Here and There

Byron Bay

The use of excellence,
being all in all.
The magic word pitched just so.
The felt voice knowing where and when.
Such confidence!
Things speeding past,
ragtime to future perfect.

Love and loathing in a fraught paradox.
More hoops to jump through.
A list of words wrapped like a tourniquet,
a holding pattern
of deals and ideals.

Randwick

The Pacific hangs like a headline
above
the distant jostle of apartments.

In this suburb
I find slim walkways
link dead end streets.
Architectural styles, their histories,
seem to compete.
Don Juan Avenue is more an alley
but I’m not disappointed;
its grey paling fences alive with blossom.

With my new beard and snap brim hat
I feel a bit Jewish..small and too fat.
‘Yahweh shammar’.

The labyrinth becomes familiar.
I’m blending in.

About This Poem

Style/Type: Free verse

Review Request Intensity: I want the raw truth, feel free to knock me on my back

Editing Stage: Editing - draft

About the Author

Region, Country: Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, AUS

Favorite Poets: Dylan Thomas, T.S Eliot, Stevie Smith, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Marvell, Herbert, Gerald Manley Hopkins, Rilke, Holderlin, Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Valery, Gregory Corso, Alan Ginsberg, Phillip Larkin, Elizabeth Bishop, Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, Yeats, Ferlinghetti, Tony Hoagland, Ezra Pound, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Browning, Petra Whiteley, Blake, Thomas Hardy, Syvia Plath, Pablo Naruda, Lorca, Cole Porter, A.E Cummings, Walt whitman, Tennyson, Shelley, Byron, Coleridge, Les Murray, Gig Ryan, Edward Dorn, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Seamus Heaney.

Comments

Seren

12 years 11 months ago

Dear Ross

I love all of this poem I cant see anything that needs to be changed I will reread this one while I am away I wont be back till monday next week, I throughly enjoyed the read ...

I
The magic word pitched just so.
The felt voice knowing where and when.
Such confidence!
Things speeding past,
ragtime to future perfect.

In this suburb
I find slim walkways
link dead end streets.
Architectural styles, their histories,
seem to compete.
Don Juan Avenue is more an alley
but I’m not disappointed;
it’s grey paling fences alive with blossom.

With my new beard and snap brim hat
I feel a bit Jewish..small and too fat.
‘Yahweh shammar’.

The labyrinth becomes familiar.
I’m blending in.

my favourite lines, dammit I love it all :)

love and hugs JC xxx

judyanne

12 years 11 months ago

‘it’s grey paling fences

‘it’s grey paling fences alive with blossom.’
did you mean ‘it’s’ as in ‘it Is’ or its as in the possessive article?

apart from that small confusion - lol both ways work, and I love the way it pulled me up… it reminded me of a poem our tutorial was deconstructing at uni (lol many years ago) – the poet spelt arc as ark and it caused some great discussion

- I love this write, especially the second part
great descriptive – both visual and emotional
but i'm still pondering over the title ??

love judy
xxx

Ross Hamilton Hill

12 years 11 months ago

thanks ladies

Judyanne, should be its, will edit, the title was originally part of part I, it's too vague but I havn't thought of something better yet.
Seren thank you and best wishes for your holiday

judyanne

12 years 11 months ago

great edit

makes so much more sense now
love judy
xxx