Marc Latham’s latest Folding Mirror poem celebrates Halloween, while hoping its topicality will bring more visitors and readers. Sorry if you were looking for something more supernatural or scary in line with the Halloween spirit, but this poem tries to provide a reasoned and rational account of humanity and natural spirits.
While there are horrors of non-human nature, such as hurricanes, earthquakes and droughts, which may or may not be exacerbated by human activity; or rare animal attacks, which are often because of human expansion into the remaining wilderness areas; the most common horrors in human society are human on human.
And while a belief in workable witchcraft and innocent people being persecuted and burned as witches has generally died out in ‘Western’ society, they are still prevalent in some parts of the world.
So enjoy the Halloween fun, which is derived from pagan end-of-summer festivals such as Samhain, before human societies had the technology we now have, and the knowledge astronomers such as Copernicus, Galileo and Isaac Newton provided, but watch out for those humans! Here’s the poem:
Solar wind. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Halloween Howls, Samhain Sighs
nature knows no religion
devil, witch or werewolf
it just lives and breathes
everywhere we settle
providing us with homes
food, drink and beauty
law unto itself, beyond our control
ritual, pray and sacrifice
try talking to spirit
cultures have collapsed
under signs falling from sky
god, angel and unicorn
all created by mankind
Hi, it’s Max Cliffwolf, PR guru at the Greenygrey. I was delighted to see that our cunning PR stunt worked last week, with the Greenygrey appearing on national television with the hero of the week, Felix Baumgartner. After Felix Baumgartner’s totally amazing and awe-inspiring space jump, the Red Bull usually associated with Felix was put out to pasture for a day, thanks to the Greenygrey.
Red Bull GmbH (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Felix Baumgartner’s Flight Ambitions Realised with Space Jump
As the drawing below shows, Felix always wanted to do amazing flights, and he might have had a chip on his shoulder if he hadn’t been able to accomplish his ambitions.
Instead, in the accompanying photo he has a Red Bull on his shoulder, as well as leg and helmet; the energy drink‘s slogan is of course that ‘Red Bull gives you wings’, so it’s very appropriate.
But Felix wanted to jump from space, and this month accomplished his ultimate ambition with what Marc Latham described as the ‘moon landing moment of my life’.
And as seen in the photos below, taken from a BBC interview with Jeremy Paxwolf after Felix’s space jump, with the help of my cunning PR stunt, Felix has totally lost his chip, and his Red Bull, and looks totally relaxed with a Greenygrey on his shoulder:
Close-up of Felix and the Greenygrey:
So if the Red Bull slogan is that it ‘gives you wings’, maybe the Greenygrey’s should be that it ‘brings you peace’.
I’m going to send that to the Board of Greenygreyisms. To get a passed greenygreyism on my blog debut would be a dream. I didn’t make a drawing of it though!
Hi, it’s Greenygrey. Thanks to Quentin for his debut blog post. He did of course make one mistake, calling Andy Wolfhol ‘Andy Warhol‘, but not a bad start for our new film correspondent. Great news for Amazon Prime members in the UK, Germany and France, because they can now borrow Kindle books, and that includes Werewolf of Oz: Fantasy Travel by Google Maps. So we thought we’d celebrate with another thrilling episode of our fave werewolf travelling Australia to the Wizard of Oz theme book.
This absolutely fabulous hilarious episode continues on from the last one through BOGOL link, but has no relevance to the end of the book. It does perhaps announce the beginning of poetic prevalence, with two poems in one posting for the first time. The book ended up with seventy poems. Here it is:
26. more adventures for bogol
I enquired if they knew of a nice southerly
journey. Darwin whistled thoroughly
recommending visiting Jabiru
in the centre of Kakadu
so we travelled there
with the pair.
Do try the bread, said Humpty Doo,
so I had a sarnie, and Bonzo had two.
No Handbags Alligator Fight
The Big Boxing Crocodile, Humpty Doo, NT. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
After eating and saying our goodbyes, Darwin and Humpty left to look for new species, while we continued south.
It didn’t take us long to reach Nitmiluk again. We checked out our favourite boozer, The One More Before I Croak, which had a hop going on. There was a poster above the bar advertising an alligator eliminator fight at the No Handbags bar, so after a drink we checked it out. And water fight it was, with Freshwater Frank beating Saltwater Stan in what could not be described as a toothless tussle.
Kathy and Baloo Wonder if Nitmiluk is too Good to be True
With a little time to spare, we returned to the cheap sheep shop. A koala called Kathy from Katherine and a man called Baloo from Manbulloo were getting BOGOL jumpers knitted.
They thought the deal was too good to be true,
but were reassured after we showed them our two,
and informed them of our luck in meeting Humpty Doo
and whistler duck Darwin in Kakadu.
