Monday 15 March 2010

Mary, Mary, quite contrary / How does a poem grow?

I just finished re-editing my poem The Journey. I am still not completely happy with it, but I suppose I will have time to change it later on.

Did I tell you someone wrote a short piece on my stuffed animal Macaroni? We had to describe something which mattered a lot to us, and the only thing that came to mind was my duck, sitting on my bed and waiting for me to come back home, his beady eyes, slightly scuffed from years of love, staring at the door handle. We then traded slips of paper, and she--I forget her name--wrote the following:

In the grey drip of dreary weather
He acts like a thermal blanket which wraps around
My lungs, my heart, my whole being.

Shielding me from the terrors, the dullness, the nothing
the horrid world outside
I realize I am alone, apart from him
and he is a toy, inanimate, yet somehow living
Secretly and solely to me.

His life emanates from memories, trapped inside him
he is a well-traveled duck
faded from journeys to Sweden and Singapore,
the confident, busy style of life I used to lead

One where I never expected I'd be
Sitting alone in this room

Pretty spot on, wouldn't you say? Well, you would say so if you'd ever seen Macaroni. I also went over three other poems, The Rack, The Dirk, and Iscariot. I never plan to write poetry, but most of all, I do not plan the subject matter. It always turns into something strange and slightly creepy. Can't help it if my deepest thoughts are cold and calculating.

Rise, Tyro! and receive my golden rays, my fiery hues,
my red seal upon your breast, pressed deep into
your nature, binding you and casting you into my copper
Son , my full-forged prentice singing, singing praises to the
dawn, your hammer ringing, ringing in the early
morn

Don't ask.

Unapologetically Yours,
Bodo of Dobo Isle

Now I must finish my paper.

1 comment:

Jana Tan said...

Can I meet your stuffed animal? Wonderful poem :-)