Today’s FM is another quality contribution by Sarah James, who reflects on the power and tricks of camera and light: on your vision and mind.
Sarah James also supplied the accompanying photo, so it’s double thanks to Sarah for creating and sharing this post.
The Photo Album
light memorises
patterns of colour
shapes, contrast, image reversed
…in the camera’s neat frame
viewing
thin sheet of moon paper
reversed mind order, shape-shift
of time’s unkind frost
memories eyes lost
This poem was inspired by Marc Latham’s mind time in the Rainbow Valley; in Australia’s Northern Territory on the border with South Australia. That was while writing up the Werewolf of Oz.
Marc Latham was just going to scoot through at first, but then got caught up in the valley, and found out a bit about rainbows while there.
When he realised that green was in the middle of the seven colour Newtonian rainbow spectrum (there are other theories too) and there was an anagram of ROY G BIV to remember it he thought it fitted nicely into the Folding Mirror format.
What follows is not the greatest poetic opus ever, or probably even ever by Marc Latham, but he quite enjoys its aesthetics, and hopes you do too.
He also hopes it’ll help him and you remember the formation; unless you already know ROY well of course.
Here’s the piece:
Today we have a clever and timely (sorry!) FM poem by Sarah James that was first published on her poetry site for the 21st Century Poets: Make it New project. It was inspired by the photo below it.
Thanks to Sarah for creating and sharing it.
time to wonder
the cuckoo clock hook
hangs weightless
an upside-down question mark
waiting for
an answer to catch
I read some good news yesterday: the On The Road movie, which many people doubted would ever get made, has been filmed and is due out within the next year or so.
On the Road film
It also looks as if there is a good production team, including Francis Ford Coppola.
I was pleased, and not too surprised, to read that Sam Riley is playing the role of Sal Paradise in it; Kerouac’s alter ego.
Sam Riley and 10,000 Things
I first saw Riley on stage in Leeds, when he was fronting a band called 10,000 Things. They were good, and looked likely to make it, but their first album had a bad review and they split up. Riley returned to acting.
I thought that was a bit of a coincidence: the singer from the best Leeds band I’ve seen playing the role of the character that had been my biggest travel inspiration.
Johnny Depp and Rock City Angels
And then today I had another surprise when I read that Johnny Depp, who I’ve always thought of as cool, and who has acted in some of my favourite films, such as Dead Man, used to be in a band called Rock City Angels that I knew in the 1980s, but didn’t know Depp was in them. I was travelling at the time, and picked up the album on the road.
The Poem
Anyway, I thought I’d make the two coincidences into a Folding Mirror poem, and here it is:
Two Days When My Cultural Worlds Collided
English actor, American poet
found out
one afternoon before
Sam Riley’s playing Sal Paradise
On The Road
10,000 Things to Kerouac
Leeds band and Beat writer
music, films, literature
cultural exchange across the spiritual big pond
past, present, future,
Hollywood star and Romantic poet
Depp played William Blake
in Dead Man
was Rock City Angel guitarist
one became aware
morning after
American actor, English poet
Today we have a mermaid poem by Denise Margaret Hargrave that combines idyllic scene-setting words with an environmental message . The poem was recently published in A Mermaid’s Tale of Xanadon’t and Other Poems, which is the latest in Wendy Webb’s mermaid series, and features poems by Wendy Webb and guests.
Thanks to Denise for creating and sharing the poem, and Wendy and Anne Mullender for helping to make it available here. Enjoy!
SOS
From
the sea
she sprang like
a dolphin, and
hovered shimmering
turquoise in the ether,
an otherworldly being,
spectacularly beautiful,
waves of golden hair tumbling down
in halcyon light, hallowed
and haloed. ‘Save our seas,’
she said. ‘Save our seas.’
Then with a swish
of her tail
she was
gone.
Here’s a new Folding Mirror poem by Marc Latham hot off the Twenty-firstcenturypoets press. Thanks to Sarah James for inviting me to contribute to the site.
Marc Latham also has his Swan Serenade poem in the Everydaypoets anthology recently published.
This new Folding Mirror poem looks at how we often judge others but expect people not to do the same with ourselves.
We often expect people to see through our behaviour to the core, where there is goodness, and our best side.
But a lot of the time, for whatever reason, and this is totally a part of what makes us human, we also let our bad sides out: sometimes it’s just an urge to be wicked, as the drinks advert celebrates; or some kind of power/greed trip, or family and social histories or pressures.
Some people realise this and try to limit it, or make amends with hindsight, while others just think they have a right to negative actions that impact unfairly upon people, and continue to act that way all their lives without apology.
I Can See Through You, Why Don’t People Understand Me
I know everything about you
from what you present
clothes, words, demographics,
what identifies you
at the core
but nobody gets me
labelled, slurred, ignored,
my life decoded negative
Y am I always misunderstood
Today we have an epic palindromic Folding Mirror poem by regular FM poet, Claire Knight, that was inspired by scenic seasonal photos taken and shared by another poet that has also graced this site with words, Sarah James.
Thanks to Claire and Sarah for creating and sharing the images and interpretations, and I hope you enjoy viewing and reading them.
first light of day
breathes gently across
the laden skies of winter,
a duvet of swans’ down clouds,
masking a sun-rich blue void beyond.
Poles and pylons rise towards the heavens,
reflected pink hues dance light,
a veil of stillness descends:
as above so below
silent wires cross the expanse of silence
a universe at one:
a veil of stillness lingers,
reflected pink light dances hues,
poles and pylons rise from the earth.
Masking a life-rich black land beneath,
a blanket of pure crystal snow.
The hidden furrows of winter –
breath chilly across
frost glinting by day.
Here’s a quick new stream of thought poem from Marc Latham that juxtaposes the big question about humanity’s origins and future centred on Johnny Lydon’s punk band, PiL: Public Image Limited, which came to mind while thinking of how our planet has:
The God PiL
ying and yang
creation and big bang
what’s good for you,
may be bad
for someone else
PiL: Time Knowledge Resources
do something four
times a month
that helps fellow life,
no one knows answer
god or chancer
The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health: (Marc Latham says thanks for all your visits and comments, and hope you return regularly in 2011. Happy New Year!)
The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.
A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 10,000 times in 2010. That’s about 24 full 747s.
In 2010, there were 80 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 179 posts. There were 42 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 7mb. That’s about 4 pictures per month.
The busiest day of the year was October 29th with 236 views. The most popular post that day was Sunrise Poem: When a New Day Washes the Old Away.
The top referring sites in 2010 were facebook.com, greenygrey.co.uk, search.conduit.com, en.search.wordpress.com, and suite101.com.
Some visitors came searching, mostly for sombrero galaxy, alice in wonderland poems, thomas girtin, alice in wonderland poem, and immersion album cover.
These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.
Sunrise Poem: When a New Day Washes the Old Away April 2010
1 comment
Hubble Space Poem Trilogy 1: the Sombrero Galaxy February 2010
5 comments
Alice in Wonderland Poem March 2010
8 comments
Pendulum’s Immersion Album Cover Interpretation Poem May 2010
2 comments and 1 Like on WordPress.com,
Thomas Girtin’s Bamburgh Castle: 9 out of 10 June 2009
1 comment
mistYmuse 
