Pure fiction set an interesting and challenging task this week, I struggled, it's good to struggle sometimes.
See all the other passengers here Pure Fiction or even better get on the bus yourself.Tea and biscuits are promised at the Rock of Cashel, I'm sure you'd get a whippy ice cream there too.
Firefly Summer
The humming lawnmowers a sweet smelling zephyr
Of honeysuckle daydreams
Golden sun warming cool beers of cultivated thought
A cerebral garden of cosy remembrance not
An earthquake, volcanic ash, planes crashing,
war raging ,people starving, dying by the skip load.
Huge unbearable calamitous monsters
fenced far from the brink of cosy cuckoo coos of
a designer-stitched summer's day.
But a grasshopper’s rasp could push you deep over the edge,
Or the line of a book, the lilt of a song,
the gentle prod of a celluloid smile.
Cavalier of life, cotton wool cloud-dreamer
Could you be safer, more guilty, being
Watched over by angels of white barking in the dark?
15 comments:
"cool beers of cultivated thought"... I like that a lot, TFE!
Also, I like the 'cerebral garden' and those 'angels of white barking in the dark'... intriguing!
I LOVE this one, Peadar! It is so rich with images and emotion.
That line about the grasshopper's rasp pushing you over the edge just hits me in the right spot.
This is one you should send out (just my opinion) with its volcanic ash reference. It needs to be read off-line.
Kat
You stomped on my heart with that final line, and you squashed that sucker flat.
That's a very powerful poem TFE, haunting, unsettling and sad. Images like dying by the skipload, cosy cuckoo coos, grasshopper rasp, line of a book, lilt of a song, cottonwool cloud dreamer are all great, very visual. And those angels sound scary, a bit bitey!
(Bet this poem could hold its own in a competition...!) I love the picture of the horses by the sea, by the way, that's a poem in itself.
Wow TFE, this has been a bit of a vintage week so far, and that was superb too!
I just loved the way the stanzas broke into each other,
fenced far from the brink of cosy cuckoo coos of
a designer-stitched summer's day.
But a grasshopper’s rasp could push you deep over the edge,
Or the line of a book, the lilt of a song,
with that "But.."
and the juxtaposition of the beautiful, the terrible, memory and forgetting and the accusation. That final line!
So much to this, its a reader and read again-er.
Good one!
I just love those cool beers of cultivated thought.
Funny how it's really disaster season these days. I'm going to chill out, stop trying to get over the pond to see the folks, and just enjoy the sunshine.
Love Firefly Summer and your beachscape header. It would be wonderful to gallop across those sands.
Its 30 years since I was in school so I can't remember the phrase in English for odd words going together, like angels barking, and designer-stitched summer's day but you're definitely the master of it. Creates some very weird but wonderful images. How we rely on that garden fence...
This feels like a bit of a departure - the pace is much slower and it's more thoughtful . . . but I really like it, particularly the surprising first two lines of the second verse...
nice bit of topicality with the volcano dirt thrown in there, I like the cool beers of cultivated thought, and I like the shift in mood for the second half - there's no grasshoppers in Ireland tho, right?
A lot can happen during a grasshopper's rasp - lovely little poem. Well - if you won't bring that donk back on screen I suppose those horses on that lovely strand will do.
Seems you asked me a question on Facebook but I can't seem to find it. Try an e mail.
Like the way the poem contrasts summer and suffering and especially the line
"But a grasshopper’s rasp could push you deep over the edge"
Made me think of "Further in Summer than the Birds"
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/further-in-summer-than-the-birds/
Wow! I thought those first lines seemed out of character, but I didn't see the rest of it coming! After the "not", the rest of the poem pounds me with "huge unbearable calamitous monsters", and the second stanza knocks me on my duff! This is powerful poetry. Me likes!
Whoah! This was sooo rich in imagery, so extravagant of words.! "Cavalier of life, cotton wool cloud-dreamer/Could you be safer, more guilty,/ being Watched over by angels of white barking in the dark?" What an unexpected ending. Luscious though, just luscious.
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