Tristano

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xwcSwyAKSs

I needed analysis. I saw the man.

I had the C-Minor Complex big time.

I was stuck in the groove all through my prime.

I walked scores of miles just to understand.

My name was sad, with sundry embellishments.

I stuck it to everyone my kind of groove.

A-Major Emotions, just hear this move

Miles unscored in downtown establishments.

I was Jonah inside a Bechstein Grand,

Isolation’s many small ironies.

I let the right hand overwrite the left hand

Until I was spewed here to make others spark.

No more I me mine on the ivories,

I walk miles of your vibrant light and dark.

Jarrett

Future his head dips into every chance,

Standards oiled with touchstone and devil cares.

One-time two-time uptown and micro-scares

Wears goodtime sneakers his on-the-spot dance.

Present his hands reach half-yes half-okay

Notion becomes entanglement city

Industry and wish and something pretty

Or just a window to throw a bouquet.

Like now when traffic has gone to sleeptime

Freeways waltz-time scarcely a flourish

Now too gold old avenues of deep time.

Stay at home order plays favourite subjects

Inescapable whatever finish

Record company ‘Likes’ into objects.

Window Series. The single window of the cottage. This tribute to European photography repeats the trope of having a wall or window or ceiling that has been infiltrated by nature from the outside. The cottage in question is our inherited two car garage, never used as a garage but converted into an artist workshop and library. The brown vertical object is the fallboard of a WERTHEIM MELBOURNE piano inherited from I know not where. The poem is the start of a tribute series to pianist-composers. Our house has been full of piano music for weeks.

Riposte

“You are old Sam Coleridge,” Mr Otter said,

“And your gaze is quite dead from some drug,

Yet you talk to wild animals animatedly,

Pray, are you in need of a hug?”

“Are you there Old Coleridge,” Otter uttered,

“You stopped dead upon reading your sonnet,

Yet your moans bespeak longing for the native brook

And the eating of strawberries, a whole punnet.”

“You are somnolent Sam,” Mr Otter said,

“Who would mourn youth nor tug the forelock;

That stuff must do a power of good but oh dear

Would you know - it’s that fellow from Porlock!”

“It’s been nice to chat but I really must dash;

I will execute this in the form of a splash.”

Sunday

Sunday should be different from another day.

People may walk, but not throw stones at birds.

There may be relaxation, jobs deferred,

But there should be no levity, on Sunday.

Black humour may be practised sparingly,

Call their facial protection My Death Mask.

People may zoom, stay spatial, multi-task

But ease up on streaming soul-baringly.

Bold in bolt-holes, they may keep life holey,

Holes in plans, holes in coronaversation;

This should be not theirs, their Sunday solely.

Sunday may avoid the pulse quickening.

Dry cough, clammy forehead? Information

Please! A differently different sickening.

Saturday

We ask each other, when is Saturday

Where sleeping-in is an occupation,

Shopping lists then shopping consolation,

The week behind us, the fun here to stay.

Garden till eve, or a book that engages,

The beach, the show, street auctions, the match,

Visit family, friends on their own patch -

So the poem goes on for fifty-two pages.

Critics, they’ve seen this sort of thing before

Superciliously humph and eye-roll,

Nostalgia meets neuralgia that’s for sure,

Here short of breath and there too much to say,

All highly improbable falderol

Now Saturday’s no different to another day.

Thursday

When they say events may from a dream break

It breaks this way light alive everywhere;

Make of it what we may it shapes and shares

Particular and new, like we knew its make.

No mistake we work at home behind doors

Like a day before – switch – electric light;

Put shoulder to the chip as well we might,

It’s lonely outside where town meets the shores.

Thursday picks up where it left off before

Siesta become a moveable feast.

Small prayers, daylight music, coffee restore.

Dear Diary, it’s us and you by grace,

Some months all of this at the very least.

Cancel all entries. Where’s that CD case?

Wednesday

Yearnsday Zensday Againsday

Amendsday Amensday Befriendsday

Bendsday Blendsday Cleanseday

Commenceday Condenseday Consequenceday

Denseday Dependsday Descendsday

Endsday Expenseday Fendsday

Frenzday Henceday Immenseday

Intenseday Lendsday Lensday

Mendsday Mensday Offendsday

Omensday Overspendsday Rendsday

Sendsday Senseday Sitonthefenceday

Surrendsday Suspenseday Tenseday

Thenceday Trendsday Upendsday

Unfriendsday Ventsday Wednesday

Brown

Outside of outside are virtuostars

Cosmospirals moonlightotally

Gloomyterorites lollygobbledup

Eclipsunlight planetsundowns.