When we told them we were following the dust sandy path south, Kathy dropped her new jumper. Baloo picked it up for her, before warning us we might need more luck if we were heading that way, as they’d heard it had become quite hellish in the outback.
Hi, it’s Andy Wolfhol. Exciting news from the world of poetry, where our favourite pumpkin Marc Latham has just published his latest Folding Mirror poem on fmpoetry. Moreover, Marc has also given us access to the ideas and poetry that stemmed from his article editing, and led to that new Folding Mirror poem.
We think the original ideas and poems will be more than enough for you for today, and hope to import the new Folding Mirror poem in for tomorrow. Here are the ideas and poems:
MTV
This is the age
of the microscope
and telescope
rise of the human race
viewing from space
falling with grace
talking to the animals
polly parrot parables
beluga requests charitables
will the minuscule
lead to a fairer rule
or just a deeper pool
full of junk and pollution
advance without cohesion
bacteria of Earth’s lesion.
—————————————-
From the flow of writing prose
tributaries of poetry are often created.
—————————————-
Words echo-locate through mind
like bats at midnight
searching for clear passage
nocturnal nature flying
through dank darkness.
—————————————-
Words echo through mind
growing louder, more resonant
filling the valley of the unconscious
settling, bubbling, rising,
overflowing, released, responded.
Marc Latham’s latest Folding Mirror poem was inspired by a few ideas and short poems that came to him while he was editing an article. Those ideas and short poems are published today on the Greenygrey blog. This poem has now been finished before the article, which is still undergoing detailed editing! Here’s the Folding Mirror poem:
English: Morning mist on Lake Mapourika, New Zealand. Français : Brume du matin sur le lac Mapourika, en Nouvelle-Zélande. Deutsch: Nebel bei Lake Mapourika in Neuseeland. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Poems of the Prose
page of prose
literature’s lake rose
creating, reviewing, editing
sentences, paragraphs, chapters
minutes pass
hours elapse
concentration lapses
mental absences
deficit reigns, attention drains
streams flow
imagination grows
words gush
rhymes rush
lines, pentameters, cinquains
bubbling, demanding, bursting
language’s river honey
piece of poetry
English: Conemaugh River Lake Dam near Saltsburg, Pennsylvania, USA. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Hi, its Greenygrey. Hope you enjoyed yesterday’s epic comedy – fantasy classic episode. Today, we’re back down to earth with something very real. Well, in fact we’re going even lower than that, to under the earth…
One of the problems with travelling rapido like we did across North America (Grey took its time a bit more across Oz) is that you miss some of the hidden away local delights, as I/we did in our ground-breaking and acronym-creating ramble across North America. Both books are of course now available on Amazon.
From what we remember, by the time we reached New York we were plum-knackered, having crossed the continent three times. That’s the only excuse we’ve got for missing out New York’s G subway line, which was originally called the GG line.
G map (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
We don’t like to speculate about which half of us might have been kept or discontinued, but the line is now coloured lime green on the official subway map (see below).
Closer Study Brings New Discovery
We were hoping to leave it at that, thinking we had enough for one blog, but then a closer look at the New York subway map showed not only another green line running parallelish to the G line, but also a grey one; and unbelievably, they cross each other.
What a joy it must be to travel on the ex-GG G line and other greenygrey lines in New York, New York, and especially at the meeting points between green and grey.
Hi, it’s Greenygrey. It’s been a (busy) week since the lastWerewolf of Oz episode, so here’s another one. It’s quite a long episode, but there’s a punchline at the end, and lots of interesting and funny dialogue in the body of the blog.
This is a standalone episode, with little relevance for the main Werewolf of Oz plot, which reaches a totally thrilling conclusion tying together many of the threads from Grey’s epic journey. This is not one of them though.
However, this episode shows the growing relationship between Grey and Bonzo, while giving you the reader a light comedy break in this epic fantasy classic; the first solo(ish) expedition across Oz by Google maps, undertaken by our very own googler Grey. As you will see, Grey and Bonzo visit the Kakadu National Park, with the plot revolving around the city of Darwin and the town of Humpty Doo. Enjoy!
We departed Nitmiluk in the morning, warmly encased in our BOGOL jumpers. Bonzo said he felt limitlessly lucky, and there seemed no limits to our progress on the path, as we reached the Kakadu National Park in no time.
Sunset at the Doo (Photo credit: Rantz)
Nice Surprise at Alligator Wildman
Bonzo and I freshened up at the waterfall where the Wildman and Alligator rivers meet, as we didn’t fancy meeting the Wildman or Alligator on their own; our consensus theory was that they’d be too pre-occupied with each other at the waterfall to take any notice of us.
