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26.ix.25
they arrive
yet one
more for the birds
with a tap
tap window risk
leafing
through the tree
coming
ripe
make
flight of it
and
falling, catch themselves
a bird is
fully forested
it is in
their nature say
with just
these little claws to catch
they are
drowning in the song
make light
of all this air
for
balance
their promise
just to
come again
to try the
sunlight here
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25.ix.25
as page is my canvas
let the
notes fall here
and as we
will
here is my
elephant
there
stands the pill
have no
fear!
traipse
with ant might over leaf
nor two
the same
tell truth
from day
and for it
too
squeeze
ink out
make
another sky for lark
let manna
of the mind fall
call
clouds by their each secret name
draw from the
well of dark
take least
idea to task
let it be
creed
and so
repair
you see
how I believe!
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24.ix.25
I am so much as to be invisible
no mean
feat
so at it
ubiquity,
mere thought
all fear
of abstraction gone
are these
not signs of the unseen?
the rattle
and the telltale tap
solipsist,
omniscient
or say
know my own mind
there are pictures
of everything so you won’t see
I diagnose
myself
self
medicate of course
pile of
truth so high must be fake
you find
me at home growing it
to season
with weather, with time
a bird’s flit
shadow and silence
song of
the flowers to shine
always an
ache or an itch somewhere
one voice –
so many anthems
I am
writing a history of the smashing of clocks
much of it
mossed
some to
burn
my ruins
make a circle
a pile of
day
and all
tricked out
we let a
forest grow
in its own
wings too
coax light
see
further when the sun lacks
the bigger
pile of stars and
so many
words to get beyond
chuck them
once we’re there
world without
end, I am
dive back
from an
age of stone, plug in
beat the
old path to beginning again
go as far
as to be gone
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23.ix.25
say spring!
so that we’ve
come to flower
now such
rising
bright the
rainleaf
equinocity
even the
stone puts out
a lichen
traipse
map to be
read
for music
a roof in
the afterfalls
fresh
rhythm!
all
singing for it
just as
will the glisten tip
duck under
weighted limb
gathered
to song
a
spangling, one might say
all the
season jollies
a beak in the
leaves of light
breath’s mist
yet
close
jewelled to the bud
we shine
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22.ix.25
today we come together to mourn hate
solemn and
civic the occasion
and call it
respect
all the
haters come together for this
they say
that hate was gentle
they say
that hate was kind
a great
listener
one in a
million hate was
the goading
one, vicious
spouting
old empire – the slaves
and the
kitchen chains, the slurs …
this Caligula
cut down in his prime
the avatar
apotheosis
the very spectacle
of hate
and death
was hate’s finest work too
he went
down spewing forth hate at the time
hate to
warm the hater’s heart
then there
is a minute’s silence for hate
a private
moment to reflect, for prayer
as if they
were by tumbril come
hell
loosed, all the devils here
monsters
of the Id
some of
hate’s mourners are overcome with emotion
they know
very well though t hate rises again
they
borrow from the gospel of light
take rote
comfort there
as if angels
were with them
one by one,
to the rostrum
and far
far better, so far from grace
the bladed
tongue of privilege
weapons
arrayed to praise
hate’s
paroxysm in the public square
and all
the haters mourn
they do it
with the big lie
a lie that’s
bigger than any of them
the
greatest lie ever told
it’s bigger
than the superbowl
the emperor
is here as well
(thank God
the emperor wears cloths)
they
shoulder along hate’s coffin
keep the
grave shallow
where hate
will rise
theirs is
sure and certain knowledge
and now we
know
they come
not to bury
but to
praise hate
see these
ones with the guns, with the money
come to
tell us how hate was their fine friend
how
reasonable hate was
how you
can understand
it’s not
so hard, is it?
because
you’re a hater too
hate made
you what you are
how the memory
of hate must live forever
and put up
a monument too
all the
bad things you heard about hate
they tell us
these things are untrue
a lovely
pointed hat
a burning
cross on the lawn
the noose
remember
the Inquisition?
not so far
back
delusion
of the warrior
to think
hate could be slain
now hate’s
widow forgives the bullet
the fool
who made the martyr
though a
bullet could never kill
hate’s
stronger than your guns
the widow takes
up a cudgel
here’s a
woe betide
you do
know it’s all biblical
have you
noticed how hate can turn on a dime?
some say
excess of love until
hate’s a saint
of the pantheon now
they come to
bury hate, they say
with all
pomp and malice aforethought
but hate
still has a story to tell
we must be
courteous and listen
lest haters
take offence
they’re
shy and shrinking in abomination
hate sits
up smiling in his grave
we wouldn’t
be here without him
that’s what
some of them say
they’re
singing their songs of hate
they’re
praying for hate
they’re
building hate’s legacy already
it’s a
righteous fury they have
all the
better to hate you with
unless,
unless … you hate with us
you’re one
of us, and made of hate
sword in
the whip hand
plinth mounted
soon the statue
of hate
is
wherever you go
else punitive
measures await
and yes
this is the
greatest lie ever told
lie still
telling today
tomorrow the
lie will be bigger
you’ll
see!
