Dreamland

Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones …’The Sleeping Beauty’ 1871

DREAMLAND

My mind
enfranchised in sleep
liberated from rationality
and conscious executive decision
my unconscious
set free to roam my history.

The blurred narrative
picks and chooses
what it wants to portray
to examine
to reconnoitre.

Personae and locale
juxtaposed
regardless of sequence
of time and of place

A current friend
a past acquaintance
someone who is no one
brought together
and the scene is set.

I wander amongst its passage ways
through its disjointed scenery
meeting both friends and strangers
so unclarified
and yet telling a minimal story
its sequence uncontrolled
unfettered by personal decision
moving on at leisured pace
subject it seems to no control
seemingly governed solely
by its own momentum
no decisions involved in the flow of events
linked by no conscious reason
aware of scenery
of being somewhere half-known
but insensate
unaware of how I feel towards it.

Then,
an arbitrary end
to these inconclusive series of events;
sometimes just a fading;
but at other times
an abrupt cessation
of the out-of-focus story’s flow
an abrupt end
often in mid event.

And I am left with traces
vague recollections of where
indistinct awareness of who
no understanding of why
no connection to past
no sense of a future

Just dreamland
half-remembered
soon forgotten altogether
lost in another time
another life
a parallel reality
or even outside reality
but it must be my reality.

My mind
enfranchised in sleep
liberated from rationality
and conscious executive decision

My unconscious
set free to roam my history.
How that happens to be

to me that remains a mystery.

I AM NOT MOSES

Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones … Singing Angels (‘Honesty’) Tapestry 1898 (detail)

Do I just pretend to be open
am I a charlatan at heart
how sincere 
how honest 
when push 
comes to shove 
when the chips are down 
what remains
that is true to my intent

Have I forsaken my promise 
my desire to be me
openly faithful 
truly chaste 
a compassionate soul
struggling for honesty
and resolved to lead
into the Promised Land

My poems are 
imagination’s creatures
but still
slave to whim 

to make-believe 
and the pre-determined end
does this condemn me to 
reach a bargain
to fudge the truth

If so then
has that truth 
become another lie 
or does it just allow me
a latitude
a breadth of narrative 
which covers up 
the shallowness of my intent

I compromise surely
make accommodations to reality

inhibited by
thoughts of entitlement 
feelings of worth
desire to please 
to purchase credibility
a mercenary versifier
forever regretting
that this facade 

must be negotiated
with my better judgement
not wanting to hurt 
protecting decorum and 
further weakening honesty 
effectively
dissolving the truth

And yet 
rather this 
than face the rejection 
that surely would follow 
as always 
the truth that 
no – I am no wunderkind
not tomorrow’s success
nor Destiny’s child
just waiting
to be found

Moses Discovered In The Bulrush  

Why Do Humans Have To Die?

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perhaps
somewhere
there is a far distant world
where the re-engineering

of each decaying life
is possible and exists
a parallel but altogether dissimilar world
one of unpressured existence
alien to our own experience of life
where the need to procreate
does not exist


because
at the point of that world
being brought into existence
an alternate logic simply decreed that
it was designed in a different way

for what is the logic
of there being a need to procreate
of the need for mortals to be mortal
why can’t the spirit of each dying body
within its given species
by migration into another form
just itself vacated by some restless consciousness
and then

by a designed re-birth as a reconstituted being
produce a revitalised life-form

thus the world’s population would remain stable
but then, at the point of creation
there would have been the necessity
to create a given number of entities
which could never change

no need to provide an urge to reproduce
coupled with
the necessary elimination
of death by chance
by accident
by disease
or by design
no impetus to passion or to lust
and so – no need to die
to waste away
only a moving on
a transmigration into another form

would that this cannot be so

Tweaks Of The WEEK … Well … Why Not?

(On alternative naming schemes)
————————————————————————————————————

1. Thisday, Thatday, Yesday, Noday, Someday, Wasday, Willday,

————————————————————————————————————-

2. Wanday, Tooday, Threeday, Forday, Fiveday, Sixday, Svenday.

————————————————————————————————————-

3. … And in the Beginning …

In the Year DOT
Then were there fifty-two weeks created
Each one divided into seven days

And the first day of the week, Plod decreed,
Let it be called Oneday,

Let that day be followed,
In the nature of sequences, by Twosday.

Then let’s have Weddingsday,
Especially gifted for the newly-betrothed, the hopeful among us,

Followed, halfway thru the week, with some relief,
We shall have Throosday.

Then, that traditional day of the Fish-in-fat-friers
I will create, and will call Fryday,

Straightway, next, lest they fret and cause a disturbance,
I must keep Satyrs-day for my naughty little friends to frolic.

After which, I insist, demand in fact,
To keep intact,
one final day of my Seven-days,
My Tweak of the Week
a day for rest, best of the rest,
A day for ME
when the sun will always shine,
To be known as Sun-day.
The only really Fun-day

And so, I pray
Without delay
While the sun shines make hay
Go out and play
Be gay
Have your say
Keep the blues at bay
Throw cautions away
Head off decay
No lockdown this day

————————————————————————————————————–

Predictive text 2

close up view of an old typewriter

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Predictive text 2 (Left-side Word)

Following on from my previous blog on the subject – 2 days ago – I re-print below the results of continuously pressing the LEFT-SIDE Predicted Text suggestions from my SwiftKey keyboard  (the line-breaks are my own!) . . .

