isawhitney

[isawhitney]

Nonsenses

Well, word soup! And jingoism,

Teatime, of course - banality?

My please, often syllabus is

Better a teaser than pudding.

Why? Doctor whenever catnip

Combination whatever for?

Enough for evil listenings, for

All and scientific butter. Bliss

Bar none a collocation army

Band my dear, my dear! How

Trumpeting! How elephant and

Mouse! If verbalised juicer

Crisping near and by the book,

Then let me know. All words

And violinists are just for show.

#poem #poetry #poems on tumblr #books & libraries #literature #poems #words #spilled ink #spilt ink #libraries #listen I’m taking a poetry class #and it’s making me do some weird things with my work #writer #writers on tumblr #poetry on tumblr #poets on tumblr #writing #word #wordy

[isawhitney]

The Artist Lazily Attempts an Automatic Poem

Thinking thinking think ing I

think

therefore I be I

am I

are we

are grammar

how funny

how queer

how shocking

how terrible

how how how how how

stop

enough of hows let’s give it a wherefore

maybe even a

why

maybe even an

if

or a who

who

who

I am an owl you see

and I will write screeching

my fingers on the blackboard-ish I will

write

of dogs

and emojis maybe

and glue

and glow worms

and all the millions of things I could write about were I a french impressionist or surrealist or some great fashionable artist with the thrill of painting or creation in my water

I love the words but they won’t come to me.

#poem #poetry #poems on tumblr #books & libraries #literature #poems #words #spilled ink #spilt ink #libraries #writing #writing on tumblr #writers on tumblr #I’m taking a class on French surrealism #and a lot of their poets did automatic writing #so I figured I’d give it a spin! you’re welcome André Breton

[isawhitney]

Gone Conchie

enough white

feathers to fill

a dead man’s

bed: coffin lin-

er, silk sheets

and linens, old

cold boxes sodd-

ed in the soil

like plants for

next year’s

bloom. so i

a living cow-

ard, my tomb as

yet unslept in,

till the hum-

ble earth: that

all the war-

bound world

may bear again

an uncorrupted

fruit.

#poem #poetry #poems on tumblr #books & libraries #literature #poems #words #spilled ink #spilt ink #libraries #war #wwi #wwii #I’ve always had a soft spot for conscientious objectors

[isawhitney]

Tic-Tac-Toe

Kiss Kiss

Criss Cross

Apple Cheeky

Rude How Dare

Or Truth A Lie

A Fraud A Game

OXO

Naught Nil

Ol’ Mill Lassie

Bloke Bemuse

Peruse A Rhyme

A Pome Top Marks Ten Ten

#poem #poetry #poems on tumblr #books & libraries #literature #poems #words #spilled ink #spilt ink #libraries #writers on tumblr #who knows one day i may write the O

[isawhitney]

Cadbury-colour morning bleeds

slow over the stigmata of our town. black

shadow and the purple of the clouds

and the sun a rolled back stone,

exposing the cave of an easter day.

#poem #poetry #poems on tumblr #books & libraries #literature #poems #words #spilled ink #spilt ink #libraries #writers on tumblr #easter #Christianity #this is a little about #jesus #but more about the suburban atmosphere in which the whole easter holiday deal feels somehow still holy #this is tragically not a very atheistic poem #perhaps I’ve lapsed

[isawhitney]

Alright,

I’ll write one of those modern-

Type poems, the ones that pause

(for dramatic effect)

In the middle of a sentence. Watch me en

Jamb and prink up prose, loquaciously soliloquise in my

S e s q u i p e d a l i a n shoes,

Grow terse and original, my verse. a

Rusted crowbar, all the better to

Beat you over the head with, with

With

With

With

Why with its

Lex ical

Ambiguity

And all that font everywhere

Who even cares if I mean the things I say, so long as they’re

S

h

a

p

e

d

True?

#poem #poetry #poems on tumblr #books & libraries #literature #poems #words #spilled ink #spilt ink #libraries #poetry on tumblr #writers on tumblr #i almost forgot! gosh! in my défense it’s been a week

[isawhitney]

Crab

Scatter-stalk woman come up to me today,

Starts talking about the eco

System, I say Man

(Or Ma’am, whoops,

My mistake) you think I don’t know about that?

Where do you think I’ve been living,

That I’ve shut my shell to the envi

Ronment and all that going on?

You know where I live?

Pretty soon, I say to

Her, eyes blank and staring fit to glaze donuts,

Pretty soon whole world’s going

To be some kind of beach.

