Saturday 10 September 2011

Isthmus, Dulcet, Hemisphere.


After the frenzy of my mini-haiku-ish poems last week we are back with 'normal' poems now. I don't think they are normal. Have I ever said on here how much I hate normal? I really do. Again all of the ideas behind the random words come from my friends over on Etsy. Links to their shops are through the shop names - go have a look and find something amazing for yourself or a friend.
Meanwhile some of these have been really tricky. 

Artangel gave me “Ethereal, Whisper, Dulcet” to write something from:

“Sweetie”
The street, quiet of cars wound to the
left to show a bright pink door.
A pure scent of hot sugar hit the passers-by
and trickled through them like a whisper promising more.
Touch, taste. Joy to follow the promise.
Dulcet songs of daisy fields
washed across the room and rolled
back towards our strained ears.
Food delivered in high platters of
ethereal tastes and otherworldly textures
making a cornucopia with plenty to eat in
a world full of easy light and bright pastel.
A home found easily and never quite
returned to more than once, never left.

Michaela & Richard of frenchandgodbold gave me "isthmus, ash, equation" a long time ago now and I have been thinking about it ever since, it took me a long time to find a way of getting the words to do what I wanted but finally I came up with this:

“Library”
Wallpaper the colour of ash and soft silk
covered the room and
seeped into the narrow isthmus leading far away.
Beyond its secrets a world of
books waiting to be found –
no longer behind barriers and alarms
but open to the dust and skin.
Only at night when the ghosts come out
to reclaim their possessions and move
the heavy drapes can the words be set free.
Ready to read.
A home turned to a museum
trapping written ideas like flies on paper.
A human equation of money
breaking the rules and forgetting
what matters from the past.


Wendyelf herself gave me "warble, crystal, hemisphere" to work with.

"Odette"
Two men work side by side in the summer
furnace they have always known.
All at once a sphere and a hemisphere
then transformed into a new life.
A crystal swan kept by his
little girl to remind her
of his hands and their wonder.
the warble of a long extinct bird
carries into the studio and the glass
shakes and mumbles but remains strong.
The past cannot get in, every single thing
is preserved by old fires and a dying skill.

All in all these were much harder than the last couple of batches but I seem to be thinking that a lot recently - maybe now we are so far through (we are approaching 50 if anyone wanted to know) I am finding it harder to get new ideas. New sets of words are starting to remind me of old ones that I have already done so I'm trying to keep them out of the poem and still find a way of working the words in. Having said that I am still really enjoying this as a way of writing and am very grateful that I have so many good ideas coming my way.

I'm still not quite there with the ideas though - I need a few more. There are some people who I am planning on pestering but if anyone hasn't given me any words yet, I would love to hear from you. I'm not doing any duplicates unless I run out of ideas, then I'll go back and use the spare sets from people who have already helped me write one.

Vick.

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