Moments Frozen In Time (a.k.a. Memories and Landmarks)

Hullo!

I've been rather busy lately, contending with an onslaught of essays (the worst bunch I've seen in a while, I must admit) so I obviously haven't had much time to do any leisure writing of my own, let alone blogging anything of worth. However today looks to have brought something both interesting and inspiring.
Memories. 'From the corner of my mind...' Ahem, excuse me. What I meant to say was that memories have been the basis of my pondering for today. Although you might not class them as particularly fascinating memories, two have caused the right hemisphere of my brain to perk up. And the resulting pieces are a rather long scroll-down below.
But first a brief description of both:

"OLD HAUNT" - This is a tanka poem (for all of you not in the know about Japanese poetry, a tanka is essentially a haiku with an extra pair of seven-syllable lines tagged on at the end) about returning to a house that I formerly lived in. I had my first proper experience of the strange sensation yesterday evening when two friends, who I met in my first year uni accomodation last year, dragged me back to the place. Living there again for this year, they gave me a guided tour of all three floors, pointing out where things have changed (more often for the worst) and presenting me to the rather indifferent fresher tenants (yes - not introducing, presenting). During the visit I felt rather weird about it all; it was all familiar but very different at exactly the same time. This ambivalence grew into a rather neat little poem.

"THE FINAL MOTION" - This is (yet) another free-verse poem, about the closing-down of a city landmark: The Sheffield Eye. Crossing the giant wheel on my way in and out of the city centre I noticed every day that a new stage of decimation had been reached and I felt a rather curious pang every time. As a result I just had to put pen to paper and express my poring feelings through prose...like any other bloke.
Just like the work to tear the Wheel down, my poem is going through a few stages. Changes will continue to be made until further notice. I apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

Anyhoo, here are the actual poems:



OLD HAUNT

The grown ghost of me
hobbles through the threshold and
the walls of my past.

And the memories stalk me -
I glance twice and they're refreshed.


THE FINAL MOTION

Within a day,
the revolution ceased.

Its limbs were the first,
each flailing fist
dissected with haste -

then the circle was
snapped, leaving a
hollow curve standing -

the final bones fell,
were stacked aside:
the last sacrifice -

then there was a square,
a former patch
for a former stand.

Within a day,
the execution pleased.


'Memory, all alone in the moonlight...' I thank you! Goodnight! :D.

Mr. Pondersome