The TFE Monday experiment...

So, giving TFEs challenge a go here's my effort - five minutes, Monday at 7, just let the keyboard flow. Rubbish or genius? I'm not sure which yet...


Always late
make the world wait.
is it worth it?
neutral and earth it
plug it in, sing,
pretty as a picture
fixture mixture from my head.
enough said.
my thoughts are read.
my cheeks are red.
its all gone to my head.
Calm in the middle. looking out
up a spout, round a corner
to see what's there.
nothing, everything, thing.
ing.
but who's listening
blistering skin burning
under their grill gaze.
Smoking, scorching
run away.
couldn't stand behind what I
have to say. Sway me last
argument that I heard.
Absurd.
And happily so.
Enough.

The TFE Monday experiment...

So, giving TFEs challenge a go here's my effort - five minutes, Monday at 7, just let the keyboard flow. Rubbish or genius? I'm not sure which yet...


Always late
make the world wait.
is it worth it?
neutral and earth it
plug it in, sing,
pretty as a picture
fixture mixture from my head.
enough said.
my thoughts are read.
my cheeks are red.
its all gone to my head.
Calm in the middle. looking out
up a spout, round a corner
to see what's there.
nothing, everything, thing.
ing.
but who's listening
blistering skin burning
under their grill gaze.
Smoking, scorching
run away.
couldn't stand behind what I
have to say. Sway me last
argument that I heard.
Absurd.
And happily so.
Enough.

Too busy to blog?

I've noticed that for the past June, July and August I've averaged only three posts per month. And seeing as David Mohan provided me with at least one of those posts, its a pretty paltry tally.

Its not like nothings been happening.

Currently I've been occupied with a collapsing ceiling and flooding of my attic. My baby recently turned two. The gourds have powdery mildew, the sprouts fighting the good fight against the cabbage whites and the rhubarb has staged a miraculous death bed recovery. Friends and family have been visited with the twin trials of tweedle-doom and tweedle doomer. I've worked hard to ruin VariousCushions burgeoning radio career.

So, you see, busy.

Perhaps its just been too much happening.

And still, I can think of nothing to say.

Sigh.


Oh well, here's a poem wot I wrote.

Lividity

Love pools purple in our ankles
the pathologist tuts.Checks his watch.
Calls it.
We died two years ago.
The bacteria feast on our viscera
growing fat on blame and bitterness
We go stiff then liquid
oozing mistrust and lies into the carpet.
zip us up, what little that remains,
identify us using record.
photos of smiling happy times.
letters we wrote with love.
vows uttered. hands held.
children.
We died two years ago
Painful, agonising and slow.

Too busy to blog?

I've noticed that for the past June, July and August I've averaged only three posts per month. And seeing as David Mohan provided me with at least one of those posts, its a pretty paltry tally.

Its not like nothings been happening.

Currently I've been occupied with a collapsing ceiling and flooding of my attic. My baby recently turned two. The gourds have powdery mildew, the sprouts fighting the good fight against the cabbage whites and the rhubarb has staged a miraculous death bed recovery. Friends and family have been visited with the twin trials of tweedle-doom and tweedle doomer. I've worked hard to ruin VariousCushions burgeoning radio career.

So, you see, busy.

Perhaps its just been too much happening.

And still, I can think of nothing to say.

Sigh.


Oh well, here's a poem wot I wrote.

Lividity

Love pools purple in our ankles
the pathologist tuts.Checks his watch.
Calls it.
We died two years ago.
The bacteria feast on our viscera
growing fat on blame and bitterness
We go stiff then liquid
oozing mistrust and lies into the carpet.
zip us up, what little that remains,
identify us using record.
photos of smiling happy times.
letters we wrote with love.
vows uttered. hands held.
children.
We died two years ago
Painful, agonising and slow.

Bright Star

A treat for everyone! Here, as promised a little while ago, is a guest blog post from the talented Mr David Mohan :) He has something to tell us about a new movie coming out about the poet John Keats....

Later in the year Jane Campion’s Bright Star will reach Irish cinemas. Campion’s film focuses on the poet’s relationship with his unofficial fiancée, Fanny Brawn, in the last years of his life.

Although poetry and poets’ lives rarely translate well to celluloid – I’m thinking of the Gwyneth Paltrow vehicle Sylvia, and Julian Temple’s lives and loves of the Lake poets, Pandaemonium – there is something compelling about Keats’s story and of course, about Keats’s poetry that makes this film seem potentially interesting.

Keats is one of those poets that attracts devotion. He is a poet whose life, like Plath, attracts almost as much interest as his poetry, or at least the two interests are often intertwined. In Keats’ case this is partially due to his letters, which are justly famous as records of his both his creative and love life – they are presumably Campion’s key source material.

