2017-05-03

NaPoWriMo - 2017 - April 29th - Bridge on the River Quand

There was no prompt, I dug out on old idea (the title) and ran with it...


Bridge on the River Quand


Every poet has touched on time as river,
for all that it's a wrong-headed idea,
the metaphor is inescapable.

The symbolism is inescapable:
I've ordered girders, concrete and steel wire
all dumped beside the water in a pile.

All piled beside the water in a dump
the people of the land that time forgot
yet they can do a proper job on this.

A proper job, let's try to make a fist
a firm foundation's how our works begin
physical strength, specifications met.

Metaphysical, the specs are hard indeed
I'll park my trailer here beside the stream
and work on cross-hatching and bracing beams.

The workers are all gone across the stream
but I'll wait here at the still point I have made
out of the river, a poet time can't touch.



2017-05-02

NaPoWriMo - 2017 - April 28th - Signs and portents

You have to imagine that the bits like this
etc
are informational signs with peeling paint on the walls in a disused hospital.


Signs and portents

stairs to all floors He believes in progress,
has worked on it through many years staff calendar.
Sometimes things change, his room caught fire one time, accident and
emergency

but other days he sweats ← gym to shift one item
from where it is basement storage to where it ought to be administration block.
This is the way things are these days preventative medicine, but he waves
the thought aside and shunts his occupational therapy handcart
through disused hallways.  He isn't really looking ophthalmology
at the walls or unsafe floor.  He doesn't really plan
the future any more; lacks accommodation staff apartments
for such mortuary errors as occur.  He had lunch
with Kate in the Kings Arms.  Her daughter paediatrics came too;
good grief that kid can put sausage and chips away canteen.
It felt like belonging family planning, and God knows he's better
than her ex psychiatric services--but all the while he was waiting
to be found out authorised personnel only.

2017-05-01

NaPoWriMo - 2017 - April 27th - The day science fiction was obliged to save the world

Marrie Lightman suggested an irrational robot prompt, well this is irrational, and it has a robot in there somewhere...



The day science fiction is obliged to save the world

The day science fiction is obliged to save the world
the alien fleet decloaks, apologises; says
it isn't us, it's them
and takes their vinyl collection back into hyperspace.

The day science fiction is obliged to save the world
a mutant traffic cop applies penalty notices
directly to the psyche of every boy-racer
from Kathmandu to Watford gap.

The day science fiction is obliged to save the world
the powers that be discover a new minority
but disagree on how to disenfranchise
the unbearable little freaks.

The day science fiction etcetera etcetera
a giant robot strides through the panicking city
with notebook and a magnifying glass;
placing each foot with exquisite care.

Because science fiction has stopped faking it:
no more hints and portents
no more signs for shops that don't exist
selling products you don't know how to use
and no more shapes for things that are not yet yet to come.
It's a day to mark in history
although possibly not ours.

The day science fiction comes into its full powers
the day the sky opens
for casual visitation,
and a day without
the city walls where we spread our picnic rug
on the grass of a hill that is being destroyed
at precisely the same rate it is being created,

is the day science fiction stops taking prisoners
my ex takes the biggest step of her life
from the top of a tall building
up, onto the top of the next.

On this day of which we have already spoken
a brain in a tank imagines a real planet
where minds on experimental drugs dream
the feedback loop completely closed
and change the bag on its nutrient feed.

The day science fiction is obliged to save the world
is the day that my pencil breaks
in Applied Philosophy 101
and the patterns of interference
between the answers I can't now give
and questions they didn't dare ask
tell me everything I need to know.

The day science fiction was obliged to save the world
was a day like any other day:
it rained in the morning;
cleared up later;
I bought myself a cake.