I have stalled on my poetry writing recently so I am doings a new project 35 days – 35 poems.

To this end I have done a random search for stock images on the internet and picked, more or less at random 35 of them into a file. For the next 35 days I will be selecting an image a day and writing a poem inspired by it. The images are intentionally diverse and hopefully will produce some good new work.

As the images are only there to kick of my mental processes the final results may have little or nothing obvious in the way of connection with them. So the poems will be presented here without the images.

You can find them over at The Hitting The Road Again Blues.
I will also repost them here so that people who don't care to read my blog can see them and comment.
All comments, good or bad, welcome - except the ones that say "but this isn't a poem".

the first poem is called

"Bubbles"


Sometimes I think there is no surface to be breached;
that the ocean is infinite above me and infinite below me.
Sometimes I think there is no destination to be reached;
that the future and the past alike have naught to show me.
Sometimes I think that every word of meaning in the world,
is a word that other voices have already spoken.
Sometimes I think these bubbles that enclose our lives-
these surface tension spheres - cannot be burst or broken.
Sometimes I think these random, dancing interactions
as we jostle side by side have deeper matter.
But sometimes I think we are no more than teeming water
in which the bubbles touch only briefly, and then scatter.

This poem makes me think of the "butterfly effect," or Donne's Meditation XVII.

Poem #2 - The Day The Sun Set

I remember the rocks
a hundred feet below
the cliff top path
where we waited
palm to palm
in the salt wind.

I remember the ocean
every swell and blow,
pink within grey,
as sunset created
phantom veins
beneath its shifting skin.

I remember your breath
as the cold encompassing air,
made visible
your silent sighs,
revealed wistfulness
and secret dreaming.

I remember darkness：
the sun no longer there,
taking with its fire
the light from your eyes
and leaving love's
single final gleaming.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: BobHale,

Today would be my mother's birthday if she were still alive so the poem is dual purpose, one of my annual memorial poems and a poem prompted by the next random picture in my 35 poems exercise.


Poem #3 -Bright Lines, And Dark

The clicking of a stick upon the ground
behind me as I walk to the shops.
A face that, in its contours,
resembles yours.
Fish cakes at a dinner party
the way you made them.
Cliff Richard on the radio
"I like him," I hear you say.
An amber teardrop pendant in a shop window
like the one you lost.
A smell of lilac in the park -
you sleep in a chair in our old garden.
A folded wheelchair
in the corner of the pharmacy.
A few raindrops spatter against the window:
umbrellas in funereal black.
Lines, bright and dark,
join me to the past.

Oh, Bob, those are excellent...deep thinking and meaningful. They make me realize how insignificant limericks can be, though they are fun, I guess.

Apples and Oranges - a good limerick can be every bit as hard to write as any other form and just because these three opening poems aren't comic doesn't mean we won't get some eventually.

Either way, thank you for your kind words. I am sure others here write "proper" poetry too, if only they'd just admit it.
No point in writing it if no one ever sees it.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: BobHale,

Poem #4-The Last Place

Somewhere there is a wild place
that none have ever seen,
where the sapphire of the lake
laps against the emerald green.
Black mountains striped with snow
circle round the shore.
Deer drink the cooling water.
Above the eagles soar.
No man has set foot here
and no man ever will.
It is the final secret place
that lies beyond the hill.
No human eyes beheld it.
No skin has felt its breeze
or sheltered from the noon sun
beneath its towering trees.
There must always be a last place
that none have ever seen
remembering the world
as, perhaps, it might have been.

Poem #5-Yellow

yellow as the sunflower that apes the yellow sun
yellow as the egg-yolk that splits and starts to run
yellow as the school bus that takes the children home
yellow as the amber of my mother's favourite comb
yellow as canaries singing in the trees
yellow as the corn and yellow as the cheese
yellow as a swallowtail upon a summer flower
yellow as a lemon drop its taste so sharp and sour
yellow as the buttercups uncounted in the fields
yellow as the gold that the rainbow has concealed
yellow as the lemon with its bitterness within
and yellow as the jaundice that creeps across his skin

Have you ever read Jack Gilbert?
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/failing-and-flying/
I feel a bit of him in your work.

