Zurich Almanac

Have I written a poem about Zurich yet?

Has the place sunk far enough into my subconscious?

The poetry strata: down where the dinosaur fossils lie

a Jurassic stanza, incorporating the city’s ancient guilds

 

The dull colours of conservative cool

Sitting in roccoco shop windows and on the shoulders of locals

While Ganymed begs the eagle to mount him “in a Swiss way”

Take him to the mountains, Hubacher must mean…

 

ALL ZÜRI, ALL CHRANK: Schweizerdeutsch I can read

Maybe the church spires inject some with cruel medicine.

I’m vaccinated, indoctrinated, the hot needles of last summer’s heat

Tattooed this city across the skin of hometown memories

 

Nothing in nature can kill you here – mammals, reptiles, fish

Just don’t get caught beneath an avalanche

or those blossoms, heavy with spring, before

they fall to the ground like confetti, like ashes, like tiny pieces of my heart

overflowing.

 

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I’m doing National/Global Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo / GloPoWriMo) – write one poem, per day throughout April. Today’s prompt/challenge was interesting in that it was one I initially did not like the sound of. But, as is often the way, it turned out to be quite inspiring as it wasn’t how I’d normally think to construct a poem.

It was as follows: fill out, in no more than five minutes, the following “Almanac Questionnaire,” which solicits concrete details about a specific place (real or imagined). Then write a poem incorporating or based on one or more of your answers. 

Almanac Questionnaire (I’ve included my answers too)

Weather: wet, usually dry
Flora: heavy with spring blossoms
Architecture: cool modern and roccoco
Customs: polite and on time, can be brusque
Mammals/reptiles/fish: nothing can kill you
Childhood dream: Heidi
Found on the Street: sticks
Export: watches and choc
Graffiti: all zuri, all chrank
Lover: Berlin?
Conspiracy: old zuri guilds
Dress: dull colours of conservative cool
Hometown memory: flooded back in last summer’s heat
Notable person: Jung
Outside your window, you find: church spires and spring
Today’s news headline:
Scrap from a letter:
Animal from a myth: dinosaurs?
Story read to children at night: Schellen Ursli
You walk three minutes down an alley and you find: nature
You walk to the border and hear: italian, french, german
What you fear: the lights going out
Picture on your city’s postcard: Ganymede

Duet

 

http://www.getty.edu/art/collections/images/l/06124001.jpg

Le Violon d’Ingres by Man Ray

 

Body like a viola

Always a string to his bow

Music made with closed windows

Harmonies no one will know

 

I’m doing National/Global Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo / GloPoWriMo) – write one poem, per day throughout April. Today’s prompt/challenge was to write a poem that incorporates the idea of doubles, because today marks the halfway point in the NaPoWriMo month.

Battery-san

Dead battery

 

Blessed be the batteries

That run dry and die

Annoying at first but when nothing works

It allows a little blessed slattern-y

Dead toys, unbatteried, lazy-lie

A blessed reprieve on paying my bills

My only fear is the batteries lurk

In my pocket like cyanide pills

 

I’m doing National/Global Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo / GloPoWriMo) – write one poem, per day throughout April. Today’s prompt/challenge was to try a poem called a san san, which means “three three” in Chinese (It’s also a term of art in the game Go). The san san has some things in common with the tritina, including repetition and rhyme. In particular, the san san repeats, three times, each of three terms or images. The seven lines rhyme in the pattern a-b-c-a-b-d-c-d. My three things are batteries, die/dead/cyanide and blessed. (Please excuse my interchange of Chinese/Japanese with the title and pic – how rude!). Besides writing the poems themselves, one of the best things about NaPoWriMo has been learning about and trying out new forms of poems. 

The Fortunate Ones

Respect. Photo: Iain Scott

Respect! You show courage

And sometimes I forget

Your support is like the floor beneath me

I don’t look where I tread

 

Our swirling, whirling life

We never seem to stop

but pause, fleetingly, in slipstreams, shouting:

“We’ve really done a lot”

 

The way you face things, the man you are

And it’s not easy, marriage

I don’t say this often enough:

Respect! You show courage

 

I’m doing National/Global Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo / GloPoWriMo) – write one poem, per day throughout April. Today’s prompt/challenge for 13th April was this: the number 13 is often considered unlucky, so today I’d like to challenge you to beat the bad luck away with a poem inspired by fortune cookies. 

Braised

 

Seems old-fashioned to braise

And none of the below

Make me reappraise

This thought. In fact

I’m not even sure on looking

What kind of cooking

Braising actually involves

 

Turnips: Braised and Glazed

Braised Celery – not a felony

Braised Fennel in Meat Juices with Cheese, if you please

Braised Stuffed Trotters, not a lotta demand (surely?)

Ladies and Gentlemen may I present: Braised Tongue with Madeira Sauce, why of course!

Braised Witlof, I shit not

braising

meat

vegetables

Brandied Cumquats… oops I went too far.

