living in a redwood forest,
cradling the wild and rocky,
nursing cold creeks
and ancient sequoia

he’s balding and blue-eyed,
steps out in running shoes,
old blue jeans, a white t-shirt
smelling of bleach

he flies high with
wings woven of words,
alchemical words,
philosopher’s stone

© 2013, poem, Jamie Dedes, All rights reserved; Photo credit ~ MorgueFile

WEDNESDAY WRITING PROMPT

Write a poem about a poet, writer or artist you know. Capture their essence and, if you feel comfortable, share your work or a link to it in the comments below.  All are welcome, emerging or established. Prompt inspired poems will be featured here next Tuesday.

ABOUT THE POET BY DAY

13 Comments

  1. The poet that was my father
    Dedicated to Grisa Gherghei

    The poet was my father
    He read his poems to our family friends
    And all were mesmerized by them
    How wise, how deep, how entangled but also bold
    In a time of dictatorship
    The poet was my hero
    Till one day when the feeble man crawl from under his own built effigie
    Sad day for me
    I became deaf to his words
    And started writing my own lines
    Lines on my own coin
    The poet left
    Vaporised in some blond vagina
    Only then I have found that was his pattern
    Sliding slowly from one black hole to the next vortex
    Blond haired and with witchy eyes
    The poet and me lost track from one another then
    I remained with the one instilled by him in the cells of my soul
    Later, decades later
    The poet have raised again from his pit
    He stands besides his trees
    The trees that in one of his poems were craving to see a naked woman for they never been in paradise

    Thank you, Jamie!!! Thank you for this opportunity!!!

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  2. My first response Jamie :how lovely your poem is !
    # Palping his verses #
    Making up his abode in a distant land
    Discerning the blue sea
    He pierced beside me
    Watery moonbeam playing on his visage
    Vehicled abruptly his fervid miraculous fingers
    Attiring a necklace of words
    A mystic film
    A palace of jade
    I glowered at him except twinkling of my eyes
    Surmising his authentic essence

    Of a man a spirit or a god
    Relating me his volition
    to foozle me in his sea beside his mushy windy casuarina arbors
    He left
    Hurling his words into the blue bay
    But nothing finaled
    Albeit I recounter ,counsel
    and -grope his lustre
    Palping eyes of his verses
    Savoring his left pages …
    Kakali Das Ghosh

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  3. Hi Jamie, Many very good writes here. I do not know any poets, writers or artists in a personal way. I keep thinking about it but not sure if it is doable for me. Social I am not as much as I love art and writing. Love your write as well.

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  4. Gobbo!

    how you live in my mind!
    genius teacher of boys other than myself
    (never in your class) so often floating past me
    in your ungainly manner
    during those severely wounded years
    shortly after the period of reciprocal destruction
    known peremptorily as World War Two

    you had been caught (I have always imagined)
    in a random machine gun volley
    down some dark & horrible defile
    stinking of blood & death
    all in the same old idiot cause
    returning after great suffering being pieced together
    to Kingston Grammar School to amble disjointedly
    along its corridors nick-named perhaps brutally
    by previous generations of unkind boys to indicate
    that they could hardly understand
    a single word of yours whether spoken in fluent
    Latin Greek Russian French or German
    your command of which survived the wounds
    of neck & face as well as arms & legs
    and who knows what else now grave secrets

    but once I heard you solo speaking loud & clear
    in Dvorak’s Cello Concerto playing now
    on the gramophone – and it’s not Rostropovich
    but Gobbo as it might have been weeping for joy
    at his survival in spite of all the suffering
    this darkening evening in late autumn

    *

    Jamie – I wrote this just yesterday so it’s on top of my mind. ‘Gobbo’ haunted me from 1948 to 1954 although I never spoke to him nor did he teach me. He was clearly an artist and a role model! I have a photo of him but don’t know if it’s possible to add it here.

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  5. Hi Jamie,

    Second response:

    J. Berger

    It must have been a repeat
    Must have been.

    As “Ways Of Seeing” was on
    when I was nine.

    I made a choice
    to look and listen.

    To reciprocate.
    I’d never thought looking
    had a history.

    A artist makes
    a list of choices.

    What you looked at
    had a history.

    An artist makes
    a testimony.

    How you saw
    had a history.

    A witness out of true
    with my world now.

    Learnt to look
    from different perspectives.

    Find the story
    in the out of true.

    From

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  6. Hi Jamie,

    First response

    “Bartholomew Street” after “Tempest Avenue” by Ian McMillan

    Harold half way down collects wood
    for his fire, leave it out front.

    Leave out anything metal Gypsies at top have sharp eyes,

    Stan, two doors down
    wants his radiator gone.

    Dave next door holds ladder
    while I look at roof tiles

    and shares homemade ale after.
    Our roofers knew man who murdered

    a man
    at bottom.

    I thought someone murdered
    at top but our lass swears

    he was only badly beaten
    Old gent Tommy three doors down

    quiet when his wife died last Summer
    Put thumbs up when I cleared

    his path of Snow last Winter.
    Pear tree in back garden bagged

    up by them all when ripe
    as too much for our lass and me.

    http://www.uktouring.org.uk/ian-mcmillan/

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Thank you!