I’ve been thinking about peregrinations

Probably just a smidgeon of envy,
in passing at the bookstore,
just seeing that lolly stick in Julia Roberts’ mouth
as she sat, a fossilized pretty woman on a bench,
an almost Lucifer-like voice that whispered,
if she could do it all, eat pray love,
make a tourist brochure into a spiritual dance,
why cannot you, take up your ferocious discontent,
and peregrinate, like migrating birds do,
like backpackers do. As did the poor English fellow
who sat in a bathtub full of water turning into
inexorable ice cubes, and swore with commitment,
Jesus, I’m heading to the tropics…

(empathetic pause)

oh well, in Italy, the waiter was gruff
on the early shift, in India, you became pathological
about hygiene, and somewhere you wandered into
in Bali could quickly become a tourist bomb trap,
which about summed up your minute fears
surrounding exotic destinations. For the life of you,
you didn’t think much about having an affecting
out-of-body experience, or having a Brazilian
anything, apart from pasta, which was at least
edible, and all this wishy washy wishing
was making you fractious as you pushed open
your front door and headed to your settee.

Process notes: Poetry gong / “New to you” Day seven. Did I say day seven? Like God made the world in seven days. I completed the poetry gong in seven days. I could not find a poem to emulate. I could only read the poems of Catie Rosemurgy and then came up with a poem that doesn’t even remotely resemble any of hers. Apart from trying to sound hilarious. This is an epic fail. So on the final day, I’m taking a day off from emulating another poet. I shall now become a poetic recluse so that I can emerge stronger, better and made of sterner stuff than..toufu.

When she came round

hollowed out, she didn’t think of
a poached egg, dribbling down
her throat out of a cracked tiny
hole, its broken crown, filling out
the lean, mean emptiness that’s
hunger, how satisfyingly plugged.

Caramelised voices picked up by
ear, their musicality diminishing
the inscrutability of a pallid
feeling, amorphous but quick on
the mend, hidden in whorls of
consequence. This river of words
came from a source stamped,

“things that didn’t work out”.

Process notes: Poetry gong / “New to you” Day six. The most anachronistic volume of poetry I read this year was Catie Rosemurgy’s The Stranger Manual. Its style is casual and absurdist, it states its truths pungently, cryptically. I took the last line from the poem “Things that didn’t work”. Things that can’t be beautifully framed up. So, her lines read, “Picture frames. Targets. The psychological/boundaries described in books./Any shape or line whatsoever.” The style I used above is the antithesis of that but it wanted to express the truth of that statement.

Just when she thought there wasn’t room enough for another thought in her head

she had this small idea—apart from expecting
stir-fried mushrooms for dinner,
ladle to pan, by her own hand,
all is a feeling in the gut.

Apart from pondering, all is darkness.

Misogynists remained prickly as
another woman discovered
her candy-colored mistake.

She puttered in the kitchen,
with pureed carrots on
a smeared child’s face,
strangely susceptible to
shabby twinges of regret.

When she tried to swing her racket,
he would rap on her pretty head.

Process notes: Poetry gong / “New to you” Day five. You read/hear about unhappy couples in the news. There’re a couple of celebrity split-ups recently. Last week I was in a crowded train and there was a woman talking into her cellphone and in the process of breaking up. She was saying things like she wanted him to move out all his stuff by the time she gets home from work. What goes on in someone’s head before the big breakup? Breaking up is hard to do, it usually takes courage and conviction. The title is borrowed from John Ashberry’s poem, “My philosophy of life”. The first line read, “Just when I thought there wasn’t room enough for another thought in my head,/ I had this great idea”.

how convenient if it’s a dream

No whiny need to act as if we’re apprentices
to eternity. The drunken stupor will be
self-induced oblivion. The harem will be
a cultural construct, with no ghosts.

We’ll just worry about shoe-laces,
be as gauche and playful as possible,
unburdened with eternal crap,
floating into the reverie of being,
become true epicureans, true artisans,
true professionals, true parents,
with practical concerns, generally
carrying on without skepticism.