 

I’m doing National/Global Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo / GloPoWriMo) – write one poem, per day throughout April. Today’s prompt/challenge was to write an “ index poem” using found language from an actual index (or you could invent an index, like in this kickarse poem by Thomas Brendler they gave as an example). I used found words from the index of one of my favourite Australian classic cookbooks, Stephanie Alexander, The Cook’s Companion. AND YES I KNOW MY OVEN IS FILTHY!! 

Morning song

Beardsley-inspired ink poster by Steven Huntington from www.behance.net/gallery/7198651/Aubrey-Beardsley-Poster

 

Soft, stilldark early morning

birds’ small, individual rounds

chirping, tweeting, calling

create a wall of nature-sound

 

The trams surging up Schaffhauserstrasse

juddering scrape, metal wheels on rails

a sibilant symphony: electric power

near-majestic, benign strength prevails

 

Church bells bong quarterly

soundwaves hanging in the air

on the hour a vortex: echo-vibration, stereolocation

you almost see it shimmering there

 

The planes: further away, their churn

high-up, unmistakable

as toward tarmac or clouds they kern

ripping the sky, rippling by

 

My baby lets out a cry: 5am

down the hall in his room

he snuffles, goes quiet again

I don’t get up… but soon

 

Traffic noise, a distant soundtrack

underpins cities like cement

no one drives up our street yet

Still: the neverending improvement

 

The soft crunch of my duvet

as I stretch my legs in the warm bed

can’t sleep now should I choose it

I think about Sydney instead

 

I’m doing National/Global Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo / GloPoWriMo) – write one poem, per day throughout April. Today’s prompt/challenge was to write a poem in which you closely describe an object or place, and then end with a much more abstract line that doesn’t seemingly have anything to do with that object or place, but which, of course, really does.

Kids I know

kids

Ava, Aria, Annie, Austin, Annabel, Amelia, Alice, Adrien, Arthur, Alexander, Alessandro, Ambrose, Argento

Eva Eve, Ena, Effie, Eliza, Elliot, Elliott, Elias, Eden, Eliana

Isaac, Indira, Isabelle, Indiana, Isla

Otto, Olivia, Oliver, Oscar

Quinn

Milla, Mila, Millie, Mio, Mia, Mira, Max, Molly, Matilda, Matthew, Michael, Magnus, Madeline, Miriam, Melody, Maible

Felix, Harvey, Hope

Tara, Thandi, Thomas, Tias, Theo

Gabriel, Gabrielle, Genivieve, Giselle, Georgie

Donovan, Daphne, Dusty, Dino

Lia, Lara, Leo, Leonie, Leonard, Lily, Lucinda, Luke, LJ

Percy, Peter, Priya

Cleo, Chloe, Calliope, Constance, Caolan, Carter

Ruben, Ruby, Rhoswen, Rory, Raphael

Kaspar

Sylvester, Simon, Sebastian, Sadie, Sas

Wolfe, Will, Vivienne

Jan, Juno, Joe, Beatrix, Bo

Zoe

 

I’m doing National/Global Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo / GloPoWriMo) – write one poem, per day throughout April. Today’s prompt/challenge was to write a “book spine” poem, which involves taking a look at your bookshelves, and writing down titles in order (or rearranging the titles) to create a poem. I did a slightly different take (and sorry if I forgot anyone!). Might try the book spine poem at some point though.

Hairy McClairey

This summer I could grow my hair

Shaggy pits, fuzzy pins and spider-legs down there

Show the kids what a real woman looks like

But the idea fills me with fright

Because of so many cultural tunes

And tho I wish myself immune,

There’s all this baggage in body follicles

Where smooth implies wherewithal

To deal with life: as woman and mother dear

While hairy says I’M NOT COPING, I fear

It shouldn’t be such a big deal

Yet, to me, the struggle is real

And I wish I was braver, to ditch the shaver…

Shallow, vain or just being ‘normal’?

Ugh! Even writing all this feels awful.

 

I’m doing National/Global Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo / GloPoWriMo) – write one poem, per day throughout April. Today’s prompt/challenge was to write a poem that includes a line you’re afraid to write. I’m not sure there’s one line here but the subject matter is something I’ve often wanted to write about but have felt uncomfortable with, so I guess I’m facing that fear! Not my best poem but perhaps a good challenge nonetheless.  

Gardenia four ways

Gardenia

 

‘Gardenia,’ she sighed

With such pleasurable relish

That we bought the perfume she described.

I still wear it 10 years on

 

Gardenia in the cool shade of morning

On my grandmother’s high verandah

Planes shimmering by in the hot blue sky

that lovely scent, mingling with the frangipani below

 

I spy the handsome dark-green leaves and white flowers

In unromantic IKEA

That smell reminds me of my nana

Me too – of mine

 

We got home and she’d sent a letter

Describing a spider in the garden to her great-grandson

Exactly the sort of story he loves

And the fragrance of gardenia on our tiny terrasse

 

I’m doing National/Global Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo / GloPoWriMo) – write one poem, per day throughout April. Today’s prompt/challenge was to write a flower poem.