Rudraprayag

after Jim Corbett, The Man-Eating Leopard of Rudraprayag

There is a road in the mountains
between Badrinath and Kerdanath.
Shrines that sheltered pilgrims
for thousands of years.
The road now shelters no one.

Flu-ravaged corpses lined the banks
of two rivers nourished by glaciers.
Coals sat in their mouths
to absorb the stench of death.

The corpses' flesh filled
the stomach of leopard.
The road fell under its shadow.
For eight years it prowled
through the mountains

and found prey in every village.
It leapt through windows,
snatching infants from their cribs
with barely a noise,
just silence remaining.

One of those villages
became its favourite haunt.
A small place on the road,
huddled in between the river
and a forested mountain.

The houses of Rudraprayag are
still. Goats bleat uneasily, while
cows stare dumfounded into the gloom.
A lantern on the headman's porch
cools from the heat of its flame.

A shadow crosses the threshold.
It rips and slashes the locked door,
breaking it down with force of hunger.
Gnarled teeth plunge into the soft throat
so only a whisper escapes.
It tears the man from his bed
into the cover of the night.

(Hi guys, the Tiger Poet here. Hope you enjoyed this poem, there are plenty more on their way. It's been very quiet these last few months, but hope you all had a good summer. See you soon.)

New Journeys

After so long without a new post, here's a poem I composed about turtles hatching on a beach in India.

New Journeys

The sand begins to move
under a glowing full moon.
Thousands of eggshells
litter underground nests.

The heads appear first,
followed by thrashing flippers,
then the small grey shells
of the new born turtles.

They scuttle for the waves
in one enormous rush,
and blend into the surf
as the moon disappears.

At dawn the beach is empty,
save for one hatchling,
leaving the sand for the sea
and beginning the real journey.

First World War Project Begins

So, as you can see the blog has had some redecoraters in. With so many new things on the horizon, the time has come to make the announcement I promised to make at the start of the week.

I've been talking about doing something to commemorate the centenary of the First World War for the last few months. More specifically, I wanted to commemorate something very specific about the First World War. This means that the project I'm announcing today won't cover the whole of the war, or won't be about the general themes and context which historians have been analysing for the last century. Instead it will be covering something that I've been interested in for a while, and which I'm finally tackling in writing form.

The battle at Mametz Wood as long been a focus of Welsh poets writing about the First World War. It's been written about by poets such as Owen Sheers and of course in the famous 'In Parenthesis' by David Jones who fought in the battle itself. It was a defining moment of the Battle of the Somme, and the assault by the Welsh Regiment upon German trenches in the wood was marked by the extraordinary courage displayed by the soldiers. It will be my task for the next year and a half to compose my own tribute to this little-known part of history. Whether I will succeed is yet to be seen, but I will do my best.

Hope you found this post informative and I'll see you with more poems and other good stuff soon.

NaPoWriMo Defeat

As this is my first post in quite a while, I should start by addressing the obvious. Despite my best efforts, I failed to make it to the end of NaPoWriMo this year. I returned to university after the eighteenth poem and failed to find them time to write any new stuff. As a result I've been taking a short break from poetry but I will be returning to posting new poems very soon.

In other news, my articles about Cowboy Bebop and the First World War are still on the cards. The latter announcement will be made at the end of this week.

Hope you're all having a good week and I'll see you all soon.

NaPoWriMo #18 | Motorised Chaos

This new poem on the eighteenth day of NaPoWriMo may seem peculiar, but it's really the best I could do at such short notice.

Motorised Chaos

A road on a moor,
empty of all but
the falling of rain.

A snail makes his way
across the tarmac, so
slowly it's painful.

Lights, a horn blast,
thundering of tyres.

NaPoWriMo #17 | Kingfisher

As we move into the second half of NaPoWriMo, the days are getting longer and warmer. The rise in temperature has brought with it signs of summer, and I've been seeing a lot of birds in my garden recently. On that note, this poem is about a certain bird I saw in my neighbour's garden a few years ago.

