My Dear F.,
July 4, 2010 at 8:34 am | Posted in jazz poetry, poetry, writing | 5 CommentsTags: Ms Helpburn
Just a short note to let you know
the vicar’s visit turned out something
but not quite as expected
there is something quite uncouth
in these villagers.
Still, better,
than a nunnery.
Your handiwork continues to inspire
but I must say not quite
what you promised, the antidote,
does not work. Please send more tao
haha, these strange realms sterile and
the portraits looming, and all these damn
petticoats. Anyway, have fun. I’m not.
eden
July 3, 2010 at 5:06 pm | Posted in jazz poetry, sheer selfindulgence, writing | 5 CommentsTags: Ms Helpburn, writing, writing for fun
… a reality whose connection to the actual world of the imagining reader is tenuous at best. The truth becomes gloriously irrelevant, postulations on orchids,
How old fashioned thinks the vicar, louche on Ms Helpburn’s divan. Now we are in the post-Victorian in which all is quaint decoration and pop but he remains tightlipped on the outside of whatever’s slightly outre. Rain, he suggests aloud as she pours his tea, and struggles to find a tiny niche in which to survive like some strange insect. Happy for the shelter of a waxy leaf from which water drips, snoozing through the day with a low buzz which may just be tired lungs and excessive humidity,
She sits, decorously, Vicar, it is such a wonderful word, don’t you think. Sorry, he says, I was just looking at your garden, so gentle and pretty in the afternoon rain, Ms Helpburn. Do you have a gardener?
Soraya
July 1, 2010 at 7:45 pm | Posted in memoirs, sheer selfindulgence, writing | 7 CommentsTags: fiction, writing
Soraya’s new toy came in a lovely package. There really are no other words to describe it, nor are any necessary. I wanted to write something that I had never written before, new adventures as it were, but only those two sentences came to me before I was rudely interrupted by a brusque knocking at the door. It was the debt collectors. They had come for the previous resident but one of them recognized me from the club. They saw the open bottle of whiskey on the table and it turned into a bit of a session.
Half way through and quite pissed, I told them of my plan to write pornography but from a female perspective as a kind of challenge and see if I could get away with it. One of them wanted to back the project and the other said it was disgusting and left disgruntled. I doubt I will ever be able to look him in the face again. Still, that is the price you pay as a writer. There is always a certain risk involved or you are not doing your job properly.
The next morning I woke up on the beach, alone, and wearing my four hundred dollar Hong Kong suit, covered in sand, the occasional small crab exploring my hair. I remembered the plan and thought about Soraya, how much trouble she would get in to, and how little chance of surviving it she would have. Went back to the motel and wrote this instead.
The Puzzle Box (2nd Edition)
June 24, 2010 at 3:34 pm | Posted in australian poetry, poetry, writing | 4 CommentsTags: The Puzzle Box
I would like to take a moment to introduce “The Puzzle Box” 2nd Edition. I was never really happy with the layout and presentation of the first edition, it had a very ‘first edition’ feel. So I employed (and at very reasonable rates I should add) the services of an experienced freelance editor, the inestimable Kiersty Boon. The book is now completely typo free, it has an index, acknowledgements, new font, a stylish cover, frontispiece, is perfect bound and is, in every way, new and improved.
Importantly, the first edition has now been removed from sale, so if you own a copy of it, you are in possession of a rare and valuable asset. However, with the second edition and the application of the incredible style and precision of Ms Boon’s editing expertise, I finally feel that the frame enhances and accentuates the work. If you are preparing a manuscript, a skillful and independent eye is an absolute necessity and I do not hesitate in recommending Kiersty’s services as an editor to all and sundry.
There are many ways of supporting the gentle art of poetry but none more effective and realistic than buying the work of the poets. Please consider this small investment, I guarantee you will not be disappointed.
liberation
June 22, 2010 at 3:46 pm | Posted in ekphrasia, poetry, writing | 9 CommentsTags: abstraction, poetry, writing
would that it were possible
to write pure instrumental lines
an imperceptible dissolution
into a henry moore shaped whole
like grass pondering dandelions
or two children holding hands
light variations
to untie the sublime from this humanness
of language, the moral, the spirit,
tethers which dull the glisten
of wordless beauty vaulting
the harmonic between open sky
and the softness of skin,
faith is not required
June 5, 2010 at 7:54 am | Posted in poetry, writing | 18 CommentsTags: poetry, writing
between the it is (always) dark(est just
before the (dawn) of her
blink andthe
busyness bustle of
mind the day
there’s an infinitesimal
time the sky
,exact
blue
shade of smiling
eyes
Translation into Romanian
June 3, 2010 at 6:53 am | Posted in blogging, writing | 10 CommentsTags: poetry, translation
Translation of poetry always raises difficult questions. Because the sound and movement in the language is an integral part of poetry, I believe that the translation is always a new poem, a variation on the original not a replication.
There is a sense in which all communication is a form of translation, of course, a process of encoding thought events into signs and signifiers which are translated or disencoded by the listener. And in a broader arc, there is a way of seeing the world in which it is a subtle and mysterious process of translation. Consciousness translates experience through the mediating filters of the mind which constructs waterfalls and sunsets in a delicate spiraling interplay between perception and conception…
When Ana asked if she could translate one of my poems into Romanian I was thrilled. This is the poem she chose…
different senses, different shoes
unless you are a practioner of the dark arts emerging
schmooze leadened sense
from Bowen Hills
highhat bass and most important
esoteric referensh
perhaps in sullen sluggish chains led
regretful wriggling uncomfortable on its claws
look for two most
unexpected arrivals
rival twice
then be gone
and here is the translation…
alte simţuri, alţi papuci
De nu eşti un practicant al actelor oculte originar
zvonite plumburiu (re)simţite
din Bowen Hills
chimval în timbru grav şi foarte important
o referinţǎ ejotericǎ
probabil cǎ îţi târşâi mohorât înlǎnţuitele
regrete furişate incomod pe gheare
te uitǎ dupǎ douǎ
ajunse pe neaşteptate
îndoitǎ rivalitate
şi te du.
(Thank you, Ana. You can hear Ana reading the poem in Romanian here.)
The Puzzle Box
gingatao, the podcast- Soraya December 6, 2011
- Teethmarks November 25, 2011
- the gentle art of soft landings June 29, 2010
- The Australian Poet Laureate
- another quote from Robert Adamson January 31, 2010
- Three Quotes from Robert Adamson October 22, 2009
- The copyright question (2) October 7, 2009
legal formalities
© P Squires, gingatao, 2007-2010. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Paul Squires and gingatao, with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
'And you have to deal with the terrible karma too.' Paul Squires.
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