Pearly gates

Posted on 1 Jul 2018 by

38 Comments

I’ve already trashed eleven with a flourish
(good riddance to bad rubbish and all that)
today seven drafts are designated for delete
which sounds ominously like the tumbrels
but since all of them hang together like a badly beaded bracelet
it’s just a matter of cutting the string – Ping!
three though have just enough pearls to warrant a stay of execution
hand made to measure for erasure:-

wayfaring is a muted affair
to lift the canopy and vanish
after fattening lambs
the city rolled into dusty tracks
feeling foolish then in sudden rain
watering-can clouds caught me
in flagrante without a care

Helios’ arrival was opportune
two pawns  taken en passant
vain weathercock warriors
canting as a homespun queen

An erasure poem of my own drafts  – Charley (Life in Portofino) calls his drafts sleeping alligators – I wish I’d thought of that so with a nod to his wordsmithing, this category is called ‘crocks on the rocks’
Today,  1st of July is a fresh start and am putting these mouldering lines on the shelf of Poetry Pantry #409

Category: crocks on the rocksTags: , , , , , , , , ,

38 Comments on “Pearly gates”

  2. You are brave to trash them. I tend to let them age like an old wine hoping that even if they don’t stand by themselves they might be the basis for later thoughts…but kill them? Oh no!

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  4. Ack, i can feel the finger on the delete key. That takes courage. I keep far too many impossible drafts.

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  5. Nice. And I’m always up for sending words off in the tumbrels. Off with their verbs!

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  7. The upcycling was definitely worth it – a fine erasure poem.

    Of long-forgotten and rediscovered drafts, sometimes I wonder what planet I was on when I wrote ‘that’…and then press delete.

    Anna :o]

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    • Thank you – felt good to end up with a poem after the rub outs

      P.s. Drafts are a bit like old boyfriends and the ‘what on earth did I see in him” feeling

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  8. Such a stunning erasure poem, Laura! 💜 Especially like: “wayfaring is a muted affair to lift the canopy and vanish after fattening lambs.” 💜

    Strangely I have never been able to keep drafts.. I just ramble on and click publish! 😉

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  9. New beginnings often require sacrifice, reshaping, letting go… of one thing in order to reach for another. Every now and again, the re-crafting gives something precious. It’s one of the things I like about editing, redacting, remaking.

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  11. Those 3 that survived – ‘handmade to measure for erasure’- sure did well in the end. Brave of you to be able to trash and cut work you’ve discarded. I hold onto mine …(I’m not sure to what end).

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  12. Ah, I don’t trash many. Perhaps I should. Smiles. Clever erasing! Smiles.

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  13. I truly enjoy this! And thank you for the credit… always nice to discover I’ve done something worthwhile. You murdered your babies nicely, and created a better poem (probably) in the process.

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  14. I am going to use the line “hand made to measure for erasure” to motivate me during revisions! The poems told an interesting story. 🙂

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  17. Glad you visited my paintings so I found your words! have enjoyed it all and will be back for more. Especially loved this one as I have a plan to take a lot of my old pastels that didn’t really work out in the rain and wash them off to start again!

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Laura no longer living in Bloomsbury but still keeping my creative aspirations alive in words and pictures

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