deepundergroundpoetry.com
The Hypothermic Heart at 6 am
weary are the willows which
have been forgotten by trellis of ice
ambulances of snow-laked slate roof
bandage desires to guttering flames of a red dress
lonely is, suddenly, the surname bequeathed to
my world from a window closed to human touch
stained glass (he)art reflects mausoleum of unsent letters
memoirs are worth the snow of wordless paper sheets
luminescent air splinters iron and the icy sea
mist seduces the shore line, trawled snow-dust allows
virgin footprints to become the first blunt pen strokes
wrought margin walkers unsteady on verbed feet
around these parts kids place broken glass inside snowballs
lessons in survival start when the winter bell rings
like synaesthesia in a sepia silent film
seagulls squawk a deafening purple defiance
honeysuckle awaits sun archer to bend her bow
to fuck every moth’s tongue that swims her way
factory mouth
soots slush,
harbour lips
send semaphore,
mind fall
towards topography,
winter hieroglyphics
senseless scribble
were you invented by an icicle string
delivered in a brown paper parcel
postmarked ‘destination unknown’?
are you created by papier-mache
ascending apostrophes of red balloons,
paper girl awoken from another’s com(m)a?
bbc news tells me ‘life is a limited business’
they’re selling souls on eb@y.
staying true to myself has become a work of art.
mad in manchester
ill in seville
broken in berlin
mental in morocco
bruised in bruges
all that is known are written in
postcards from the window ledge,
wedge memory into continental drifts.
tell me there is sense in senseless?
fragments change colour through all seasons
will winter be the whitened death of me?
all that is known, thus:
it might be what it is
when it will be
have been forgotten by trellis of ice
ambulances of snow-laked slate roof
bandage desires to guttering flames of a red dress
lonely is, suddenly, the surname bequeathed to
my world from a window closed to human touch
stained glass (he)art reflects mausoleum of unsent letters
memoirs are worth the snow of wordless paper sheets
luminescent air splinters iron and the icy sea
mist seduces the shore line, trawled snow-dust allows
virgin footprints to become the first blunt pen strokes
wrought margin walkers unsteady on verbed feet
around these parts kids place broken glass inside snowballs
lessons in survival start when the winter bell rings
like synaesthesia in a sepia silent film
seagulls squawk a deafening purple defiance
honeysuckle awaits sun archer to bend her bow
to fuck every moth’s tongue that swims her way
factory mouth
soots slush,
harbour lips
send semaphore,
mind fall
towards topography,
winter hieroglyphics
senseless scribble
were you invented by an icicle string
delivered in a brown paper parcel
postmarked ‘destination unknown’?
are you created by papier-mache
ascending apostrophes of red balloons,
paper girl awoken from another’s com(m)a?
bbc news tells me ‘life is a limited business’
they’re selling souls on eb@y.
staying true to myself has become a work of art.
mad in manchester
ill in seville
broken in berlin
mental in morocco
bruised in bruges
all that is known are written in
postcards from the window ledge,
wedge memory into continental drifts.
tell me there is sense in senseless?
fragments change colour through all seasons
will winter be the whitened death of me?
all that is known, thus:
it might be what it is
when it will be
Published 19th Jan 2023
Author's Note
ERULGCT 181. Just a string of images for the Winter deconstruction. Inspired by an early morning visit to my window. Which left me feeling oddly discombobulated I can tell thee. Hence, the dislocated expression. First draft for authenticity. Connections with the past can be as treacherous and fragile as ice, and yet they can avalanche the present.
All writing remains the property of the author. Don't use it for any purpose without their permission.
likes 5
reading list entries 2
comments 10
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The author encourages honest critique.
Anonymous
- Edited 29th May 2023 7:45am
20th Jan 2023 7:58am
<< post removed >>
20th Jan 2023 10:15am
Many thanks R. Doesn't really work for me to be candid. May just let it rust in the experimental poem-park. Too much verbiage and images.
Just tried to capture the mind flow of an anxiety attack. Have read something similar about an asthma attack (which was perfectly paced and truly replicated such an attack in words. - I lack the technical craft).
Just tried to capture the mind flow of an anxiety attack. Have read something similar about an asthma attack (which was perfectly paced and truly replicated such an attack in words. - I lack the technical craft).
Anonymous
20th Jan 2023 1:55pm
The roof ambulances and the guttering flames of a red dress I found really poignant here. I was reading in the comments here how you said that you were capturing yourself in the throes of an anxiety attack. It really communicated this sense of blurred reality and the urgency of that feeling.
The "Mad in Manchester, ill in Seville" stanza is also communicative of how emotion is the only language needed wherever you are. Fear translates into any time, any situation, any location. That's powerful.
Each of the images feel like little pinpricks in time. I like how all of the separate imagery gradually forms into one flowing piece. It give great insight to the thoughts and feelings of the writer at the time and what it is that they are observing.
Thank you.
The "Mad in Manchester, ill in Seville" stanza is also communicative of how emotion is the only language needed wherever you are. Fear translates into any time, any situation, any location. That's powerful.