No, but I shall now.

Thank you.

Yes, Bob, I agree that a good limerick can be hard to write (from experience!). I guess my point should have been that, while I do like limericks, I prefer a deeper poetry. But that's what it is...a personal preference. That's all. I enjoyed "Yellow." Some of the poems remind me of Haikus, even though they don't meet the Haiku criteria.

Poem #6-Rainbows In The Water

The city does not move.
It is black and fixed and firm
against the twilight grey,
but it pours bright rainbows
that twist and turn and squirm
into the waters of the bay.

Poem #7: A Box Of Rainbows

There are pictures on the pages
but they're all in black and white.
Here's a picture of a dragon
who is menacing a knight.
On the next page there are flowers,
on the next page, it's a cat.
Here's another of a sailing boat
and a donkey in a hat.
She chooses one to colour
(a fine and handsome fox)
and selects an orange pencil
from her rainbow in a box.

What a fun thread, Bob! Thanks for sharing, I'm enjoying these.

RE: Jack Gilbert - I run an annual poetry discussion for my book club, & included the very poem linked above in our hat-tip to recently-deceased poets.

Poem # 8 - Creatures of the Depths

I'm not really sure about today's poem. The picture prompt was a painting of some of the weird creatures that live in the deepest parts of the ocean but my metaphorical use seems a little contrived to me.

There are creatures in the depths that I cannot comprehend,
that are alien to me with lives I can't pretend
I shall ever understand no matter how I try.
I shall simply shake my head with a loud despairing sigh.

There are creatures in the depths that are strangers to the light
that are mysterious and different to any that I might
be able to explain by a deeper contemplation.
I shall simply shake my head and admit my admiration.

There are creatures in the depths that are quite beyond belief,
and though I catch a fleeting glance it simply is too brief
to form a good hypothesis of the nature of their lives.
I shall simply shake my head with a wonder that survives.

There are creatures in the depths, there are creatures in the dark
of whom I know so little it is folly to remark
that these things called "women" are a species far removed.
I shall simply shake my head till their benevolence is proved.

This one seems likely written right after being spurned by a lover. It was written on the twenty-second anniversary of my having my brains knocked out.

Poem #9 - Travellers' Tales

We sat at the broken table
in the wooden hut
at the end of the jetty
and drank beer,
telling tales of travels
until the barman shut
and locked the doors
and drew his own chair near.
Outside the sky turned black
the sea a darker green;
inside the tales grew rambling
and empty bottles mounted.
We waved our arms, drew pictures
with our hands to set the scene
and one by one our stories
were remembered and recounted.
And eventually it grew light again
as we had filled the night
with all our separate tales
and filled each ale-fogged head
with recollections of our pasts
and of other pasts that might
not have been our own but
which held a common thread.
And with the light we rose
and went on our different ways
to different unknown futures
from our different lives.
The momentary conjugation
that had joined our common days
had broken with the dawn,
though a lifetime later, the memory survives.

Poem #10 - Storm

I'm a little unsure about this one. It would almost certainly be better as a prose piece but I was uninspired by the picture for today (of clouds) so I wrote about a true incident when I went for a walk on the south downs and got caught in the rain.
It's a structural piece but not, I feel, an especially good one.
For what it's worth, here it is.

The morning that had begun warm
turned cooler,
then cloudy,
then showery..

I chose to cut my walk shorter
across the downs
towards the path
along the coast.

The decision was made too late
the rain came
came harder
came heavier

I tried to shelter in the lee
of a bush
at the side
of the path

Then I tried to run for the trees
huddled down
shortest route
dripping wet

And halfway to that better shelter
my phone rang
rang again
and again

And when at last I was there
pressed back
against the bark
under dripping leaves

I called you back with soaking hands
under a tree
in a storm
to just say "hi!"

