On Writing Poetry

The process of writing this stuff is a bit of a black art. Sometimes it just comes into your head, from deep in the subconscious. Usually you recognise the topic as one you have thought about for years. Suddenly it takes poetic form.
At other times, it is a more conscious effort, or a combination of the two.
Usually, the bulk of one of my poems just appears, in a few minutes. Then it is tweaked, to correct rhythm, etc. This process usually takes an hour or so. Sometimes, it is longer. 'Uphill Drive to Copt Oak' was fiddled with for nearly a fortnight. Looking back, it is an ambitious poem, so this is not that surprising. The final version is longer than the original, and has a different title. I think it is vastly improved. The process of actually working at a poem was new to me.
I have recently been reading online about the technique of poetry. It has been quite illuminating. I hope to improve as a result. I have also been reading the work of established poets. I am impressed by Robert Frost.
The sound of poetry is very important, and I have learned to read them aloud. I do not think poems can be translated from one language to another.
There is a tension between meaning on the one hand, and sound or form on the other, in poetry. This is absolutely central. This is especially true when a tightly defined form is chosen, such as the Shakespearean sonnet. It is not surprising that few read these today, and I doubt anyone composes them. A tight formal structure leaves little room for manoeuvre to express heartfelt ideas and feelings. The modern way is to adopt a free style, which uses the elements of poetic form rather liberally, without compromising the expression of meaning too much. This is a real improvement in my opinion. Nonetheless, I experience this tension in almost everything I write.
It is rare when meaning and rhythm and rhyme and alliteration all fall beautifully together. When it happens, it is a Eureka moment.
Sometimes poems come to me in bed in the morning. These seem to be different in nature to those written at other times, more from the subconscious, less an artefact. I call them 'morning rhymes'. Ingerland is one, and Getting High another. Most of them do not appear on here. I am reluctant to tamper with them too much at later times, for fear of spoiling their spontaneity.

Crisis in Syria

How else than by a heavy hand

Can be ruled a divided land?

Here in milder spaces we

Are ignorant of other places.

We spout a lot of stupid crap,

Echoing media's moron rap

About a set of fool's ideals.

Meanwhile a kind of covert power

Over our lives maintains its lour.
In the real reality

We have no more democracy

Than those who live across the sea.

Our greasy leaders rake the cash,

And rule us by our own sad choice.

Birdsong at Midwinter

What is Christmas without snow?

I miss Jack Frostes icy show.

Cold come, kill off norovirus

Before it sickens all of us.

On Christmas night I heard birdsong:

I think the climate has gone wrong.

Who needs a Mayan 'pocalypse

When weather's turned as weird as this?

The rich folk in denial are,

Can't stand to be without the car.

Oil barons pay for scientist's lies;

The wealthy speak and truth soon dies.

In childhood I played in the snow,

But now it seems so long ago.

The world seemed much more innocent then,

As it just does when you are ten.

Norovirus is the name of the bug which causes epidemic winter vomiting, which was in full flow at the time of writing. Things have changed a bit since I wrote this. It is as if the Almighty is slowly working his way through a backlog of requests for Christmas snow, without noticing the expiry dates.

Some seasonal haiku

Bushes are blooming

In December it rings strange -

must be climate change

Fukushima leaks

We will eat no more sushi -

radiation fear!

No snow at Christmas

It is wet rather than cold

though my mind is chilled

Walking the pavement

Rent-boy is staring at me

with intent eyes

Where did this lot come from? 1 and 3 are obvious, today.

2 must be the connection to Japan, and shows what I think about in connection with the place. I've never eaten sushi, but I think sushi restaurants have disappeared, and it's a while since I saw those little trays in the supermarket.

The last puzzled me, till I remembered recently skimming a book about the history of the Leicester Highfields in a bookshop. It was full of recollections of the past, including 'sentimental reminiscences' about prostitutes. It stated that male prostitution wasn't mentioned by the people, and this long-forgotten experience of being stared at by one of them flashed into my mind, where apparently it has lurked since. They are very rude people. The only other men who stare like that are suspicious coppers and punch-up artists.

The other trigger was reading someone say that haiku shouldn't just be about nature, that that idea was causing stagnation of the form in Japan, so they have started writing urban haiku. 

Not sure these are great haiku, but they say that doesn't matter! Well, some say that.

The Highfields book is available locally, and was compiled by HART, a local community association. Its other unmentionable is the City Council doss-house in Upper Tichborne St, of which there is a picture, with no accompanying text. You can read about the antics of its denizens in my poem 'Drunkards of the Dosshouse'. http://stephen-wylie.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/drunkards-of-dosshouse.html

Regularity is Required

How in life to order bring?

Clarity of thought to gain?

Still meditation is the thing,

To wash my mind clear of its pain.

Steady practice is what's needed,

Siren calls must not be heeded.

Twice a day to quiet the mind,

Is the way to freedom find.

It's so hard to tame the spirit,

Restless roaming of my focus,

What I need to keep me at it,

Keep in mind contentment's locus.

On a related theme: 

http://stephen-wylie.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/the-holy-spirit.html

http://stephen-wylie.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/the-weight-of-world.html

Season of Goodwill

A cautionary tale concerning the dangers of overdoing the seasonal tippling. The narrative voice is from the female point of view. Any resemblance to a popular song is purely coincidental.

Last Christmas, I gave you my heart,

You tried to impress, by lighting a fart.

Then you threw up in the sink

And put it all down to high jinks.

Then when, you swore at my mum

You'd the nerve to maintain, it was in fun.

When she said you were rash,

You just jeered at her moustache.

When you tripped over the cat,

You just blamed him, for being fat.

I said, you were an arse,

The whole thing was just a farce.

