This week

Too much happening this month! Luke off to America, ,Danielle back from UK.,Launch of McGregor anthology. McGregor Poetry festival. How to fit it all in? But then I always  am quite busy. I used to think that when I was as old as I am now, I would be leading a dull and quiet life. How lucky to be living in the 21st Century! So many new and exciting discoveries. (I have just been reading about the discovery of two earth-sized planets in the Goldilocks zone of a cool (in temperature ) star only 40 light-years away.) So many new and exciting gadgets( although the technology is a bit beyond me) Of course the world is in a mess, with all sorts of disasters threatening it, but then hasn't it been threatened by  disasters for most of my life?  The difference is that now I am unlikely to live to see them come about. At McGregor Stephanie and  are doing a presentation entitled It's only being so cheerful..  At our age we might as well be cheeerful. There are not many years left. We should enjoy them as long as we can.

One of the exercises in the poetry course I have just completed, was to write an imagist poem describing a certain  object. I am not sure whether this poem fits the criteria and can be properly called imagist, but after making the  changes suggested on the course, I am quite pleased with it. The changes were mostly to do with the form -- splitting it into three stanzas and changing the line breaks. I was very surprised at how much such small alterations improved the poem.

Sharpened Visions

I have not visited my blog for more than a month. I have been so busy. with this Mooc, (Sharpened visions on Coursera). I can recommend it to any aspiring poet. Douglas Kearney, who conducts it, is a noted poet himself.  Although I can't make head or tail out of poems of his that I have read, he is an excellent teacher of poetry. He does not dictate,or criticise, but rather provides inspiration, by means of prompts for poems and suggestions for writing them. The most useful of his suggestions are those for re-writing and improving your poems.. As with all Moocs, peers review  your work and give feedback. In my case I found nearly all their comments were helpful and made for better poems.

Here are some of the poems I wrote on this course.

THE LAUNDROMAT OF LONELINESS

This is the place where single people come

from bed-sitters and rented rooms.

They sit on slatted wooden benches.

and listen to the whirring noise

of wash machines and tumble driers.

Avoiding one another’s gaze

they bury noses in worn paperbacks,

while faded towels and pillowcases

whirl round with unpaired socks and

threadbare underclothes.

TOAD IN A HOLE 

A shriek from Gairo, my domestic worker

A frog!  a frog! It’s in the shower room.

I run to see compressed there in a corner

a little shiny, round medallion, yellow

with blotch of  black and spots of scarlet.

 It is a tiny baby leopard toad.

A species, rare, endangered by the shrinkage

of habitat and threatened now by us.

We cannot leave it there, but do not wish

to squash with careless hand its softness

or let our fingers feel its slimy, toxic skin

I take a floppy, large spaghetti mop

and try to sweep the creature out the door

It doesn’t work; the mop is far too soft

I poke it with a canvas covered toe.

My foot is much too big to fit the niche

the animal is using as its shelter.

I take a kitchen towel and as it leaps away

I fling the towel over its elongated form,

grab it and wrap it tight, and then

I take it to the garden pond and let it go

and Gairo stops her shivering and startst

to clean all trace of frog out of the house

FROG LIPOGRAM

Boss off to loo

Frog on loo floor

Boss cross.

Oh! Oh!

Frog on loo floor

not cool.

Frog got to go.

How?

Mop no good,

too soft

foot no good

too gross

Stop! 

Cloth?

Throw cloth on frog

fold hold

boot frog to pond

Look Boss

Look Boss

No Frog

.

WRECK OF THE KAKAPO revised

We see the boiler and the rudder of the wreck

Between the ribs sand covers all the deck.

The rest of it lies buried far below.

She ran aground a hundred years ago

There was no loss of life, no dead.

The crew just jumped onto the sand and fled

The captain stayed for months alone on board

He hid for shame. He would not say a word

The captain knew that everyone would say

It was his fault the ship lay where she lay

He should have kept her safely as a son

Not see her wrecked before her voyage was done

The captain beat his breast; he tore his hair,

quite overcome by sorrow and despair.

Always as long as he drew breath

he would regret this day until his death.

That stormy day, the waves were big and wild

The wind wailed loudly like a tortured child

The surf pounded the shore, thundering aloud

The gale shook masts and rattled every shroud

To port a cliff was seen to rise up high

It’s shape was clear against the sky

The captain cried above the storm’s harsh sound

“Good helmsman, turn the ship around.

I see Cape Point behind it is False Bay,

and a harbour where our ship can safely stay

(but no one could have been as wrong as he)

Full-speed ahead the ship rushed from the sea

She dug herself into the sand so fair and square

That a century later she’s still sitting there

of Cape History just a tiny part

a ship’s wreck, a captain’s broken heart

DREARY DRAPES

(Note: In the Old Age Complex where I live we are required to have only neutral colours at all the windows.)

Twin censors of sight,

two lengths of  calico,

three metres up and three across

cover my bedroom window.

They cut out light and block the view

of trees and sky.

At the ceiling they deform

in pebbly gathers,

dirt-road corrugations from which flow

beige mudslides,

Cascades of silty ripples undulate sideways,

grow into waves and

billow at the floor

But at the centre where they meet,

they grudgingly allow

slivers of sunlight

to sidle through

and make the dust-motes

dance.