poetry
The first couple of lines of this poem came when I was in my first year English class at Uni. The original idea was, what would a primitive people, with firm religious beliefs, think and feel if something as other-worldly as a submarine was to suddenly surface in front of them.
From there, it turned into a sequential story of primitive man through ancient Mespotamian time (hence the ziggurat) told with images, brief glimpses of the thoughts that must have gone through the minds of ancient peoples. Most of my poetry is imagery, rather than strict story telling, because it is much easier to get out the ideas in my head this way. Doesn't necessarily make it easier for the reader to understand what it is I'm trying to convey, however.
Religion, a sinners bequeath (1993-1994)
I
Nomads of an itinerant world,
sleeping on home-made beds
Wrapped warmly in clothes of silken
cloth; the blue beast comes
to the surface
gently
rising
Like a bloated whale.
Men spew (disorder) from the
spout; a nosehold, a place of breathing.
White air fills the room -
A small red light
sings
with delight on this auspicious occasion
while a caravan reaches the waters edge - stops for drinking
Some don't drink.
From gills
deathly balls of spartan
fire
withdraw.
II
The man has come;
it is proclaimed.
Hail thee to a mighty warrior;
it is announced.
Yet no-one hears.
Gaunt and jutting out
from the stream.
Pastry saviours leap down from
the trees
onto the back of a mighty ship;
mirage slips back into the sand from
whence it came.
A band of frolick'd merrimen
stomp
dance
chant
with a welt red sun burning in
their minds; but a cold
mercury moon
sleeping
in their souls.
Men strike forth into the night.
Dark in the water, their
mother
drifts; like a mind she
glides
on the sea of golden might.
Then slides back
home
her home; their home
is unexpected
beneath the waves
Of delight.
III
Ideals of a ziggurat.
Passed to his son
On a Sabbath
No moon.
Walking past; later that same night
No man I see
just
the afterglow
of knowledge rekindled.
The air is rife with the putrid stench of belief.
Father a wise man
Son with open mind.