Incidentally the poems for the 26th-30th will all be posted on 1st May because although I will write them I will be away from my computer for a few days revisiting Xi'An.

I really like #10. Does that poetic format have a name?

Poem #11: Maths Facts

The number of seconds from birth until death.
The average time you take drawing a breath.
The shapes of your world in both two- and three-D.
The sum of the series of all you can be.
Differentiate separate parts of the strife.
Integrate them together creating your life.
On the X- and Y-axes you consider the plot
Of your Boolean values with AND, OR and NOT.
Your waking and sleeping draw up on a chart.
Plot the infinite functions of breaking your heart.
And when it's all proven you can add QED
Where they've already carved out a firm RIP.

Poem #12 - The Garden

Another dual purpose poem this time. The inspiring picture was of a pair of weathered hands gently cupping a shoot that was growing from the soil. But today would also be my father's birthday and the picture made me think of him in his healthy days, in his garden. That house belongs to someone else now and last time I went past I could see from the road that they had torn everything he had built and grown down and were in the process of remaking it all in their own style and taste. There was a long, lingering sadness as I realised that a part of him that had remained was now also gone.


I imagine your garden is different now.
They'll have torn down your greenhouse, your shed and your trees.
You built it all up by the sweat of your brow
They'll have made it their own, they'll have done as they please.
Your kingdom expired with your own final breath.
It passed from your hands into hands now unknown.
It could not survive past the day of your death.
Gone now the fruits of the seeds you had sown.
The row of tomato plants lining the fence,
The hydrangea bushes overgrown at the back.
The hawthorn so tangled, so thorny and dense,
Perhaps now all things that the garden will lack.
The shrubs and the climbers, the flowers and the veg
All of it changed now, all of it gone
The lawn and the apple tree, footpath and hedge,
Without their old master could never go on.

Oh, Bob, that is so touching. I am sorry about your loss.

Poem #13 Lost

He was lost: it felt like hours
since he'd known his way.
He hadn't seen a single soul
to ask where his route lay.
He went one way, then another.
He took this road then that,
but nothing seemed familiar-
he was lost and that was that.
He didn't know which way to go.
The streets all looked the same.
He started to retrace his steps,
go back the way he came.
He saw a lighted window
and went in with a cheer.
The barman said, “Back so soon?”
And poured another pint of beer.

I can tell you're missing England!

I have been continuing the project while on holiday but had no chance to post so until I catch up I'll post three a day.

Poem #14: Cracks

I put my foot down and the earth
shatters like crazed porcelain.
I imagine the cracks stretching
down and down through the Earth,
through the top soil and the bedrock,
the crust, the mantle, the core.
I imagine them reversing their path
up and up through the Earth,
appearing in mirror image
half a world away from here,
where someone looks down
imagining a world that ends with me.

Poem #15: Purple

She watches the butterflies
dance for her:
red and gold,
white and black
and suddenly she spies
a momentary purple,
a single strand
of a different thread
pulled through time.
It circles her head
and settles on her hand
and slowly the colour
bleeds from it
and into her,
spreading like a stain
into her fingers
into her hand and arm.
It stretches tight
across her skin
and then beyond,
into the air.
The grass and trees,
the earth and sky
adopt its hue.
And the butterfly,
as white as a snowflake,
lifts and drifts away.


Poem #16:The Machine

Every day he came to tend to the machine,
stood watching its mysterious motions;
the cogs turning in locked synchrony;
the rods and pistons rhythmic push and pull;
the ratchets ratcheting; the flywheels flying.
Every day her carefully dripped oil
into the correct points and channels;
watched it ooze to the machine's heart;
watched it spread renewal to the actions.
And every day he wondered, “What is it all for?”

So glad you're back, if at least for a short time. I love "Purple."

