Okay … here’s one to kick the thing off. Comments welcome please:
Brief encounter on Stocking Lane
No need for metaphor
Just two deer, Sika,
red-flanked, spikes
adolescent white
in the early morning
of a Rathfarnham summer.
One looks up as I walk
clumsy and loud
on the tarmac of a new road
in a new estate.
They’ve come too low
from the pines of Montpelier
or Cruagh, must have wanted
a rest from cones and needles
as they graze the smooth turf
somebody bought in Homebase.
I freeze; not quick enough.
The breeze betrays
and their heads are up.
One moves closer,
dainty steps of a Lippitzaner,
verifies that I am
the old species, predator,
vaults the brickwork,
dazzles an oncoming driver
with his white rump.
The other, unsure,
morphs into the stone
shape of a thousand
garden centres.
I pass, give grace,
climb the hill at the pace
of my heart-beat
knowing that if I turn
there will be
an empty road,
a new roundabout,
a soil mound
waiting to be seeded.
This is smooth and eviocative, captures the moment and the mood well. I’m not sure of the opening line seems just a tad too self-conscious when you really want to go straight to the heart of the experience.
The end is fitting and effective, I particularly like the additional meanings of give grace.
I think both parts are lovely, precise pieces of writing … you make the link between the particular and the general very well, particularly in the second part where you link the photographer with Brueghel …. I’m wondering whether you need the word ‘visualised’ in the second line of the first part, having already said the image had formed .. also ‘flaccid’ bothers me in the second part … doesn’t seem apt for wht is being described.
Okay … here’s one to kick the thing off. Comments welcome please:
Brief encounter on Stocking Lane
No need for metaphor
Just two deer, Sika,
red-flanked, spikes
adolescent white
in the early morning
of a Rathfarnham summer.
One looks up as I walk
clumsy and loud
on the tarmac of a new road
in a new estate.
They’ve come too low
from the pines of Montpelier
or Cruagh, must have wanted
a rest from cones and needles
as they graze the smooth turf
somebody bought in Homebase.
I freeze; not quick enough.
The breeze betrays
and their heads are up.
One moves closer,
dainty steps of a Lippitzaner,
verifies that I am
the old species, predator,
vaults the brickwork,
dazzles an oncoming driver
with his white rump.
The other, unsure,
morphs into the stone
shape of a thousand
garden centres.
I pass, give grace,
climb the hill at the pace
of my heart-beat
knowing that if I turn
there will be
an empty road,
a new roundabout,
a soil mound
waiting to be seeded.
This is smooth and eviocative, captures the moment and the mood well. I’m not sure of the opening line seems just a tad too self-conscious when you really want to go straight to the heart of the experience.
The end is fitting and effective, I particularly like the additional meanings of give grace.
All Best
Jim
Okay…Here’s something I’ve been working on last week:
THE MIRACLE OF THE IMAGE
‘…the miracle of the image is a triumph of the imagination.’ (Ansel Adams)
i. Motion arrested
An image forms
in his mind, visualised.
Cold, clear grasses
shiver above ground,
the horizon flowers,
a brittle-blue sea.
Photons pour through the lens,
agitate the halide crystals.
ii. Commercial photography
A flaccid, graven image.
He positioned her between
two metal light-box reflectors
set at one-tenth second and
synchronised with the flash.
Brueghel used tempera on canvas
in his Parable of the Blind,
a blend of egg yolk
and pigment, without
the plastic capabilities of flash
bulbs exploding, scattering
little pieces of glass into white hair.
Hi Peter
I think both parts are lovely, precise pieces of writing … you make the link between the particular and the general very well, particularly in the second part where you link the photographer with Brueghel …. I’m wondering whether you need the word ‘visualised’ in the second line of the first part, having already said the image had formed .. also ‘flaccid’ bothers me in the second part … doesn’t seem apt for wht is being described.