… is the kiss of the sea reaches the moon
in the sun won’t be the one to end
my life has come to the brink
and I have no idea how much of it will help me
In telling verse Ideas diverse
Intersperse
my thoughts Broaching
and the fact I have had to blink
to be with you for commenting
and I hope you like the rest of your email
with your comments and suggestions on how we can improve
the 3-level 4 of 3rd party
needs to get the best out of fashion shop
and the best way for us
in order for us
from discarded litter of our boys in the morning
and the Heather clad on Sunday morning
as they will not let me know when
3rd is best to be there for 2pm
or just the same for the rest…   et al

 

A somewhat different result was produced when I tried sequential predicting of text from the right-hand side of my Swiftkey keyboard.  ( the symbols, on my keyboard, but unfortunately not reproduced here in WordPress, were in fact all brightly coloured emoticons) . . .  SEE BELOW

 

Predictive text 3 (Right-side Word)

The war against us in a slice  the government in a net and made a pass through a few days later in a couple  of my youth to help the people with a weird and boring  and to gather all of their performances and the infinite variety and a better place for a meal  in their wistful with their parents a bit young � a bit more than they had been see in our hotel  we had one 1⃣ one 1⃣ the one 1⃣ had to stay at the very top � but they have no choice and it seems to me a while away and a lifetime to get a refund back � it was meant for a while in France �� and a lifetime ago made the first hurdle on my soul mate lol …


. . .   Why Not . . . Give Predictive Text a try on your mobile/tablet/computer? You might produce a fictional masterpiece!


motivational quote

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Declaration of a Poet Manqué

Poet Manque-WHBa

 

SAY AFTER  ME  . . .

Declaration of a  Poet Manqué



I  . . . 

MALAKI  JUBILATION  SNODGRASS –

Aka Roland of the White Rose –

And living a blissful prelapsarian life of the Imagination,

Being of covinous and unsound mind,

And possessing unlimited gall and braggadocio,

Do solemnly declare that, hereafter.

I shall endeavour

To remain in perpetuity,

And in ignorance of the consequences,

A committed dodipoll;

A resolute seeker after fake knowledge and untruth,

A dedicated harbinger of future inanity,

And forever an arbiter of other people’s predilections.

Signed and witnessed this 17th day of June,
Twenty twenty.

MALAKI JUBILATION SNODGRASS

{ Citizen of this Parish and of Planet Earth }

Banner2b

Flights of Fancy

adult black coat conceptual

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Flights of Fancy

 

I’m given to flights of fancy,
‘Well, fancy that you say! ‘
Walter Mitty Syndrome,
A game that mad minds play.

Imagination rules,
The order of my day.
Stocked with ghosts and phantoms,
Reality at play.

My stories, novels, poems,
Articles and features,
With Ghouls, werewolves and zombies,
They’re bedevilled with such creatures.

– – – – – – – – – –

A mix concocted to bemuse,
Feelings splintered, screams abound,
Shattered dreams and shuttered minds,
Injured hearts, can all be found.

Hatching  out new cans of worms,
Striving for that killer effect.
Daydreams and nightmares have their place,
Even the Plague I resurrect.

So when at last I’ve said and done,
Ended my mini-masterpiece.
I’ll settle back, accept the praise,
Waiting for the press release.

bar-yellow

A Reverie

backlit blur close up dawn

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Reverie

Woebeguileful
Slake my thirst
Kiss me quickly
But hurt me first

For that’s the way
The cookie crumbled
Feet up first
Safely rumbled

Try to take me
Test my twitch
For as long as it lasts
My heart will itch

So tell me teacher 
Tick my box
No more teasing 
Suck my socks

Test my oompah
Play no tricks
Take the tablets
Have a fix

Rid me of all misconception
Stick my pallid interjections
Take them where the sun won’t shine
No half measures
Taste the wine

Asterisk1a

 

DREAMLAND

WHB . . . Pen & Wash 1957

DREAMLAND

 

I am led to consider
where it is
that my dreams take me 

 

for when I dream
my world I find
has changed
become condensed
circumscribed by boundaries
which pulse with uncertainty
suppressing perspective
and thereby
concentrating my actions
in broken sequence
now vague somehow
contrary to what is natural
purposeful
yet without intent
and I remain
closeted in an oppressive world
one of vague
and indeterminate outcomes
part hopeful
part fearful
never resolved
always shattered by that rude awakening
which abruptly
without asking
returns my life to a real world
wherein
ill-defined ghosts
stumble into meaning



The Borderlands of POETRY – 3

book data education eyeglasses

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PART THE THIRD

 

Poetry bestrides the boundary
Between certainty and supposition
Between what I know to be true
And what I know not
For imagination conducts me into new worlds
Lands of hope
Of surmise and conjecture
Where speculation surmounts reality
Where inference and suggestion rule
And life is vibrant and ever vital

 

Yin&Yang