Frost
surprises
on fewer
mornings,
beneath clarity: a sky of
blueness mirroring springtime,
in a slew of white
feathered streaks.
Birds trill, trees bud,
cyclamen leaves peek.
Lambs shout to their ma’s.
Soft, soft, the
wood pigeon calls.
Oh, and the daffodils,
the daffodils,
the glorious trumpeting
daffodils.
As my tea steams
in the chill morning air,
I look around
and beam,
at work
waiting
to begin.
The artist Walter Kershaw is perhaps best known for the famous Trafford Park Murals at White City, Manchester. This poem is in response to Anna Montgomery’s prompt for Meeting the Bar at dVerse Poets Pub on Thursday 21 February where we’re exploring the ancient and contemporary art of graffiti.
Latin texts of old Pompeii vie with Banksy of today,
Cool tattoos in 1970′s,
Patterned ends of terraced houses.
Walter Kershaw was proclaimed, ‘Britain’s first graffiti artist.’
A riot of colour, Graffiti! Graffiti!
His reward: butties
And mugs of tea.
A student of fine art at Durham,
With murals commissioned overseas,
Interviews with Russell Harty
And others on radio and TV,
His shocks of guerrilla technicolour, in Lancashire red-brick streets,
Meant he travelled at 5am,
When most of us lurk between sheets.
Off he’d tear on his motorbike,
To the neighbourhoods, to … grapheet.
They queued to ask, ‘Will you do my house next?’
While local councils sent reams of text,
Saying,
‘Cease and desist.’
Nothing was done,
The man was known to everyone.
No charges pursued so none ensued,
All knew his fame, knew his game.
Now much graffiti’s washed away,
Only photographs remain.
Latin texts of old Pompeii
Vie with Banksy of today,
Yet not so long ago we saw
Glorious Graffiti!
From Walter Kershaw.
Fred, aka Hobgoblin, tending bar at dVerse said he loves it ‘whenever I come across a poem or song written in a language other than English’. So, I have created, for Poetics: Foreign Tongues a very short poem in French.
English: Reblochon is a French cow’s-milk labelled Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) cheese, made in the Alps region of Haute-Savoie and Savoie.
He can get but one Reblochon,
(I’d better not go on and on),
We really need two. But you know
How it is, I must adapt so …
An extra recipe, I read,
So our guests won’t be underfed (!)
He can get but one Reblochon
And we really need at least two.
He can get but one Reblochon
And we really need at least two
A hasty casserole will fill
Up the hole. Inspiration, phew!
An evening of expectation,
Thank goodness for inspiration.
He could get but one Reblochon
And we really need at least two.
Casserole (Photo credit: el_floz)
Tartiflette, a french dish with a cheese named Reblochon. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
According to Catherine Wilson, writing in 2003, ‘The Kyrielle was once a very popular poetic form originating in France and dating back to the Middle Ages. In this poetry form, couplets are often paired in quatrains and are characterised by a refrain that is sometimes a single word and sometimes the full second line of the couplet or the full fourth line of the quatrain. Each line within the poem consists of only eight syllables. There is no limit to the number of stanzas a Kyrielle may have, but three is considered the accepted minimum.The name kyrielle derives from the Kýrie. Gay Reiser Cannon at dVerse poets agrees with this description and sums it up in this way:
‘So to sum up:
1. the form can be written a number of ways usually as a quatrain.
2. the form ends in a refrain which is repeated as the last line or after every stanza.
3. the lines should be written in tetrameter (in iambs or trochees) or a count of eight syllables.
4. the original form addressed spiritual topics but that usage has somewhat disappeared.’ (dVerse FormForAll, December, 2012)
A little while ago, the members of dVerse Poet’s Pub were invited to submit poems to Nain Rouge a start-up online publication showcasing urban life. This invitation came during the celebration of the dVerse first year anniversary. The assignment was to write a poem about city life.
If you follow this link Nain Rouge it will take you to the page entitled White Cat Publishing / Nain Rouge First Edition, click on the black and white photo and a .pdf will download, my poem is on page 23 surrounded by other dVerse poets’ work. Great to see Gayle‘s superb poem about Boston as editor’s choice on the first page
Good news … you are reading the words of a stunned person … I submitted a poem to dVerse for the anniversary celebrations and it was entered for the Nain Rouge contest. I have today received an email from Mark Durfee of Nain Rouge, who says:
Your poem MORNING TOWN RIDE made the cut not only to be published in Vol 1 Issue 1 of Nain Rouge, it was also selected by a very qualified group of writers as 1 of the top 6.
