Best Blotting Paper Poems
Reminiscing a Future
Taste of my Teddy bear suckling comfort
Cool button in his ear on my tongue
Sound of silence of parachute’s silk
The nothingness of free fall before landing
Sight of an Octopus squirting ink onto my
Diving mask blinding with glimpses of vision
Touch of cow’s dung heating a humble
Wall sheltering compassionate feelings
Smell of blotting paper on a fountain
Pen’s script reflecting short-lived fragrance
Synaesthesia? Nonsense? Common Sense? Sixth Sense?
Ethereal Incense of mind soul and body transcending?
I taste childhood
I hear freedom
I see no delusions
I touch equality
I smell passion
I sense...Forever
26th July 2018
Back then,
backyards were big enough
to nurture a growing soul
and provide a space
for the earth to play out
its seasons in full rehearsal.
There were wide tracks
of grass, trees to climb,
old sheds to rummage
with their interiors full of tools
and bric-a-brac
webbed in history.
There was food - ripe tomatoes
and corn from a vegetable patch,
grapes swelling
under a cool canopy of vines,
soft skins bursting
their dark sweetness
inside expectant mouths,
almonds, apricots and the luscious
dribble of a warm peach
down sticky cheeks.
Some had roaming chickens
with their bounty of eggs.
Backyards were blotting paper
for a child's hurt, a hiding place
to get away, a theater
for projecting the phantasies
of a sheriff or a princess
high in a golden tower.
And in summer, a sprinkler
casting a gauntlet of cold spray
for tiny feet to challenge.
Then it all ends
when backyards become
too small and more exotic places
call a restless soul to leave
its Eden and break the spell
of its beginning.
As I wend my way around curving roads
up high into the mountains
I finally arrive at the Eight Gables Inn.
I wonder what it is that drives me here!
Perhaps I have developed wings
and flew across the Atlantic towards
The Great Smoky Mountains
on my adventurous ride
to the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Tired I hope the Inn
will live up to its reputation.
The sun is setting as I view
the purple orange skies darken,
whilst here and there lights
in desolate cottages twinkle in the dark.
I hasten to my private bath
and slowly sink in the warm water,
overpowered by the smell of soapy foams.
Pleased with my silky skin
I put on a plush bathrobe
luxuriously enjoying the feel
of the soft fabric against my spores,
and with a graceful dive find myself
on top of a feather-top bed.
This is the life of luxury...
Until I feel the taste of blotting paper
that cover my whole mouth.
I open my eyes and know
it was all a dream, alas.
When fever rises to 109, the gravity is lost: I cling to sheets to hold the bed’s horizon but my spine tends to a weightlessness. The fever heats the protein till the folding point and, they say, it’s the beginning of the... I can’t rhyme out of it any longer. It’s hard to write poetry when you’re floating on the ceiling. Or you think you are: since then, you can’t distinguish the real from the unreal. They call it “The Earth immerging into the Water”, the first stage when consciousness starts leaving physical levels one after another. According to people who was on my way, the Water is about to turn into the Fire. And it does: I still can inhale the white-hot air of my hospital room but the exhalation does not come easy and, finally, ends. The suffocation, the flash, the sparks dying away in the dark. It's a little painful but pain will pass when the Air absorbs the Fire like a blotting paper absorbs spilled ink. They say, the process is still reversible but I wonder whether I want to reverse. Come on, how does it go? “Keep a clear mind, not clouded even with compassion; let your love become dispassionate;
don’t be sad don’t be happy
do not be afraid -
it’s the moment of your death"
TIDES OF TIDINESS
If I was God, the geographic world I would bless:
I’d start by tidying up my world map for it’s a mess.
First let’s examine the ideal - man-made edges can’t be beat.
Look at places like the USA -Canada boundaries - wow they’re neat.
Saskatchewan and the Four Corners - geometric perfection.
Australia’s states too, and Africa, especially the northern section.
It’s the instinct of all poetic geography teachers
To want to tidy up the world map’s ragged features.
The British Columbia coast needs sweeping with a big brush and
All those islands pushed till they’re joined to the mainland.
Same goes for the chilly south coast of Chile:
So many islands and peninsulas - it’s just silly.
And also the fjorded Atlantic coast of Norway:
Smooth? Neat? Geometric? No way!