Each of the images feel like little pinpricks in time. I like how all of the separate imagery gradually forms into one flowing piece. It give great insight to the thoughts and feelings of the writer at the time and what it is that they are observing.
Thank you.
20th Jan 2023 3:06pm
Many thanks for the prescient perception. Genuinely surprised and happy some may have got something from this. Ambulances are a recurring motif in my scribbles. Blame Larkin. Lol.
As Rianne intimated above, there is a timelessness to snow. An alien invasion from clear skies. I really had to step outside early morning for a cigarette, to reconnect to the external world. Apologies if this sounds pretentious, but the window was almost becoming a cinema screen. On my return I was met with ‘Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometime’ by The Korgis on a YT mix. Which all seemed to add up.
As a kid recall hearing “the world is a village” in conversation, or perhaps, on radio or TV. Children tend to take everything literally. I do think there is some sense (philosophical or otherwise) in that statement. Travel has enabled connectivity, a never ending network of cables and palpable emotion.
20th Jan 2023 5:25pm
The opening stanza immediately both creates an imbued image and sets the tone. I love the image of fingers reaching for a frosted windowpane that comes to me and all that image embodies. Your fifth stanza is beautifully elemental, the world embodying, it seems to me, the shattered fragility of being. Love the transformative alchemy of footprint pen strokes and verbed feet. Seventh stanza holds that sense of the ugliness of life which is an ever-present reality. You have the sensitivity and awareness to keep the stanzas flowing from image to image, from avatar to avatar. Ninth stanza has this sense of the sensual brutality of nature itself to it. Your metaphors are incredible. Your tenth stanza is the emotional crescendo of the write for me, it rises in pitch, it's melancholic unraveling, reaching for that which falls to tatters. Throughout every perspective change, the thread of the random futility of being is aching and palpable, to me. Your close leaving off, it seems like, in the curvature of the unanswered question mark. The circle that rounds back to the same unfulfilling answer.
To try and explain what I feel in the writing is the only way I know how to say that it touched meaningful chords in my heart. Between my breakfast cereal and my shopping, something that spoke to me.
To try and explain what I feel in the writing is the only way I know how to say that it touched meaningful chords in my heart. Between my breakfast cereal and my shopping, something that spoke to me.
20th Jan 2023 6:36pm
Highly value your interpretations and observations my friend. Can't really add much more to my comments above. The nuances of today are slightly softer, probably aided by a current thaw (though haunted-water has it's own peculiarities).
"Between my breakfast cereal and my shopping," Fucking love this comment. How the imagination and words pervade the minutiae of everyday living.
As a relevant aside, once attended Hamlet at an open air theatre with gaggle of work colleagues. They were more intent on peeling apples, nibbling cheese & onion sandwiches and making inane chit chat. Ophelia singing should have been such a romantic and alluring moment, but all I could hear was chomping and conversations about the weather. I tell you. If chatting about the weather was an Olympic sport, the UK would be weighed down in gold medals.
"Between my breakfast cereal and my shopping," Fucking love this comment. How the imagination and words pervade the minutiae of everyday living.
As a relevant aside, once attended Hamlet at an open air theatre with gaggle of work colleagues. They were more intent on peeling apples, nibbling cheese & onion sandwiches and making inane chit chat. Ophelia singing should have been such a romantic and alluring moment, but all I could hear was chomping and conversations about the weather. I tell you. If chatting about the weather was an Olympic sport, the UK would be weighed down in gold medals.
20th Jan 2023 8:51pm
Lol it's that kind of insight that gives me an idea of what Britain is like. I have friends in East, South and North London and they each seem to significant distinctions.
Anonymous
25th Jan 2023 10:07pm
I am forever stamped
"DESTINATION UNKNOWN"
(ask around)
This was a fantastic read 😊
"DESTINATION UNKNOWN"
(ask around)
This was a fantastic read 😊
25th Jan 2023 11:26pm
Diolch yn fawr iawn LF. Appreciate the kind comments to my disjointed ramble.
Seriously. I have terrible sense of direction. Once got on a train to Belgium and ended up in France. My only defence was 2 bottles of red wine and chatting to a distracting nice Belgian couple, who couldn't understand how Wales & England were 2 different countries.
Seriously. I have terrible sense of direction. Once got on a train to Belgium and ended up in France. My only defence was 2 bottles of red wine and chatting to a distracting nice Belgian couple, who couldn't understand how Wales & England were 2 different countries.
Anonymous
25th Jan 2023 11:33pm
Once upon a time I didn't know either
Was a fascinating history lesson indeed
I have unfinished stories about Wales. May have to pick your brain sometime
I can't imagine where I would end up 2 bottles of wine and a train. I take the train from Texas to Oklahoma every other weekend and that's hard enough to not get off and wander. I think you may know by now what an adventure that would/could be. Time and money I would take that adventure.
Oops. I rambled
Was a fascinating history lesson indeed
I have unfinished stories about Wales. May have to pick your brain sometime
I can't imagine where I would end up 2 bottles of wine and a train. I take the train from Texas to Oklahoma every other weekend and that's hard enough to not get off and wander. I think you may know by now what an adventure that would/could be. Time and money I would take that adventure.
Oops. I rambled