In response to Anna Montgomery’s dVerse prompt this weekend, in which she asks us to join her ‘ … on an expedition into the wilds of language.’ And either, ‘… incorporate a foreign language; blend in highly specialized vocabulary or jargon …; or focus on crafting your diction in a way that creates an aesthetic.’ Here is my poem about an English word that is close to (if not an exact match with) the Ulwa word ‘yaputka’.
Au contraire!
Be aware!
Of an English word for yuputka,
An Ulwa word meaning the phantom sensation of some…thing,
Crawl…ing,
On your skin.
Some…thing,
Creep…ing,
Crawl…ing,
On your skin.
Ulwa? You ask …
The language of around 400 people of Karawala,
In Nicaragua,
Where snakes and lakes abound,
In the forest, and Karawala means ‘dry fish’.
But what of the English?
The word is Formication.
OK, so,
The Ulwa word somehow includes
Reference to
Walking in the woods at night …
In the pitch black darkness.
Whereas, the English, oh, the English word is clear as daylight,
Defined,
Refined,
Assigned,
Aligned,
Confined to
That feeling of some…thing,
Crawl…ing,
On or under your skin.
Some…thing,
Creep…ing,
Crawl…ing,
On or under your skin.
A medical term, specific to
A set of sensations called Paresthesia.
Tactile hallucinations, of insects or bugs creep…ing,
Crawl…ing,
Sprawl…ing,
On or under your skin.
Feel the itch.
A tingling, burning, pins and needles, kind of itchiness;
Leads to twitchiness,
Tickly,
Wriggly,
Squiggly,
Makes you sickly,
Itchiness.
Caused, they say, by use of cocaine, amphetamines,
Crystal meth, aka,
“Ice,”
“Glass,”
“Chalk,”
“Crank,”
And a side effect of prescription drugs.
Suffered by some during “power surges”,
[That’s to say … menopause;]
The list goes on … diabetic neuropathy,
Diseases of the spinal cord and peripheral nerves, and
Extreme alcohol withdrawal …
It’s a common yet illusory complaint,
Which leads some to cut out the ‘worms’ with scissors.
Derived from formica, [Latin for ant,]
This word is
Extant,
Present,
Surviving,
Existing.
Sufferers often get delusional parasitosis.
In extremis, people have ‘gathered’ the bugs
In matchboxes and demanded investigation.
Not to be confused with the English word in which ‘n’
Is the fourth character.
The word is, formication. Some…thing,
Crawl…ing,
On or under your skin.
Some…thing,
Creep…ing,
Crawl…ing,
On or under your skin.
Some…thing,
Creep…ing, creeping,
Crawl…ing, crawling,
Sprawl…ing, sprawling,
Slimy slithering,
Wriggling, wiggling, squiggling, tickling,
Sickening,
On or under your skin.
Linking up with MeetingTheBar, hosted by Victoria over at dVerse - it’s all about balance …
Homage to Mondrian
Avant-garde minimalist, stunning,
Piet Mondrian made the running,
Black, white, opposing pairs,
Primary colours – oblongs, squares.
Strict Dutch Calvinist, he did his duty,
Yet used intuition re basic forms of beauty,
A Utopian ideal, of
Order, harmony, rhythm,
His paintings neat, neoplasticism,
Pure abstract control freak,
His technique,
“… more or less Cubist
… more or less pictorial”
Symmetry avoided. A memorial:
Aesthetic balance through opposition,
Driven to simplify, a man with a mission.
Over at dVerse Poets, Gay has us writing poetry on poetry, or ars poetica. This is my contribution
Gasping at Sunbeams
Writers in attics,
Finders of words,
Capturing moments
That flutter as birds
Away in the skies,
Like bright butterflies
Gasping at sunbeams,
Telling no lies,
Wanting the essence,
Of how things might be.
Form, shape, rhythm, lyrics,
Formal or free;
The significance,
The elements,
Of poetry.
I agree with Brian from dVerse, the Carroll square poem is a beast to do! Samuel Peralta is wicked!
Beyond the Pale
When he moves beyond the pale
He turns towards the darker man;
Moves towards his blood host grimly,
Beyond the blood mist, the gaols,
The darker host, the vampire child.
Pale man grimly gaols child, defiled.
If a Carroll square poem works it can be read right to left and top to bottom. Below, I have spaced it to make reading it top to bottom easier and to show it more clearly:
