Nonsensicle 1
For eight weeks, a dawn poem - this one based on a verse from "Mule Heart" by Jane Hirschfield
My left ear swivels into dream
A deft weir: rivulets and streams
The weft warp dribbles into screams
I am writing
The main plain raining unto Spain
The drain frame plaining into stain
The stained frame draining by my name
Not yet wet
Here and there a vivid morning
All the ladies here are yawning
A word, a thought, a poem dawning
She spills her tea
On my right a fairy blossom
The dance abandoned by a possum
Who knows the end, the start, the yes’m
Day winds on
The tea is stirred until interred
White milk unspilt eternally
The cow, the goat outside is tethered
Wind turns its ear
Earest dearest lovest chicken
On what to lay my slightest quicken
For whom to write my heartest wicken
And ink my pen?
Enough to lay my head down under
On god’s green grass, by loamy thunder
The greenwood calls despite my anger
Slight the breeze
Beyond the well the shade a-thickens
And all the boys are hid to dickens
They flick the ball and bat to thicket
Youth-stained fists
And lo my pen will end its quest
See how the swallow takes the nest
As quiet night steals in from West
All poems are undone to rest.
(2013)
My writing teacher, Kathy, read a poem out to the room, which ended with the first line of Nonsensicle 1, and then asked us to write for six minutes without stopping. I added the last stanza later, and made some minor edits when transcribing.
She has asked us to establish a writing practice in the next eight weeks. Challenge to myself - a poem every morning, written in six minutes, without letting my pen stop.
I feel ill with delight.
