Tag Archives: Rescued poem

little people of IKEA

Rescued poem,

20150405_IKEA_2015_catalogue

I rescued this poem from seven ‘blurbs’ combined from the 2015 IKEA catalogue.

As always, the important distinction between my rescuing process and other process-based approaches such as ‘finding’ poems is that I do not select a complete phrase or sentence; after I transcribe the text I jumble it so that all the words are in random order, and then I choose words as individual building blocks. The resulting rescued poem is usually quite surprising, then, because I take the words out of their original context and impose my own creativity on them, combining them to give a new twist – as is the case with this little rescuee.

little people of IKEA

even the tiniest children are complicated
up and down in a million moments
these unique little freaks
play
explore
dream
lost in worry-free space
home in happy safe place
ideas become needs
become want want want
getting and giving
getting and giving
high on make-believing every day
hide in giggling sleep every night

and you think
you can stack time
in smart storage
but that’s not the way
it seems to play out
and one day
the world takes these
not
so
little people
away
away

The conscience-stricken spirit

Rescued poem, ,

This rescuee is from The Celtic Twilight by W B Yeats (p 9) and The History of the Town and the County of the Town of Galway (1820) by James Hardiman (p 65). It’s the first one to have a bit of a conversation going on.

The conscience-stricken spirit

The spirit standing in the doorway
had an infinite, heavy sadness to it;
a weight of troubles from another world.

Is you dead, I says.

    What thinks you, he replied.
    When I was living my enemies took power,
    destroyed my castle, my kingdom.
    What I feared more than anything else came to pass:
    terrible misfortune on the land,
    winds of damage turned families and visionaries to peasants,
    pleasure of music and poems a memory,
    a place whose masters have no heart
    an earth whose heavens are foregoing…

He seemed kind, strong.

    They are so distant from me, said he, neither day nor night,
    time nor words, make me feel that…
    If you would talk to… if you would…

His voice began to fail.

They see me as half-mad, I says, queer as a copper shilling.
Talking to you, about you, is no wise things for me.

So I has written this down
I is no mystical person, I is already damaged,
lodging in this place
longing to trim my own winged mind.

Before a name

Rescued poem,

This short but intense poem is getting its first airing here. I rescued it from two books by Miranda Green: Celtic Goddesses: Warriors Virgins and Mothers (p 77) and The Gods of the Celts  (p 35).

Before a name

Silver horses run on alien lands
guardians of gold hands and Ireland’s stories;
vigorous, the king of wood and word,
sexual, the bride of stone and roots.

Mortal is the waterbird, believing
that rivers shape-shift, carrying divine
spirits to a savage transformation,
to a form that forced a human birth:

crushing meaning; giving them a name.

She is all, and night is just

Rescued poem,

This is an unusual rescue-ee in that the source texts are two poems by William Wordsworth: ‘Lucy Gray’ and ‘Daffodils’. (I usually rescue poems from prose, not poetry.)

The result is definitely influenced by how well I know both poems.

She is all, and night is just

Sound never looks this lonesome.
She wandered, small,
overlooked, scarcely there.
She was inward, broken,
dancing vacant
on solitary wild.
Night was tossing
the wretched daffodils.
She danced, wanton,
chanced a glance
at lantern moon
shine sprightly golden
reached downwards beside
on milky snow.
She gazed wide at lonely heaven
and through sparkling
stars tracked waves of twinkle.
She danced, pensive,
yonder mother mountain
a steep, stormy rise homeward.
She danced, wept,
her footmarks lost,
never to be seen.

 

Freeze frame

Rescued poem, ,

I rescued this poem from My Life in Advertising by Claude C Hopkins (p 205) and The sea by John Banville (p 143).

Freeze frame

Summer afternoon pocketing thunderous idleness in the dark.
Erotic encounter
covert kiss
black-and-white screen
flickering
fading
ghosts of desire sitting in pitch-dark intensity
for hours,
manic fumbling,
twitched satisfaction
deprive primal intensity;
confinement
reputation,
balls for breakfast
conscious phantoms lurch
from joy to grey
approve to disreputable
filled fingers to wanton waste,
picture-house main feature to forgotten poverty.

Convalescence

Rescued poem, ,

I rescued this piece from Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernières (p43) and Sons and Lovers by D H Lawrence (p107).

Convalescence

White-skinned daughter
simple embodiment of profound good
soul scattering naked comfort
like snowflakes in your presence
secretly swallows
your subversive blackberry words
from the black of fallen fruit
to the whiteness of snow
as wet as warm touch
softly
slowly
beloved feels
healing faith
scar of peace.

Curious room

Rescued poem, ,

This little rescue-ee is from Eva Luna by Isabel Allende (p217) and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon (p207).

Curious room

Beneath the hoping measured
narrow echoey train
was roar roar
was stutter stutter.

Machines in rows,
silently fluorescent.

Spindle factory,
quota weighed.

Damn bitches
in windowless cubicles
served the silent treatment.

Lipstick, ribbons, makeup, hair creams, boots, skirts
never paper-wrapped gestures.

Unappetising lunchroom leftovers:
beans and custard creams.

Walls that wear eyes.

Remember code

Rescued poem, ,

I rescued this poem from This is not a novel by Jennifer Johnston (p33) and If on a winter’s night a traveller by Italo Calvino (p148).

Remember code

perfect pushed-pulled champions of the sea
scorching first;
rinsed towel
squeezed uneasiness

gentle ghost
brushed
wiped down dismay
dry half-felt wet
under well eyes
somehow the naturalness of tears drown
rippling recognised
faceless but familiar
watching silent shadow lingered
indifferent to the moment