shipsonfire

a hard week, yes, and more ahead

2008-01-31T11:36:01Z

you can hold your breath and hear the seconds

you can remember all the sunsets you saw alone

you can wait for still water at the lake though summer chilled

you can work till the day is filled with sand

you can walk, and walk, and walk;

you can live in every moment short and long

you can scare away crows in the snap of blue sky

you can wear new faces every morning unseen

you can dream aloud about not now sometime maybe

you can run, and run, and run;

you might not, but you could have done,
I'll choose to believe you did, because I can.

nodding off at 3.45

2008-01-24T16:14:18Z

afternoon, after work,
the sweet-dark gravity of sleep;
i fought against it,
and suddenly
the sky seemed
another sky,
a blue warm sky
of holidays
and exhaustion that hid,
and leapt out,
and took me,
in the grey-early morning,
a tiredness i never knew by day;
oh, blue to white
of endless childhood time,
breathing in light,
exhaling shadow;
oh friendly dusk,
to greet you just once
and not be tired of
fatigue. Sky, as deep as dream-time

shipsonfire @ 2008-01-14T16:05:00

2008-01-14T16:08:32Z

more progress, 2600 words and more on nightsinger. tired, tired, tired. trying to think of a poem for 100 poems but not only is the well dry it is crumbling in on itself.

shipsonfire @ 2008-01-08T11:34:00

2008-01-08T11:40:33Z

A snatched entry, just to say I've started working on something that I've been thinking about for some weeks now - a novel, hopefully, called Nightsinger. Will update soon enough.

so i thought why not write something happy, or whatever

2007-12-18T17:07:21Z

I have my voice, its echo,
memory's drunken slideshow
and I have the utter clutter
of a life half-filled.
I have lives attached to mine
like forgotten sellotape,
I have words that no longer fit
into the books they came from.
I have anger, a lost and wandering
tourist, and I drag behind me,
trailing, sentences unsaid.
But against this I have, I hold,
as balance,
the alignment of sun, leaves and eyes,
so bright and green and future,
this instant just for me.

today's 100 poems post

2007-12-17T17:02:23Z

It came to me today
with the speed of regret,
a thought undisguised. I hid it.

It glitter-winked at me
just under the surface of my
half-woken consciousness.

It tugged at me like a secret
as I walked against the day's current,
I pretended to be heedless.

It followed me as I tried to run
from myself, its stride my own.
A thought, a cold, burning, heartsick thought.

I thought, face it.
I faced it. I thought -

this is it.

not a small victory

2007-12-13T10:19:37Z

not a small victory

blank out the mirror,

don’t think about things you haven’t done,

overcome inertia to leave the flat.

ignore the radio chatter,

keep your cool in unnecessary queues,

accept that bed is half a day away.

smile at people who don’t see you,

find a moment to taste tea,

maintain a balance of some kind.

be, be true, be difference-making,

allow no foothold to despair,

take a beat of optimism from those hours.

come back, come back to emptiness,

know that this was not a battle, but a war,

dedicate each day won to your glory.

posted in 100 poems, happy-go-lucky as ever

2007-12-10T16:37:59Z

This is the dustland
between light and dark,
this the place
where pain and joy
cannot be found
this is no place and my only place
and this is where
a balance has been struck,
this is an empty place
this is me undone
these are the unsounds of
unhad conversation,
of things that are no more,
this is the taste of rain.

shipsonfire @ 2007-07-16T12:49:00

2007-07-16T11:51:06Z

back from away, this came to me last night. so tired again.

This is a dappled life,
sun and sadness,
shade and joy.
I live in a shifting rush of pattern,
and even in the dark
I know that there must be
light elsewhere.

shipsonfire @ 2007-07-10T12:27:00

2007-07-10T11:28:30Z

Blog-Word! for shipsonfire
dark
Your word buddies: fadeoutfallaway@deadjournal.com daigotsurezan@livejournal.com phospheme_grin@livejournal.com mistressbubs@livejournal.com brandyc@livejournal.com
@

Created by Grahame

shipsonfire @ 2007-07-10T12:22:00

2007-07-10T11:24:21Z

Haiku² for shipsonfire
in the dark down here on earth but from out there we are bright and carefree
@

Created by Grahame

shipsonfire @ 2007-06-06T14:55:00

2007-06-06T14:02:01Z

I'm in a really strange place mentally. That person whom I've found it difficult not to think about over the last few months has made me feel unimportant, and maybe I am after all. Here I am, burning in the darkness, and no-one will put me out. Maybe I should write a book about it! ha ha.

shipsonfire @ 2007-05-16T13:02:00

2007-05-16T12:15:44Z

What if it rained for ever?
What if always in the quiet the drops falling fast
Were a constant gentle hiss
And one day the hiss were drowned itself
By the hushing rush of a torrent
In the dark, or half dark
Of the rain-cloud day
And all that water, and all that power,
And unstoppable direction to a somewhere,
An outpouring,
And at last a rest.
What if the rain pricked a vast, unending stretch of water
That iron clouds made greyer still,
And nowhere anything but water,
And again the gentle sound of rain, only the rain,
Nothing to drown out, water on water.

blinking he emerges into the hard afternoon light

2007-05-10T11:47:29Z

I don't know where I've been. Things are floating across the surface of my eyes and everybody seems too loud. I remember a conversation, but not the words, and when I woke up this morning it felt like I'd been walking all night.

