Respect

Another draft of another poem. I can't be arsed to offer up crits of other people's poems at the moment, so this one - formerly Love Poem #11 - isn't being workshopped anywhere. Instead, I'm relying on my Inner Critters to tell me the poem's pretty much roasted to perfection:

Respect

It's strange how our fingers
interweave when we cross roads,
shop for carrots, newspapers,
cartons of milk. Sometimes

I'll fold my palm around
your knuckles to keep them
warm while we wait for the bus,
or walk to town. Sometimes

you knuckle my hand away: decisions
are shared in this space, we both
must agree to risk the spits
of strangers, haters, sometimes.

But please do feel free to let me know if you disagree with my ICs. They're not always as reliable as they like to make out ...

Weestruum Gvekizhuum (Week 1)

Spring Equinox in the Land of Cantage not only marks the start of the new orbit; it's also the start of the new gvekuu season!

The week 1 results are now in. In the Weestruu Cauvizhuu, four teams celebrate with away wins, and the Pidome team Aruasuu find themselves leading the table after putting 6 goals past a weak Krasistesh side. But the week's big scorers are reigning champions Tuusrhesh, with the Dogs of Emadiase putting 8 goals past newly promoted Krasovjarhuu. Next week's matches could offer an early pointer to whether the Dogs are on course to retain their title when they travel to the Pidome to test the mettle of the early leaders. Some are already predicting an early bath for the Harbour Crew!

Newly promoted Kalla Bante showed they meant business in the Weestruu Pozizhuu by defeating Journeyman League stalwarts Urtalke away from home. The other five matches resulted in home wins. Daesovuu, the Templars from Pidome, failed to match the winning start of their fellow promotees, losing 4-0 at home to Emadiase's Krovlestosh.

There were no great surprises in the Weestruu Pozalhetizhuu, with all six home teams winning. Krube head the table after putting 6 goals past luckless Obalbe

Nothing much - the final cut

'Tis done. I have taken advice, cogitated and revised accordingly. I hereby declare this poem finished!

Nothing much

Look how quiet the room is: a cat
whiskers behind sunlit curtains
for spiders; noses cold rice
from a plate in search of meat.

Shadows shoal the tank, each a life
behind the green scum growing
on the glass. Tide rings in the mug
mark a consumption of coffee.

You activate me remotely, the song
of the phone triggering animation,
audio smiles and shrugs as we chat
for a while about nothing much at all.

(and if anyone thinks it could do with a bit of tweaking - I Ain't Listening!)

Stats

This blogsite attracts (on average) 7 visitors a day.

I don't know whether I ought to be depressed because I want to be blogfamous, or elated because I continue to dodge celebrityhood by flying beneath the blogradar - Samizdat Rik!

I suppose if I want fame'n'fortune I could always post some buttshots of me - with and without the tight shorts. Or alternatively I could post more poems and conlang stuff and aimless rambles - the googlebot likes regularly updated pages and is always happy to add a couple dozen hits to the counter at no extra charge.

Sunday evenings: depression weekly.

Workshopping: Stanley in Moonlight

I'm currently workshopping this one over at pffa. For the exercise I changed the title to "Sydney in Moonlight", but I think overall I prefer the name "Stanley". Strange things, titles.

Stanley in Moonlight

He lopes slow-motioned, each footstride
matched by the seesaw dance of shoulders
humping over his nape. He keeps his ears

pert: black tips scanning tufts and twig-tumbles
for scuffles, volesqueak. The morsels whistle
warnings ahead of his thoughtless trek -

then silence. Odour sources tangle colour
through his greytone bush-scapes. He sits,
sniffs his tailpit tag glands, tongues clean

his fur-pursed wolfhood: still the gift-disk shines.
When he howls, his bones recall the loss, the pain
of change, complexity; the moult of flesh.

Feel free to de-lurk and comment ...

