The butterfly diary
The day after tomorrow is called over morrow
The day after that is called overthehill
The day before yesterday - under the weather
The week after that is called - into the gizzard
Of a passing birds and the day after
That is called landing on ground
But quite changed in shape but in essence the same
And I’m quite used to that - I dont plan. It is out
of my hands my short life
Has been full of surprises, alread...
Speaking as a butterfly
( looking at Seurat’s drawing of his mother )
speaking as a butterfly
with my convex compound eye
I see sunshine -
shadow - also infra red
A glow is all around this weary head
in ultraviolet - Notes that human eyes don’t see
each carbon touch, a cello symphony
Anita Greg 27/05/2020
Mirrors
1/
I don’t like mirrors - want to know
What I look like - would happily
Wear a chador or a paper sack
Around myself except that walking down the street
It would defeat its object - heads might turn
And crashes might be caused and then I’d get
The blame
I saw two people in banana suits
The day the Dalai Lama came to town
And they were trying to cross the road
But their field of vision was obscured
By their costumes to a singe point
So that is why they had to twist
To right and left like baisin taps
They stood revolving half an hour
In this slow rotating dance
Before they saw a gap in traffic
In desperation, took a chance
And threw themselves into the road with tiny hobbled steps
2/
I was told when I became
Middle aged, I would become
Invisible
and walk Unseen. This was a lie.
But I’m still working on this Super-Power
The butterfly looks at its own image on the floor
Oh save me from your strong disapproval
The face you make when you are not amused
More often than it’s not these days
I am surrounded by the husks
Of all my brothers sisters
And of myself when I was not myself
The relics of my early days
When I was different - weren’t we all ?
And ate and ate and ate and ate
They lie around - the cast off coats
Dry - wormlike - was that really me ?
With all those legs - and then that ornamented shell
The coffin that I built around myself to grow in
Everything breaks open if you give it time
Well - I SAY that - but it isn’t true
We were eleven
We are two
Anita Greg 26/05/2020
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Write a reflection on the writing process |
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I don’t know much about writing - it’s a new one on me - exciting and rather transgressive
I’ve been though my whole life unable to write anything mature or sensible - or really at all - so any office job past messenger was beyond me and I have worked in factories, sewing, making things of various kinds and many many years on market stalls
And to be honest I have had a great time so in many ways this non-ability has been a blessing
Painting is my natural language - have happily slogged away at this my entire life - without actually getting much good at it but this worries me not at all as the process of trying to do anything makes me appreciate the skills involved so at this point I am a happily crazed and besotted fan - of all painters better than me - which is almost all of them. Especially the old ones.
Writing feels like cheating - I can say “a moss-covered wall” and make a picture that it would take me all day to paint - even if I could
But it is exciting in that it comes out quickly with things that you had no thought of when you started - like lights flicking on
And whole worlds are created in minutes - this can’t be right and I don’t really approve
... On the other hand ... It IS magical
I love prompts - which give you the Y coordinate to the X coordinate of what is lurking in your mind already - and that is where the point of the poem is
And I love meter. It isn’t that I think poems Should be metric or care if other people’s are - it is that I find it easier to write like that. It narrows the options and says what can and what cannot come next. Like writing Haiku with a strict syllable count - it makes you think of some other way of saying what you were thinking of saying - which may well bring up new ideas and be better. And if it isn’t, then you can change the metre.
I have a weakness for Trochaic rhythms( CHA cha ) although Iambic ( cha CHA) is supposed to be the natural rhythm in English. Also useful is Dactylic, which is CHA cha cha. This is not a prison, just a way of getting across the room - and it can make the poem seem a bit old-fashioned, but I could care less - I just want to find a way ... ANY way ... of writing, and for me this helps and is fun.
Sometimes I use it and sometimes not, but I’m always aware of it
I loved Stephen Fry’s book, The Ode Less Travelled ( he is didactic but I just ignore the bits I don’t like) as the best explanation of all this stuff - but I would have to say that I have never found anyone else who didn’t utterly hate this book - but there it is ! ... It helps Me
I would see writing as being a way of opening windows to other worlds - like an Advent calendar - if anyone remembers them.
I don’t actually think that everything is lovely- but I would not see the point of staying in a bad place longer than needed ... Unless it is actually doing anyone any good, which it seems unlikely that anything I would ever write would be likely to do
It is a way of exploring ... And building solid steps behind that can be used as a base for going onwards and outwards
Or downwards and inwards in a submersible - down to the undermorrow ... If that is a word -
If it isn’t, it is now
Halleys Diving Bell, 1690
Friday
On Friday it was blowing up a storm
New leaves were piling in the shelters with the broken twigs
The silver bark and splintered trunks ( got stuck here ... )