poem or prose (27/Sept/18)

should I write a poem
or should I write prose
no one can tell me because nobody knows,
should I write in short-line
or should I write in long, letting my thoughts swim away hooked upon a hook with rhyme as bait to tempt away from just another bring day,
should I write nonsense
or chart a narrative
tacking for some clarity some parity of time,
should I conjure modern verse and keep it terse or borrow some poetic curse, delusions of an epic that just in a jot could lose the plot becoming a polemic,
or should I just go freehand, free-form, a consciousness of streams all-aboarding trains of thought chugging forthright down the line between the rails slicing wind-swept platforms leaving passengers with tickets-raised waiting for yet more delays and spotters of the trains that gaze in awe and adoration,
but then there is the question of decay
as random as that sounds
where intent and direction meet, clash and fight for dominance which is nought to do with dominoes and much ado with what your nose is telling me of which way I should go
poetry or prose.

© 2018 robert greig

absent minds (3/Sept/18)

ghosts taunt the trees and horse huddle in threes, or these three do, I suppose if there was a fourth then they’d huddle in fours, but these are just three, two brown and one white… and a wheelbarrow… for some reason it too occupies the field, grazing like the horses are maybe, if wheelbarrows graze that is…… whatever it’s doing I’m sure it has its reasons… from the first floor looking out over the fields of horses and wheelbarrows to where I know the Strait to be but can’t see way over into the mountains currently moidered by clouds themselves coming apart at the seams, hastily-sewn clothes shedding threads in fly-away trails… nooks and crannies, peaks and crags, on occasion peeking through… with a silver cheese knife he absent-mindedly sliced another sliver as thin as gauze, such precision all the while removing and replacing his spectacles, every time he spoke, off they came, then on again…… she pondered the contents of a book turning pages absent-mindedly back then forth, back then forth… another said “hmm” almost absent-mindedly to everything said and even when  silence became just that too long for comfort, another “hmm” escaped his lips… a fourth, as opposed to the three which were horses in the field, absent-mindedly folded a red napkin this way and that as though trying to recall the word, what’s the word… “hmm”, said the other, another sliver of cheese reduces the Caerphilly’s volume and another page is turned… yes, origami, that’s it, that’s the word… she sets down the napkin remembering she has no idea how to do it, rain strained remnants of sound from the air flinging it at the windows and walls, an agit-artist in a strop……

© 2018 robert greig

true north (31/August/18)

over the sea and far away
adrift amidst the salt and spray…
a tiny boat did warp and weft
the waves of peaks and troughs
to find itself without a clue
whichever way the wind blew
over the sea and far away
adrift a piece of wood and sail…

“true north
true north!”
the drifter cries
but only gannets hear
“where art thou
true north?”
he sighs
to lapping waves
their crumpling a lullaby
against his hoarse refrains.

over the sea and far away
no one heard him pray
but the gannets burning white
stabbing through a silence stealing
sound until it didn’t make a sound.

© 2018 robert greig

 

… welcome, to the poem at the end of the world…… or August, whichever comes first… … …