September rubbings

Published on by Laura Bloomsbury 
It’s going on all the time
water everywhere like the poem, a hymn
From shallow overflows insects sip
like cautious antelope, birds nest below deck
something’s living in a toothpaste lid in Cuba
no Perelandra these floating isles 

Out comes the plough now
- refining the marshes where gardens struck
one mirador with cursory views of long gone faces
Perhaps it’s true that this side of remembering
we met with cuckoos travelling out of Africa
in a tangle of axons thoughts under
take a memory test - my analyst sees a green light
the right hemisphere, a pictorial phosphorescence
but it was no waking fancy 

It is that dry, restless time of year
a strange creation now with the labyrinth gone
crucified to courtyard walls, trees proffer fruit
on sunbaked limbs, a line defines the space
underfoot herbs tumble in an aromatic haze
I dispel just enough mystery 

Wishing is a well where want and will
dismisses regimental rhyme
Maybe and then perhaps not do I believe
in free verse; nothing outlasts the annual treadmill
Never a word of where to next

September is a 7 year blog anniversary (see photo post Seven) though I’ve only been posting poems for four of them. By way of a light-hearted celebration, I’ve created this muddled erasure poem from the first lines of each verse of these September poems:- (feel free to browse poems via the year links)
September 2015: Soiling Green; Aquarium; The City
September 2016: Houseboat; La Sierra del dragón; Small talk; There’s a wishing well; Darkling summer; Underworld
September 2017: As a bird; The lost park; The mercenary;

36 thoughts on “September rubbings”

  2. Wow, creating a new poem from the first lines of your previous ones – that’s super creative, and I’m quite in awe of that!

    1. I suppose because it was my lines it was easier though the hard part was keeping the lines apart – they kept wanting to re-unite in order! thank you Kiki

  3. Yes, yes, yes. Happy anniversary, Laura, and a big salute for the cigarette abandonment (I know that giving up). This medley of rubbings is funny and weirdly wonderful, and mind-opening, and just all round fabulous in the full meaning of that particular word.

    1. I discovered the word ‘mythopoeia’ this morning whilst reading about and listening to Dylan’s ‘Shelter from the storm’ – and your all round lovely comment seems to touch on that – mythopoeic without the saga! many thanks Tish for your good wishes too

      1. That is one fabulous word. And I thank you for it. Dylan was a dab-hand with it too. Semblance of congruity that makes the mind go ‘PING!’ and you really don’t know precisely why, only that it’s joy-bringing.

  4. It’s an erasure poem?! What was the original text,Laura? I love the opening stanza with its ‘hymn / From shallow overflows insects sip’ and the movement from the water everywhere to the ‘dry, restless time of year’ and the fruit trees ‘crucified to courtyard walls’.

    1. thank you Kim – no it was not a saga to start with 😉 I put all the links to the originals in the bottom paragraph – the elemental contexts made me realise how often I include nature but then that is really my first love

  5. I very much admire your ambition here Laura – with all you look at and explore here. An interesting read for sure and I will be back for more, I’m sure…

    1. it was a spontaneous venture Scott and glad you enjoyed it – it put me back in touch with some past poems and that was worthwhile (also I realised my anthology is virtual so must do something about that -)

  6. Indeed – a ‘dry restless time of year’ says it all. I really love the way you created this poem – I would never have guessed this to be an ‘erasure poem.’

  7. Such an intriguing verse — I love the myriad reflections here — the tangle of axons and no waking fancy suggest a visceral reality lived and experienced in its contours. There are many phrases and lines to love here but this is my favorite one: “Wishing is a well where want and will/dismisses regimental rhyme”.
    -HA.

  8. Yayyy happy anniversary, Laura ❤ this is exquisitely written and has so many breathtaking images especially love “a line defines the space underfoot herbs tumble in an aromatic haze..” 😊

    1. thanks Bjorn – It has been an eye opening exercise – in many ways I am no better/worse a poet than I was then but maybe a little less reluctant

  10. Beautifully written, Laura, and congrats on seven years! We are so happy you found us at Poets United. Yay!

  11. Others have already commented on this, but it’s the first thing that struck me — how beautifully surreal this poem is. Congrats on seven years! 🙂

    1. Thank you Robin – it combined in a way quite organically as I deliberately avoided over-structuring it – and thank you for your encouragement throughout

  13. It must have been a lot of fun to mine through those older pieces and see how to play with them in new ways. There is something whimsical in the way these came together, especially in the last verse.

  14. It is a wet restless season here with Hurricane Florence dumping water will nilly. I have seen prompts that as people to take lines from poems they like and to write a new one. I much prefer to use my own as then I do not feel like a thief. I really like what you did here with some of your previous lines. Excellent write.

  15. It’s fascinating how much sense this appears to make, albeit mysterious too. If you hadn’t told me the lines were not originally written to be together, I’d never have guessed.

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