Sunday Pomes & Words, 07/04/2024 - Kundalini Eighteen & Nineteen
Two poems, from a sad & angry time
This week I decided to do some more poetry. Proper poetry, that is, not the contrived tosh that passeth for poetry these days, but real poetry. Today, it all seems to be pretentiously flowery ultimately meaningless (to anyone except the one who wrote it) lines arranged on a page to look like poetry. But that’s not poetry. Poetry should have an aesthetic, it should scan and roam and rhythm and ignite, and maybe bite too sometimes. Maybe the bad guys mean to destroy poetry, I wouldn’t be surprised. They hate the aesthetic, because it’s something they can never have, because they have barbarian souls.
They can make money out of it, though. There are courses available nowadays, you see, luring those who have been deceived by the idea that ‘everyone has a novel inside them’ and ‘write what you know’ and ‘of course people will be interested to read about your autobiographical anecdotes, just sign here’. It’s a scam, of course. And then there’s Amazon self-publishing for their indulgences. Call it neoliberalism, then - saturating the market with sludge to conceal the gems from view.
It doesn’t sell, but it’s mine.
Am I bitter? No, of course not!
Here are some poems, from when I was twenty years younger and upset. For a real writer, being upset is good. Especially for poetry. At least, if you want it to be powerful and forceful and have some meaning to it. I don’t think you can write poetry when you’re content. And if I remember correctly they’d put me on Prozac at the time, so that probably explained a lot. Fortunately I didn’t stay on it too long, but during that time I wrote furiously. Nevertheless, I don’t recommend it.
Anyhow, these are two of my favourites from that time, both from an unpublished collection I put together which I called ‘Kundalini’. Why did I call it that? I don’t know. I think it had lots of snakes in, perhaps. Something like that. It popped into my head and I didn’t think to change it, so it stuck.
The first one is called Respite (although you could read it as it re-spite), and the second is called Old White Lion, which is the name of a pub in Norwich, England. Which did some fine real ales, if I recall correctly. That’s something I do recommend. It’s a fine city, is Norwich.
If you like these two poems, please do click the like button, so then I’ll know. If you don’t like them, well, don’t. Then I’ll know that too.
Oh - and for my science fiction fans amongst my subscribers, the next post will be for you during the week. I haven’t done enough for you lately, so that will change.
Aside from anything else, I wouldn’t want to be typecast now, would I?
Respite
Your new lover is just a concept, Feels like fucking nothing When my imaging torques and strains Like London to Brighton in spring, And I am rocks on the sea, Shored up emotions, trained to disbelieve, Fragments and perilous waves, Trying tides for all my lost strength, Canter against the Celtic chorus, Bach in a knave, and you, I remember you found a stone that time Beach picking like a cardiac bird And pocketed my heart for ever.
Old White Lion
See the man stand In full grand view of the spectacled sensing Filtered through a lens of longing The world Roars Spins fast around the tarmac And back Thrashes to the end of the glass In full view These philtres of belonging These spiralling seasons, coming up fast for air Seems fantastic now to think of her, A girl Begins to seep from these deep cracks And crashes To the barroom floor In full view. Time is an old man drinking Head cracked open dis-plays everything Splayed memories gone ambition For all to see Age is merely youth gone mad, A devious displacement.
See you next Sunday…
Well, it turned out to be a Saturday…