You should never go it alone

These lines were put together from an observation I made about self-publishing.

You should never go it alone

You need all the help you can get

The Roulette Wheel of life

doesn’t pay on a single bet

Advice to a skateboarding actor

So if you want to write in better verse

With Pentads flowing from your mental pen

Avoiding any urge to make a rhyme

Look out for rhythms everywhere you go.

Not just in theatre. As you skateboard past

Shops, hoardings, buildings, bridges, Ads

Etc. Later, pause. There’s a good reason

To spring a different rhythm. It is OK.

Cunning Will broke up the ‘dum ti dum’

For effect. To affect. To attract. To amuse. To disturb.

Although deep in the lines the DNA

Preserves intact that spinal rule of five.

TR October 2015

Where did it go, that dream?

Lost. It has been months since I wrote. In the garden, I newly see unruly shrubs and craters wrecking them which have appeared overnight. Wanton. The marking of aliens. Albert and the others are hiding. Tree branches have been ripped down but by what force?

Then the dream. It was like Caliban’s dream who woke up and howled in rage that he could not live his dream’s thousand sounds and sweetnesses.

Only one thought which sounded like a poem’s start.

Where did it go that dream?
Grasped nearly in the sheds of night …

A poet would want to finish it. Say it. Write it.

I will not.
I am
no
poet

A Yuletide Message: Find the Poet

Funny how you can try as hard as you can to be original, and find you have been throughly influenced by someone else’s thoughts. I wrote this and later noticed how close it is, in rhythm and even in the final sentiment, to a poem I studied as a Schoolboy.

Hint: The original influence was a poem written as the 19th century was ending …

Half and half

Five thousand solstices ago
Among the Celtic hills
The ancients took up mistletoe
Drank mead from early Stills

Far from those times, the lore persists
and Yuletide celebrations
Which started in a land of mists
Now reach to other Nations

The ancients greet the passing year
And celebrate the light.
For half the globe, the shortest day
For half, the shortest night.

Who ever cares beyond the cave
and seeks a wider home
share this, and in its sharing hold
more hope for times to come

TWITTERHAIKU

I have consistently refused to join Twitter, but with help from friends I can’t help noticing its remarkable and growing influence on everyday life.

Recently, Albert drew my attention to Twitter Haiku. I assume it was from Albert. I recognized the tell-tale smeary trail across the window pane. A smail of few words, Albert had set a terse question: “Twitter Haiku?”

Twitter Haiku? Why not, I wondered. Twitter seems an admirable medium for poets. Its favoured son Stephen Fry adores poetry. The one hundred and forty characters rule hints at a near-perfect burst of arrows. Fourteen lines with ten bits a line: the ancient stable for a sonnet. Why not write Haiku and post them to Twitter?

Why not indeed? And call them Twaiku. Yoko Ono recently judged a Twitter Hiaku competition:

To submit haikus, commuters have to place the prefix @kingsplace so their entries will be picked up by the Kings Place Twitter account. The best contributions are then moderated and appear within minutes on the largest digital billboard at the station. The initiative has been launched by Kings Place, a cultural and conference centre, situated in Kings Cross.

The winner was Simon Brake, a London commuter and designer.

A Haiku has a purity that defies tyrants and spies alike. Maybe Twitter will embrace Haiku. Long may Haiku reveal their truths in a confusing and threatening World.

TWITTERHAIKU

Writing a Haiku
Lines on autumn papyrus
Converge. Star streams

Waters paint the land
With lead grey strokes. Arches yield,
Expire. Patience

The Reluctant Twitterer

TWITTER FIFTEEN THE SAME CROOKED WORM

The same crooked worm
crawls between the Twitter sheets

I hear about it
The worm whose name
must not be spoken

Like other ghosts
It is best left
unsummoned
to scuffle
in the leaf mound