#inktober 10. FLOWING

 

Writing in copperplate is harder than it looks! It seemed appropriate though for the content. There’s often play in poetry and this riff on flowing is all about play. Not a very successful poem but it highlights to me how much I play during the editing process. This semi-editing, which is more ‘think before you write’ only gets the poem part way there and I’m so used to the instant edit of typing, adjusting the raw material as I go to get a basic sense of something. Then going back in to cut, add, disrupt and fine-tune. Does that make digitals lazy? Maybe. No. It’s just a different pace.

 

If a floe is flowing at glacial speeds

it flows a glacial speed in floes.

A speeding floe flows glacially

and glacial speed is floe-flowing

~ going at a glacial pace is FAST

 

 

#inktober 9. PRECIOUS

 

 

I am struck, again, by the slowness of this process of dipping a quill into an ink pot and writing: one word, a series of letters, making the short marks that form the patterns we call language. Added to this the immediate fixity of the word, the permanence. I suppose there are ways of editing the hand-written but for the purposes of this InkTober challenge I am choosing to leave the marks as they come. If I had been writing this on a computer, I would already be editing, changing ‘lull’ to ‘fug’ or ‘fog’ and then back again possibly, or adding a syllable here or there for rhythmic consistency. As it is, the raw work, faces me on the page. It is.

 

A precious evil

he shows us why truth 

matters, when respect 

falls, where decency

staggers, how generosity

dies, what ‘freedom’

incarcerates and buries

in unmarked graves. 

He is the flaming beacon

on our deadliest shore

(o it’s always been there) 

in his bleaching glare 

it must be mapped 

we must lose no more 

ships in the precious lull 

we call civilised society.

#inktober 8. STAR

 

A celebration day poem. How light and airy we feel after good news, in contrast to the darkening leaden limbs of a body under stress.

 

Small creatures of myself

come out! Shy scaly ones

winged and footed and bare legged

ones, shiny snouted round ones.

Come out and gather your smallnesses

under this star.

There are other stars

millions, but this one

is yours dear creatures. Dance!

 

#inktober 7. EXHAUSTED

 

Well I could really write a lot about being exhausted today, especially. In the end, I went for the show rather than tell approach. It’s fun to play with the page as an object and the poem as an object. Like placing an object on a shelf. I’m enjoying the inkiness of this experiment and how aware I’m becoming of the act of mark making. That the words are marks first and meaning second.

#inktober 6. DROOLING

 

Some words, when borrowed is all I have. Drooling left me dry. Who knew Kevin Keegan was a solution.

#inktober 5. CHICKEN

 

This daily writing, direct to the page, is becoming an interesting hybrid of page design and poetry. I’m enjoying the ink more, not just as a writing tool but for the unpredictability of the nib which sometimes splodges to obscure meaning. This is frustrating and exciting. I’m also re-discovering my handwriting and how illegible it is. No wonder I prefer typing!

 

At the end of the garden

is a coop.

Fear is like a head of cabbage

tossed into the run.

Outstretched feathered necks

scamper towards the thud

even before they know what it is.

Meanwhile, a hen, inside the coop

warm bellied in half-eyed meditation

waits.

 

#inktober 4. SPELL

 

A Spell For Poetry

May all your madnesses grow horns

bite the heads off gingerbreads

dunk your naked butts in a paddling pool

squint your smiling eyes at the sun

turn everyday cake into tractors

fly real fish through a plastic blue sky

hold your teddies close — the brown one and the paler

balance a polar bear on your laptop

& say goodbye with [a grin] an edit

#inktober 3. ROASTED

 

Roasted – what a suck work. Or so I thought. So I thought… of rocks. How high temperatures cause rock reinforcement but then at higher temperatures still, their strength decreases rapidly. I’m like that. Friction stress and pressure work to first consolidate me, then if it continues to increase, I decline rapidly! Pressure is working to condense my material today. There will come a day where the natural fault zone of my writing slides though and whoosh! We are all vulnerable.

 

THE LOSS OF BEAUTY

MADE US SAD

#inktober 2. TRANQUIL

 

This is such an interesting process. Today I was very aware of getting away from yesterday’s ‘need to be poetic’ pressure. What also rose up today, is my sense of my own resistance to this ‘writing by hand’ business which shows up in the sarcastic tone about the clichés of tranquil scenes. Interesting!

For a wilting quill — quiet will, trudging trudging on taking the steps, leaping up, lunging, planking — quiet strain and sweaty sweat I sweat, drip pale ink, smell of limp pits and a freshwater lake with ONE boat, a sunrise woodland, scented candles and circles, any circles, sunset on a tranquil sea with probably pan-pipes playing / oooing  / aaahing / piping out my present. Come on — PLACID PEN / PLEASANT QUILL –I’ll walk you into the city, all bllurr *BLURR and bang. All the buildings stuck with post-it notes of extreme business busyness byingness. Busy city. Tranquility.

#inktober 1. POISONOUS

 

This is so hard! I’m used to the editing freedom of the keyboard. Writing by hand is a whole nuther thing. Already I want to edit and re-arrange, erase and change. But here it is. Raw writing from today’s preoccupations.

 

Pleasure can heap up in small piles

Once the autumn leaves make ruffled

Islands on the grassy

Sea — no leaf-blown tsunami,

Only summer’s loose debris flying

Nowhere and everywhere at my feet.

Over the equator in Indonesia,

Unbounded nature snatches up souls

Survivors can never rake from the sea.