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Sunday, August 10, 2008

Nullarbor




















I was dreamt by no white man’s god.
I sat bone-dry through Noah’s flood.
Here your Christ could rise from the dead
to only buzzards above his head
and an afterlife he’d quickly trade
for a waterhole by a tree in the shade.
Inside my mirage of heat
I do not speak: I hallucinate
inside your skull. For I am mute.
My heart is stone. I bleed stone blood.

1 comment:

Coirí Filíochta said...

Hi Dave.

There has been a lot of talk on POF, about Risk taking in poetry, and lots of edicts and definitions being bandied about as the bores talk, in a thread which has at least got the inmates of this chat joint gassing.

And this has been influencing my own practice of critical butchery, but fear not dear hart, do not confuse the I of Lyric narration, with the i of the eye behind the hand behind the people in a mind behind this eye taking risks in the name of of guild.

The thing i learned this weekend, after using the efforts of my peers to practice write-throughs on, is:

1 - the common denomination narrator *I* in a lot of work i am reading online, is male and articulating scenes from the world the poet makes them populate, and the appearance rate is often 75% and higher, with the token you appearing a lot less, indicating the male narrators in the work i am reading, have to work hard to hook and keep the reader interested in their doings within what scenario the language paints them.

I was dreamt by no white man’s god.
I sat bone-dry....

[....i would cut this I, as it is only telling me that there is a lifeforce talking of itself, me me at the start of each line]

...place through Noah’s flood.
Here your Christ could rise from the dead
to only buzzards above his head
and an afterlife he’d quickly trade
for a waterhole by a tree in the shade.
Inside my mirage of heat

I do not speak: I hallucinate
inside your skull. For I am mute.
My heart is stone. I bleed stone blood.

four I's, three lines, and remember i am working blind, straight off the bat, taking a controlled risk which has been at the back bone of what i do since leaving Oxford with the Newgate, taking a Risk Dave, a big ask of meself, to speak and be happy and thus, tweaked in a ten minute hit and run, another few words done, forgive me Wheatley i have sinned this is my butchery:

Hi Dave.

There has been a lot of talk on POF, about Risk taking in poetry, and lots of edicts and definitions being bandied about as the bores talk, in a thread which has at least got the inmates of this chat joint gassing.

And this has been influencing my own practice of critical butchery, but fear not dear hart, do not confuse the I of Lyric narration, with the i of the eye behind the hand behind the people in a mind behind this eye taking risks in the name of of guild.

The thing i learned this weekend, after using the efforts of my peers to practice write-throughs on, is:

1 - the common denomination narrator *I* in a lot of work i am reading online, is male and articulating scenes from the world the poet makes them populate, and the appearance rate is often 75% and higher, with the token you appearing a lot less, indicating the male narrators in the work i am reading, have to work hard to hook and keep the reader interested in their doings within what scenario the language paints them.

I was dreamt by no white man’s god;
sat bone-dry through Noah’s flood.

Here Christ could rise from the dead
to only buzzards above his head
and an afterlife he’d quickly trade
for a waterhole by a tree in shade.
Inside this mirage of heat
I do not speak, but hallucinate
inside your skull.

For I am mute, a heart of stone
and bleed stone blood.

gra agus siochainn