Milestone

This week will see us reach 1,000 posts on the Dead Good Blog.  In celebration of that fact, the current bloggers will be creating found poetry using snippets from our favourite past posts. 

It goes without saying that I am just as proud of this blog today as I was in June 2011 when the first post went live.  Since then, we have seen an abundant variety of inspiring and surprising posts on poetry, for the most part, and writing in general.  I want to take this opportunity to say thank you to everyone who has ever written, or commented, for us and express my desire that the blog should stretch on for another 1,000 posts as it continues to engage readers and writers across the world.

Here is my found poem.  If you click on any line you will find yourself transported to a piece of imaginative blogging.  Enjoy!

 

One Thousand

Something to a few,
a woman whose life was a mess

before the bitterness

do I starve this year?

Come hold me now
come see the sun
come stand with me

lay down the tracks

From a wild sky painted furious

crumpled metal objects

the brass blasts of the Salvation band

hear the horses coming closer, see the gallons of blood

twisting grey

tunnels, stale urine light and a voice

like dandelion seeds

that warns of gaps

This is the light to live in

Thinking

I could bring him to life with nothing more than hope

and the power of my own mind

religion and fecking psychics

they weren’t my first choice
not my intention

You will be left wearing pants

being trodden underfoot

Rabbit holes lead to burrows
and gardens aren’t a secret

The place we lay when no more days to give

it won’t be sad.

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Is this a question?

Is this a question?

The legend that is the philosophy exam question to which the urban librarians claim that one student one year wrote. "If this is a Question? Then this is an answer." and got top marks. Personally I heard it as "Only if this is an answer?" Same idea, less words.

For many years, since I first heard of this interesting exploration of thought and perception I have considered many things regarding the unanswerable. Not like 'Which came first the Chicken or the Egg?' which from an evolutionary standpoint must always be the egg by definition of what constitutes a chicken. More inquiries such us: 'Is the chicken the eggs why of reproduction?'

This question has far reaching ideas that leads to reasons for reproduction. Within these thought I had the notion that the question 'Why are we here?' was some sort of genetic driving force. If we can't answer it then maybe the next generation can. This would then give a reason to procreate, the constantly push the children so that they may find the answer. But should this question ever truly be satisfied, the urge to breed would reside; there would be no point.

This led me to one conclusion: Pandas already know why we are here.

I hope you enjoy Monday's poem.

Question?
A statement to extract?

Rhetorical or fact?

A constructed situation requiring Solution?

Presentations of the choice?

A request to hear your voice?

A desperate prayer as you ask for absolution?

Please? Will you? Can I?

Stay or say Goodbye?

Three roads lay ahead one change to ride?

Is it? Are they? Won't we?

To be or not to be?

Shall I stand and shine, or cower, and hide?

Do you want to know?

What is the end of the show?

Can you still enjoy once spoilers read?

Do you believe?

Is it so hard to conceive?

What really waits for us once we are dead?

Hmmmmmmm?

Colin?

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The see you smile

OK, purple prose, yeah.

Firstly I looked up 'prose' or as I found out, to just write normally. Then I looked up 'purple' which returned various information sites talking about colour. I figured this was not the answer I was looking for, so I typed in 'Purple Prose' and found that it is a piece of writing that is exaggerated and over the top, over flowery or over told.

Then it dawned on me, this week is national by a card week or Valentine's day. This, to me, obviously meant over the top, loved up to the max, romantic prose (see I can use the word now)

So, using my muse as inspiration, I started writing. I think I've written more of a poem to be honest however, it is very much something to be delivered with emotion in a performance with more ham than a pig.

Whatever it is I'm pretty sure I got the purple patches right.

Enjoy

To See You Smile

To see you smile

because of me.

Not to mock,

nor to sympathise,

nor to stand over me with grandeur

controlling my every movement by the sheer whim of your thought.

To see you smile

because of me,

my wit,

or my charm

or because you simply knew I was alive and saw me

bestow some kindness on a stranger for nothing less than your approval.