Kingfisher

The fish in the pond
next door are still
and unperturbed.

A loud splash,
a flash of orange,
blue and white.

The kingfisher perches
on a branch, holding
its catch, a small sliver
of shimmering silver.

NaPoWriMo #16 | Basking Frog

Ever since I started this challenge, my NaPoWriMo poetry has mostly consisted of animals. This one is no different, inspired by a frog sculpture I have at home. Also 'Eyes of the Forest' is now up on my YouTube channel in video form: (https://youtu.be/aBHoYd2TVWw)

Basking Frog

A green frog, dotted
with red splotches,
thought the pond-side
was the best place
to sun-lounge alone.

Eyes unblinking,
moth agape,
he spots a large next
approaching. Seems
this is a popular pond.

NaPoWriMo #15 | Eyes of the Forest

So I've reached the halfway point in my NaPoWriMo odyssey. To celebrate, I've written another India poem, this time about gray langur monkeys. These monkeys are found right across Indian, from the forests of Madhya Pradesh to the foothills of the Himalayas. Hope you enjoy.

Eyes of the Forest

A gray langur relaxes
on the highest branch
of a slender sal tree.

A grey mane of fur
around her black face,
with unblinking eyes.

A baby huddles against
its mother as she watches
the silent forest floor.

A younger langur lounges
on a spindly branch.
He barks, stirring the others.

The troop takes up the call
as a spotted shadow slinks
through the undergrowth below.

The leopard retreats into
the greenery, and the mother
and her baby can relax again.

NaPoWriMo #14 | Backfiring Stapler

Okay, now it's starting to get serious. You know day fourteen of NaPoWriMo is going to be good when the best poem you can write is one about a broken stapler.

Backfiring Stapler

One staple goes flying
through the air.
Misses the target.

Another staple,
followed by two more,
then three and four.

Before long, the walls
are dotted with staples,
and the stapler is empty.

NaPoWriMo #13 | Paper Swan

And so we return to the ever-present theme of animals for poem number thirteen of NaPoWriMo. This one is based off a great piece of art I saw on my travels once.

Paper Swan

Wings made out of forty
folded triangles, shaped
like the spires of some
enormous white temple.

A circle of spikes for feet,
a short tail of three white
feathers, a curved neck
and an arrow-shaped,
eyeless head.

NaPoWriMo #12 | Terraced Puzzles

Another short poem for NaPoWriMo today. This one was inspired by a sight I saw in the valleys. It was a row of terraced houses on a road with their roofs forming a straight gradient.

Terraced Puzzles

Houses on a hill
arrange in a line,
somehow in order
with diagonal roofs,
roofs which usually
form steps up
the mountainside.
To solve the puzzle,
one must break
the diagonal grade.

NaPoWriMo #11 | Journey Home

Day eleven of NaPoWriMo and I'm still going. To be honest, if I'm still posting after the halfway point I'll be more than surprised. This one is another short one.

Journey Home

A buzzard soars on winds
high above the sun-bathed
mountains north of the River
Usk's mud-brown waters.

Two crows shadow the lonesome
predator in their midst.
The buzzard's flight to her nest
will see many more of them.

NaPoWriMo #10 | How to Make a Cup of Tea

I've taken another prompt from the NaPoWriMo site for poem number ten. This time it's an abecedarian poem, or a poem structured according to the alphabet, combined with the ancient art of tea-brewing. I think I might've gotten a bit carried away with this one.

How to Make a Cup of Tea

Ask me how to make a cup of tea,
because I have no idea why
certain skills such as boiling a kettle
don't get used as often as they should.

Enough of the constant coffee I say,
forget all that mocha and espresso nonsense
good old home-brewed tea is in order.
How to make it is really simple,

I know because I do it more than enough.
Just use a single teabag and a small
kettle, and you'll be on your way to
lots of boiling and brewing in the future.

