Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Sex Sells


Sex sells
Lolling curvaceously over
The unnecessary
I want it
Primitive response

Higher order thinking subsumed in
How do I get it?
This thing
This curvaceous
Beauteous organ of desire
So even the smartest among us
Pull the wool out of their eyes,
Knit it into elaborate blindfolds
Embroider them in red
And smile at their cleverness

Donning the objectified
Wrapper
and
Wondering
How the world
Became so dark

A..J. Ponder - Amazon author page



We consume more than just things.  Ideas and morality (I'm not so much thinking Victorian morality as the whole blurry and not so blurry good/evil thing), politics, these are part of the constructs we create, fed, as it were, by outside influences.  Those influences are increasingly stereotyped and marketed with all the passion money can buy.

Anyway, that's enough of that.  I think I'll leave my protesting to the poetry.  Much better that way.
& for those who are interested,
John Horrocks',  "Something in the Waters"
is being launched at Rona Gallery Sunday, December 12 at 3:30pm.  I'll definitely try to make it.  Should be fun.


A..J. Ponder - Amazon author page

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Murdering Poetry

I would kill
for a voice that could read poetry
as finely honed as a boning knife
Plunged into the heart.

Incisive as fangs
sliced across arteries
spilling blood in fountains
onto the slavering faces
of howling wolves
 
My cheerful brogue slipping
into dark nightmares
and flourishing
as a bone deep canker
eating you away
from the inside
and slipping
the noose
tight 
around your neck
until the air
kicking under your heels 
is still.

See, the powdered words
no longer dry upon the page
arise
a poisoned ink
that flows
within your veins
and through your soul
until your heart
no longer pains
and your death is wholly 
entertain'd.

A..J. Ponder - 




It always amazes me just where and how inspiration strikes.  This poem has been brewing dormant for the best part of a year but it wasn't until Harvey commented on Rudyard Kipling that it hurried out faster than a smuggler with the redcoats after him. 

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Rudyard Kipling " A Smuggler's Song"


If you wake at midnight, and hear a horse's feet,
Don't go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street,
Them that ask no questions isn't told a lie.
Watch the wall my darling while the Gentlemen go by.

Five and twenty ponies,
Trotting through the dark -
Brandy for the Parson, 'Baccy for the Clerk.
Laces for a lady; letters for a spy,
Watch the wall my darling while the Gentlemen go by!

Running round the woodlump if you chance to find
Little barrels, roped and tarred, all full of brandy-wine,
Don't you shout to come and look, nor use 'em for your play.
Put the brishwood back again - and they'll be gone next day !

If you see the stable-door setting open wide;
If you see a tired horse lying down inside;
If your mother mends a coat cut about and tore;
If the lining's wet and warm - don't you ask no more !

If you meet King George's men, dressed in blue and red,
You be careful what you say, and mindful what is said.
If they call you " pretty maid," and chuck you 'neath the chin,
Don't you tell where no one is, nor yet where no one's been !

Knocks and footsteps round the house - whistles after dark -
You've no call for running out till the house-dogs bark.
Trusty's here, and Pincher's here, and see how dumb they lie
They don't fret to follow when the Gentlemen go by !

'If You do as you've been told, 'likely there's a chance,
You'll be give a dainty doll, all the way from France,
With a cap of Valenciennes, and a velvet hood -
A present from the Gentlemen, along 'o being good !
Five and twenty ponies,
Trotting through the dark -
Brandy for the Parson, 'Baccy for the Clerk.
Them that asks no questions isn't told a lie -
Watch the wall my darling while the Gentlemen go by ! 


This is such a lovely sweet poem with amazing rhyme and rhythmn, but it's the sinister edge and atmosphere that make it great!

P.S. "Touchdown!" is now out.  School Journal Part 2 No4 2010  "Scene: A spaceship is landing on an alien planet... "

A..J. Ponder 


Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Fairy Tale Conventions

We are the child
Stepping out into a world of danger

We are the guardians of the child
Watching the path

And although the answer is no
It's always, 'no'-

The child goes -
We go

All the way to the end
Because

When the road is bleak
And full of wolves

Someone must hold our hands

A..J. Ponder 


In the world of Fairy tales danger lurks around every corner, which of course only makes the journey more more irresistible.  This poem is for every child with whom I have walked that path into brilliant darkness.

For more fairytale poetry click here to my Fairytale Poetry Hub

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

A Sonnet to the Muse

Shall I compare thee, or shall I just write
Oh my demon, summer died as you drove
A plague of words
As black and dark as night
Through my heart and through my head.  Words you wove -

Yes you did - with a tongue so slick and sweet
My world held neither shadows nor delight
Nought but bloody threads
Spilling your own neat
Hell upon darkened pages of my life

But my torment is not your tapestry of text
Nor ink-smudged tears dried long upon my face
Tis but the fear that
You will set me free -
So let dead summers sink without a trace

Let words plague every corner, every part
My demon stitch the small world of my heart.

A..J. Ponder 

Much as I adore simplicity, there is no way I could compete with Helen's poem, Truths, so I thought why not go to the other extreme!  Everyone should have a go at writing a sonnet, with the reversal et al. at some stage of their life. One could say this sonnet is a little more textured than a traditional sonnet, but only a little, and it was great fun to write.