Poem # 17 Unundoable

You can't put a chicken back into a shell.
A secret once told, you cannot untell.
You can't unscramble eggs; you can't unbake a cake.
You can't follow a path that you once didn't take.
You can't unsay the words that in anger were said,
or, after the guillotine, glue back the head.
You can't call back the bullet or unfire the gun.
Sometimes you must live with the things you have don

Poem #18 Eye of the beholder

The objectors say, “Take them away,
we want our green fields back!”
But they look to me like metal trees
as I walk down the track.
In passing by, “Beholder's eye”
I murmur with a smile
I'd watch for hours these turning towers
That others so revile.

Poem #19 metaphor


I
toss
sand grains -
a handful-
into the water:
the ripples make a metaphor.

Transferring the next batch from notebook to computer the spell checker objected to my abbreviating "together is" to "together's".

Nothing unexpected there. The suggested "correction" was to make it "tog ether's".

That seems so much more likely!

Poem #20 Ghosts In the Subway

There are ghosts in the subway,
memories of footsteps.
The acoustics of fear reveal them

There are ghosts in the subway,
shadows of the fearful.
The unstable light reveals them.

There are ghosts in the subway,
icy drafts across your skin.
The night-drawn breeze reveals them.

There are ghosts in the subway,
perfumes and fetid funks.
The miasma of the past reveals them.

There are ghosts in the subway,
the iron taste of fate.
Your rising terror reveals them.

There are ghosts in the subway,
yesterday's ghosts and today's.
Tomorrow's light reveals them.

Poem #21 Solar System

In the shop, a row of globes
in coloured glass with inset stones
stands upon the table.
Each has a different range
of jeweled hues and tones
from ivory to sable.
But all are Earth in different shades
the oceans blue or black or red
the land picked out in rainbows.
Worlds as they might have been
if travelling other paths instead
of those familiar ones we know.

Poem #22 Smile For The Camera

Posing for photos
with smiles on their faces
that die when the shutter has clicked.
The truth of the moment
is one that camera
is never equipped to depict.

The family together's
the family apart
it tears at itself like a beast.
They gather for Christmas
and let their resentments
boil over to flavour the feast.

They peck at each other
and peck at their food.
Their words are as sharp as their knives.
This one day of duty
lasts for eternity
and then they go back to their lives.

But this anger is private,
a family matter,
no outsider could ever predict,
or know from the photos
that the smiles on their faces
had died when the shutter had clicked.

And that's caught up. From tomorrow it's back to one poem a day.

I really like your different types of poems. Mine all sound alike.

Poem #23 Another Thousand Sunsets

Another thousand sunsets, like the thousand gone before.
When the last one's over, there will start a thousand more.
Sunsets in the mountains, in the deserts, in the town.
Sunsets on the ocean where it seems the sun might drown.
I have seen them over forest; I have seen them over field;
Watched the ruby-painted sky that the twilight has revealed.
I have seen them when I'm sober; I have seen them when I'm drunk;
I have seen them in high spirits and when my heart has sunk.
I have seen them when I'm lonely, I have seen them by love's light;
I have seen the dying of the day and the fires it can ignite.
And every time I watch again as the darkness starts to fall
I remember every one of them, I can recall them all.
There'll be another thousand sunsets. I know that this is true.
But the best thing about sunsets is that sunrise will come too.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: BobHale,

It sounds a little, to me, like you are ready to go home.

Not at all, the poems are just being inspired by the pictures. This one was a collage of vertical strips each showing a section of a different sunset.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: BobHale,

inadvertantly missed yesterday so two today

Poem #24 A Wiser Choice

He planted apples but, in hindsight, might have made a wiser choice,
Because if God had planted lemons, they'd have listened to his voice.
The trouble is that apples are tasty and they're sweet
While Eve might have found a lemon a less pleasant thing to eat
And the serpent would have found Eve a harder sell
And there'd still be just TWO people, in Eden where they'd dwell.