Most cups of tea need three minutes,
not fifteen as some experts suggest.
One way is to use a teapot, or if you
prefer, brew it in the cup. It's really

quite good once it's done, producing a
ravishing taste which even the best
second rate coffee machine couldn't match.
Teabag removal with a spoon is ideal,

unless you have a fork at hand, which is
vexing at the best of times, but still,
when the rain pours like the sound of a
xylophone, there's always the residual
zest to make a stirring cup of tea.

NaPoWriMo #9 | Kaiju Symphony

Hi everyone. A slightly longer poem than usual for NaPoWriMo today. This one is about my fascination with the Kajiu genre of film, otherwise known as giant monster films. Hope you like it.

Kaiju Symphony

They rose from the sea,
from depths unfathomable,
into dreams and nightmares.
Some spawned in the wake
of a blossoming mushroom cloud,
others out of worlds isolated
and long since forgotten.

They towered above cities,
above man's greatest works,
demolishing them with greater
wrath than any hurricane.
Every projectile man could
throw at them ricocheted
off their impervious hides.

That's what a young boy saw
on his television screen,
plagued by bursts of static,
marvelling at their ferocity,
their enormity, their majesty.
Such wonders endure
far beyond the screen.

NaPoWriMo #8 | Witch's Pool

Another short poem for day eight of this increasingly difficult NaPoWriMo. This one is about a small pool hidden in the Brecon Beacons, used historically to try and drown witches. Such a cheery subject, isn't it?

Witch's Pool

Hidden by the trees,
a small brown pool
fed by the flow
of a tumbling waterfall.

The surface hides memories,
last moments of those
claimed by the water
for the sin of sorcery.

NaPoWriMo #7 | Gold Stripes

It's been a while since I last did one of these, but a new tiger poem has arrived. This one is a bit different in that it's about the long reported but rarely seen black tiger. There have been sightings dating back to the 1700s, but no one has ever confirmed their existence.

Gold Stripes

Hidden in a thicket,
in a clump of bamboo,
a tigress stares out
from her green lair.

The remnants of a chital,
killed on the lakeshore,
strewn across the den,
gnawed to the bone.

Her three cubs sleep
under her watch.
One with gold stripes
and fur as dark as ink.

NaPoWriMo #6 | Monday Catharsis

A little change for poem number six of NaPoWriMo. This one was inspired by a prompt from the NaPoWriMo website, which was to write an aubade, or a morning poem. The prompt said to write one about a Monday morning, hardly anyone's favourite morning. The result looks a bit flimsy, but I think there's something in it. We'll see.

Monday Catharsis

When the sun rises on Monday
it might as well set again.
Better off starting on Tuesday,
or you might prefer to send
a note to work. Monday's arrived
and imprisoned you in your
own home. It seems to have derived
its talents from being a right bore.

A better idea would be to sleep
or to tell the sun to go away.
Never have we got to keep
the mistake which is Monday.
Fill it with dynamite to burst
to go off before the dawn
and save us from the Monday curse,
from the grip of its tedious thorns.

NaPoWriMo #5 | The Plot Thickens

Just a small poem for day five of NaPoWriMo. However, this is more of a personal poem than usual as it's inspired by a sign I see every time I go into uni for the day. Hope it's not too bad.

The Plot Thickens

In a glass bus shelter,
a sign adorns the window.
Everyone sees it,
those arriving for work
and those leaving for home.
Small, square, neon green.

NaPoWriMo #4 | Racing Green

It's day four of NaPoWriMo, and I'm already struggling to keep up with the work schedule. Today's poem is a small one, but I think it could be quite good if I chose to work on it in the future. I could try and explain the context, but I feel the title is fairly self explanatory.

Racing Green

On a road in Ireland
lined by hedges and fields
stretching to the hills,
the sound of chugging
engines reverberates.

Cars barrel down the road,
one red, one blue,
and one black.
Yet in amongst them,
a new livery is born.

A square grill,
a long bonnet slashed
with vents, and bearing
the number five,
all painted green.