We were just emerging from the water when an extraordinary looking creature arrived on the beach. Its head reminded me of my ol’ hero Scooby Doo, but it seemed to have an egg body like that of Humpty Dumpty.
It was accompanied by a duck that always seemed to be whistling.
Ready for the Quack I Do in Kakadu?
The duck approached us and whistled, ‘Hello, I am Dr. Darwin, a local whistler duck quack, and this is my friend, the Humpty Doo, who also lives nearby. We have ventured east to Kakadu hoping to discover new species. We thought you might be of some interest, but we have concluded that you are both old species. Although there hasn’t been a werewolf seen in these parts for many a century.’
English: A male northern brushtail possum in Humpty Doo, Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I returned the greeting, and thanked them for their interest, before saying I’d never seen a Humpty Doo before. Dr. Darwin said Humpty was an interesting creature, and he wasn’t sure how he’d evolved; it was ongoing research, but his theory on the origin of species was that the Humpty Doo was descended from an English civil war rhyme and a Hollywood cartoon dog.
So maybe I was right. I was excited, and asked if it really believed this. For the first time it did not whistle its opinion; instead it did quack, ‘I do.’
—————————————————————————————————-
Notes
Darwin and Humpty Doo are Northern Territories towns.
Scooby Doo (cartoon dog).
Humpty Dumpty (English civil war nursery rhyme character). Charles Darwin (19th century scientist, and his book: On The Origin of Species).
Hi, it’s Susie Dentinfang, word and phrase expert at the Greenygrey and Countdownto the Full Moon. As you will no doubt have read yesterday, ‘Werewolfie’ created a great new Greenygreyism, and we are delighted to announce that a carefully crafted final version has now been passed by the Board of Greenygreyisms for ‘Full Honours Greenygreyism’ status. The final phrase is:
‘At the Greenygrey it’s not the winning that matters,
it’s the taking part… in greenygrey.’
Werewolfie would again like to thank the Shanghai Masters, Denver Post and tennis players for making his dream of creating a ‘Full Honours Greenygreyism’ come true, and especially Tomas Berdych.
Were-the Werewolf Passed as Grade Two Greenygreyism
New Moon Landing (Photo credit: Avital Pinnick)
The Board only sit once a month, in line with the New Moon, and therefore also reviewed Michael Wolf and Andy Wolfhol’s ‘were-the werewolf’ from September 25th at the latest meeting.
Michael and Andy applied for Full Honours status for their phrase, and gave compelling presentations in support of their new Greenygreyism. They did enough to win official recognition for ‘were-the werewolf’, but it was classed as a Grade Two Greenygreyism.
Receiving G2 status in the GG world is nothing to be ashamed of, when you consider the quality of some of the other Greenygreyisms, and the pair of werewolf-wordsmiths (W2) ‘were’ not at all disappointed.
Hi, it’s Martin ‘Werewolfie’ Adams, sports correspondent at the Greenygrey. At the Greenygrey, it’s not the winning that counts, it’s the taking part in greenygrey… or playing amongst glorious greenygrey.
And we noticed a great coming together of greenygrey venue and greenygrey kit at the recent Shanghai Masters tennis tournament. We just looked up some photos from the tournament; bit late to be topical we know, but it’s been a busy Greenygrey news week; and the Denver Post has a great selection of photos from the men’s tournament. So we just have men’s photos below, which is due to us finding enough material there, rather than sexism or sexuality. And here they are:
Jo Wilfried-Tsonga looks overjoyed to be playing amongst greenygrey.
Is Tomas Berdych getting into the greenygrey spirit of things, or trying to camouflage himself? Nice greenygrey design anyway, and thanks to Tomas for wearing our colours.
Thanks to the Shanghai Masters for all the great greenygrey photo opportunities, the players for taking part in glorious greenygrey, and the Denver Post for sharing the photos.
Marc Latham’s latest Folding Mirror poem was inspired by taking time out to look around his room and think after watching the Howl film on the BBC. Howl is about Allen Ginsberg of the 1950s Beat movement, and his trial for obscenity for his Howl poem. Marc looked at his calendar, and the days on it, noticing there were two halves of the October month either side of the 16th, which was tomorrow (now today). So he thought he’d write a Folding Mirror poem about October, and here it is:
Birthday II (Photo credit: MR_TMRW)
October 16th, 2012
Fifteen days, first half
my birthday’s shadow
hides the fact
my age says I’m
one year older
than the month before
first to fifteenth gone
Monday to Monday
midpoint time, midday Tuesday
Wednesday to Wednesday
sixteenth to thirty-first ahead
the second half begins
on same day
the clock ticks on
to cold dark
Halloween Samhain night
two weeks, one day
mistYmuse 