2nd Pinocchio poem

Waiting for Geppetto:

I stand in this forest, stretch toward light, even blind I can see; 

my leaves - the fractured eyes of a green Mayfly - watch 

for your coming. Like Odin, I dangle, see glimpses of all that may be; 

hope my mind is strong enough to recall the vision. Like Christ I wait 

to be cut down and, by clever hands and tools, shaped to fit your image.

The kiss of blade to sever me forever from the earth; to separate 

trunk from roots so my nightmares radiate with the darkness of soil. 

The bark to be pealed free; clothes no longer needed - fed to the coals 

while your rough hands take coarse paper and knives and search 

for me within the grain - set me free and bind me to this new form.

Forever at your debt; my words spoken at your mercy.

My acts, vibrations at your beck and call.

Yet somehow I must find my own footsteps, break from the love 

and demands you will place upon me to find that I alone am real -

you merely a dream I once had while my branches swayed in a storm

and the fear of death by lightning overcame me. Life is a terrible distance

to fall. I wait for the kiss of your axe and the plunge into my humanity.

suite of Pinocchio Poems

Hi everyone, these poems formed the basis of my novel (to be released by Satalyte Publishing)  Gepetto's Son. I will post them 1 at a time over the next weeks.

Hope you enjoy

Danny

first poem:

Pinocchio’s evolution:

It started with the aglet of the lace

painted upon the left black shoe

on the foot of his carved leg.

After an unknown interval

an entire shoelace turned real,

moved  to an intrusive breeze.

The strings were still there

when behind a knot of wood

his heart began to beat.

The right eye moistened first,

saw the crease of flesh

and a single blue vein underneath.

One day the finger nail

of his right thumb

started to grow and curl.

A strand of blue-black hair

at the back of his head stirred; 

a lash of his eye fell free, fluttered,

landed upon his wooden cheek.

The right foot bent, returned.

His left hand made its first fist.

His ears filled with wax

weeks before his bottom and top lips

cracked and split

and a full year, at least,

before the tongue, like a debutant,

shyly poked between.

It was a sunny day

when he first began to think;

rained heavily the afternoon

all his wood was finally skin,

yet the tale is easier told when,

with the wave of a wand,

and a hoarse whisper of a spell,

the puppet can speak.

Ode To Rusden:

 

I went to study Language and Literature

and fell like the fool for the rope of theatre,

hung myself on that stage, dangled

upside down: Watched the world

slide by while thoughts in my head

were filled in with the words of others — had they too

hung and spun,

examined the world as if it were frozen

and the only thing that moved

was my desire

as it seeped passed flesh and heart and ear and lip?

I remember Visions.

I remember an apple

and the impulse to say whatever.

I remember the three-way script

spun outwards like a web to snare an audience in ways

I had never fathomed.

I remember I wrote a piece about Russian Caravan Tea

and listened to my words plunge as if I were a well

and (having filled the page) became empty and filled again

by hearing someone else speak my mind.

Once we travelled like beetles to Sydney,

listened to playwrights rewrite their histories

and then there was the tour into the countryside:

There was day in the middle of an oval,

the band  through Paul finding a way to heaven,

 the kids, the dispersing clouds that spun away

like the old sheets on mum’s clothesline, the sun and I…

I swear if I could I would hold that day forever.

And the time I watched Elena and Neil find and lose themselves

in The Woods

that too I would hold

and the Vowles, the Cliffs…

The very fabric of me

stretched out and tossed by the hands of fellow learners of the craft,

by dancers and singers and lovers and friends,

only to fall back again and cover my skin as if nothing had changed

and it hadn’t and it had

just like the very best of things.

Rusden Sonnet 2:

She said she read auras, mine she said, was red: I told stories and as we

lay on the ground and I recovered from the metaphor of an aura

said to be red I told her a story in the form of a poem of two people

living on two different islands and the journey it might take for them

to reach out and find each other and in that darkened room the red

forgotten my words floated out to touch the cosmic pressed tin ceiling

and her hand reached out as she told me red was not so bad after all

not of it came with  a voice as bright as any full moon and in the dark

I remember I smiled at that and thought my words were more like hooks

that the ideas behind them were the bait for her lips to nibble upon

and then she said but though red was fine for me it spelt only trouble

for her and before the next breath fell into the anchored lungs within

my shipwrecked chest she rose up like a leviathan in the night and left:

I remained an island drifting again through the ocean of another night.

