Mind Map / Brainstorm

I wrote this poem to include my word of the day (logy) and also wanted to include a song line that has been stuck in my mind of late “like peanut butter on the brain” … anyone know what song that is from? This is how I’ve been feeling of late:

Each morning, haze perpetrates to dusk,
In my mind, the dawn is a shade of night,
As my thoughts, struggle in the molasses,
For it is clarity, which seek from this mirk!

Logy consumes, any traces of a path
To arrange words, hidden inside, stuck
Like peanut butter, on the brain.
Wake to false dawns. Breathe. Breathe.

 

Eschew

This will be the poem that preludes the third chapter of my story (I haven’t finished writing the chapter, but I have the concept of the chapter so from that I was able to write this poem, which acts as a summary):

Scared to continue, but he can not return to a lie
Cold wet and hungry; the cub conflicted and alone
In the woods nightmares cast by the moon lit sky,
Branches claw and hollows gnarl teeth of bone.

Feeling like a marionette cut loose
Virgin eyes see that roots do not grasp,
And daemon eyes can not seduce
His freedom that callow fears rasp.

But an omen shadows his troubles with a cry,
To hear such; foretells that he will soon die.

 

Lifting the Curse for Shore Lines

A terrible curse has come down over my hands of late. The curse first set foot in my mind, and spread down through every creative vein in my body until it suffocated any efforts by my hands to write. As with all good fantasies and curse related stories, there is a possible silver lining. However, an adventure waits, and new challenges will rise before me trying to block my path. I will be strong, in my mind and body. I will overcome the cursed “writer’s block”.

Motivation for me comes in the guise of a contest, Bunbury’s Shore Lines Writing for Performance Festival. The piece is to be for performance poetry (maximum of 10 minutes) and there is up to $1,000 on offer for the winning piece (which can be a monologue, play, stand up comedy, poem, prose, speech or song lyrics).

So I call upon you, my audience, to inform me what I should write about and any tips you have for writing performance poetry??

 

History’s Accord

Fighting for the pen to write their story,
For we are told the story of the victor
The enemy is always the villain;
The morally wrong; whom we despise.

Portraits of gods and goddess’
The truth hidden with each stroke.
Hairs of a brush mask any imperfections
Yet knives etch other’s evil side.

As we march for truth, blindly accepting
Tales of old: it is written so it is so,
Yet today we distrust all but our eyes
And authors of history are anonymous.

Stories told by men absent from events
Fuel billions; and utmost faith. A profit
Or prophet: only question if written
From the other side; in Hades’ guise.

Crimson tainted ink stains virgin pages
Steady hands hold quills; washed clean,
Telling the history we accept as truth
And the others’ stories hunger for their time.

 

Saccragast (Second Draft)

My first revision to Saccragast, let me know your thoughts on the revision below.

Prologue

Tonight insomnia holds my hand, for he hunts.
In a daze I relive when I was his prey;
A theatrical drama, I wish was staged.
The play opens on the night I was snared and bagged

Act I Scene I

In darkness: musky air drowned in blood and wee;
The sack’s hairs scratched like witch talons;
With every step, as waves pound against cliffs relentlessly,
the sack crashed into his back, hard as granite;

Pain etched in broken bones, the taste of blood
but I was not alone in the sack, I was blind
still I could feel dead limbs ebbing against my life.
Whose blood wet my cracked lips? Why did I drink?

To be continued …

 

The Whore’s Breath

A front approaches; there She blows
Cries of the wild lashed by a tempest
Unrelenting, unforgiving: unsettled

Cloaked by darkness; She resides below
Sanctuary and warmth tonight
With the whore of all the Earth

 

Saccragast (First Draft)

I wanted to write a bit of a scary poem about the bogeyman / sackman. I think the imagery needs some work on this poem, however the theme and essence of the poem is there. Thought I would share with you how I write. I generally write a first draft, such as, that contains the essence of the tale I want to tell in the poem. Then I will re-read it and create imagery, explore words, improve the flow and meter, add similes & metaphors, and generally just evolve it. I will share the evolution of this poem with you … so you get a little inside to how I write. Enjoy!

I lie awake tonight, for he is hunting
Once I was the hunted,
The night I was snared, fresh
Musky smells of dried blood & urine
Itchy hairs of this sack prickle my skin
No light, rocking against his back

Wide eyed I stare, crimson
Scares mark my friend
He doesn’t breathe, so
I hold my breath too

Bugs crawl under my clothes
Gnawing at my nerves,
Tasting the blood of the other
Boys mouth, and ear

A scream nearby stirs my thoughts,
Their voice is swiftly stilled
Footsteps approach, the bag opens
The night sky blankets the moon
A lifeless body collapses on me

We are lifted with ease, now moving fast
Dead eyes stare, I don’t want
To die, I will be good, too late
We have stopped, and turned
Upside down we fall

Cascading down like a rockslide
My body lands heavily on the dead
Atop of me my friend falls
He doesn’t move, he is silent

His eyes are closed, I can’t
An old man walking in shadows
At his feet I meekly grovel
“Ye shall keep” he mutters

Now each night he hunts
I lie awake, waiting to hear
The sullen thud of his meal
Each thud means I live another day

Each meal I eat I see
I see dead eyes staring
Bugs drinking bloodied ear
I taste the gristle of pointed fingers

Ma warned me of serving him
I chose to ignore her, now
Pale skinned I slave for him
For he is the Saccragast

 

Beehive

A timesheet poem I wrote a while back (haven’t been writing them of late, think the last one was almost a year ago). Tried to make it sound a little Shakespeare like (add some culture to work … haha) and tried to keep it flowing fast. Not my best work, but just some fun. Enjoy!

Thou art elaborate as a bee hive,
Each busy deciphering their reason.
Burdened they can but only thrive;
Not concerned by the chilled season

The women buzz at fifty shades of grey
Whilst the directors fly in deep dales,
A union forged, overcoming any fray
And at the end they’ll down ales

But the Shag errs from course,
The honey weighs heavy on his mind.
Others stray not from the Queen’s force
Enduring the journey together entwined

The life of thou reflects a social bee
Satisfying the Queen, her will with glee

 

My Country by Dorothea Mackellar

By far my favourite Australian poem … the second verse is particularly famous here, however I think the whole poem is just so beautiful and strong. Not to mention she wrote this when she was only 19. Enjoy!

The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded lanes.
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins,
Strong love of grey-blue distance
Brown streams and soft dim skies
I know but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror –
The wide brown land for me!

A stark white ring-barked forest
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon.
Green tangle of the brushes,
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops
And ferns the warm dark soil.

Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart, around us,
We see the cattle die –
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady, soaking rain.

Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the Rainbow Gold,
For flood and fire and famine,
She pays us back threefold –
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.

An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land –
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand –
Though earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.

 

Crossroad

I need a little help with this poem. I am unsure where to go next with this, or perhaps what should come before this stanza. Any ideas or suggestions most appreciated, and don’t forget to vote after reading the poem.

I circle the block, for the hundredth time
I am idle at traffic lights in the wake of red
The distractions exhaust my pain
In the rear mirror of her shadow
I stand, unexpectedly at a crossroad.