To see you Smile

because of me

and hear the singing angels

ignited in to the song of a thousand heavens

by the delight radiated from your face

just from having the smallest, most minute, insignificant thought of me

To see you smile

because of me,

is to see more than this or any universe has to offer,

is to be encapsulated by a moment the expunges all light

except that which shows your face

and blesses my eyes with a power far greater than the creator himself

To see you smile

because of me

Is all I ever need to live for.

Nothing, not even the greatest of all the foods and wines

could ever be more intoxicating

than to see you smile,

because of me.

Colin

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Connecting

Staged Connection

An inkling of a notion of a premise of an idea

Synoptically outlined for the outside world to hear.

Connected by the minds of those who read and them who listen,

The poets' words combine to build an image in transmission.

Reach out and touch the colours of the flowers in the meadow,

Smile at the antics of the creatures in the hedgerow.

Marvel at the splendour of the grand and open plains,

Giggle with delight at the love which still remains.

The words have all been drawn, for each and everyone,

Meanings that connects us all beneath the eclipsed sun.

A heart in torment suffers fools to hear they're not alone,

Then the weaving of some syllables to delight at being home.

As darkness falls my pain is clear to all who care to see,

A raven's visit, repetitive lines, have come to annoy me.

Wistful, mournful, full of self, an outward images lies,

Laugh along at the skipping rhymes as the performance poet cries.

They stand on stages, piles of paper, to tell you how it goes,

In lines of verse designed to touch in ways that no one knows.

But don't forget the reason that you feel so entertained,

Is down to skills that connect the lives of those who are the same.

See you all on Friday :)

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How many apples?

How many apples?

It took one apple,

To open our eyes

And gaze upon the naked body

Ashamed we run and hide

It took one apple

To say good bye

Leaving Eden to the dying faith

Of the lost listening to the lie.

It took one apple

To understand

The Agony of giving life

To a world obsessed with land.

I took one apple

To see the need

For the work required

So the people could feed.

How many apples will it take

For the same to happen again?

How many chances will we get

To stop the outcome being the same?

Open your eyes

See the pain

Feel the cold

Of the falling rain

Understand the shadows

Gaze upon the lies

From governments to peddlers of faith

Let no one be denied.

With closed minds we watch

As the guide leaves the chapel

I cry tears of hope fading

How many apples?

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Blackpool Characters

I have to admit, I don't really know any Blackpool characters. I hear names, but these words just blend into a history of colour, long remembered. I don't really know anyone of real note.

Some people will say, "but you know Oz?" and I would reply in the affirmative to this however, I have worked creatively with the chap and don't see him as other do. He is a friend with talent, a very naughty boy and not the messiah.

For me the biggest and most influential character on the Fylde Coast is Blackpool. A town who wants to be one thing that seemingly contradicts what it actually is.

But to write a poem about Blackpool doesn't excite me. So I've been thinking and cogitating and contemplating and pondering. I've looked things up and written stuff down. I have pulled apart my tiny little tautologically filled mind to come at this problem/theme from not necessarily a different angle, more a less considered path.

I do hope you like it Mr Granger

"OH MY GOD NOOOO!"

The mother was frantic

The father swore and cried

A passer by ran to get the manager

Mobile phones dialled 999

Another twist of the head, sound of bone

A mothers face wears the blood of her infant

Father is on his knees sobbing

It's over in an instant

The child is gone

and the beast continues to feed

Father feels numb

Mother's heart begins to bleed

The manager arrives

Sirens filling the back drop

The horrific scene rapes his senses

Blood soak detailed snap shots.

Loss filled parents embrace

The zoo vet takes his shot

A lion falls to the ground

Flower are laid, in memory of Albert

Dat be it from me dis weeks cuz

Colin

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Keep The Hill

The end of the world does not mean the end of all things. I pretty sure you have all experienced an “end of my world” event. When something happens that changes everything and the world you once lived in now looks very different.

This short story is a test piece I wrote a fair few years ago now. I wanted to write about the end of worlds, how one life can stop and other come into existence only for the life to also change.

I tried to get that into a very short war story where the war itself could also be considered to be the lead up to the end of the world.

Please feel free to leave comments and criticisms. I do hope you enjoy it.

Keep the Hill

“No Simon!”

