Category: Poem a Day

In his poem ‘Lamia’ John Keats used the phrases ‘cold philosophy’ and ‘unweave a rainbow’ to lament science’s cold deconstruction of a rainbow into seven colours.

According to Richard Dawkins, however, when discussing his book Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder , the opposite is true: solved mysteries reveal deeper beauty and as such, science can be the inspiration for great poetry.

Night wonder

She asks a question
about the halo of ice crystals
around Adelaide’s half moon tonight
and the conversation flickers
around reflected light
and lunar bows,
a rainbow’s shyer sibling,
its darker moonlit twin.

Cold philosophy
may have unweaved rainbows
but has yet
to whet its blade
on moonbows,
long abandoned by leprechauns
with pots of gold in tow.

I wrote today’s poem after reading a prompt suggested by Robert Lee Brewer two days ago at Writers’ Digest over here. The prompt: to write an impossible poem.

The whisper

You cannot write an impossible poem,
‘they’ say.
(Why do I refer to faceless, nameless experts
to underpin arguments,
to reinforce doubts,
to underscore futility?
‘They’ often get their way
and in my way).

Every impossible poem whispers ‘I’m possible’
and if I hear it
I write it,
therefore only possible poems exist.

I find that the probable poems
are most unlikely.

Today, day 17, I played with randomness.

I wrote a phrase, ‘The empty basket of wonder’. Then, I wrote lists, independently, of close rhymes for ’empty’, ‘basket’ and ‘wonder’. After that I ordered each list alphabetically.

Today’s poem is a list of those phrases, with the first phrase being the ‘control’.

I love interesting and unexpected results!

Random 17 wonders

The empty basket of wonder.
The angry anklet of blunder.
The bendy bandit of comfort.
The brandy banquet of drunkard.
The cranky biscuit of hunger.
The friendly blanket of jumper.
The handy classic of monster.
The manky credit of number.
The phlegmy dammit of puncture.
The plenty elastic of runner.
The randy facet of slumber.
The sandy gadget of songster.
The scanty hamlet of summer.
The swanky magnet of sunder.
The testy palette of thunder.
The trendy plastic of tumbler.
The twenty respite of under.
The zesty tablet of youngster.

Today I spent some time researching mind mapping software.

Oh hello, poem number 16.

I might develop this idea further.

Cartographer

Like a spidery weather pattern
my ideas are mapped on screen;
coloured lines like isobars
associate words,
connect concepts.

My ideas,
precipitated by incessant rainstorms
and erupting volcanoes of my thinking systems.
How do I map these internal topographies?

Over time, I have felt
my coastlines of conviction erode,
my oceans of hope evaporate,
fissure vents rupture my meadows of joy.
Every day I witness
climate change.

Today’s poem is probably half the size it could be due to it being half-way to the end of this poem-a-day project.

Are we there yet?

Half way,
where the distance ahead
equals the distance travelled:
there to there divided by two.

You and I measure our closeness in silence.

Half way,
the middle ground
for optimists and pessimists.

Here we ramble, you and I.

Half way,
where a fence-sitter perches
before making a decision.

Our fences are flimsy.

Half way,
signalling the end of a beginning
and the imminence of finish.

You and I are our better halves.

Day 14’s poem.

Left

You never know what you will find
in an op shop;
discarded trash
becomes your treasure;
someone’s boredom
with their wardrobe
yields designer brands
and other riches
at recycle prices.
Sometimes, like Russian nested dolls,
you might uncover treasure within treasure:
I have found a five-dollar note
in the pocket of pristine Esprit jeans ($15),
an Italian business card case
zipped into a Kenneth Cole handbag ($6),
a first edition of Seamus Heaney’s North
with his signature on the title page ($5),
and once,
tucked into the lining of a blue Yves St Laurent jacket (₤35),
a crumpled, black-inked note
from ‘Jean-Pierre’ to ‘Rose’
confessing several affairs and
wishing her all the best.

Lovely and talented Irish poet Eleanor Hooker posted a link on Facebook to linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky delivering a lecture in Dublin. He discusses the fundamental nature of language and what it is designed for. He opened by defining language as ‘sound with meaning’.

Irish clergyman Edward Hincks (born in 1792) was one of the decipherers of Mesopotamian cuneiform (cuneiform script is one of the earliest known systems of writing).

And so, today’s poem.

Decipherment

Language may be
sound with meaning
or meaning with sound
but I’ve been fumbling with wording,
mumbling in ears
for years;
my blunt reed
scores cuneiform script
that no-one can read
on clay tablets
that bake
then break.
I say things I don’t mean,
say mean things,
or mean things, but don’t say them.
You are my Edward Hincks.

It’s strange, what happens, when you don’t know what you’re going to write, but start writing anyway. I was running out of time/ideas/inspiration this afternoon, then the first three lines of this poem came to me.

The biblical image of a camel passing through the eye of a needle has always fascinated me, so I looked here for common phrases that originated from the Bible.

And thus today’s poem came to be.

In the end, there’s no word

I have no sand to stand on:
it’s quick, and disappearing,
like the love in an old lover’s eyes;
like the rebel camel passing
through a needle’s eye;
like the stubborn, now dead, fly
in the ointment of the apothecary;
like the flesh, thorned,
weak despite a willing spirit.

Let my clay feet
run me far away
from the fat of lands,
run me far away
from pigs playing with pearls
to the ends of the salted earth,
return me to ash and dust
at the foot of mountains
moved by faith.

The pinhole camera or camera obscura has been known to scholars since the time of Aristotle and Chinese philosopher Mozi (470 to 390 BCE). Mozi referred to the device as a ‘collecting plate’ or ‘locked treasure room’. (Read more here.)

camera obscura

A vision:
rapidfire mind
clickety click click click click click
remembers ancient secrets
of a locked treasure room,
frames the answer
for public viewing.
Without strain
the honest among us
see truths;
without pride
the kind among us
capture the greatness
of small miracles;
without prejudice
the fair among us
correct distortions
and with each fine grain of good
our divine future tilts
towards a pinhole of light.