"Routine" and "The Great Canvas" (a.k.a. Life and Bereavement in Poetry...Well, Mine Anyway...)

Hullo all,

Just to prove that I'm still here, I thought that now would be a good opportunity to post some new poetry for you, my lovely, lovely masses! (okay, I'll stop...:D). Since my last post, amidst the compulsory slothing and "ahem" 'rigorous' job-hunting, I've been working on a pair of poems in an attempt to get back in touch with verse and the vignette. I've certainly had a lot to work with emotionally, as I'll explain in detail below.

I wrote "Routine" first. I wrote it during a rather sad week as I, along with the rest of my family, saw our beloved black labrador Ben through his final days. During this time I, in my unusual state of grief, spent a lot of time at night wondering what it would be like to not see him around the house. When I started to imagine coming downstairs the morning after, I found myself gushing with emotion and just had to transfer these thoughts to something meaningful and beautiful to me. This was what eventually came out, after much tidying up. I like to think of it as an adequate example of bereavement but, as always, I'll let you be the judge.

The second poem, "The Great Canvas", was another late-night discovery. For some reason I find that within the fleeting moments before I drift off to sleep, just as I finish collecting my thoughts and review the day; I start spewing forth intriguing lines of very promising poetry. Normally when I do, I grab my mobile phone and eagerly start writing it down and developing it in the rather handy memo section; then leave it to gestate till morning. This is one such poem. For some peculiar reason that I can scarcely recall, I got to thinking about the old saying that 'Life is just a blank slate, what matters most is what you write on it'. Then I started to think about yellow crayons and 'being caught red-handed' and came up with what I can only describe as a rather colourful piece of poetry for me.

Anyway, I leave you to enjoy them. Oh and, while your here, how about some short recorded readings of these two particular poems? Hopefully, when you scroll down to the bottom of this admittedly rather lengthy blog post, you'll find two clickable videos for you to view and maybe even cherish (or is that asking a little too much? :D). Either way, I'll just pop off for a bit...


ROUTINE

And what will I do

when I cross the hall,

enter that room

and find a glaring shell?

And what will I do

when I search that room

for winks of shadow

and find sunlight still?

And what shall I do

when I find that day

closing around,

and feel that crushing chill?

And what won't I do

to see you standing,

as in life before,

in that doorway, and well...

THE GREAT CANVAS

a room,

a blank room

with white walls yawning –

left to right,

with joins that aren’t quite there

a hand,

a red hand

dithers by this halo –

right to left,

crumbling at the tips

crayon,

yellow crayon

winds tracks behind it –

in and out,

like a pale lapping tongue

markings,

scratchy markings,

like little claw, find white –

out and in,

to close orange once more

And now I toddle off for good. Well, more like until the next time I've got something worthwhile to show you. See you then :).

Thanks for reading,

Mr. Pondersome

P.S. The lip sync's off in a rather noticeable way again, so I suggest you just listen to it. Unless, of course, you enjoy accidental visual symbolism and/or badly-dubbed films...:).