The First Blog

This web blog is primarily to be used for posting the poetry I write, however, I may use this site for thoughts, ideas, articles, and even possibly for writing that does not involve poetic devices or techniques.

I thought that for my first entry it would be appropriate to post 2 poems, so that any person that happens to stumble across this little site would get a feel for the sort of poetry that I write and could decide whether or not they would wish to revisit when more is added. The first poem is, in fact, the title poem for this blog, it is a free verse poem, but follows a strict structure of 4 syllables per line. The poem is really one large metaphor, using the imagery of an old oak tree as symbolic for the mind of a writer. The poem eventually reaches a revelation, but only after playing with a number of images related to one's thought processes and the old oak.

Life In Language

Life in language
Talks back to me.

Words rustle and
Are teased, like leaves

Away from great
Oak branches. Whilst

Images play
Against them as

Wind, making them
Butterflies who dance.

Great nouns sit like
Fat apples on

An apple tree.
Snakelike tendrils:

Thoughts of light, are
Broken into

Thousands Upon
Thousands of strands

That weave, entwined
Delicately –

Elucidating
Twisted fingers,

Gesturing. The
Houses and homes

To sparrows and
Swallows who sing

Water features
And nonsense rhymes:

Sounds that balance
The power of

Words. The way these
Leaves will live on,

Immortal; but
The tree that shed

Them shall cry, as
All - but words, must
Die.

This second poem is a traditional poetic form called a Villanelle. This form was made famous by Dylan Thomas, with his poem 'Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.' To write a Villanelle is not a simple task, it is as difficult as a Sonnet, and extremely challenging as certain lines in the poem must be used repeatedly as the refrains. For those who do not fully understand what a Villanelle is, here is a brief summation of the traditional and modern versions of the poetic form. The traditional Villanelle uses the exact same refrains for the duration of the poem, and follows a structure of 6 stanzas each with an ABA rhyming scheme and a limitation of 8 syllables per line, often in iambic pentameter. With my 'Villanelle for the Wristwatch,' however, I took modern poetic liberties, using a common 10 syllables per line rather than the 8, and also editing the refrains slightly each time to keep the poem sounding fresh rather than dull and repetative.

The poem plays with the idea of the modern business driven person, obsessed with work and bound by the constraints of time. It calls for a less structured personal life, one where people are free to do what they have always wanted to, but never had the time. My choice of a Villanelle contrasts with the central idea of the poem as the structure is such a strict one, but is in keeping with the the modern Businessman and his strictly ordered lifestyle.

Villanelle for the Wristwatch

The illusion we call time does not exist.
No difference in you can be seen there,
Only a smug round face worn on the wrist

That angrily ticks and will not desist!
It’s amazing that we can stand to bear
The delusion time, that does not exist

But for in Church towers – where none can resist.
None would defy that clocks mug, none would dare
Oppose the smug round face worn on the wrist,

Watching and monitoring, it persists
As if the measurement of life was fair.
The cruel illusion time, that doesn’t exist;

Save for as a large and vindictive cyst.
But now it is time that I did declare –
Cast off the smug round face, borne on your wrist;

End the life where not a moment was missed
By breaking the very hands. Stand and swear:
The illusion we call time does not exist
But as a smug round face, worn on the wrist.

RIWC