Poem # 25 Keys at the bottom of the drawer

keys on iron rings
keys on threaded strings
at the bottom of the drawer
keys shining as if new
keys almost rusted through
keys falling to the floor
keys to start a car
keys to a mini bar
and the tantalus inside
keys to shed and gate
keys for a roller skate
and a hundred more beside
barrel keys and Yale
keys that might for a jail
keys to start a boat
keys for a clockwork train
and for the cover on the drain
keys for locking up a goat
for windows and for doors
keys to open bureau drawers
keys giant and keys small
keys for tiny locks
keys for an empty box
why did we keep them all
the truth is of course that I
not only don't know why
but don't know what they're for
could be, for all I see ,
for a belt for chastity
but there are truly keys galore
and if I ever say
let's throw them all away
the answer is “let's not”
you just don't know that they
won't be needed some fine day
so we'd better keep the lot

Poem #26 My Special Perfect hell

The tables were laid out
with books in perfect piles.
I saw them from a distance, with a sigh.
A book fair, I gave a cheer
as I raced along the aisles.
It was something that I never could pass by.
I never stopped to think
that I was in a foreign land
in China where I now had come to dwell,
and the books held only words
that I couldn't understand
a torment from my special perfect hell.

(Inspired by a picture of a library, and a true incident last year)

"...my special perfect hell." Wow.

Poem #27 Fireworks

It begins with red crackling static
and crisscross swordplay in brightest white.
A flower with ivory petals dipped in blood;
tendrils that creep into the night;
two sunflowers, two hundred feet tall;
a garden is created above us.
Shoots grow and spread from
the moss that has grown on the sky.
Sparks spit from the heated barrel of a gun;
a thousand rflaming arrows
suddenly curve earthward and vanish
into the fire of battle.


And everything ends in chaos and confusion
as blood pours from the creeping veins
to stain the tree tops.
The sun explodes – a magnificent fireball
that devours the earth,
shrinks back to a point
and leaves us in darkness.

Poem #28 It didn't rain today

Today it didn't rain -
nor yesterday, it's true.
Tomorrow I'm expecting
that the skies will still be blue.
In the last six months I've been here
it's rained precisely twice -
a total of ten minutes
(well nine to be precise).
But there are plenty of umbrellas
to be seen in gaudy hues
because the sun gets rather fierce
so the shade is what they choose.
But if raindrops ever spatter
I'm sure enough to bet
that they'll fold them in a moment
and not let them get wet.

I remember a great cover to a National Geographic which took place in China. There were thousands of colorful umbrellas being carried by riders on bicycles. I looked for it online, but couldn't find it.

Three together again because I've been lax in posting.

Poem #29 The Chimneys of Bilston, the Chimneys of Baiyin

The chimneys of Bilston fell one by one
like flowers that were dying away from the sun.
For the industry that in the town had once thrived,
the summer had gone and the winter arrived.
Their smoke that had filled so much of the sky
drifted thinner and thinner and was lost to the eye.
Now little remains to mark their old place.
Time has changed everything, has erased every trace.

The chimneys of Baiyin are always in sight.
They spring up like weeds in search of the light.
In and out of the city, they surround and they fill.
It's the height of their season, they are kings of the hill.
Their smoke rises like prayers straight up to the sky,
gradually spreading and drawing the eye..,
but one day they too, like Bilston's old towers,
will find that time is implacable and always devours.

Poem #30 A Wall Ten Feet Thick

He built it all up,
day by day, brick by brick;
surrounded himself
with a wall ten feet thick.
He could not get out
but they could not get in.
No arrows or slings
could damage his skin.
Immune from life's troubles,
immune from life's pain,
every day he examined
his fortress again.
He was happy and certain
he was safe and secure.
Nothing could touch him
of this he was sure.
Then one day he died
and the walls tumbled down
and the look on his face
was a great startled frown.


Poem #31 Pumpkin Thoughts

The pumpkin on the table
was waiting there with dread.
She came into the kitchen
and the pumpkin quaked and said,
“Is it Halloween already?
This is such a rotten life.
Hey! Be careful what you're doing.
You'll take my eye out with that knife.”

Fallen slightly behind but I'll catch up later today.