NaPoWriMo #3 | Slow Worm

On to poem number three of NaPoWriMo. This one is slightly less surreal than the last two, so I'm hoping it can viewed as an attempt at natural realism. It probably isn't, but that's okay.

Slow Worm

A hill covered in bracken,
dew-soaked and shrouded
in fog. A forest huddled in
the valley below.

Under the faded leaves,
a flow worm, with dull
copper scales, burrows
through the moist earth.

Every grassy tussock
in between the ferns
is a slow worm's fortress,
protected by mangled roots.

Slugs and spiders don't dare
cross the slow worm's porch.
It stares out at the world
with gleaming red irises.

Adders, foxes and badgers
will come searching, but
it will hide in the deepest
chambers until they pass.

NaPoWriMo #2 | The Sun with Sunglasses

The second poem of NaPoWriMo and I think I've gone about as a surreal as it's possible to go. Maybe it's the hectic work schedule, maybe it's from the lack of sunshine in Frynwys at the moment. I don't know, but I hope you find this somewhat entertaining.

The Sun with Sunglasses

Should there ever be a time
when the sun finds it too bright,
it might suffer if it looks
at itself too long.
A visit to the opticians is in order.

The only glasses made for
flaming orange stars can be found
in the desert, made by the
ever efficient dung beetles.
They sell for fifty grains of sand.

Now the sun can stare at itself
and the earth for as long as it likes,
safe in the knowledge that its
retinas are protected by
everlasting celestial aviators.

NaPoWriMo #1 | Robin on the Fence

Here it is, the first poem of my NaPoWriMo odyssey. Hope it's not too bad. There will be another one tomorrow, hopefully at an earlier time. Watch this space.

Robin on the Fence

My word, the bird feeder
looks a bit empty today.
I guess the magpies
and jackdaws ate their fill.

There's a worm down there,
just poked his head up.
He won't have time
to wish he hadn't.

The Tiger Poet vs. National Poetry Writing Month 2015

There's always a first for an aspiring poet. As all of you amateur poets out there know, tomorrow is the beginning of National Poetry Writing Month, otherwise known as NaPoWriMo. The way it works is pretty much explained in the name. Basically you write (or attempt to write) a poem a day for the entire month of April. It has been said that one must be foolhardy to attempt such a mammoth task, and with this in mind I consider myself more than prepared for it.

I am currently in the process of returning to Frynwys, but once I'm there this will be the focus of my writing and of this blog. If all goes well, poems should start appearing here daily starting from tomorrow. It'll continue through to 30th April, and if I stick to it, this blog should be filled with thirty new poems. Some of these poems will inevitably be terrible, but hopefully out of the squalid mountain of rock a few gems should shine through. That there was an attempt at poetic metaphor, and if I end up putting metaphors like that into my poems, I'm not holding out much hope for the rest of the month.

Still, the whole point of NaPoWriMo isn't to prepare. You can't afford to think too much about how to structure or edit a poem when you need to write one every day. What matters is meeting the deadline with thirty poems to show for it. I've already got a fair idea of what I'll be writing about. There will be a few tiger poems thrown in for good measure, but there will be some poems about other subjects as well.

In case you've been inspired by this post to get involved in NaPoWrMo, I'll post the link to the site at the bottom. I'm already looking forward to beginning the challenge tomorrow, and I'm sure all the other poets out there are preparing their pens and keyboards in earnest. Who knows, even if we don't reach the goal, it's bound to be fun.

Hope you're all having a good week. See you at the first post.

Link to the NaPoWriMo site: NaPoWriMo

'Ghosts of Sariska' and Poetry Updates

Hi everyone. Just a quick post to let you know that my new poem 'Ghosts of Sariska' has just been uploaded. I will only post the text of the poem on this blog if there is a big enough demand for it. It deals with the extinction of tigers from Sariska Tiger Reserve in Rajasthan in 2005. It can be viewed here at this link: (https://youtu.be/V6fhzutVnSI)

In other news, there will be another Silent Animal Poetry episode coming out very soon, and my First World War announcement is now scheduled for this Friday. Also, I'm considering attempting National Poetry Writing Month which is coming up in the next week or two. I'm in two minds on the subject at the moment, but I will make a decision in the next few days.