I will not
show his picture
I will not
say his name
9.
GO IN
FEAR OF ABSTRACTIONS
The
small poem can be a scale model for the longer poem to come. And vice versa.
The long rambling poem that might not be quite working (or not yet) may contain
the perfect smaller poem (or poems). The secret ingredients here are time and
distance. The formula to apply here is TIME = DISTANCE. You need to get away
and to come back to the work/s fresh in order to get a sense of what will work,
in order to know where you are.
That nasty
fascist, Ezra Pound, had a number of important and helpful observations about
writing and poetry. One of my favourites (I’m sure you’ve heard me quote it) is
go in fear of abstractions.
Abstractions
are the great deep and meaningful trap for all writers, but especially for
poets. It makes sense that many poets are very interested in the big picture –
life the universe and everything. (There are other poets more interested in the
minutiae of life and matter… and there are those who want to join the micro to
the macro. There are all sorts!) An excess of abstraction is however whatever
is frequently wrong with poetry that is not working.
What’s abstract
is far from the fact, far from sensory experience, from what we can know
through seeing, through touch, through hearing, through smell, through taste. The
poem dominated by abstraction is a case of ‘nothing to see here’. And when there’s nothing to see, hear, touch,
taste, smell – well, why bother being there? To engage a reader involves
lending them sensate experience. Plot is helpful too. But even if nothing
happens in a poem, you can be there if there’s something happening for
your senses.
Homo
proponit – deus disponit!
(Man
proposes – God disposes)
But here
the roles are reversed! You are the god
of your poem. The reader makes short work of what can’t be experienced in your
poem. ‘So long lives this…’ said Shakespeare, when he was praising his own
craft. Most poems are much more mortal than their makers!
The poet
makes a world but unless the reader can see/hear/touch/taste/smell it, well, it’s
like that philosophical tree in the forest … falling, without a witness.
In a way
it all comes down to the question of how much work you can expect your reader
to do. How far apart can the dots be and the reader still able to join them?
The poem
with too much abstraction is like a sky where everything is so many light years
from everything else, that no one will see where they’re going and no one will ever
arrive!
Concretizing
an abstraction – anchoring the idea in experience
In this
exercise, we give a poem an abstract theme, but observe the discipline of writing
about it (or taking that theme as a point of departure) without resorting to abstraction at all in the body of
a poem.
Choose
one of the following abstractions for your theme (or add your own to the list)
death
love
the good
the bad
the ugly
grief
joy
hope
anger
freedom
poetry/
the poem
Note
that these are topics and not titles. You might want to give the poem a riddling
quality by NOT disclosing, from the outset, what it’s about …
Try to
create a poem that deals with one of these topics without using a single
abstraction … i.e. present the reader with images (that work for any of the
five senses), with events
Tell the
reader what is happening or has happened or will happen, what can be seen,
touched, heard, smelt, tasted…
When you’ve
created a draft, go over it with a fine toothed comb to make sure that
abstraction hasn’t crept in… It’s actually harder to avoid than you might think.
Think of
Dickinson’s ‘hope is the thing with feathers’ … how with those few words we are
immediately on a journey… we might not be able to guess where we’ll end up, but
we can see where we’re going and feel that we’re on the way …
Dickinson
is really the gold standard in this activity – think of ‘I’m nobody. Who are
you?’ It’s all rather abstract until we meet the frogs and then we know exactly
where we are!
Keep it
simple! Find the most straightforward
possible image to express what you want to express about the abstract idea with
which you have chosen to deal.
Apply Brecht’s
principle here, (as expressed in what is often cited as his second last poem) –
And I
always thought the simplest words must be enough.
When
I say how things are, everyone’s heart must be torn to shreds.
You’ll
go down if you don’t stand up for yourself.
Surely
you see that?
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21.ix.25
one more for the birds
as loud as
light
flit
their
world is all the outward air
lizardly
cloud with a tail up there
so many
songs
the one
day bright
as to a
proof
so many
more than us they are
five to
one
little
dinosaurs
at twig’s,
at leaf’s end
see into
our otherland
and
raucous
sing the
windows wide
they tell
themselves to snakes
in out of
treefold
hard
partying
and have
we told laughter?
they dance
into the upper reaches
and ten k’s
high
though
some ask why
what’s
mortality to them?
time is
the cliff from which all fall
a forest’s
afoot in these wings