Poem #32 I have a little penguin.

I have a little penguin.
he's just six inches tall.
He lives upon a shelf
that is on my bedroom wall.
I have a little penguin.
I used to have a moose
but he ran away one day
and now he's on the loose.
I don't know where he went
or if I was to blame
I only know he disappeared
the day the penguin came.

And here are the final three.

Poem #33 Hypochondria

I used to have this roommate.
(I don't have him any more.)
He filled up all the shelf spaces
with bottles by the score.
He had pills for every ailment,
ointments, potions and
a large box of suppositories
(labeled, "Care, by hand.")
All of them were quackery -
nostrums of all kinds -
imaginary vitamins,
with effects just in his mind.
For the only thing he suffered from
in reality, I'm sure
was a chronic hypochondria
that none of them could cure.

Poem #34 Insignificance

We ought to see the Earth from a million miles away,
with all its insignificance in a trivial display.
We ought to go still further till it's wholly lost to view
and then perhaps we'll realise that we mean nothing too.

Poem #35 The Storm

We stood in the shelter on the seafront and watched the storm
The clouds open and rain came like bullets from the sky.
Lightning tore the night into jagged fragments that day would restore.
We stood side by side, not speaking, not acknowledging each other.
And when the deluge eased, we walked away into separate existences.


And that, ladies and gentlemen, concludes this little project.

Not part of the 35 Days project but new work from me anyway.

The way that I bombed out in round one of the Bilston Love Slam a couple of years ago shows what a dab hand I am with love poetry. I like to think I'm pretty good with poetry on most topics but love poetry eludes me.

Now however it seems that it is required of me.

I have mentioned in passing that I have a new Chinese girlfriend. You may have missed it, but it was there. And she loves poetry. Like many Chinese she is prone to throwing in classical Chinese poetry quotes which she then, with difficulty, explains to me.

Anyway, the night we met she wrote a long piece on her QQ blog which I have only just seen.

I ran it through all sorts of translators - the one on the phone, Google, Bing, several others. From the aggregate translations I managed to work out what it said and it was, in effect, a long prose-poem love song.

About me.

Weird, huh?

Anyway. I took the best phrases from the various translations and mashed them up into a poem. It's the first of the two below and of course it can't properly be called my work. It is, at best, a collaboration between me and her.

It needed a response and so I wrote the second piece which describes the same night from my point of view. It's nowhere near as lyrical as her piece was but then again, as I said, love poetry eludes me. Evidently, still.

purple stranger:an experiment in reconstruction (Bob Hale and Yin Chu Shan)

waiting
a bleak and beautiful posture
exotic friends, a casual gathering
an unanticipated encounter
old names for new
Zhou Yu

cool wet hair
scattered in the neck
slow drops of water
run down her face
Merlot, Lene Marlin
melancholy and grace
moonlight on the balcony
awakening consciousness
in a confused mind

remembered lives past
beyond young love
and life with broken hearts
the cool earth, the just wind
exiting her memory
silently saying
summer talk of love

why not?



purple stranger: an experiment in deconstruction (Bob Hale)

he sits next to her and does not speak
too many faces expect it
too many voices demand it
too many eyes are watching

when he does speak it is with banality
trivial conversation
unimportant words
that he knows are insufficient

later there are other songs
sung in his voice and hers
but still no speaking
there are no silent spaces

later still there is silence
the silence of the night
as they walk to her home
and he speaks unfamiliar words

alone in the darkness
he walks slowly
building worlds of imagination
as he always does

constructing transient poetry
from drunkenness and beauty
and when he sleeps
she is poured into his dream

Wow, Bob! I especially like the way, in the final 2 stanzas, the line starts in the particular (alone in the darkness/ he walks slowly), starts to veer toward generalizations but keeps one foot firmly on ground (drunkenness), & -- tying to that word-- plants itself right back in the personal. How lovely that last line is.

Bob, I really like your love poem with Yin Chu Shan. I assume she's read it?