elevensies

 for the record -- 

 

for the record --- it was like this --- I was looking at Kerri's new poem and I said, and I believe this is VERBATIM -- 'that line in the middle is the title ... and there's five lines either side, so it's symmetrical... why not make the middle line the title? there's no reason why not... eleven lines, let's call it an elevensie' ... and I am proud to say that though my efforts with this form have been fairly miserable, Kerri has taken the ball and is still running two books later ... so I believe I feel some justifiable pride in this matter!

 

Saturday, October 20, 2018

Kit Kelen #1024 - let the yarn repair (for Kerri)

1024

let the yarn repair

a tribute poem for Kerri’s elevensies

the middle line’s the title!

elevensies!

like a poem you wear

and listen for flowers here

(you could be deafened!)

in the sunshine of it

of a midmorning

snout deep

in a cuppa

lollop of cow

once dozy

set sail

now a truce with daylight!

(that’s how bright the future is)

listen to and through the chatter

this is Kerri’s hand-to-hand combat

it can go all kinds of ways...

best deadly

woman on porch

jibe, quip and

(she is a humorist of note

and keen at repartee...

like my mother-in-law’s fridge magnet –

‘age and cunning will always defeat youth and good looks’

but Kerri and me – we’ve got the lot!

it’s chronic!

we had this epiph together

and it was simply this –

the middle line’s the title

or, to be truthful,

it might have been

the title’s the middle line

anyway, why shouldn’t it be?

the title in the midst

the name of the thing

for an either-end balance

in media res

why should the eye be governed?

and follow this to a logical conclusion

… read in any direction you like

start midst-most though

I had a crack

but she is doing it every day

Kerri found the hexagram seesaw and sat

I feel like I’m still up in the air

held there by medical mysteries

and she keeps us reading

she keeps a room of wool

I keep it all between my ears

she keeps a shed of stuff

I have stuffed my shed as well

elevensies philanthropy!

that’s better than religion

nevertheless

heaven’s above

and don’t look down

Kerri is a woman of the big picture

– wiggy prophet of the Next Testament!

there isn’t a picture big enough for her

you fall into a poem like hers

expecting a clock to sneak up

like something deliciously due

another pot of tea too

a windmill never sleeps

but mumbles on the nothings

both epic

and gastric

in her own prism

(of cuticle dawn-light)

in skin

let’s not forget – embodied!

all those years of it… it’s almost as if in

blackfulla chinawoman

welcomes us

and once you know the middle is it

streets are cryptic with find-a-way

think of a first prime minister

it’s everything mnemonics

else how are we here?

you know the waves ride out from this house

reverberate? that’s what they’re calling it these days

Green library

taste me

there’s nothing that we can’t discuss

the corpus asserts

a body of words

words of the body

and the stranger graces

trouble in mind

how differently we choose

all equally far from/ by sensation

the sky ...

of Mayfield!

Mayfield of the settled dust

suburb the city approaches

(with caution...

where substance of us is a poem

hence this form of words

or fall into rhyme, like error

all vanish in one so

then here’s the kiss returned

I ramble out formlessly

I am myself being rolled out

although I know

snout deep’s how to go

elevensie!

a kind of a jumpsuit this poem –

a discipline

matinee jacket for a grassy knoll

so seldom smile

and curl up warm

bring your own apology

(sorry trumps guilt every time)

poems come from the remains of poems

how sad would you like to be with the fact?

it’s must be tea time again

in Near Miss mansion

views expand the shrink wrapped world

long strides taken

hidden from the air until the moment comes

to breathe all

on our cul-de-sac safari

(reminds you of Jules Verne, that does

and down in the volcano…

[no bracket ever finally closed...

armadillo plates overlap

how the planet goes round

there isn’t shit to save you from the job you’ve left undone

sweet trees

sweet sea

sweet sky

philosophy!

bug impervious

launcher of little fur missiles

can’t have too many autopsies

as long as yr alive

tending to what needs we heal

and stretch to be

keeps ya goin’

it does

curtain eyerolls

handcuffed pulse

Wiradjuri wordworker

a pleasure to jam with

to riff on

to honour

great enabler

and listener too, teller of truth

I salute you

and I launch you

once more into community

into the breach!

and struth!

if you can’t hear me

even if...

sing out

will ya?

there’s no smile sweeter than now!