July Poetry

This month, some illustrations to go with my first poem, which “quotes” from seven films. I’ve included the screenshots with each moment that inspired me.

Shoot the dust

Myriad minuscule motes of tension

Razor cut through celluloid

Obscuring

Settling

Clearing

Filling liminal space in the void

Eraser crumbs and foundry sparks

Fly up in the velvet darkness

The effervescence of a nightmare

Shadows in stark desert sunlight

Float through a dull curtain

The harbinger of invasion

Orange embers of a hearth

Dance and fade into an ombré sky

Notes of a song swirling in memory

Rain that morphs into flurries of snow

Melt slowly on a cold windshield

The grey reversal of a viewpoint

Feathery, fusty white fibres 

Tumble languorously across a table

The fallout from the folly of man

Coppery flecks of melange

Suspend time, fold space, awaken dreams

The fulcrum of the human empire

Sands that whisper yellowish blue

Dissolve their ripples against the clouds

A ghostly figure shuffling into history

Attention is a payment 

Often long overdue

A question or a statement 

Depends on the view

Consider the scene

Let your eyes adjust

the director calls out—

Shoot the dust

_________________

A species of “found poem” which quotes directly from both Shakespeare and Frank Herbert 

Lear/Paul

Beginnings are such delicate times

Something cannot emerge from nothing

The quality of nothing hath not such need to hide itself

Can you make no use of nothing?

Even occasional greatness will destroy a man

Striving to better, oft we mar what’s well

The day the flesh shapes 

and the flesh the day shapes 

Our flesh and blood is grown so vile 

that it doth hate what gets it

How often it is that the angry man rages denial 

of what his inner self is telling him

‘Tis the infirmity of his age, 

yet he hath ever but slenderly known himself 

When shall I come to the top of that same hill?

From the top of the mountain, 

you cannot see the mountain

I see it feelingly

The hands move, the lips move, ideas gush from his words

Hide thee, thou bloody hand

Look on her, look, her lips look there, look there!

Using the Voice on me

I stumbled when I saw

Not the future—I’ve seen the now

Our mere defects prove our commodities

And his eyes devour

Tell me of thine eyes

And I will tell thee of thy heart

But goes thy heart with this?

How far your eyes may pierce I cannot tell

We are not the first who with best meaning 

have incurred the worst

There is no escape—

we pay for the violence of our ancestors

I am too old to learn

Every experience carries its lesson 

To wilfull men the injuries 

that they themselves procure 

must be their schoolmasters

The mystery of life isn’t a problem to solve, 

but a reality to experience

Thou shouldst not have been old

Till thou hadst been wise

It’s my storm

I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness

Though it shook the entire world 

it could not be more than I wished

Then let fall your horrible pleasure

I am at the fulcrum

I cannot give without taking

Cannot take without

Let me still take away the harms I fear

Not fear still to be taken

You may fear too far

Fear is the mind killer

Is this the promised end

or image of that horror?

Now it’s complete 

because it’s ended here

Who am I? 

Who is it that can tell me who I am?

I can deny nothing anymore

Every inch a king