Month: December 2010

Tuesday Poem – Harbour (1), by Bernadette Keating

Harbour (1)

Dead photo surface,
reminiscence, and widowed stains of shadow matter.
Metalucent cut waves and forcing
to fold into brine like pleating.

Like something that is obvious –

Carson McCullers by the sea.
Roberto Bolano by the sea.
Yukio Mishima by the sea.
Leslie Scalapino by the sea.
Tennessee Williams by the sea.

The smells that the weather has perpetually
trapped and matured. Greenhouse green
all the time.

The lean worst place is
where my parents
took us for long walks the
wind inviting fury as a friend
and my cheeks. Salty distaste and stinging.
They’d say ‘a walk along the
South Coast’ – the same word with different knowledge.

Fluid naming, no point of reference, this
water is all the same, but I don’t
mind having shags pointed out to
me.
Favourable conditions to muster sea animals in
tepid rivulets off beaks can drip
and dip my toes in twice, too familiar.

Brother who throws the seaweed
at my face, “you’re dead.” Quiet lapping
and just so, thankless dunes loom
whom never get wet.

 

Bernadette says this is part of three poems about Wellington Harbour, tied to experiences from her childhood and the present.

I love the ghostly feel of the past drifting in and out of photo-like images.

 

Tuesday Poem

Whisper down the lane – fun with synonyms

I’ve just come up with a synonym game based on ‘Whisper down the lane’ – it’s complete nonsense really but fun if you like to play with words and test your vocabulary.

 

Start with a phrase in the form of:

The adjective adjective noun verbs adverbly with adjective noun.

 

It’s good if it makes a bit of sense but the excessive use of adjectives will mean it always sounds OTT.

 

e.g The large green sprout grows ruthlessly with callous regret.

 

Now pass it to a friend (or you can play this solo) whose job is to replace each of the main words with a synonym.

 

e.g ‘large’ could mean ‘fat’; ‘green’ sometimes means ‘immature’; a ‘sprout’ could be a ‘spring’ etc.

 

so the phrase might become:

 

The fat immature spring breeds pitilessly with uncaring lament.

 

Nonsense! But keep going!

 

The chubby young helix rises heartlessly with cold grief.

 

Again!

 

The plump little curl climbs cruelly with icy pain.

 

You can pass this around until you’ve run out of synonyms or by some unlikely coincidence you come back to the original phrase – although chances are this will just become sillier and sillier:

The flabby slight twist mounts meanly with frozen hurt.


The loose minor coil scales shamefully with solid harm.


The wobbly negligible spiral balances shockingly with hard injury.

 

Uh oh!



Tuesday Poem – Advice

For Jan

She says it’s human nature to ruffle things up
just when they’ve settled down nicely.

It’s how we evolved, she says
how we covered the planet and wiped out other species

who contentedly lived their lives.
Don’t be so hard on yourself, she says.

Early civilisations crossed the Bering Strait
an arduous journey based on nothing but hope.

Some stopped in Alaska, happy to find food,
a constant shoreline

but the restless ones,
the ones who couldn’t bear to sit still

followed curiosity and found South America
made pottery, invented chocolate.

Eventually earned their siestas.
I know, I say, I should lighten up

because what can you say
to a mother who is always right.

 

Tuesday Poem