flower photography – Page 16 – don't confuse the narrator

spa’ku

We laze in jasmine-scented waters
while stainless steel appliances
fart us into relaxation.

As usual, it’s a fragment rather than a hai’ku. You can read more such pieces here on the blog, or check out my multimedia collection Poems from the Pueblo: haiku and assorted fragments. (The link takes you to the publisher’s video on Vimeo).

writing it slow

Years ago, I wrote a long and rambling free verse poem that started “My mother makes sloe gin”. It was a runner up in a poetry competition, but despite the minor success, I was aware that it was rather flabby; I think I’ve been trying to force it into some kind of form for near on a decade.

That said, I had completely forgotten this version, which I think must have been written some time last year for a sonnet competition and abandoned when it wouldn’t conform to the formal constraints. Since the sloe trees are in full bloom this weekend, it seems a good time to post it:
Continue reading “writing it slow”

of death and celandines

The past week has been less than positive in many ways and, judging from the screenshot below, I’m not the only person to feel that way.

BBC headlines May 3 2013 - it's all about death

Of the headlines for the top ten most popular stories, five contain a variant of the word ‘death’.

Whether the local election results (stories 1 and 2) have anything to do with the BBC readers’ apparent morbid obsession, I don’t know.

Perhaps they’ve been unable to get through to the new NHS 111 service (story 10) and while waiting for their urgent but non-life-threatening health problems to be attended to they have felt the need to console themselves with reading how things could be worse.

The screenshot is from a couple of days ago (“thanks!” to the reader who sent it to me) and it suited this week’s aura of negativity.

I was beginning to feel things were never going to improve.
Continue reading “of death and celandines”

“the dreams of Gods”

A couple of weeks ago I was trying to locate a half-remembered short story. My “google fu” is not what I thought, apparently, and the story remained unidentified until I reached home and had access to my own bookshelves. Here, I found the story in the first book I opened.

It was Lovecraft’s Poetry and the Gods. (Easily found online now I know precisely what I’m looking for.)

Skimming through the story, I find this lovely snipe at modern poetry: Continue reading ““the dreams of Gods””

drop by drop

Well, I’m back in the pueblo and the weather is wet and wild. Yesterday evening there was a brief pause in the downpour, though, and I managed to take a few pictures. (As always, you can click each photo to see a larger version.)

I love the way the raindrops and buds work together, but I need to practise more to get the pictures I really want. A little sunshine might help, too.