It was too late. Simon took that extra step and with a loud deafening bang, was transformed into body parts and red mist. I've been watching these fields for months, seen many people and animals come off second best to the mines. Some manage to pull back quickly enough so that only their legs gets removed in the blast, but these are the unlucky ones. The inevitable end comes to them as well, only it takes a few days. I've watched these fields for so long, I know there's no path through, yet the madness takes hold of some and they reckon they can make it.

Simon had just got that madness; the constant shelling and the knowledge that we were trapped took its toll on his sanity and, like so many before him, thought he knew the route out.

Silence followed the explosion. This was their tactic, throw shells and bullets at us for hours then give us a ten minute break before starting it all over again. This was our life now. A small troop of sixty men who, through the mines and the occasional direct hits, had been reduced to just seven; sorry with Simon that makes us six.

And why were we here? Why did they send a bunch of teenagers out with guns and bombs to dig trenches and shoot at an enemy who was out of sight? It's because some general in some office back home decided that this line was not to be crossed, that this hill behind us, that we couldn't even reach because of our own mines, had to be kept safe.

It was one of our mines that had scattered Simon to the winds. They lay under the earth behind us. The enemy mines are buried to our forward line while a mixture of the two sides devises blocked our flanks.

Now only six of us were left, the final resistance for the sake of the hill. We would have called for reinforcements but our radio was knocked out within the first few days. The powers that be don't seem to care, otherwise they would have sent more troops when they realized we couldn't be contacted, or maybe they thought we had lost the fight and just decided that more troops would just be wasteful.

The distant sounds of heavy artillery started again followed seconds later by the explosions of the shells making contact with the ground; here we go again.

I sometimes think of what life would have been like if we weren't at war. I was sixteen when I was drafted. I didn't mind, seemed like a laugh and I was doing my bit to help rid the world of this evil, protect my family and get the chance to be a hero instead of the layabout I was bound to become. I'm nineteen now, I was eighteen when I was deployed to these trenches six months ago. The lads tried their best to celebrate my birthday, we’d been reduced to thirty by then so it wasn't a bad bash.

In a twisted way I felt as if all the mushroomed flames of the falling shells were some kind of fireworks display. It helped for a moment, but the next day we all felt the same crash of reality. Back to shooting at nothing and watching others die wondering when it would be your turn.

Sometimes I forget who were fighting, and why? Christ there's only six of us left. This is madness, I've got to get out, get out, gotta get out!

Hang on I've got to get a grip, that's what happen to Simon, he counted how many were left then made a run for it. Though in a way I think he is better off now. Six privates against an army, yeah he's better off. I wonder who'll be next?

Steve has always been the strongest of us. When the captain bought it he was the one who took charge. We had three sergeants and six corporals but it was Steve who seemed to have his wits about him. I think he'll end up here on his own and when the war machine comes in to take their prize he'll be here yelling abuse at them.

Ian on the other hand amazes me that he's still alive. From day one he was always throwing out negative comments. I thought he'd be the first one killed, by our troops. Now he sits silent most of the time only screaming out the word "why" every so often in the midst of the shelling.

Dave always has a joke to tell, usually bad ones but I'll give him credit, when it comes to trying to keep the spirits up he does his best. I don't know how he manages to keep such a positive note on things. He knows as well as the rest of us that we are going to die here yet he still carries on smiling and joking.

Chris keeps himself to himself. He'll join in with the conversations but doesn't give anything away. He says the less we know about him the less we can say if captured. Though being captured is a hopeful thought. I think he loves this, like he was born for it. He's the only one that still fires the bombs off.

Sammy I think will be the next to try and run, he has that look in his eye that says he'd rather die trying to get out of here than die just sitting on his arse. I give him two days before he goes for it.

Then there's me, a layabout teenager turned into a man by the army. Sold on the idea of freedom and righteousness and now I sit watching the fields and listening to the bombs. This is my lot and this is where it will end, I kissed the book, took the shilling and packed my bag for my place in history. I only hope that something will be learned from this and in the future others won't have to endure this lonely life of getting used to death.

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Never do with one hand, what you can put off till Thursday.

As humans we can be very interesting things. As sheep and badgers we are just doggers taking part in some very filthy sex stuff. But as humans, being humans we are very interesting.