Last Christmas, I gave you my heart,

You tried to impress, by lighting a fart.

This year, I may turn queer,

Unless I find someone better.

See also: 

http://stephen-wylie.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/christmas-shopping.html

Christmas Shopping

And so this is Christmas, the traffic is jammed.

Last minute shopping, the roads are just crammed.

Ambulances flash past in a blue glare,

As desperate shoppers succumb to despair.

Time is against them, they step on the gas;

In such a hurry, they may have a crash.

The fumes are increasing, as is the road rage.

Frustration is building, it feels like we're caged.

The season of goodwill just isn't much fun,

And the curse of it is, it's only begun.

Based on my experience of trying to get home tonight (Dec 19th), which involves driving across the City Centre. God knows what tomorrow will be like. 

P.S. it was worse.

We're All in It Together

Just as the PM has said.
What he failed to explain is that we aren't all in it to the same depth.

The rich are in it up to their toenails.
The middle class and businessmen are in it up to their ankles.
The workers are in it up to their waists.
The unemployed are in it up to their necks.
The sick are in it up to their eyeballs.

Schooling in Connecticut

In Yankee land the law's a joke,

It's all too easy to get a gun,

The gunman gets high on some coke,

And then he has himself some fun.

Pursuing some peculiar grudge,

He lets rip and the bullets fly;

Unless his aim is quite misjudged

They strike their mark and children die.

Michigan has a law just passed

To let you take guns into schools.

Its people must be very crass

To vote for such a pack of fools.

An Uphill Drive to Copt Oak

As I ascend the mist grows thick,

Against the screen its tendrils lick.

I flick on headlights, but still can't see.

It feels like freezing cloud to me,
Which of deep murk seems guarantee.

The frost clings white to all the trees,

An eerie landscape of unease.
As I maintain my fogbound climb,
All things grow more encased in rime.

Ice binds to holly, hedge and lime.

Change comes when gloom was at its worst:
I'm in a sea of light immersed!

Then through to brilliant sun I burst,

So swift it feels quite strange at first.

Before startled eyes the view expands;

The icy scene glows palely grand,

A glistening winter wonderland!

My journey to work, from Leicester to Whitwick, has shown me a beauty I didn't know this county possessed. It is caused by the unusually steep hills, not found in the rest of Leics. Today was quite exceptional.
Leicester was cold and gray, and very tiny snow particles were falling as I set out. As I climbed up toward Copt Oak, one of the highest points in the county, the fog grew steadily thicker, and nearly the whole landscape was white with heavy frost.
Suddenly I burst through the top of the clouds into brilliant sunshine, a hilltop vista of brilliant white trees, fields and hedges. Awesome!

Same journey in Autumn:
http://stephen-wylie.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/unearthly-glow.html 

Ingerland

An ancient land once drenched in blood,

Now has turned itself to mud.

Its murd'rous people once so proud,

Now are merely drunk and loud.

No more do they of glory dream,

Now it's home to the silent scream.

Its muddled people lost their way,

Now they for past mistakes must pay.

Their forebears conquered foreign soil,

Not knowing this would England spoil.

The middle class despise blood kin,

Not seeing they're next for the bin.

Bullshit baffles brains in Britain,

Now this country's quite a shit 'un.

I look round with open eye;

Is this freedom's land I spy?

Is it progress that's been made,

Or is it just a land betrayed?

All those who dream of better times

Are deemed guilty of thought crimes.

A sly and secret power that grows,

A circle whose cup overflows,

Has ground the natives down so low.

"Bullshit baffles brains in Britain" was a popular expression when I first arrived in England 30 years ago. Also popular was: "The bosses treat us like mushrooms; they keep us in the dark and feed us bullshit." These expressions are no longer fashionable, but it is not because things have changed for the better.
This poem came to me while I was lying in bed one morning. I jumped out and scribbled it down. I spent a half hour rearranging the sequence of the lines, to try to inject coherence, and that was it.  Don't ask me what it means. Ambiguity is perhaps inherent in the subject matter. Are the questions in the second verse ironic and rhetorical? I'm not entirely sure.

A Merry Jape

The DJ's like to have a laugh,

But lying is their actual craft.

They mock and sneer,

And inflict fear;

Their callous fun costs others dear.

Suffering is their favourite joke,

Which frankly makes me want to boke.

They are humourless psychopaths,

Whose cruel, deceitful, pointless gaffs

Don't deserve the light of day.

When their pranking causes death,

Their hubris takes away your breath.

They wriggle and writhe,

And tell more lies

To try to shift the blame away.

A response to current events, the death of a nurse highlighted by the media. Aussie DJ's pulled off a 'prank' by pretending to be the Queen and the Prince of Wales, enquiring after the health of Kate Middleton. The humour escapes me.

Of course the two Aussies are not alone in this disgusting behaviour, as the radio station's owner pointed out as he wriggled and writhed.
A psychopath is unlikely to be able to distinguish between cruelty and humour, as he simply won't understand humour and will have to try to grasp it from the behaviour of others. He sees someone say something nasty and others laugh and applaud. So he will say something even nastier hoping for even more applause, and be baffled when it is not forthcoming.

Liverpool Care Pathway

The Liverpool Care Pathway

Sends the useless mouths away.

If you're taken really sick

It can kill you off quite quick;

And it makes a lot of dough

For all those who're in the know.

Crippled babies or old folk,

Can be swiftly made to croak;

For they'll never be of use

To the rich who rule the roost.

They could cut the deficit

Even more if throats were slit.



Mark 2 now, after a bit of fiddling about. Sounds better to me.

PS 13-07-13 The news claims this is to be phased out, due to abuse. Apparently hospitals were given financial incentives to use it. It involves killing them off by withdrawing fluids so they die of thirst.