#poem #poetry #poems on tumblr #books & libraries #literature #writers on tumblr #poems #words #spilled ink #spilt ink #libraries #crab #climate change #global warming #crabs #marine #beach #who knew I cared so much about crabs

[isawhitney]

Why They Should Have Let Me Onboard The USS Enterprise

Yellow skivvies suit me. Always have. I suppose

It’s the air of responsibility, that military sheen that screams

‘Don’t fuck with me.’ Jim Kirk’s suburban smoulder’s

Hot, but it’s got nothing on my intergalactic pout,

When I start glaring from the captain’s chair. Blue works too,

But I’m not so keen on medicine (although I do take an interest in

Finding out how well Bones lives up to his name). Same

Goes for green - the formal fit’s fine but not my scene, not like

That sexy yellow jersey. Still, perhaps it’s a mercy. You beg

And beg for saffron threads, and next thing you’re lying crimson

With the dead, red-shirted into oblivion.

#poem #poetry #poems on tumblr #books & libraries #literature #poems #words #spilled ink #spilt ink #libraries #Star Trek #jim kirk #leonard mccoy #listen I really haven’t watched a lot of Star Trek in my life #and if i haven’t done it justice just let me know and I will change things! #more than happy to cave to peer pressure! #writers on tumblr

[isawhitney]

Well,

Here I am writing a prose poem at last, all run-on sentences that don’t end for miles at a time, simply stretching along like some landscape in a Looney Tunes cartoon, all backdrop. and then when it stops it stops, abruptly, and I leave you Wile-E.-Coyote-hanging in the air so Don’t Look Down, Not For Anything, do you get that? or otherwise the quantum field of believing will collapse and the gravity will suddenly shockingly assert itself so Do You Get That? and I hope you do because the artifice, as I am told in the dry as old bones poetry class, is part of it. ‘but Miss?’ I shoot back, in defiance of all grammatical and social convention, ‘isn’t all poetry?’ and I could go on and talk about life and the road runners and the truth of all poetry (which I’ll tell to you now, only Don’t Let On) which is that everything is a poem if thinking makes it so - but she cuts me off with a groan and anyway. next week we’re onto villanelles.

#poem #poetry #poems on tumblr #books & libraries #literature #poems #words #spilled ink #spilt ink #libraries #writers on tumblr #writing on tumblr #prose poem #my first one! could you bloody guess?

[isawhitney]

Cunt!

I won’t be silenced. When I yell cunt

The blood boils to the surface of my skin.

My face flushes. Cunt

‘Ll do that for you. Try it some time. Try

Belting

Cunt!

What a solid word: crisp, glottal. Cunt

Means something. It has weight. It’s no

Good tossing cunt

Around; cunt

Tosses back. I breathe in through my eyes and I scream

Cunt!

One last go now. All together, all cunt

S in arms, let’s bellow

Cunt!

And maybe a

Fuck!

(for good measure)

#poem #poetry #poems on tumblr #books & libraries #literature #poems #words #spilled ink #spilt ink #libraries #tw coarse language #quite a bit of coarse language if I’m honest #feminism #is this feminism? #ah well probably close enough

[isawhitney]

Vampire Verse, Take 7

So if I were to say that I was running

A race against the clock

That I felt my heart

Tight in my chest, like a vice,

My very nerves

Aflame

Would any of the clichés help?

If I were running

Fast as the wind

The blood

Pounding in my ears like some manic drum

And I felt the panic,

A gath’ring tide, rise in me

Would my metaphors guide me from what I knew was coming?

If I just ran

Quick like wit

Stumbling

Like a bat out of hell

But the words

(Lightning-like, nimble, strong as a horse but supple)

Kept coming just the same

Could any verbosity save me? Or

Would my language die

On my lips, a

Sonnet to my suffering?

#poem #poetry #poems on tumblr #books & libraries #literature #poems #words #spilled ink #spilt ink #libraries #I’m not sure the message here is entirely coherent #so my apologies for that x

[isawhitney]

Poetry

Is not only a disease it is an STI

Else why would all the Romantics

Have it? Byron slept with Shelley

And the man was sprouting sonnets

Babbling on about foreign kings then

Shelley slept with Mary and her

Sense fell out her ears truly poetry

Must be suppressed. Please wear a

Condom.

