#6 - Late Spring (1949)

This poem was inspired by the film Late Spring (1949). It was by directed by Yasujirō Ozu, and was produced in Japan during the American occupation after the Second World War. I was especially interested in the aspects of the film that were censored (mentions of American bombing and occupation, and the Japanese traditions that do not align with American values specifically) and how the Ozu skirted these rules to make something that still resonates with Japanese culture at this time and place. You can read more about that on Wikipedia here, if you like.  

#6 – Tiny Acts of Rebellion  

I cannot write of city ruins here,

our script is flipped; the harrowing erased.

The absence curves, like question marks in space:

the gauzy veil of history hangs sheer. 

I cannot tell of occupation now:

it lies, like rubble, hidden from the lens.

And I’m reduced to shaking, making sense 

of censorship and all it won’t allow.

But, in the mise-en-scène, you’ll see it clear:

the English words, the Coca-Cola sign.

On celluloid, the darkened shadows shine,

the bleakness in the staging, rendered here. 

A portent, camouflaged for us to find;

rebellion as subtle as a sign.

LM

Image from Late spring (1949) from Wikipedia

#5 - das Feuer, die Stimmen, die Qualen

M, 1931

Some poets say that writing’s a compulsion –

like somehow, they’re afflicted with a curse;

they speak in terms of horror and revulsion

at something so benign as crafting verse.

“I need to quench demonic fire inside –

to quell demented voices, vent the rage,

and tear my psyche open naked wide –

eviscerate my torment on the page!

 

 

Suffice to say I differ from this norm –

my muse is cut from calmer cloth, it seems.

A privilege is poesy, not a duty –

the fire’s a spark that keeps me toasty warm;

the voices, long-dead poets sharing dreams;

the torment, only heartache caused by beauty.

AWB

for a video reading of this poem and more, visit Andy's Patreon

#4 - shot-for-shot

(Russell J Turner)

This year we are using films from the Sight and Sound 2022 list as prompts

First up from me is Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960 - #33), along with Gus Van Sant’s pointless remake

Our Californian butchery begins
not far from Fairvale, where the Bates Motel
stands like a monument to filial sins ‒
a seedy small-town cinematic hell.

Conversant with the carnage that ensued,
some cineastes will bore us with the cast ‒
“But did you know the characters include
the wonderfully named Milton Arbogast?”

Then Gus Van Sant, in nineteen ninety-eight,
decided to completely replicate
this classic film ‒ a shot-for-shot redraft
that’s more to do with marketing than craft.
Though given Norman’s chosen tool of strife,
perhaps not shot-for-shot but knife-for-knife...

RJT

#3 - Enmeshed

Fay Roberts’s first sonnet this year is inspired by Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid’s short, surrealist, USAmerican movie, Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), written by Maya Deren, and starring Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid:

She runs and runs, but never hopes to catch
the chiffon billowing, the mirrored stare.
She rises, clambers, thinks she’s met her match.
(But who’s to say, in this dim place, what’s fair?)

It’s soft and hard, she’s bright and dark, alone?
The key’s inside, and gravity’s a glitch.
Acknowledge nodding roses, keys, and clones...
Is this prediction? Time to flip the switch.

Now tread each texture down, don’t run in place –
the sea’s a sighing echo of the land...
We rise to find the only speaking face;
this is no accident, but was it planned?

Was she possessed? What did the dream portend?
And who’s the one who’s dreaming, in the end?

still of the movie, from of the review on THE CINEMATOGRAPH

If you have access to the Internet Archive, you can watch the 0:14 long, mostly wordless movie here. Content warnings include: implied violence, unreality, blood, nightmares. Let us know what you thought if you’ve seen it!

#2 - Beau Travail (1999)

This poem was inspired by the 1999 French film Beau Travail, which was directed by Claire Denis. The film is set in the former French colony of Djibouti, and the main characters are all French Foreign Legion soldiers. I haven’t seen the movie (yet) but as I was reading the plot description online, I was struck by the themes of power, cruelty and disorientation in the story. These were the things that were swirling around in my mind when I wrote this poem.  It’s also my first time playing with an unrhymed lines in a sonnet – sacrilege! 

#2 - Good Work 

In this expansive openness, we men

are gods, and just like gods, we seek to cause 

destruction of our fellow deities;

a desert of our twisting spite and shame. 

This heat incites each man to lose his way – 

his empathy a glittering mirage.

This heat incites each god to dissipate –

and we are left as devils on the sand. 

The work is always harder than it seems,

and gods and men are harder, still, to bid.

The desert swallows all, no compromise;

it swallows, spits, and saves us from ourselves. 

We wanted to believe we did some good;

the wreckage, lying silent, seeping blood. 

