~

Glasto eels
generate alternative waves
of psychoactive bliss

via alfresco
piss – ravers who spent in psychedelic
woods where

rivers flow by
as receptacles to abjure
porta-loos and

human queues
in an eco-system now drugged
and ecstatic.

~

The story behind the poem here.

The sails are
down, the last dead flies held until
this fall,

and September’s
grey light can now illuminate a space
unhindered.

No Mariner or
other figure passes this way today –
the stunted

discarded too,
along with what is over-long and the
unnecessary

profligacy in
their growing. Other shades have been
wrapped and

bagged for
storage, opening up a further vista
on the outdoors.

This dialectic
between each person and the
architecture of stone

and dreams;
cladding that ignites at a spark
of individual desire.

Who knew investment
was inflammable? Who knew
how urban uprisings

would fan flames
from an inhabitant’s hope for a life?
Deep feelings

about place
are roadmaps within a sprawl of
construction as solid

as history in
structures that need rewriting.
And anthropomorphism

is no answer to
questions of permanence: the
body dies;

walls crumble –
resuscitation and rebuild are
poles apart

in potential.
The politics of greed have dug
more graves than

built havens.
High rise / swing low / carry
the weight.

National Poetry Day is (or should be) about writing poems rather than ‘choose’ a poem, though with the theme this year being Choice, the verb selection is understandable. I will therefore choose the following poem as a prime example for exemplifying the theme:

But back to writing a poem: I have posted creative writing resources for this year’s NPD on my companion site Copycat Creative Writing here. These focus on the use of erasure for writing poems for the theme and are avalable as free pdf downloads. I may well add a few more over the coming days, but only because I have started producing my own for the theme/day. Otherwise, I have kept the focus quite straightforward and encourage teachers (and everyone) to adapt to their own needs and preferences.

Pleased to have another from my found poem collection &there4 at International Times, with thanks to IT and Rupert. Read the ‘mathematical’ poem here. Check out Paul Sutton’s poem when visiting the site and other postings today.

More single ‘photobook’ copies – an inexpensive way to have a hardback copy of work to keep, and to see what it could look like published (the cheapness is only ever on ‘offer’ for an individual copy, whoever the supplier).

I’d want the internal print size larger, but &there4 would look good.