Part of his mystique is of course down to him dying of tuberculosis at the age of 25 – and that he knew that this was his likely fate. This knowledge informs certain poems like Ode to a Nightingale to a marked extent and makes them seem eerily prescient. His early death and the death-obsession in many of his poems overshadows everything else for some readers – one of my favourite poetic tributes is very recent – Heat and Cold by Vicki Feaver.

Keats also remains a popular poet because he is one of the most ravishingly sensual poets in the language. He is a descendent of Marlowe - he has that golden High Renaissance style married to a more earthy and humane sensibility. However, he is a dangerous master for the budding poet - even the distinctly modern William Carlos Williams admitted having to get over the stylistic influence of John Keats in his early poetry. He is, to many modern readers as sensual as he ever was, but also modern in his lush extravagance and flamboyance. I know readers of his work who see his poetry -in a very positive way - as camp.

Here is the wonderful Bright Star –

Bright Star

Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art--

Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night

And watching, with eternal lids apart,

Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,

The moving waters at their priestlike task

Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,

Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask

Of snow upon the mountains and the moors--

No--yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,

Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,

To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,

Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,

Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,

And so live ever--or else swoon to death.

Bright Star

A treat for everyone! Here, as promised a little while ago, is a guest blog post from the talented Mr David Mohan :) He has something to tell us about a new movie coming out about the poet John Keats....

Later in the year Jane Campion’s Bright Star will reach Irish cinemas. Campion’s film focuses on the poet’s relationship with his unofficial fiancée, Fanny Brawn, in the last years of his life.

Although poetry and poets’ lives rarely translate well to celluloid – I’m thinking of the Gwyneth Paltrow vehicle Sylvia, and Julian Temple’s lives and loves of the Lake poets, Pandaemonium – there is something compelling about Keats’s story and of course, about Keats’s poetry that makes this film seem potentially interesting.

Keats is one of those poets that attracts devotion. He is a poet whose life, like Plath, attracts almost as much interest as his poetry, or at least the two interests are often intertwined. In Keats’ case this is partially due to his letters, which are justly famous as records of his both his creative and love life – they are presumably Campion’s key source material.

Part of his mystique is of course down to him dying of tuberculosis at the age of 25 – and that he knew that this was his likely fate. This knowledge informs certain poems like Ode to a Nightingale to a marked extent and makes them seem eerily prescient. His early death and the death-obsession in many of his poems overshadows everything else for some readers – one of my favourite poetic tributes is very recent – Heat and Cold by Vicki Feaver.

Keats also remains a popular poet because he is one of the most ravishingly sensual poets in the language. He is a descendent of Marlowe - he has that golden High Renaissance style married to a more earthy and humane sensibility. However, he is a dangerous master for the budding poet - even the distinctly modern William Carlos Williams admitted having to get over the stylistic influence of John Keats in his early poetry. He is, to many modern readers as sensual as he ever was, but also modern in his lush extravagance and flamboyance. I know readers of his work who see his poetry -in a very positive way - as camp.

Here is the wonderful Bright Star –

Bright Star

Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art--
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors--
No--yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever--or else swoon to death.

Castlepalooza Pics

Serious Diva


Not so serious Divas


Nervous Diva



Funky Groove Thang Diva



Funky Grove Thang Diva 2


Elmo?



Extreme close up Elmo


The 'crowd' goes wild


GreenRoomTastic


Smiley Svengali Divo

Castlepalooza Pics

Serious Diva


Not so serious Divas


Nervous Diva



Funky Groove Thang Diva



Funky Grove Thang Diva 2


Elmo?



Extreme close up Elmo


The 'crowd' goes wild


GreenRoomTastic


Smiley Svengali Divo

Diva Power!

I'm really letting all my fans down on the blogging front. I've been so quiet lately.

This is because I've been headlining Castle Palooza with my wonderful sisters in writing, MsVariousCushions and Ms EmergingWriter. Aka - The Poetry Divas

We came, we saw, we declaimed!

We rocked main stage!

We were startled by the largest bag of funny cigarettes we'd ever seen!

We wore shades at night (ok, only I did, and the kids who were our fellow festival goers failed to appreciate I was doing so ironically.)

We ate free cake at 1am in the green room.

We drank champagne, beer, Guinness and vodka and ginger ale and we only moderately ill the next morning.

In short we had a blast.

And, if Boots would ever fix their photo machine, I'd post my pics.

Diva Power!

I'm really letting all my fans down on the blogging front. I've been so quiet lately.

This is because I've been headlining Castle Palooza with my wonderful sisters in writing, MsVariousCushions and Ms EmergingWriter. Aka - The Poetry Divas

We came, we saw, we declaimed!

We rocked main stage!

We were startled by the largest bag of funny cigarettes we'd ever seen!

We wore shades at night (ok, only I did, and the kids who were our fellow festival goers failed to appreciate I was doing so ironically.)

We ate free cake at 1am in the green room.

We drank champagne, beer, Guinness and vodka and ginger ale and we only moderately ill the next morning.

In short we had a blast.

And, if Boots would ever fix their photo machine, I'd post my pics.