Hope you're all having a great weekend.

The Tiger Poet vs. Solar Eclipse 2015

Hello, welcome to Tiger Verse. It's a sunny morning where I am, but it was quite dark earlier. I suppose that's what a solar eclipse is in essence. I didn't catch most of it, but I did catch a glimpse of it earlier and it looked fantastic.

Apparently the eclipse will not be seen from America, but most of Europe, Northern Africa and the Arctic will be able to see it. What effect this will have on poetry remains to be seen. Maybe a new form of verse will have its beginnings on this morning. Perhaps pens and computers will become sentient and start writing poems on their own. Who knows.

My viewing experience of this rare cosmological event was great, but how was it for you? Did you catch the moon blocking the sun, or did you see the end of it as I did. Let me know.

Hope you all have a great day.

Feathers and Scales

In the early morning at Bhimpur village,
a peacock sits resplendent and glittering
in the red sun on a dry stone wall.
His emerald feathers sleep in his tail.
He snaps his head sideways
at a shape in the gloom under
the wall of a silent mud hut.

The cobra twists
over pots and baskets after
the scent of careless rats.
The cobra did not think
that she might be slithering
towards the shadow
of a far from ornamental bird.

The snake was unaware that she might meet
the god of war's chariot drawer
next to a stone hut,
for on the back of the cobra's hood
is the mark of her own divinity.
Perhaps the vicious bird missed it.
A sharp flicker in the peacock's blazing eyes,
a flutter of royal blue feathers
and the reptile murderer strikes
too soon for the cobra to sprout her hood.

Claws, which yesterday danced for a mate
tear at scales.
For all the peacock's cold savagery,
the cobra's scales serve it well.
The snake darts back to the hole.
The surprised bird takes off
as his enemy disappears underground,
and the ringing cry of the incensed bird
echoes through the sleeping forest.

(This poem is set in a small village in Kanha National Park, and features a phrase which caused chaos when it was first read by my peers. See if you can guess which phrase it is.)

'The Tiger's Realm' and Other Updates

Hi guys. Just a short pose to let you know that a new poem, 'The Tiger's Realm', has been uploaded in video form. Unlike most of the other poems I post on this blog, this one is exclusive to video form. It can be viewed at this link: https://youtu.be/eDztVIT64Zc.

In other news, the latest episode of Silent Animal Poetry will be arriving very soon, along with an official announcement about the First World War Project. Also, I have new articles arriving very soon about Ted Hughes and Cowboy Bebop.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy 'The Tiger's Realm' and I'll see you all soon.

Flying Hare

Waking up in the meadows,
I want to see what the fuss is.
Think I'll go to the riverbank
and see what's jamming.

The rabbits are by the water,
chilling with the ducks
and moorhens on the riverbank.
That's when I arrive.

I cross the bridge and join
the rabbits by the bushes.
It's a good place to relax
while the ducks do their thing.

I meet a few friends of mine:
Roving Otter, Father Vole,
Smoking Goose. We
kick back in the summer sun.

J. B. Mink cruises by, staring,
which petrifies poor Vole.
Mink swims away downstream.
Makes my ears twitch.

Somewhere on the meadows
the swallows and the skylarks
are singing a groovy symphony.
We go over to check it out.

(The video version of this poem is up on the YouTube channel at this link: http://youtu.be/54xxP1NK7os)

The Tiger Poet vs. Spoken Word

So far this year, I've seen more spoken word than ever before. I've spent the last couple of months going to a few spoken word nights while at university. Some of the results were surprising to say the least, but it also got me thinking about the practice of spoken word in general. I found myself wondering about what the ideal tone of a spoken word night should be, and why I have not attempted performing spoken word myself.