#poem #poetry #poems on tumblr #books & libraries #literature #poems #words #spilled ink #spilt ink #libraries #romantic #romantics #romanticism #mary Shelley #Byron #lord Byron #Percy Shelley #is it clear that i have NO respect for Byron??? #it should be

[isawhitney]

Fragment

,

but I suppose it could be worse.

We might all be Mormons,

Or people in glass houses (who shouldn’t

throw stones) or

The couple down the street from us who throw

beer bottles in their yard.

The crabgrass pools there,

and

#poem #poetry #poems on tumblr #books & libraries #literature #poems #words #spilled ink #spilt ink #libraries #poets #poet #poets on tumblr #poetry on tumblr

[isawhitney]

My father’s brewing oolong tea, and I

Must take The Times astride my bread.

100 Shows To Watch Before You Die!!!

“How morbid,” and I flick the page full-spread

To visions from a Just So past. It stirs,

Immortalised in print, like a cartouche

Engirds dead pharaoh’s names on sepulchres:

Blackadder. Fry and Laurie. Mighty Boosh.

And - rounding out the list - there’s old John Cleese

Half-buggered and blacked up with gollie lips.

“So debonair he looks, in all that grease,“

I yawn my vitriol, as Daddy quips

“If Kipling’s sullen peoples wrote the news,

What different print! What different film reviews!”

#poem #poetry #poems on tumblr #books & libraries #literature #poems #words #spilled ink #spilt ink #libraries #poetry on tumblr #poets on tumblr #the mighty boosh #fry and laurie #okay technically it’s the blackface in Jeeves and Wooster that shits me #but that doesn’t scan and iambs are hard enough as it is #crt #blm

[isawhitney]

A Dialogue

Well

Well what?

Well, I did say it wouldn’t do

Any good. They’ll dry

Up and drop

Like flies, I remember saying.

You would.

Be nice. I only meant that

Water’s

Best for these sorts, and if

You want real green, a

Healthy green, not the sickly stuff

You’re used to, petal,

You’ve got to keep the earth

Moist.

I kept it

Moist.

Yes, well, you say that now,

And of course I believe you,

But

The last time I went round to check those

Pots by the garage they were

Arid as

Anything.

Dry?

Yes!

Dryer than a witch’s tit,

We used to say.

You should say less,

Danny Bailey.

Mind yourself

And

Your manners in the presence of a

Lady. Anyway, the full

Expression’s actually colder.

Colder than a witch’s tit.

That’s just good English.

Well, pardon me for

Breathing.

It’s not the breathing I mind.

I only tried to warn you

That that fern would up and

Wilt on all of us, and who knows

What

Christina’s going to say.

Chrissie won’t give a

Monkeys. She never

Does.

You never notice.

I suppose

We’ll just have to drop off at

Bunnings,

Buy a new one, god knows

If she’ll guess the difference.

Fine.

Well, fine. And,

Just by the bye, you

Understand,

Did you move my shandy

Out of the shade and into the

Sun?

No,

God did.

#poem #poetry #poems on tumblr #books & libraries #literature #poems #words #spilled ink #spilt ink #libraries #marriage #love #I’ve been spending a lot of time with my grandparents #this is a bit of a take off of one of their conversations

[isawhitney]

Antigone

They were babies once. I carried them

On my back around the garden, laughing,

While my clear-eyed father busied himself

With the work of a king. On my back,

Through the dirt, I carry him, too tired now

For games, and again I have to laugh.

#poem #poetry #poems on tumblr #books & libraries #literature #poems #words #spilled ink #spilt ink #libraries #greece #greek myth #Greek myths #antigone #ismene #oedipus #oedipus Rex #Greek tragedy #Greek tragedies #my mum loves this play

[isawhitney]

My father died. It was

Cheaper than a trip to

Brighton or another of the

Beach suburbs. We’d only

Ever rented a house out

On the coast, but spent

Three weeks in that dead

Aired, dead cornered flat

Luxuriating. I took a week

Off work for it, brought

One of those slutty romances

A Midnight Kiss in Paris, maybe,

Or Love Conquers All, read it

Cover to cover, ate an orange.

My dog ran laps in the

Backyard, howling at the

Kookaburras and turning up

The soil. Two days in,

She uncovered a box of old

Raggedy bones and a collar

With TRIXIBELLE in rhine-

Stones. Ah well, I sat and

Mused, suppose that’s life.

#poem #poetry #poems on tumblr #books & libraries #literature #poems #words #spilled ink #spilt ink #libraries #poetry on tumblr #poets on tumblr #this is probably my first go at this poem but not my last #if that makes sense