We have the capacity for great kindness, and devastating cruelty. We can create and build thing to improve the lives of all around us, and build devices to tear asunder all that has been placed before us. We can think of the simplest solutions to the most complex of problems, and we can mess everything up by not think at all.

Never do with one hand, what you can put off till Thursday.

Stop, take a moment. Is using one hand the only solution? Does this need to be solved right now? Will taking a little bit of time be a better job?

When writing the temptation is always there to rush, to 'use one hand' instead of climbing down the ladder, moving it across and climbing up it again to use both hands without you falling off and looking like a twat.

Being able to multitask, work with one hand, spin many plates with the other, doesn't mean you actually have to. One of the biggest things I hear when talking about writing is "I don't have the time" or "I have to write in-between other things."

My point, and I do have one hidden in here somewhere, is that in are busy lives we have more time than we think. If we just sit back a little and stopped stressing about it we can get things done. Not everything has to be decided immediately.

We live in a world where we demand too much, and as a consequence we can not give enough attention to the things that are important to us.

Slow down a very small amount, stop trying to do things with one hand and give it the attention it deserves. Plan ahead and don't let other people push in on that plan.

You can achieve so much more with a deep breath and cup of tea than you ever can leaning across trying to tighten that last screw when off balance.

Writing is a discipline, it requires planning, it deserves time. So don't just go chucking in 5 minuets here and there everyday with no thought, one handed scribbling that you will hate. Plan to give yourself 40 minutes quality two handed writing on a Thursday.

Because your work is worth it.

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Future

FUTURE
noun
a period of time following the moment of speaking or writing; time regarded as still to come.
"we plan on getting married in the near future"

adjective
at a later time; going or likely to happen or exist.
"the needs of future generations"

What will happen to me?
What will happen to them?
Tell me ghost of Christmas present
what will happen to Tiny Tim?

Seconds becoming minutes
Minutes turn into hours
Days, months, years are all ahead
In this future of ours

Of things to come
Of intention we mean
Time yet to waste
We plan and plot and scheme 

But what future can we look forward to
Racing towards us fast
This world is set for self destruction
Unless we learn the lesson of the past

We can all live in the utopia
Built by our won fair hands
Start by living the life you want
Rather than the media’s out of tune band

But remember you cannot change everything
Residing under this sun
So sit up, straight back, start taking notice
The revolution stars in the mind of just one

REVOLUTION
noun
a forcible overthrow of a government, ideology or social order, in favour of a new system.
“I started to think differently, I had a revolution of my own mind.”

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It's CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!

Time for a new Christmas song...

Jump up

Turn around

Can you hear that Christmas Sound

Ho Ho Ho

Goes the fat man in red

Jump up

Turn around

Can you hear that Christmas Sound

Jingle jingle jingle go the bells on his sleigh

Wave your hands

Cheer and sing

Dance around

if that’s your thing

The fat man’s coming

and he’s wearing red

If you've been good

you’re on his list

which means you get

a Christmas gift

you'd better be ready

coz he’s on his way

Jump up

Turn around

Can you hear that Christmas Sound

Ho Ho Ho

Goes the fat man in red

Jump up

Turn around

Can you hear that Christmas Sound

Jingle jingle jingle go the bells on his sleigh

if you're awake

he won’t come in

so be asleep

it’s time to dream

of all the lovely presents

that the fat man will bring

waking up

on Christmas morning

getting dressed

while birds are snoring

rushing down to see

the parcels under the tree

Jump up

Turn around

Can you hear that Christmas Sound

Ho Ho Ho

Goes the fat man in red

Jump up

Turn around

Can you hear that Christmas Sound

Jingle jingle jingle go the bells on his sleigh

Wave your hands

Cheer and sing

Dance around

if that’s your thing

The fat man’s coming

and he’s wearing red

Jump up

Turn around

Can you hear that Christmas Sound

Ho Ho Ho

Goes the fat man in red

Jump up

Turn around

Can you hear that Christmas Sound

Jingle jingle jingle go the bells on his sleigh

repeat (to fade)

Merry Christmas Everyone

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