Sonnet from December and reminder of first meeting

Happy New Year to all Coast Liners.

Our first meeting Wednesday 6 February at 10.30 am. Karen has made suggestions in her blog of some ideas which arise from her poem. So you could choose one word, the lot or whatever and wherever fancy takes you.

Do bring along a poem for our first meeting. It is going to be a great year with the literary festival well under way in planning. I will be able to show you the program when we meet.

Any ideas for our year together whether in outings, for example going to theatre, or visiting speakers etc.

Bring paper and pen to meeting so we can have some fun and creativity whilst together.



The World Is Too Much With Us Late and Soon
(Apologies to William Wordsworth)

The world is too much global now and soon
Acquiring has spread we loose our power
Of this our natural world by lengthy hour
Our spirit cold we now lie close to ruin
Land tired fallow by an ocean full of gloom
Politicians do not promise words now ceased
Too late beached whales no longer any feast
Religions do not matter since left in doom
Love not captured in this airless drought
You sit there and lecture innane words to me
And so we continue to fight and shout
To keep alive in any way we can foresee
Maybe the next of kin will bring new light
So mankind can begin another world with more insight.

Cecilia Morris

Found Poem

From our apartment, I can see the dock where visiting boats dock for the weekend. Saturday morning I got up and looked at their names:

First Light
Second Wind
Obsession
Bad Influence

I think this is almost a found poem! For Feb, I thought I'd share these phrases. If you are so inclined, feel free to use one or all!

Meeting with Uncle Ern,
on the occasion of Dad's wake


Let us not Pussyfoot around with the human condition,

Let us be Full and Frank, Ernest.

Felicitations on your Eightieth,
Commiserations on the loss of your Brother

I knew him only a little , a wisp of a benign presence,
hiding behind the Paper with his Gallon of tepid Tea,
betraying his wringing inards only rarely
with the odd flash of a steely stern stare,
maintaining his phony Anglophilia to a Tee

a grunt. Sporadic passive engagement,
or mildly supportive wheezes as he puffed away
Come on, Dad give me something ,
give me a sign that you care.
That I mean something to you

Let me in

Mean something to me

How did you know him, Well? ...
WELL!?

I put it to you that you did'nt know him at all
I put it to you that you do not know yourself.

What Happens to people?

What mystery lurks, when..
fears freeze,
embittered lusts fester,
needs unmet return to plague the naif ,
jealousies denied haunt their kneejerk defences at every Tick...
potential untapped ....dies on the vine

Let us not treat our memories like fine- boned China

Let us reveal ourselves, unfold,
admit,, celebrate our nature, it's many parts,
show as it were, what Man can be without shame.

Confess ,.... 290276nh0-2jv45ymcgryaeiou84qct= `
pqskd29.3x]i.0-,9050-862=c,y-1`c,10y1`,9i!!!!!!!!!!

For Fuck's sake Ernie show yourself!

Say something, Be someone,

Mean something to me.

Jonathon Lee

Christmas Cheers

Just wanted to wish everyone all the fun of the festive season and continued joy for the New Year.  It has been a busy year for me, the fun (not!) of selling our house, renovating then moving house and my children changing school mid-year.  It's been quite a year but things have settled down now and I am looking forward to words tumbling out.  See you all soon.  

Cheers,

Jacqui

Resonant Words

Jonathon, your poem Male Seeks has more for me with each new reading. It speaks to me in my unheard daughter self and it cries out to me in my can't bare to hear mother self. I would love to see it performed by two people, maybe at the open-mic in May.
I am a great believer in listening for the signs of the Cosmos and after reading your poem for the third time I decided to dip into a book of poetry as I let your words penetrate and the book just opened at a poem I have never read before called

MY MOTHER WOULD BE A FALCONRESS by Robert Duncan

My mother would be a falconress,
And I, her gay falcon treading her wrist,
would fly to bring back
from the blue of the sky to her, bleeding, a prize,
where I dream in my little hood with many bells
jangling when I'd turn my head.

My mother would be a falconress,
and she sends me as far as her will goes.
She lets me ride to the end of her curb
where I fall back in anguish.
I dread that she will cast me away,
for I fall, I mis-take, I fail in her mission.

She would bring down the little birds.
And I would bring down the little birds.
When will she let me bring down the little birds,
pierced from their flight with their necks broken,
their heads like flowers limp from the stem?

I tread my mother's wrist and would draw blood.
Behind the little hood my eyes are hooded.
I have gone back into my hooded silence,
talking to myself and dropping off to sleep.

For she has muffled my dreams in the hood she has made me,
sewn round with bells, jangling when I move.
She rides with her little falcon upon her wrist.
She uses a barb that brings me to cower.

These are only the first five verses, there are ten more, if you are interested I will type the whole thing and email it to you. I have a scanner sitting on my desk beside me but have not yet learnt how to use it, my husband has tried to teach me but I guess I am not yet ready to learn because I can't remember a word he told me. I have come to a time in my life where memory is a sometimes thing.

I look forward to getting to know you better and reading more of your resonant words. Safe journey along the road you are about to travel.

Tricia

welcome to a new voice

Jonathan, if your witty poem "Male Seeks" is an indication of your style , then we are in for some interesting sessions next year! I think that you have a very individual voice, different from anyone else in the group, so maybe you will give us a new perspective on poetry (and life?). I'm looking forward to it!

Thanks for a delightful afternoon Cecilia - it was a sort of "unlaced" Victorian High Tea. The scones and tea and the fine bone china lent a veneer of respectability to the occasion but the I think the green champagne revealed the true agenda.

Have a very happy Xmas everyone

Geoffrey & June

A workshop wish for you on 11.12.07

Sir:

It is always difficult to manage your place of birth

once you have assigned a difference to yourself

you will find new links are forged

but crafted with sensitivity and pure light

this time not chains but delicate threads

that weave from a different loom,

in a spacious room,

and not facing emotional ruin

it can and will happen soon

forget being held out a silver spoon

better yet to fall from a phosperescent moon

so tuck that umbilicial cord

back where it can no longer cut

and begin begin again....

cecilia