LM

Poster Image via Wikipedia

#1 - Watershed

 

#3 Citizen Kane, 1941

The mountain rises ­– rain falls either side;

the river carves new courses thru the plain

the views will never be the same again

as fertile meadows form, which coincide

 

with fauna stirring, brash and dewy-eyed.

this metaphor’s attempting to explain

the moments I first met Charles Foster Kane –

murmuring veiled macguffins as he died.

 

That’s it? I wondered, What’s the fuss about?

a callow youth so sure of what he knows

too blind to spy invention’s fearless edge –

to see the context; then to puzzle out

the level land before the mountain rose

and Ozymandias in a burning sledge.

AWB

for a video reading of this poem and more, visit Andy's Patreon

Seven Days of Russell (full crown)

(Russell J Turner)
This year I used the seven days of the week as prompts for a crown of sonnets

With various words from various songs by various artists

1) Blue Monday

...as Monday rolls the wheel around once more,
with memories just sailing out of reach ‒
a ship, a harbour, some forgotten beach ‒
to ride the tides of what has gone before.
But history is not a one-way door
and memory has much that it can teach
in sympathy, in imagery and speech,
in how to navigate an unseen shore.

So kick your boots off, dance beneath the Moon,
and make your plans for all that is to come ‒
those future days that stack up one by one.
It may not happen now, but pretty soon
the Fates could weave a pattern, could conspire,
when Tuesday enters, roaring like a fire...

2) Ruby Tuesday

...when Tuesday enters, roaring like a fire ‒
to banish lies, to tear illusion down
and wear the spoils of battle as a crown ‒
the one-armed, wolf-meat, warriors leap higher,
all balancing along a narrow wire
and wrestling wrongs wherever they are found.
The Gods are gathered at a circus-ground,
dispensing sin and error to the pyre.

But who could ever hang a name on them?
They bicker over meaning and intent
until the dying flames dissolve and then
a silence falls as argument is spent.
For there is one thing they all wish to see:
the new dawn’s magic, Wednesday’s sorcery...

3) A Wednesday Car

...the new dawn’s magic, Wednesday’s sorcery
that haunts this earthly city’s cracks and peaks
with words to tie you down or set you free,
to liberate those lemons, dogs and freaks.

In Greystone, Woody shines but cannot speak
of all he’s been and all that he has done,
while Pete recounts the wonders that he seeks
and Johnny simply laughs and gets his gun.

Now Bobby rides electric wheels for fun
as Sylvie weeps for what she helped create,
yet Joan cannot regret what is to come ‒
a whole wide world to circumnavigate.

She whispers softly ‘just fuck off and sing’.
She knows the hope and loss that Thursday brings...

4) I Lost Thursday

...she knows the hope and loss that Thursday brings
I packed it all up in a sleeping bag
Lettered with the lines and hues of flags
Obstinately flying in the wings
Supernatural, spaced out cats and kings
Tripping tales of homelessness and skag
They talk in tongues to tell the world their rags
Hope lies bleeding, tangled up in strings
Underneath this cinematic sheen
Repentant/not repentant afterthoughts
She measures all the fantasy she finds
Deep in panopticons I often dream
Absolutely everything and naught
You know that Friday’s always on my mind...

5) Friday on My Mind

...you know that Friday’s always on my mind
you know tonight is when I spend my bread
you know tonight is how I lose my head
you know that sanity gets left behind

we tumble through the caverns of the blind
we travel via Ariadne’s thread
we cast our candles for the recent dead
we meet where past and future intertwine

she carves her secrets in an ash-wood box
she dances prophecies of air and earth
she paints a brightness fading into grey
she sings against betrayal by the fox
she weaves a tapestry of coming birth
she orchestrates a drive-in Saturday...

6) Drive-in Saturday

...she orchestrates a drive-in Saturday
where headlights scatter moments in the dark
of some forgotten retro picture park ‒
a crash course for the ravers gone astray.
While music underscores, romantics sway
with fingers fumbling for a vivid spark
illuminating one clear question mark ‒
is this the truth or just a pixel play?

So flex our wings, and measure out our lives
in congress on the solid side of here ‒
the streets where bodies meet and passion thrives
above the stones, beneath the starry sphere.
As night dissolves, reality survives
the sounds of Sunday kicking into gear...

7) Sunday Morning

...the sounds of Sunday kicking into gear ‒
celesta grooves like bird-song through your brain,
composing all the pieces that remain,
unmaking themes of restlessness and fear.
But doubt and paranoia reappear
despite the lull of Nico’s last refrain,
that small insistent itch occurs again ‒
Watch out! The world needs just another beer!

The morning slides into a muddy mist
with rivulets, not torrents, at its core.
The afternoon a myth of lips unkissed
that broken-hearted wanderers explore.
But evening shyly seeks another tryst
as Monday rolls the wheel around once more...

RJT