Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Maybe the best time to write is
when you least feel the power.



It came for us


the blog
gelatinous mass
shoveling souls
into its gaping maw
one lonely at a time


High above
in the curling branches
of the liquid Amber
the twitters
chirruped and flapped
in consternation

I saw so many
press their faces to
covers of books
page upon page
of outpouring
the
scoured hearts
leaving blood spot trails
upon the margins


And always
in the background
a chant
a moan
a billion hoarse voices
howling in the dark

my space
my space
give me
my space




14 comments:

burning moon said...

ooo, nice. Very clever ending. :)

Chris Never said...

Our lives are being consumed by online social networking sites, live humanity!!! walk outside and smell the roses, or the fumes of cars depending on where you are lol

burning moon said...

lol, yeah, I know what you mean. I kind of like it though. I think online has definite benefits. A sort of creative outlet that some people would never have otherwise. I mean you can adopt a persona and role play if you want, do all sorts of things you would never be able to do in real life.
I think we just need to work at atriking a balance so that it doesn't take over 'real' life.

burning moon said...

oh damn. I want to enter a submission for something. It's an NZ poetry scholarship/prize thing.

I need to have a collection of around 27 excellent, unpublished, poems. To accomplish this, I really need to workshop some of my stuff. So I posted a couple of poems back on crit boards last night. Immediately I am confronted with all the reasons why I stopped doing that. sigh.

It so sucks. You get all the opinions in the world from the great stupids who don't have any idea what a poem should do.

The people who are good enough to actually give you a useful opinion have their heads so far up their own arses! It much too far beneath them to step down from their mighty pedestals and just give you some straight up suggestions or opinions without the self agrandising and posturing.

I have hardly any time to do this work, and it's a lot of work. But I really want to do it because if you win the prize is $16,000.00!

burning moon said...

I'm stuuuck ... :(

Chris Never said...

Surely you would easily have the 27 unpublished pieces in your collection
you need Moon?


Don't worry about what anyone else thinks, you pick them, pick what you think really is outstandingly good from your unpublished works, you are experienced enough and talented enough to win this thing mate, grit your teeth, go through the poems and pick the cream *smile*

Trust yourself kiddo

burning moon said...

I have probably 27, but they're not what I would call my best work. I need fresh eyes on them. There are places I'm unsure about in all of them. I know the final decisions are mine, but it's helpful to get some fresh viewpoints.
I'm also a bit unsure of how to go about putting a collection together. I mean, do the poems need to have a unifying theme? Do they need to relate to each other? Or can they just be random? I've seen both styles of collections, but it's hard to decide with your own poems, what goes with what.

burning moon said...

I mean, I'd prefer at least a teensy bit of cohesion or connection between them. Or at least a nice flow of ideas from one to the next.

Chris Never said...

I would be surprised if they require the poems to run to a particular theme as such, I think a mix, eclectic or not, would be fine

If you want, post them on your blog, highlight the areas of uncertainty in them,and I can have a look see for you ?

I do not profess to be an expert, but I do have a good eye for rhythm as you know *shrugs* happy to try and help you kid, as long as your ok with me looking when I can

Do you have a submission deadline to work to?

and if so, whats the submission date you have?

burning moon said...

yes please. Any time you have to look at poems posted on my blog would be great.

Deadline is 31st of July, so quite a bit of time, but I have a huge lot of stuff on my plate at the moment, so not much time to work on poetry or writing stuff. (very frustrating!).

Details are here:
http://www.otago.ac.nz/press/landfall/grattanaward.html

If you're curious.
Thanks bunny :)

Chris Never said...

Ok, when you get a chance, flag the titles of the poems on the blog you are intending to enter, so I can work on those specifically, then I will copy em, mess with em, and email em to you with any changes or suggestions.


I went to that link, but it said page not found?

burning moon said...

oh? that's weird. Oh, the blog posting thing has cut off the 'ml' from html at the end of the address. Let me try again:

http://www.otago.ac.nz/press/landfall/grattanaward.html

when you say 'flag' do you mean you want me to post a picture of a flag on each of them? cos that will take me like, forever


lolol

burning moon said...

it's cut off the website address again! Just copy and paste it and then add 'ml' on to the end and it should work.

Chris Never said...

Although, the idea of you putting a flag on each poem individually is very enticing to wicked me

*grins*


I meant just tell me which ones :)