Sand Gazes Out of Hourglass, Wishes Put Out to Grass
D’ evil to fill lower void life’s gra-in-dients to avoid thinking it’ll fall straight under
sands of time, yours and mine
learning too late gravity rules never seeing glass controller meaning one becomes two added time
*The heading paraphrases “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.” I thought it was Shakespeare, but attributed to Abraham Lincoln or Mark Twain!
*The Poem D’ evil wordplays devil. gra-in-dients: grain and gradients. yours and mine: everybody. gravity rules: double meaning, rules of gravity and gravity rules! exclamation. one becomes two cross references ‘yours and mine’ and how evil multiplies the ‘sand time’ already given, and can become a part of you, such as time in prison being an all embracing main ‘partner’; or just guilt/regret in the brain.
Hourglasses have been written about quite a lot on this site, as you can see by searching, and are in my last poetry collection.
They’ve probably been of renewed interest to my neurons since one was featured in the The Pretty Reckless song/video 25:
Marc Latham’s latest Folding Mirror poem is an ekphrastic one inspired by a wolf calendar photo. The October wolf’s grey paws seemed to join it to the rock it stood on, so the connection between wolf and Earth seemed a good topic for a mirror poem. Here it is:
Wolves 2012 Calendar, October Star Wolf
fire melting gold
fall full flow
leaves oval shaped
seem to poke
fun behind rump
tongue-twisting
on thin reaching branches
both stand on rock, green and grey coloured
under strong running legs
tree-like
paws resemble plinths
keep head grounded
feminine tongue smiles
sunrise eyes shine
below mountain peaks
Where is the Love? The Black Eyed Peas asked in 2003. I was down on the riverbank, but nobody told them, so I spent ten years struggling until being discovered by the Greenygrey last year.
The Greenygrey asked the same question an hour ago, and when it found me said I should post some stuff for the humans out there, after I focused almost entirely on voles in my first post… and totally on lovely vole photos.
Love the Valentine Vole
Hi, it’s Love the mixed-up vole presenting the blog for Valentine, as I have love coursing through my name.
Needing some quick human material I went over to the fmpoetry website to check for new poems.
Billy Joel sang New York State of Mind in 1976, and I think Marc Latham was in such a thought process when he wrote his latest Folding Mirror poem for Valentine’s Day, as it features New York singers Debbie Harry and Taylor Momsen.
Valentine Poem New York Generations
There’s a lot more about the rationale behind the poem, and a couple of cool photos over on the fmpoetry.wordpress.com website. Here’s the info about how the poem works, followed by the poem:
The poem contains 19 Blondie song titles and two albums in the top half and middle line; and the same amount of The Pretty Reckless music in the bottom half. The former’s singles are written in green ink, the latter’s in blue; all the albums are in orange.
Atomic and Rapture are two different songs without a gap between them in the poem.
The poem kind of tells a story through the song titles, but it was mainly an exercise in constructing a mirroring poem rather than telling an original or personal story. Some of the lines mirror quite nicely.
Valentine Love Poem, Songs Without Music Debbie Harry and Taylor Momsen, New York two Generations R&R Heavy Metal Ballad, Beyond Elite Understanding
Dreaming of Your Prescence Dear
on anIsland of Lost Souls Plastic Lettersmelted In The Sun The Hardest Partwas Hanging on the Telephone
waiting for you to Call Me
don’t have a Heart of Glass
so it would have been AtomicRapture
to meet you In The Flesh but Parallel Linesdon’t cross
and my vow thatPretty Baby One Way or Another I’m Gonna Love You Too disappeared at11.59
that time when The Tide is High
didn’t even Die Young Stay Pretty
instead developing a Poet’s Problem
Go Through Itwriting, Nothing Left to Lose
Factory Girl manufacturing my thoughts
ideas thatMake Me Wanna Die
exploding into silent angst Since You’re Gone Void and Null I never was no Superhero Where Did Jesus Go not leading your Blonde Rebellion that
did once Light Me Up
seems a place Far From Never
when my love Heart would always Panic
but Everybody Wants Something From Me
so didn’t hear You say Follow Me Down I’m Going to Hellwanna Burn
together I Really Fucking Love You Sweet Things please Kill Me
Hi, it’s William Wolfsworth, satirical comedy poetry correspondent inspired by Romantic poetWilliam Wordsworth and wolves. I’ve got three Folding Mirror poems by Marc Latham to catch up with today, so won’t write an epic introduction. There’s more about the poems, as well as more photos and introductory poems, over at fmpoetry.wordpress.com.
