This week's Poetry Bus mission is to look at four images on this post over at the Swiss Lounge and then get on and do some of that poetry business. Perhaps unsurprisingly I started with this picture:
and wrote the following poem. I haven't done a rhymer for a couple of weeks...so it was bound to happen about now. A successful, unpredictable rhyme just makes me feel good...it's like good tunes, real emotion, warm sunshine...even if the topic's low in places the rhyme can do something clever and give the brain that little reward that takes it up high. At least that's how it seems to me anyway...but I am aware this is not a popular view amongst poets currently (bah, poets...what do they know?).
Off
There's a crowd at the bottom of the sacred bed
'Your chart looks bad' are the words first said
Then 'the stars have called and their view is clear
Say your last goodbyes 'cos you're out of here'
So the body in the bed feels sad and blue
Well, condemned like that, wouldn't you do too?
And the crowd looks sure but it could be wrong
Who's to say this route won't run on and on?
'I don't want to leave yet' moots the lying voice
A tad hopeful re the powers of consumer choice
'Can't you make me better, can't you put me right?
I'll make it worth your while, I'll set the world alight!'
But the crowd looks down at the chart once more
Shakes a communal head, makes for communal door
And the soul's left bare with its cage laid low
And it struggles and it sighs and it's aching so
RF 2010
After that poem was out I found I was also quite taken with one of the other images too...this one:
So I then wrote a little completely rhyme-less poem with the above in mind (less tune, less light, less words...but still doing something, I think). Most of all I like variety, you know...in writing and in everything...it is my religion, sort of.
Fresh eyes
You're very far away
And there is weather
Someone is painting you
Change shot by change
RF 2010
But people, if you want some really good poems go to my last post...I put some Philip Larkin up there!
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35 comments:
Not looking yet! Are there worms on offer?
I just can't focus on one photograph...
Nice one Rachel! But I'd add a final couplet - "Then someone says, with a puzzled frown / Hey, yon charts been hung up upside down" or words to that effect.
Worms? Eh?
We are the rhyming wing of the Poetry Bus, Peter (upstairs, back seat...). Hardcore!
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The early bird. Sorry for being obscure.
I LIKE the rhyming ones. :) And I secretly hope that poor soul recovers just to spite those who walked away. ;)
Ah, the second one makes me feel as if I'm peering through the Captain's glass on the bow of a ship. Nice work!
I think it was your dog photo that led me astray re worms, Titus...ugh.
Hi Hope. You are ever the optimist!
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Is there something wrong about being cheered by a poem about someone who lies dying and alone?
Ah ha, Eryl! The magic of poetry...
I'm not even sure what this is about (this first poem) though I know the image is in there, plus Swiss' fascinating now-and-again-on-the-frontline medical posts, plus the fact that I have been to a local hospital with my Mum recently (for some fairly routine appointments), plus the usual mortality nonsense that flies around the head, plus the newspapers, plus posts about the spirit, plus I've started with 'The Wire' finally...you know...everything! It's only a bit about dying.
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And everything is a bit about dying, isn't it?
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And of course it's Easter...
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Oooh! and Ahhh?
while i like the first one, the second has really grabbed me.
(and the wire!!! finally!!)
I know...'the Wire'...there's nothing else on...well, 'Glee' but there's only so much American High School a person can take...plus I've got to a dead end with movies...and a person can't read ALL the time (though I am reading AS Byatt's 'The Children's Book' and, so far, it is one of the best books I have ever read!). So, yes, 'the Wire'. About halfway through series 1.
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Yes, I like the first one and it's not the rhyme, it's the mesmerising rhythm that is so cheerfully inappropriate and works so well. And I love the repetition of "communal" and those final, deadly, two lines.
But like swiss, I'm very taken by the second. Very.
I think 'inappropriate' is where I feel at home. And that's a bit odd but unavoidable.
I had to go to wikipedia for half as hour before I could understand yours, T! My history and heraldry (and botany...)...all v.poor.
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Ditto proofreading...half AN hour.
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I'm laughing.
I am so bad at history. I ended up doing a Russian history module at uni (after not having done history since age 14) and the teacher was quite shocked and amazed by my lack of any historical background. I keep trying to improve this state of affairs but my brain just doesn't hold historical information well - it all just churns about. And yet I know a lot about 'Peanuts' (full Easter Beagle mode here today). I was Media Studies before Media Studies was really invented...
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I used to buy one "Peanuts" book a week from WH Smith at Liverpool Street on the way home from school on Fridays. Bring on the Easter Beagle! And the Great Pumpkin.
I do like the rhyme. But is she left alone? I'm sure she recovers and wanders off home to have a nice cup of tea
Titus...see you know all that too. Are there any subjects you don't know about?
EW...interesting that it's a she for you. As for going home...it's always nice to make our own endings.
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First one made me smile too, fighting spirit dies hard.
but loved the little one
'you're very far away', so straightforward and simple, but it left me with this yearning loneliness, like when you look at a photograph of someone you miss.
thanks
cfm
cfm - 'yearning' could join 'inappropriate' in Rachel's key words box I think! Thanks for your reaction though...lovely, heartwarming, loneliness-chasing.
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loved both of these.. but it's the second one does it for me the best.. odd and thought provoking !
I'm going to even things up and say the first was my favourite - just seems really frank and sad and sweet. Lovely stuff.
Good on you for getting two done!
That's odd and even covered then. Thanks for looking in Cats and Niamhs.
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Rachel, I love the final two lines of "Off" and the Title... fantastic! (Here, I thought it was a polygraph test!)
The way you connected the two photos with another exquisite piece...lovely!
" moots the lying voice"
That was my fave bit.
No. I changed my mind; the way you open-end it is the best part.
Man, can you do a lot with 4 lines and 8 words!
Kat
Thanks Jeanne and Kat - lovely comments both.
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And liked them mucho-both.The first was tres funny and the secondo strange and deep and enigmato.Less is so much more betimes!
Yes, I am enjoying rediscovering short poems!
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I'm a sucker for rhyme and rhythm so I'm plumping for the first one as my favorite by a nose - or is it a syllable? Nice to see someone else chose the ECG thing as well. If there's any room on the upstairs back seat...?
Absolutely! Come write your name on the back seat somewhere...
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''A tad hopeful re the powers of consumer choice' - now that made me laugh.
I like Fresh Eyes a lot too.
Yes, I think all the election coverage we've been getting over here snuck in there, PF!
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