Outside is yet microsoftornadoes

Chestnutreelines with sepiaundersides

Mustardrizzle over swarmetropoli

Coffeecalculators in shocklockknockdown.  

Inside is bedecorated roompartments

Courtyardepicting windowpenings

Chocoholikitchens verandahupstairs.

Inside inside pump bloodark arteries

Aortadrums amberlight reflexpasms

Spongiformastermind and rufoustomach.

Here is a colour poem, much more outlandish than [Pink]. Clotilde Lopez has introduced me to Port Manteaux, a compound word generator: https://www.onelook.com/pm/   It’s a word source. My sonnet is a combination of Port Manteaux collisions and my own portmanteaus. 

Pink

Homeric sunrise sometimes makes us think

Venus didn’t wash her hands in the sink.

Spring blossoms like sunrise make us think,

Promising plum, peach, nectarine, in sync.

While this bloom that by its own name’s distinct

At end of the day still raises a stink.

These bubbles that swarm when long glasses clink

Are the very air, the grapes’ missing link;

Taken to excess they lead to the brink –

That fellow’s cheek’s much the worse for drink.

Indeed, skin is susceptible, can shrink

Wrinkled with cold; while with heat, smear zinc.

An apple a day straightens out the kinks –

What am I? asks this faded rubric ink.

Tuesday

Pushing and curling through soft breeze's rush,
Screen-free the news is the turn of a leaf.

Silence, a freeway forgot to believe

Here below foliage in isolate hush.

A bird not seen in these parts many a year

Screen-free the choose of its ardent song.

The reports of rain are weak front, then strong.

Sunshine headline news, or so it appears.

I whisper the tune from a scratchy disc

Maybe Tuesday will be my good news day,

The park one person, with dog all a-frisk.

Screen-free the news not a soul in the street,

Air cleaner than anything I think to say

Yesterday, then today, again, then repeat.

Monday

Day indifferently undifferent

From one unwilling week willing the next,

A pattern that kept wake-time unperplexed,

That old kickstart to how things ever went.

Monday was lifestart payout reckoning,

Ignored all complaints and looked straight ahead,

Silently adopted ‘best left unsaid’,

Routines and quiet deadlines beckoning;

Was, a day to share wet blanket thoughts,

Eat or be eaten, the lunchtime sandwich,

Afternoon’s noise normal chit-chat and hush;

Was, a day like other liquorice all-sorts,

Wanting a pay rise was all a bit rich,

Pushing and crushing through peak-hour rush.

ABBA

Average white band? No, super troupers

By self-decree in elevator boots,

Bright beam their bop in satin sequin suits –

Absolutely fabulous pre-youtubers.

Agnetha, not too charming, not too cute.

Björn, born to disco Swedish folk tunes.

Benny, bending notes, popping instant fortunes.

Anni-Frid, unimpeded toots the flute.

Cocooned in safe suburban seventies

Daydream soundtracks mime the movements,

Everybody’s guilty secret make-ups.

Countdown cuties, dagsville beauties,

Diamante diadems of self-improvement

Express their marriage (too soon) breakups.

ABBA ABBA CDE CDE, the rhyme scheme of many Italian sonnets, has challenged me for a while to write a tribute to the very famous Swedes. You can see the rhyme scheme down the left side with the dutiful rhymes on the right. ABBA itself, as all self-respecting dags know, is an acronym of the initials of the band members and is meant to be written in all capitals, though good luck with that. I have attached Erik Didriksen's sonnet version of one of the world's best known pop songs. Didriksen has written an entire book called 'Pop Sonnets' (Fourth Estate, 2015) that does mock-Shakespeare on very many lyrics.

Bonnard

This winter Bonnards were to come to us

His windows onto golden firmament

Adding colour to colour incidents

Leafing unleafing speckled and lustrous.

In town, passers-by swanning and milling

Fill Paris with shapes alive and so close.

To forget a short while corona’s dose

Has shut down the galleries, unwilling,

Lately, I’ve been going to the Bonnards

Large in picture books, their pages flapping:

He, mirrored in a palette of shades won hard,

And his wife who lives inside, in bath wash

His blues tide over sluicing and slapping

Her languid contours, her hair, her soft flesh.