Eyes

“Concrete poetry or Size poetry is poetry in which the typographical arrangement of words is as important in conveying the intended effect as the conventional elements of the poem, such as meaning of words, rhythm, rhyme and so on.

It is sometimes referred to as visual poetry, a term that has evolved to have distinct meaning of its own, but which shares the distinction of being poetry in which the visual elements are as important as the text.” ~ Wikipedia entry

Helix nebula

I have spent much of this last month simply looking, often without thought, at the world around me. Each elegant silhouette home to a cacophony of complexities and so everything it seems, is suddenly breaking into life. The night sky washed with stars, the mornings laced with delicious silences, each day bustling with the joys of nature's new found enthusiasm.

Photo by Claire Fletcher

To experience the world in this way feels, to me at least, remarkably refreshing. Hampered by an inward tilt, autumn and winter have seen much procrastinating. Now however, almost unexpectedly, I feel a sense of release, a lightness of mind. The layers of meaning remain but instead of fervently delving deeper there now exists a calmness, my eyes content at last to rest a while upon the surface of each moment before digesting it...

...so then, I offer up my latest attempt at concrete poetry:

Eyes

 The words for this piece rose shyly one evening...

Eyes - Zoom x1

...each letter emerging slowly, out from the depths of my mug before setting themselves upon the page.

Eyes - Zoom x2

Eyes

Tonight's sea of souls curiously bold
a shoal of eyes lie simmering beneath the moonlight,
patter of rings blinking upon the surface.

"...poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility." ~ William Wordsworth

 The Ubuweb Anthology of Conceptual Writing, introduced and edited by Craig Douglas Dworkin

...poetry is that form which "does itself actually exist in the mind." ~ William Wordsworth

Further Links:

David Bellingham:

http://davidbellingham.com/DBtrial2/index.html

"Concrete Prose" - Haroldo de Camposs Galáxias and After:

http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/perloff/perloff_decampos.html 

Zoe Catherine Kendall, Precious Creatures:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/zoecatherinekendall

The Morning Harbours Silences

There is something deeply evocative about those very first moments of each day, those first few minutes when the sun begins to rise, begins to colour the deep blue morning sky. With the clocks set to spring forward this weekend I have found myself enjoying slower and slower starts, taking the time to leaf through others peoples words and pictures before beginning to write my own. One image that particularly caught my attention was a piece of artwork called Jetty, by Tom Harris. I have worked with Tom before on previous projects and often cast an eye over his work in the hope of catching sight of something new. Jetty is not a new piece but I think, placed in the context of that morning, it was just the thing to set my thoughts spinning...

...and so finally, I’ll curtail my ramblings and come to the point of this blog: my poem ‘The Morning Harbours Silences’, inspired by Tom Harris’ artwork ‘Jetty’:

Jetty, by Tom Harris

The Morning Harbours Silences

The morning harbours silences cracked as bark

and so dawn's gristled talons depart.

Shell and splinters,

a massacre upon the marsh as if puddles of rust yet still

they lift, the clouds, those shadows that veil our sun,

miraculous as footsteps each drawn against the last...

...trussed, we gasp,

mouths halos within the dark.

Nedaseungreda

The onset of spring and so now it feels as if the time is right to open a new window unto the world; to unearth a fertile patch of web, a plot within which to plant my future scribblings. This space I have named Nedaseungreda....

...I found the word Nedaseungreda engraved on a medieval sword blade in the V&A Museum, London. The caption at the museum said they had no direct translation of the word but believe that, as if a spell, it had been inscribed upon the sword in order to protect the knight in battle. Looking at the inscription the owner would have been reminded of all those things his/her knighthood stood for.

Sword, with straight quillons and a wheel-shaped pommel, English, 1250-1300, recovered from Whittlesea Mere, Cambridgeshire in the 1840s. the long double-edged blade constructed of two parallel pattern welded rods to give a shallow concave medial fuller  which is decorated with an inlaid talismanic inscription in latten letters on both sides.

I believe that sometimes we all need symbols like this to help remind us what it is we stand for. I have a great admiration for those people who, despite the contradictory world around them, the challenges they will have to face, the sacrifices they might have to make, still aspire to a certain truth. For me 'Nedaseungreda' is representative of the battles we sometimes have fight in order to stay honest to what is we believe in. I hope that by baring this name upon my blog it will continue to inspire, just as it once did the knight who carried it.


I leave you for now with a piece I wrote, and which Matt Black illustrated, that was loosely inspired by the sword above. In three parts, as if themselves reflections, so these words will remain puddled upon the surface of my blog:


Part One


An oversized rocking chair, wood slowly splintering as if the emigration of a thousand tiny spines. They rise up, out from within its heavy arms and like flames their flickering reaches for the window. Each one a dusty tear blurring its single eye. In order to watch he tilts his own head, doubt blinded by emotion as they begin to spiral toward the black glass. Lids heavy, his slit of concious drawn to a close by the cacophony of what formally had been such seasonal tides. And so this winter hope's grin springs from the warmth of bulbs, the spread of his desk fallen icy cold. Fingers skate before him and yet still those memories sing, twist his ear lobes first east and then west. As always, the pendulum swings.

Part Two


Another moon chimes, the attic silence of old unfolding as if a new born flock of wings, air undulating as their limbs slip from the darkness. So once again the sands of time begin to decend, each grain drawn from the crest of mourning, herself a falling lament. Flakes of white, her toes reach for the crumpled yellow canvas, narrow eyes drawn against the tumbling shafts of light. Her lashes palms, their silhouttes stencils, petals enveloped by the eternal blue hearth she waits, for the sun's incandescent ashes to curl around her limbs, begin to swirl within the plams of her cupped hands.

 Part Three


The day blinks, all thoughts suddenly fireflies. The glow of yesterday's embers smoke beneath my soles sat so coldly now upon the doorstep; eyes to the sky, my cradled coffee cup and I, the winds silent reproach. Dreams rise shyly, with wry smiles freckle the night. Stll though I hear them whisper... '...listener? Once woken, be sure to sleep tight.'