Rusden Sonnet 1:

Sometimes I think about that strange place where we,

the mad children of the times collected in black caverns

of fantasy and desire. It was so long ago now when we let

our voices whisper and roar as we raced through love and lust,

our hands slipping and gripping even as the familiarity

wove an unbroken chain through the ensuing years.

The hurts we gave to each other were never intended

for we were the wild flowers that bloom in innocence.

I miss those times we spent together laughing and learning,

for though I have found many more moments in the light,

and many moments, too, alone before the howling abyss,

it is the first blossom in company with like-yielding wild flowers

that always fill memories stolen in the fading evening sunlight

with the strongest scent of both tears shed and laughter shared.

The Wild Flowers of Rusden Teachers College

beware, first edit so this will take a bit of editing/polishing...

The Wild Flowers Of Rusden Teachers College:

Sometimes I think about that strange place

where buildings collected as if they had fallen -

not a thought for rhyme or reason, apt for the times

before every shape took on someone’s importance,

while we, the mad children of the times

collected in black caverns of fantasy and desire

strutted under lights while we ingested or drank

and never gave a thought to time’s heedless passage.

It was so long ago now, so far away in time,

those lessons in limbo when experiences fell through fingers

like sand lifted up in the hand and we let our voices

whisper and roar as we raced through love and lust

our hands slipping and gripping even as the familiarity

wove an unbroken chain through the ensuing years.

It was a time of youthful energy, when the follies

and the hurts we gave to each other were never intended

for we were the wild flowers that bloom in innocence

as we climbed the stairs into adulthood’s light –

oh we thought ourselves so majestically grown then,

took ourselves far too seriously, as only the young truly can,

 and played so hard we fell alone or together, rose again

like starving Draculas seeking the next dramatic neck

to drain to the very last bittersweet drop then taking the bow.

I miss those times, that moment of blossoming,

for though I have found many such moments in the light,

and many moments too alone before the howling abyss,

it is the first blossom in company with like-yielding wild flowers

that always fill memories stolen in the evening sunlight

with the strongest scent of both tears shed and laughter shared.

Paul Adkin's latest novel

When Sirens Call

Follow the link and have a look. I can't recommend his writing strongly enough so do yourself a favor and have a read. Great get for threekookaburras Press I might add.

Regret 2:

He hates sailing now, though he must if he is ever

to find his way back to Penelope’s arms; arms

he desires even as he fears her serious eyes —

for Odysseus knows she will see the stain of Hecabe.

She will witness Odysseus’ eyes,

she will study Hecabe’s leap from the prow,

a Trojan rock breaking free from the cliff

and falling silent  into the utter coldness of the sea;

a leap to death’s green drowning
preferable to the supplication of his bed.

Regret 1:

 

Odysseus stands before another window,

his hands hold the weathered frame, framing

himself, a forgotten Samson about to suffer

the collapse of the temple. He breathes in,

attempts to catch a salt-laden breeze;

perhaps that might  blow away the regret

that lingers like a leech draining him dry.

He has dreamed again of that day after the horse

when he stood silent and watched

the slaughter of Polyxena and Astyanax,

children both, their small bodies no more than limp flags

waved by joyous warriors to signal the end the war.

The girl had her swan-like throat slit,

her bright blood flung upon the tomb of Achilles —

death to her, profanity to him,

greatest hero and never one who desired

an innocent’s blood to be shed for any reason.

The boy thrown from the highest Trojan wall

(like hay to the hungry horse’s stable).

While the drunken Greeks cheered and pointed

the boy fell, swift to death yet that fall eternal

in Odysseus’ mind: The Greeks cupped their ears

to catch the sound of his breathing body

colliding with the stones below…they savored

the crunch of his small death.

To the city below he whispers—How can I

return to Penelope and to my son Telemachus

when those deaths permanently stain my flesh?