Post by Marion on Apr 30, 2015 8:53:26 GMT 7
Hi there,
Really busy right now doing and facilitating the Iowa University's How Writers Write Poetry course. Here are some poetry drafts that came out of it. Any comments welcome, even if you're not much of a poetry head. Just which poems or lines stand out or talk to you, anything you would cut or change? Overall theme: "violence of the tropics"!
Strangers, Singapore
They pluck and cluster-bomb
yellow coconuts from atop the
palm trees, peel off furry husks
and stab a jackknife into their
crown, site workers from Kerala,
Sri Lanka, Bangladesh – am I
trespassing on this lick of sand
by the sea where I feast my eyes,
or they, squatting in my path?
Drink Auntie, they say and go
to plant as offering into my palm
this hot taut globe of flesh.
Some haiku & short poems
Straits skyline: twinkling
half-moon made of oil tankers,
islands, rust-licked ships
bunch of keys on a
sleeping woman’s lap – she yawns,
her mouth all silver
under the ceiling fan
white orchids quiver, open-mouthed
you stoop to listen
pink peonies shell
open my heart with your death,
the cruelty of June
too soon your footfalls
rouse me from the Armageddon
of my nap
Honeymoon
A dragon-fly pings into the cool ovary
of water at our feet. This death we share also.
Uisce Beatha
The newly-weds
breathe out one breath,
post vows. The cubes
split in my glass.
Sunday Recital
(Prose Poem)
A rumble of squawks pummels me out of sleep and into the arms of limbo, same din every single daybreak in the tropics, dawn chorus my arse, it’s the screech and squabble of bird-eat-bird in the tamarind trees, the mynahs at their pre-mating massacre of peace. Something lingers inside the membranes of my dissembled self, the colour and texture of brawn. In the syrupy terrain under the pillow’s resistance I probe for erasure, for completion, but I can’t reinsert myself into that delicious viscosity. Only when I feel your breath ripple and heave through the weft of the cotton sheets, I open my eyes. The recital of your achingly familiar sleep-creased cheeks, lip scar, dimpled chin jolts me and uplifts me and for one moment only deafens every sound.
Really busy right now doing and facilitating the Iowa University's How Writers Write Poetry course. Here are some poetry drafts that came out of it. Any comments welcome, even if you're not much of a poetry head. Just which poems or lines stand out or talk to you, anything you would cut or change? Overall theme: "violence of the tropics"!
Strangers, Singapore
They pluck and cluster-bomb
yellow coconuts from atop the
palm trees, peel off furry husks
and stab a jackknife into their
crown, site workers from Kerala,
Sri Lanka, Bangladesh – am I
trespassing on this lick of sand
by the sea where I feast my eyes,
or they, squatting in my path?
Drink Auntie, they say and go
to plant as offering into my palm
this hot taut globe of flesh.
Some haiku & short poems
Straits skyline: twinkling
half-moon made of oil tankers,
islands, rust-licked ships
bunch of keys on a
sleeping woman’s lap – she yawns,
her mouth all silver
under the ceiling fan
white orchids quiver, open-mouthed
you stoop to listen
pink peonies shell
open my heart with your death,
the cruelty of June
too soon your footfalls
rouse me from the Armageddon
of my nap
Honeymoon
A dragon-fly pings into the cool ovary
of water at our feet. This death we share also.
Uisce Beatha
The newly-weds
breathe out one breath,
post vows. The cubes
split in my glass.
Sunday Recital
(Prose Poem)
A rumble of squawks pummels me out of sleep and into the arms of limbo, same din every single daybreak in the tropics, dawn chorus my arse, it’s the screech and squabble of bird-eat-bird in the tamarind trees, the mynahs at their pre-mating massacre of peace. Something lingers inside the membranes of my dissembled self, the colour and texture of brawn. In the syrupy terrain under the pillow’s resistance I probe for erasure, for completion, but I can’t reinsert myself into that delicious viscosity. Only when I feel your breath ripple and heave through the weft of the cotton sheets, I open my eyes. The recital of your achingly familiar sleep-creased cheeks, lip scar, dimpled chin jolts me and uplifts me and for one moment only deafens every sound.
I love the line about reinserting oneself into sleep and also the final thought.