The good news is that the ships are still burning, and we stand on the decks and watch the flames flare in reflection on the dark sea. I cannot feel their heat.

I will try and keep up to date now. Though essentially I suppose I am the only one reading and so I could post to my mind.

..................

2007-01-23T16:38:22Z

Lines written on discovering, at the age of 31, that due to
the size of my debts I cannot buy a house

When I was younger
I used to walk by houses
and dream they were mine,
my world to make and fill.
Then I was older
and I felt a tug to know
it would never be a mansion,
I’d make do.
Then I was older still,
and suddenly at the dead end
of a one-way street,
unsheltered.

seven, the magic number

2007-01-19T16:38:18Z

What happens when your car won't start

In a taxi, at the top of a hill,
at sunrise.
There are three of us in the car,
the driver, the silence and I.
It rained last night.

Ahead of us the morning is
painted with fire along the horizon;
the light is everywhere,
the road streams with it.
We're stuck in traffic.

I look in a direction I normally don't,
and I see hills beyond the town.
Sharp, and clear,
they seem close enough to touch.
Tree-stubbled, unknown, alive.

more joy and fun

2007-01-13T15:10:20Z

No-one gets in or out

I have trapped myself in a cage
a safe cage, a peaceful cage,
a cell the shape of a life.
I've been putting my head to the bars
and looking out, and thinking that
I'm free.
I've been comfortable, I've felt content,
I've paced and stretched my legs.
But I have been a captive of myself,
and this cage is as strong as I am.
No-one gets in or out.

shipsonfire @ 2007-01-09T16:42:00

2007-01-09T16:44:00Z

not brought down by amount of work, honest...

I trail memory like blood behind me,
haunt of unknown uncounted days,
and the one I chase moves on ahead.
His pace is too fast and his tracks
erased as the world falls down, a blizzard.
Blinded by it, limping under my load,
a life unsaid and swallowed words,
I push on, through today
Into the whispering emptiness.
Hoping that one day he will tire.

first poem in a while, thought it was time for a rhyme.

2007-01-08T16:25:39Z

promenade

So, morning sand, morning bright,
untouched and smooth, reflecting light;
The sea silent and far away,
the breeze that wants to rush and play
A day so far off now it seems
You go there only in your dreams;
This stretch of undiscovered early beach
is all potential within your reach,
clean and fleeting and so sharply real.

shipsonfire nearly extinguished

2006-11-24T12:32:52Z

I'm quite far on with my nanowrimo effort, 37300 words or so, but still behind and a busy weekend not writing ahead of me. Ho hum. In the meantime, a poem probably influenced by tiredness, apologies.

I am waving
from the ground, upwards
at a cloud of stars;
the distance nearly stops me
and the number.
We are stars,
near numberless,
distant in the dark
down here on earth;
but from out there we are bright
and beautiful and forever.

progress, of a sort

2006-11-16T09:19:18Z

24,200 / 50,000
(48.4%)

I'm 800 words behind, which is not a disaster as at my worst I have been 3,500 words behind. One of my characters has died, which should be some kind of spur for various things to happen. I nearly fell asleep while doing it last night and I'm beginning to feel like it's draining me. But then nothing that is easy can be that worthwhile, right?

a poem, at last

2006-11-09T09:49:58Z

fireworks

In the wet grey of this morning
I found a spent firework,
a rocket, damp with dew and empty,
dirty, burnt cardboard, in my way.

The crackle of distant explosions had punctuated
the night before like some forgotten battle,
the sky lit up for heartbeats
as if a sped-up storm was raging.

I kicked the tube away, its magic gone, the violence done,
lonely, a ghost of light and sound.

more progress, and a reason for no poetry

2006-11-09T09:33:12Z

15,102 / 50,000
(30.2%)

So I'm quite pleased with this, I'm one day ahead of where I need to be but then I knew tonight was a write-off. I'm alarmed about the fact that I have absolutely no idea where I'm going with the book. I had an idea last night which I remember liking, but I've forgotten it. Drat!

progress

2006-11-06T15:30:41Z

8,337 / 50,000
(16.7%)

nanowrimo

2006-11-02T18:36:24Z

progress: day two, 3363 words written, second chapter finished. the characters are developing beyond any ideas I had for them.