Marc Latham has an interview and two poems published in the December issue of etips, which is available for free if you sign up at the Norfolk poets site from the link on the left.
The first poem is an old one with a bipolar theme, while the second is the hiking Hadrian’s Wall poem that has the ‘bipolar’ Folding Mirror format.
Today we have the second Folding Mirror poem by Norman Bissett from the Tips for Writers Autumn issue, which is available for free from the Norfolk poets and writers.
The poem captures the dive and rise of a peesie (lapwing), which is a common and wonderfully evocative sight in the UK at the moment; and a reassuring sign that summer is still present.
PEESIE
A ragged duster flapping in the gale,
plunging from heaven to earth
in some catastrophe,
its melancholy call a threnody
or dirge of desolation,
a bleak lament,
a peesie rides the surge triumphantly,
proclaiming joy,
its paean of exultation
tossing resistance at the mournful wind
through sheer exuberance,
soaring from earth to heaven,
a battle-standard fluttering in the breeze.
(peesie: Scots = lapwing)
I am pleased to write that we have another Folding Mirror poem by last year’s Purple Patch Small Press Magazine Poet of the Year Norman Bissett.
It is one of two new Folding Mirror poems by Norman that appear in the autumn edition of etips, which is available from the Norfolk poets blog.
The poem uses the English Channel as the folding middle line, and describes a couple of possible scenarios on either side of the sea: artists at work on French beaches used in the World War Two D-Day landings, and morris dancers taking part in a traditional folk custom above English beaches.
Thanks to Norman for creating and sharing another creative and entertaining Folding Mirror poem in etips and on this site, and Wendy Webb for allowing its re-use here.
The Poem
Olive-skinned artists in berets and blue smocks,
sit at their easels on canvas folding-stools
looking north
from Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, Sword
and paint, repeatedly, in oil
the land- and sea-scape,
a strip of beach, a choppy sea, a cloud-filled sky.
This panorama,
is more often unrecorded
in Weymouth, Worthing, Littlehampton, Hythe.
Looking south,
tankards in hand or clacking their morris sticks,
the moon-faced, white-smocked aboriginals dance.
Today, fmpoetry has the pleasure to present a very classic and entertaining Folding Mirror by Norfolk poet, Norman Bissett, who was last year’s Purple Patch Small Press Magazine Poet of the Year.
Thanks to Norman for allowing its use on this site, and to Wendy Webb for first publishing it in etips, which is available free on PDF.
Enjoy the poem, and have a nice day!
STENDHALISMO by Norman Bissett
Rapt in the cloistered peace of Santa Croce,
shaken to his emotional core,
he sat on a faldstool in the Niccolini Chapel,
his head leaning back to contemplate the frescos.
Ghosts of Renaissance masters kept him company–
Petrarch and Michelangelo, Boccaccio and Dante,
Alfieri, Galileo,
before he succumbed to palpitations and a fainting fit.
Galileo and Alfieri,
Dante and Boccaccio, Michelangelo and Petrarch,
ghosts of Renaissance masters kept him company,
his head leaning back to contemplate the frescos.
He sat on a faldstool in the Niccolini Chapel,
shaken to his emotional core,
rapt in the cloistered peace of Santa Croce.
mistYmuse 