we pengamen...

Poem by Susie Clevenger
+
Image from Songs from the street: The underworld of Indonesian buskers - SMH April 18, 2015


we pengamen
stain the streets with
disposable music
so they say

but 
we got to prick a conscience or two

we pengamen
get locked away
tossed into an underworld
of shame

but
still 
we busker on

we got to prick a conscience or two

we pengamen
are filth
a worthless underclass
so they say

but
our feet beat the streets 
we busker on
and on


we got to to prick a conscience


we got to put some soul
some tender music soul

in your shoes



Linking to:
Imaginary Garden With Real Toads - Play It Again, Toads

unsolved...

he loves animals
the kookaburra personalities
the whimsical cats
the playful dogs
in fact
anything that breathes
(and is non-human)
softens the crunchy sparks
so near the surface

traffic snarls
slow traffic lights
traffic dreamers
supermarket dawdlers
bring out the bite
the vicious bite

he is obsessed with documentaries
(mainly wildlife Attenborough style)
but also ones that explore
the gruesome... 
the unsolved murders
the accidents
the up close and personal worlds of
forensic pathologists

he used to love dancing
a master of moves...
now he just thinks about it
with the odd spurt here and there
when the beat kicks him


he's weathered
but the glint of humour
never stops...
one crack leads to another


on another side
he ambles the less travelled byways
if the weather's fine
and he's in the mood


and deep down
in quiet times
he feels the winds of the universe
he hears 
the words


he could be a tree
listening
always listening



Linking to;
dVerse - Poetics - Character Study

a sunset sigh...

sunset
autumn moment 
of memories

autumn sunset
cool sigh
of other light

your sunset
your memory
my autumn


Linking to:
Poets United - Poetry Pantry #302

wind-song...

our lyrics

our wind-song

we glide to the light

of our street lamp

never heeding

the beat of

muttering

sputtering

rancid

minds

set to clip

entomb

our words

tomorrow

NOTES

Some words sprinkled through the poem connect with T.S.Eliot's Rhapsody on a Windy Night,
and a brief nod to Eliot's Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.

Linking to:

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads - Let's visit the family

if I shrink you...

if I shrink you
into
a package of young, sweet innocence
that you may have been

will I remember you
differently

or will
I lose sight of you ...

will I sour ...

completely



Linking to:
Imaginary Garden With Real Toads - Sunday Mini-Challenge - Harrows and Hallows

smashed sounds...

smashed sounds deform memory... I 
remember when the House of Song welcomed new flowers, and temples would have
sacred hymns and dances, waiting for the time when jaguars should have been
given the right to succeed. Jaguars are always looking
for Quetzalcoatl, accepting his musical peace, his wisdom refined for
the chant of drum or flute.  Sadly, my
                                              song meandered into a mish-mash of literary left-overs. My own
                                              personal, interpetation of a cultural room
                                              is now reserved for
                                              some
                                             claustrophobic breathing time
                                              squeezed among
these
smashed sounds, decomposing in my... ruins




NOTES
I used a poem by Mexican poet Coral Bracho -
translated by Tom Boll and Katherine Pierpoint.
The poem is called Among These Ruins.
(The last word of each line, read vertically, represents a line from this poem = The Golden Shovel Form).
The early images I describe represent Aztec culture and their love of poetry.
I was surprised that poetry was an essentail part of the educational curriculum.

flower songs - combined the sacred with worldy themes in poetry.
jaguars - represented warriors in poetry.
Quetzalcoatl - patron deity of the cities and giver and teacher of poetry.





Linking to:
d'Verse Meeting the Bar: The Golden Shovel form

I am sailing...

I skippered the Monday boat rather well
tossed out some weighty baggage
and sailed the swelling demands
of lesson pressures and emails
rather well too...

That is
until THE email
popped into my inbox
THE email
that wanted to reconstruct
a future assessment task for Year 8's...

I had spent so long
shuffling the rubrics and
pinging the ultimate topic
that would send little minds into big spins

but THE email wanted to fix the rubrics
at the lowest level

NOT SHOWN
NO relevance to the topic
NO imagination
NO structure
NO grammar

a whole column
of NOthingness...

what to reply
politely
without resorting to
NO grace

Finally I mustered
some dignity...
I believe the ultimate purpose is the topic...
the lowest common denominator must be
some recognition
the writer wrote anything at all...


I skippered the Monday raft rather well
tossed out some weighty baggage
and kept sailing...



Linking to;
Imaginary Garden With Real Toads - The Tuesday Platform



NOTES
This poem intended to be for the recent 'skip' prompt at d'Verse...
The poem intended to be a quadrille - 44 words...
But it morphed into more...
Rubrics - columns headed from HIGH to LOW + explanations in each

your silken light...

Wordle #249 overlaying the closing colours of today in the Dromana Hills...


today
your evening silken light
serenaded my boundless yearning
for the grace
of your moment

today
I tried to keep you close
to join you
seeking the cell of your fire

wrenched from me
wrenched from me

so heartlesslessly
cracking
the eggs of our time
into myriad
shells
of
elusive
memory

today
I imagined
offering my hand
to you
waiting for any warm touch of your skin

so loved
by a lonely child 
that was

and in some ways

is still




your evening silken light
closed
my dream

for another year




NOTES
Today would have been my father's birthday...
I lost him when I was just 12...



Linking to:
The Sunday Whirl - Wordle #249

when the colours fell...

waves of autumn winds
tidal rains scourge
a sea of leaves



NOTES
Today was a wild day of strong winds and rain...
And autumn colours fell in torrents...
The photo shows a patch of strewn colour just near my front step...
I thought, after the April stampede, I was all puffed out of poetry,
but this wild day needed a poetic note...


Linking to:
Poets United - Poetry Pantry