The Canadian archipelago too might as well be joined up together
Cos it’s one frozen mass all the time in wintry weather.
Of those messy lakes of Canada and Finland we have no need:
With God’s giant blotting paper I’d make them recede.
And don’t get me started about the crazy course of a river.. . .
Pure logic and efficiency I can deliver:
The Amazon rises only 60 miles from Peru’s Pacific coast
But clearly it felt the need to have something to boast.
It should have gone west instead of 4000 miles east to the Atlantic
A wasted effort, silly choice - it ended up being absurdly gigantic.
And I have bigger complaints, such as South America
Being fitted back where it belongs into the coast of Africa;
And the Red Sea’s coasts, moved apart like edges of torn paper all raggedy:
Dunno whose idea that was, but it ain’t foolin nobody.
Obviously they should be stuck back together jigsaw fashion
To satisfy my geographical neatness passion.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
*This is the latest in my series of Nutty Geographical Poems.
Take a glance at your bedside atlas to see the places mentioned.
Embrace the new technologies,
acquiring knowledge as your goal,
in the realm of search and seizure
feed your mind, refresh your soul.
Social Media and bloggers,
irritants in cyber space
will whore themselves for your attention,
waste your time, usurp your place.
In my youth, before the outbreak,
schooldays were much simpler then,
homework, classwork, all handwritten,
essays done in fountain pen.
So, fire up your fancy lap top,
Facebook, Twitter, Cyber Talk,
while I remember ink wells, pen nibs,
blotting paper, sticks of chalk.
Embrace the new technologies,
acquiring knowledge as your goal,
in the realm of search and seizure
feed your mind, refresh your soul.
Social Media and bloggers,
irritants in cyber space
will whore themselves for your attention,
waste your time, usurp your place.
In my youth, before the outbreak,
schooldays were much simpler then,
homework, classwork, all handwritten,
essays done in fountain pen.
You fire up your fancy lap tops,
Facebook, Twitter, Cyber Talk,
while I give thanks for ink wells, pen nibs,
blotting paper, sticks of chalk.
The Slide Ruler
As regulations rule this world from outside in and my time slowly
seeps away on this planet’s realm I gaze in awe at that once modern
instrument of calculation that dangles from the ceiling lamp in my
~ Study ~
In forward looking nostalgia my memories ambivalent a reminder of
words scripted on paper in fountain pen and blotting paper absorbing
the logic never understood derived from square rooted calculus’s incisive
~ Precision ~
I failed the examination maybe my hands were too clumsy or my mind
too entangled in quests of a different kind of looming poet trees
in onward advances flooding naive crafting knitting dreams and emotional
~ Liberation ~
I tried to run away and on track right by the start of a marathon
real and timed in a fast moving obsession I discovered my ruler sliding
into my fingers for a Euro in red plastic casing with figures organizing
~ Incomprehension ~
Metaphorical and analogue to a desire to escape from the dogma of science
eschewing the unquestioned paradigm of only one truth and one answer
only as well as the modern compulsion with bits and apps it reminds me of
~ Signposts ~
Trivial directives which lead me away and beyond of what can be counted
calculated in the hamster wheeling rat race of pretending to know
exactly what is an illusion in any case plastic or iron cased in
~ Rationalization ~
Nevertheless and because of what I could not understand with a
slide ruler and the pretence of computer colonized minds around me
I cherish not simply for all time’s sake that comprehension results from
~ Fragmentation ~
And thus found the whole kit and caboodle the complementation of
polarity synthesized opposites complemented diversity celebrated in the
festival of life and the living with brick a brack completing the meaning of
~ Life ~
24th October 2016
Old Jewelry Or Just Old Things Contest
A POETS PROGRESS
Through a personal lens I think,then write
Perspective's gaze alters,from night to night,
As blotting paper,absorbs impressions
Of poetry's learned and unlearned lessons;
my anthology,my journey's log book
From mainstream or the back lanes I took,
An emphasis upon a favoured form.
Those endeavours which I,on reflection mourn;
I change,I alter or perhaps stand still
In retrospective of a fogotten will,
And yet,driven by this creative itch,
Each day,I,this word tapestry must stitch.