Heaven’s Christian Pope, Providing Community Hope
Is Pope Francis
entrancing us
with Marxist thinking
or am I juxtaposing
his Christian actions
with media reactions
Jesus was socialist, criticising corrupt greed
love society’s poor
religions always implore
journalists and politicians too
speaking for you
everybody cares
I’m March Hares
Completing Cycle, Living Life
Death
intriguing unknown
comforting escape
elusive companion
attractive option
the unconscious
long sleep
to somewhere better
monstrous manipulator
sweet talking serenader, becomes nagging poker
prodding parasite
trying to suck
life away
extinguish spark
attacking body
wiping mind
controlling force
showing true
Nature
Drown Song, Sun Dry
surface splashing
falling backwards
through a block
survival built
out of broken dreams
unremembered
until they rose buried
into my conscious
can’t change the past, no point seeing future
unconscious memory store
please give me more
recalling
living beyond whole nightmare
destruction point
life is precious
looking forwards
seeing straight
Marc Latham’s latest Folding Mirror poem was inspired by an article he just wrote about Bergen for the TravelThruHistory website (not published yet). It brought back memories of his journeys between Haugesund, Bergen, Voss and Oslo alongside fjords and over mountains on the Hardangervidda plateau. Here it is:
Highest Railway Line, A Beautiful Time
Riding fjord mountain roads
ferry keeps afloat
travelling Haugesund
to Bergen
by bus and boat.
Ruby Sunday snaking
east with Osteroy
across water
to north
Dale, Voss and Naeroy
lead to Flam – Myrdal, metres 1222 ascent at Finse
Orteren, Ustevatn and Rodungen
looking south
over snow
swallowed wide open
Hardangervidda plateau mouth
Forest and lake scenery
to Oslo
through Honefoss
waterfalls accompany descent
completing la vida loco.
Times they are a changin’… Although summer is holding on in Britain, and could even be roaring back later this week, the nights are drawing in, and nature seems to be readying itself for the annual change from summer to autumn (fall). Over the last few days I noticed the leaves rustling in the wind.
They’ve probably done it at other times in the summer, and maybe it’s more in my mind, but the trees seemed to be shaking themselves up for the big change. Here’s a Folding Mirror poem it inspired, imagining what summer and autumn are saying in their greeting:
Camping Spring \ Summer 2006 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Good Summer Season, Warmly Welcomes Autumn
summer meets autumn
after year apart
shaking windy branches
upturned leaves smile
exchanging colours
under changeable skies
warm greeting over, time for disclosure
my best season
summer beams
for many years
autumn changes mood
I worked overtime
winter was late
The autumn as one of the four meteorological and astronomical seasons, the season between summer and winter. In the temperate zones it is the time of harvest and the leaves fall. In the fall of the northern hemisphere the sun moves from the seemingly celestial equator to the Tropic of Capricorn. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
It is nearly August. While spring in the northern hemisphere feels like a time to restore sunshine levels, late summer feels like a time to store up for the winter. Here’s a Folding Mirror poem with that theme:
Preparing for Summer Departure, No Time for Laughter
Two days left of July
yesterday,
the sky seemed to cry.
August, the last summer month
northern,
does the sun think we’ve had enough.
September and October last
breaths,
warm winds keep winter at bay.
our star doesn’t really leave, it’s our planet’s circling weave
It’s the south’s turn to face
inwards,
Australasia and Africa tilt.
Our annual repetitive cycle space planetary gravity
journey,
365, and a quarter days.
Colourful leaves before snowy scenery
tomorrow,
six months before next spring.
Marc Latham’s (which might be a J.K. Rowling pseudonym?) 242 Mirror Poems and Reflections, which combines self-analysis, social criticism and nature appreciation is now available on lots more Ereaders via Smashwords after passing review for the Premium catalogue. 40% of the book (twice as much as average) is available to browse for free.
1. Premium Catalog (Reaches Major Retailers): Once your book is accepted into the Premium Catalog, we automatically distribute it to major online retailers such as Apple (distribution to iBookstores in 51 countries), Barnes & Noble (US and UK), Sony, Kobo, WH Smith in the UK and FNAC (both powered by Kobo), Livraria Cultura in Brazil (powered by Kobo), the Diesel eBook Store, eBooks Eros (operated by Diesel), Baker & Taylor (Blio and the Axis360 library service), Page Foundry (operates retail sites Inktera.com and Versent.com; operates Android ebook store apps for Cricket Wireless and Asus), and other distribution outlets coming soon. These retailers require certain mechanical standards, such as a quality book cover image, a proper copyright notice at the top of your book, and other simple requirements outlined below. If you’re a serious author or publisher, you want your books included in Smashwords Premium Catalog. Both Apple and Sony require you have an ISBN, which you can obtain or assign in the Smashwords Dashboard’s ISBN Manager. For additional special requirements of the Apple catalog, see this checklist, How to Publish Ebooks on the iPad with Smashwords. Visit your Dashboard’s Channel Manager to control which retailers we distribute your book to.
Smashwords.
It is also still available on Amazon for paperback and kindle.
Dedicated to the British class system and Islamic gender apartheid elites: to a decade of cooperation and support against the lower class and gender! (That’s irony by the way!!).
While recently travelling, and having time to look around, Marc Latham sheltered from rain, and saw it was falling as snow at a higher altitude. He thought it could be a subject for a Folding Mirror poem, and when it had absorbed into his mind a little later, he also thought it could be a metaphor for the class system. Here’s the poem:
Essentially Water, Landing Dependent
Snow falls on high
icing the mountains
evaporated droplets
randomly settling
above the dividing line
of temperature
Thirty-two Fahrenheit, Zero-degrees Celsius
longer falling
drop below the cut
driving hard
almost invisible
washed down gutters
rain muddies the ground
mistYmuse 