw, one hand
extended holding peanuts
awaiting a long grey
trunk’s caress.

He was a man who
cared more for intention
than for size. Scale did
not impress him as
much as compassion
and an open mind.

The elephant, an
animal with both a
long memory and a
sense of loyalty
would have appealed
to his nature.

We liked to think of
him, not riding atop
the beast’s great shoulders,
but leading him gently
to a river to drink.

Just for a change - Poetry!

Photo courtesy of B29 Flickr group

While You Sleep
Awake the lines
on your face suggest
wear like paint
on the side of our
villa where sea spray
carried on Southerlies
has ground clear
through to the
harder beauty of
Kauri underneath.
Asleep there is
something soft, an
easing akin to the
sun that shone
when we were
young, the dreams
and hopes that were
then still warm and
fresh and as charming
as they were naïve.
And yet I love the
both of you. I
would not want to
repair the past
nor attempt to
paint over the future.
You are day and
night and I savour
the dawn and the
twilight of you
both.

In response to a Read Write Poem prompt that took a little while to take hold.

Read Write Poem: Travelling Companions

Tinky's Famous Pies, Collingwood, January 2007

On the Way Home

Murray was a guy with a thumb
standing on the side of the road.
Murray was a hemp shirt and sweat.
Murray sat in the back seat
all the way to Picton
smoking defensively out the
window, wind blowing ash from
his roll-your-owns into our hair.

Murray knew a story or two but
he’d left them all under a Rata
in Kahurangi. He thought he’d found
his own personal Bodhi Tree
but instead he discovered sandflies
and an attachment to homebrew
that finally grew too strong to
be ignored so he tramped
a couple of days to get out and
that was where we found him,
Murray, the guy and his thumb.


They say people come into your
life for a reason but we never
quite worked out the purpose
of Murray. We gave him passage
and he gave us a little of his
last crop rolled up in a scrap
of yellowing newspaper.
We left him outside a greasy
fish and chip shop and he waved
goodbye and there may have
even been a smile underneath
that dreadlocked beard.


Five hours later we were back in
our Wellington villa but the car
still smelled of bush and sweat
and hops and the particular
aroma of Murray.



More travel tales here.

Read/Write/Poem: Eat Drink

Untitled
Bare feet running between
rows of grapes land
with abandon on
old vine cuttings still
lying on the ground.

The scent of
ripening fruit hangs
heavy over the valley
and we are chasing
birds, timing our
sprints to the explosion
of the cannon that
they have learned
to ignore.

It is April and our
parents are harvesting.

Beyond the grapes
Feijoa trees are dropping
their fruit. We
race to collect
them before the
centipedes move in.

At home bunches of
Muscat in a brown
paper bag are
sitting on the bench
sweating juice.

Our plucking fingers
are sticky, our mouths
prickling at their
sharp sugary taste.

More feasting here.