The end is natural, having come
to the end of all explorations, you’ll
know when to willingly let go,
like checking out of a fine hotel,
a valediction forbidding mourning.

Process notes: Poetry gong / “New to you” Day four. There’s Donne in that last line of course. The title is a line found in John Ashberry’s poem, “Wakefulness”. The idea contained in the first line is inspired or derived from a line in the poem that reads, “Everything was spotless in the little house of our desire, the clock ticked on and on, happy about being apprenticed to eternity.” There’s that bit of T S Eliot in that last stanza too. After I’m done writing, I realise I haven’t mentioned love at all. No wonder if it feels kind of hollow. Still, isn’t the whole spiel what we really really want?

I asked Mr. Dithers whether it was time yet he said no to wait

Time, you old miscreant! Slain any brontosauruses lately?
Constant cravings have run out of patience, left me hanging
by my dim wit. Some days I panicked, counting too few desires
to fill the void. Make a beeline for the mall for a quick fix.
What else to do? If I tend to a farm, I’d fill up the trough
with daily fodder, swaggering in brown safety boots.
The signboard reads, The Simple Life. Bed and Breakfast.

Here in the city, the young girls try to look like anime.
They look beautiful, clone-like. Do you have gender issues?
The smart ones don’t. Their lives are like a red carpet.
But nobody’s immune. There’s always something or other
to trip us up. Now that the days are orange and autumnal,
are we overcome with the déjà vu of a pumpkin patch?
I’ve always come to the verge, but cycled right past it,
having to believe steadfastly that life is a marathon.

Process notes: Poetry gong / “New to you” Day three. I’m still snitching lines from John Ashberry, well, the first line and the title. It’s becoming an obnoxious habit. I feel like someone stealing shampoo in a supermarket. Still, I hope writing fresh lines redeem me. Do you believe it’s redeeming to write lines of poetry? Ok now I’m really dithering.

this room

is a sanitarium.
Everyone fights for the remote.
While watching the telly, vicissitudes assailed us.

He asked for another serving of spaghetti bolognaise
while she ate words out of a crumpled paper bag.
Nirvana happens to someone puffing a cigarette.

Go figure, he said, pressing
a hot, pink button, pierced a tear duct
like a bag of blood for donation.

I’m sitting in a big bathtub.
Are you any good for getting yourself
out of horrible scrapes?

Every poem is a risk-taking, tries to achieve a grand
apotheosis while arranging anagrams.
Did you write angel when you meant angle?

Why do I tell you these things?
You are not even here.

Process notes: Poetry gong / “New to you” Day two. I’m half thinking of Robert Lowell’s “Waking in the blue” as if I wrote this under medication or something. But really the final two lines are from John Ashberry’s poem, also of the same title (meaning mine is borrowed), from Notes from the Air. I’ve alluded to a fellow poet’s own writing in the penultimate stanza (you know who you are). I want to make sense while trying not to make sense, if that makes any sense.

no longer very clear

It is true that I can no longer remember very well
my childhood except in fragments.
Nothing of significance happened.

Perhaps I was just a self-deprecating child
to be seen and not heard. It was thought
girls should be servile, wield a broom,
iron father’s shirts.

Into this trajectory came a Victorian need
for fairy tales. Start shooting looks,
read cheesy romances,
splintering home truths received
like bitter medicine.

Mother was indicted. As was every woman
walking in housecoats.

The monsoon, when it came,
was as windy as laundry. A boy whistled.
I both hated and wanted catcalls.
Don’t we all?

Men were god-like. With grandiosity,
we went to cinemas.

On reflection, it was easy to have them
eating out of the palm of your hand,
perpendicular to the sunrise.

Truths are muddy.
Trees are uncanny.

I don’t remember bawling my heart out.

Process notes: Poetry gong / “New to you” Day One. Read other entries at Big Tent Poetry. The title and first line is borrowed from John Ashberry, Notes from the Air (2008). Not sure where I’m going with this, but I’m interested to keep to the narrative voice.