Such as blotting paper
We absorb everything:
Sunrise, darkness,
Roses, thorns,
Bitterness, Basil
Lightning’s, thunders
Ravens, Snakes,
Worms under the bark,
The bark and roots,
We absorb
Bread and salt,
Plague, dust, ash, tar,
Wound and the fire of wound,
And the blood above the wound
We absorb
The death, the bones that a thousand
Thousand years ago
Recumbent motionless
We absorb
The rust and forgetfulness,
The dried roots and rocks,
The roads and intentions,
The milk of our mothers,
And our fingernails,
Which were eroded under dirt,
And dirt, what walked over,
Or what walked beneath.
We absorb everything
But what do we give back?
Written by © Fatima Nusairat
POEMS THAT MAKE NO SENSE—2
their flesh bears no scars
only coldness forgotten
and bizarre
never pealing layers
of bleeding hearts
no strings attached
just beings from
odd spaceplaces
dead and dying to
be done with it
all in all their souls
are very still like
blotting paper
absorbing the pink
and blue emotions
of litmus reviews..
Blank…
landscapes on which to
pursue frightening
invasive
disclosures
thin lines of
multiple
foreclosures
mirrors unsheet
forgotten relics
of exposure
in shattered
gutted
shutters
© Kim van Breda—8 October 2o15
PERPETUAL POEMS
A poem is never merely still born,
It has its creator's eyes,ears and nose
Yet,unique it lives a life of its own
Independent,well able to stand alone;
On others it can,influence,affect
Energise,direct or initiate
A response,unforseen and immediate
Or lie dormant,yet not dead,but waiting;
Watered by another's mutual bond
resurrected,to live again,again.
A WORDS WORTH
I recite and read aloud,
wander, lonely as a cloud,
then emulate and create
as memory stimulates;
Swim against poetry's tide
therein,an enigma hide,
perhaps,a step too far,with
Tennyson,crossing the bar;
I dream on Will's sonnet verse,
figuratively,sweet and terse,
lazing life away,with songs
compared to a summer's day.
To conjure an opening line
ever,remembered,as mine.
A POETS PROGRESS
Through a personal lens I think,then write
Perspective's gaze alters,from night to night,
As blotting paper,absorbs impressions
Of poetry's learned and unlearned lessons;
my anthology,my journey's log book
From mainstream or the back lanes I took,
An emphasis upon a favoured form.
Those endeavours which I,on reflection mourn;
I change,I alter or perhaps stand still
In retrospective of a fogotten will,
And yet,driven by this creative itch,
Each day,I,this word tapestry must stitch.
Listen to me read these poems on youtube under the name ichthyschiro
Proper learning imputes proper senses
proper senses set up the mind
the mind is like blotting paper
blotting paper absorbs ink
ink inks on paper
paper shows words
words impact
My love when you leave
When you walk away
It's my moon vanishing
It's my sun disappearing
I do not eat
And your delicious food sleeps under the covers
I drink hard at night, very late
Like a blotting paper
You are my moon and my sun
At night, I have no sleep
Since your beautiful body is not there
Mine stayed very cold
In the absence of your warmth
Too far from happiness.
When you leave
I do not sing
I am late
Slow is my stepping
It's death
My thoughts are on you, on you
Everything annoys me under the roof
It's my sun that's not there
It's my moon that slips away
And it's the exodus of my hope
Under the non-starry vault in the evening.
Love, you see
That I love you with passion
You are my treasure, my good
You're the one who gives me the way
To live with the greatest respect
In an atmosphere of love and peace.
Love, when you leave
My pen is weeping
I'm scared, I'm dying
And I drink like a bibulous sleeve.
P.S. Translation of “Amour Quand Tu Pars” by
By Hébert Logerie
Copyright © December 2002, Hébert Logerie, All rights reserved
Hébert Logerie is the author of several collections of poetry.
re-post inspired by Brenda's contest
Through a personal lens I think,then write
Perspective's gaze alters,from night to night,
As blotting paper,absorbs impressions
Of poetry's learned and unlearned lessons;
my anthology,my journey's log book
From mainstream or the back lanes I took,
An emphasis upon a favoured form.
Those endeavours which I,on reflection mourn;
I change,I alter or perhaps stand still
In retrospective of a fogotten will,
And yet,driven by this creative itch,
Each day,I,this word tapestry must stitch.