Sevenling (there are no rules)

Those good folks over at The Gazebo are inviting people to write sevenlings (see the thread in Karen's Pub).

I'll be honest: the form looks too artificial to me, and the examples I've seen to date barely function as wholesome, belly-full satisfying poems. But then again I write haiku despite despising the form, so what the heck ...

Sevenling (there are no rules)

There are no rules for those who wait.
she swallows the starling whole:
as it beats, the heart grates her chest.

Rules are made for breaking the hearts
of the little people. Watch the swallow:
a feathered boomerang curves across the sky.

When the angels called, she was not at home.

I'm sure future generations in search of my posterity will have fun close-reading that little gem!

What I did on my holidays

I bet you're all gagging to know!







The brave ones among you can read all about it (with photos) at the holiday gallery on my website. Enjoy!

Nothing Much

I ought to be marking my return to active blogging with reports about the wonderful holiday I've just had: Kos, Nissyros, Patmos, ancient towns, mediaeval castles, monastries, salt lakes, flowers and butterflies, beaches and food, the luxuries of time beyond work and the web.

Instead I'll commence with a redraft of a poem. This one used to go under the grand title of "Love Poem No 9":

Nothing Much

Look how quiet the room is: cats
whisker behind sunlit curtains
for spiders; knock a fork from a plate
as they nose through rice for meat.

I sit and watch fish - each shadow
a life behind the green scum
growing on the glass. I sip coffee,
wipe the cold drug from my chin.

Phone tones switch me on: your voice
triggers muscles to tango lips and tongue,
stretch me beyond my teeth as we chat
for a while about nothing much at all.

It's good to be home!

Hint

Back soon ...

(Photo courtesy of this website)

Surviving Kalieda

Perusing the ZBB forums this evening, I came across this question posed by "Turtlehead": Whats the biology and chemistry like in your conworld? Do you have strange new elements and compounds? What is the main element used for the biology of your conworld?

How can I resist such a question! This is the response I posted ...

Kalieda is mostly like Earth, except for a few crucial differences. For instance the bulk of the protein-forming amino acids in Kaliedan lifeforms are D form whereas terrestrial amino acids are mostly L form (Aidan convinced me that this is a stupid idea a couple of years ago, but I'm still emotionally attached to it). There are 23 mainstream Kaliedan amino acids, compared to the 20 mainstream terrestrial ones, but only 16 are common to both. There's also some small but critical differences in DNA structures.

The reason I chose to incorporate these anomalies in my conworld was to give me a plausible reason why the human (terrestrial) inhabitants found it so difficult to establish viable settlements on the planet. They may find themselves in the midst of an ecological paradise, but they can't survive by eating it. They need to establish and maintain "plantations" - in effect oases of terrestrial ecologies - to provide them with the food they need to survive.

Competition between the native and alien (terrestrial) ecologies provides the second strand of my conworld's narrative. Over the course of 6,000 years the two ecologies have been busily adapting themselves to feed off each other, evolving proteins capable of breaking down and converting the "wrong" types of amino acids into forms they are able to make use of. This competition is mostly taking place at the bacterial level, but has impacts on the human population - for instance in the form of novel diseases that every so often crop up and wipe out 80-90% of the population (I used to call them "assimilation plagues", but then Star Trek nicked the word "assimilation" for their Borg and I haven't got round to choosing another name for them yet).

People use these adaptions for their own purposes. Have you heard of kombucha tea? Vile stuff, believe me. The Kaliedan humans have something similar - a pancake concoction of bacteria and yeasts that they can place on top of a vat of "native broth" (for a better phrase) which converts the broth into something they can survive on. Terrestrial ruminants have internalised something similar into their guts, which explains why the goat is percieved by many cultures as the epitome of resourcefulness, determination and luck. Goats survive in vast numbers across all continents of the planet, happily eating terrestrial crops and native vegetation.

Interesting place to live, Kalieda: gorgeous, yet deadly.