The spoken word nights I've been to so far have displayed varying degrees of seriousness and comedy. Quite often they start with a performance poet reciting purely comedic poems, only to undercut that when the next poet performs a poem containing social commentary. The acts which follow tend to be somewhere in the middle, performing serious poems about important issues with a tinge of comedy thrown in for effect. I noticed this last year when I saw Kevin P. Gilday at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, but having seen more spoken word since then, it seems that the blending of comedy and seriousness is a common trend.

I am not too fond of serious poetry. Although I recognise its significance and why such poetry is a valuable part of literature, I hardly ever write it. I suppose I have never been too serious. As I result, when I listen to poetry at spoken word nights dealing with subjects such as problems in the Middle East or the complications of human relationships, I tend to count the minutes until the next comedic poet comes on. It's not that I don't see merit in serious poetry; it's just that I find it hard to take serious poetry all that seriously.

That said, most of the spoken word artists I've seen are great. They certainly have a way with words, and they also have a way of delivering poems in interesting ways. Watching them perform onstage has gotten me thinking about why I've never attempting performing spoken word myself. The main reason is that I used to hardly venture out of the independent house I live in at university, although I've been making efforts to be more outgoing in recent months. The other reason is that I don't feel the poetry I write is suited to the environment of spoken word.

Anyone who's been reading this blog on a regular basis (not suggesting there are many), will know that I write poems in the hope that they will be read. There is a difference between writing poems for a reading audience and writing poems for a live audience. Spoken word is as much about the performance of the artist as it is about the words they're reading. They have to engage the audience with their poetry while adopting a stage persona. With written poetry you can concentrate on the more technical things such as stanza length, line breaks and (especially in my case), narrative structure. You tend to be more concerned about what an individual reader will take from it, rather than engaging a live audience.

As it stands, I've been invited to two spoken word nights happening in the next week. If I was in charge of deciding the tone of these events, I would probably try to inject more fun into them. As I've already said, that's not to the detriment of the serious performance poets, but if spoken word nights were as fun as they are enlightening, I would definitely enjoy them more. Some performance poets handle both fun and seriousness with impeccable skill, and it would be great if spoken word nights had more of this, and if the artists and the audience had more fun in the process. It could be that these next two events will exceed my expectations, and I look forward to them.

In the meantime, the latest episode of Silent Animal Poetry is online and available for your viewing pleasure at this link: http://youtu.be/8foYQc4QdwY. Some new poetry will be released with in the coming week, along with an announcement about that First World War project I've been mentioning a lot. See you all soon.

'Kalua' Video and Other Updates

Hi guys. It gives me great satisfaction to announce that the video version of 'Kalua' has finally been finished and uploaded. You can view it from the link below.

http://youtu.be/k9X6ftWsOno

In other news, I'm working on a couple of new articles which will arrive on this blog soon, including that one about the First World War I mentioned at the end of last year. The Silent Animal Poetry series will continue as usual, and a few other poems are on their way.

Hope you're all having a good February.

Silent Animal Poetry (New Episode)

The second episode of Silent Animal Poetry is now online for your viewing pleasure. The poem this week is entitled 'Pelican Pier', so no prizes for guessing which animal features this week.

Just follow the link below to check it out:

http://youtu.be/xSvJPxL6Jig

There will be more episodes in the next few weeks, and I will continue with my articles and poetry on this blog.

See you all soon.

Wolf's Milk and Launch of Silent Animal Poetry

Hi everyone. Just a quick update followed by a bit of poetry.

This is a new poem entitled 'Wolf's Milk', and I'm putting this out there today to coincide with the launch of an idea I've been thinking about for a while. For the next few weeks, I will be uploading a silent, non-verbal rendering of an animal poem in video form, under the banner Silent Animal Poetry. Hopefully this will make up for my failure so far to upload the video version of 'Kalua'.

Anyway, without further ado, here is the first entry in the Silent Animal Poetry series:

Wolf's Milk

A wolf sits under a tree.
Grey fur, yellow eyes
and lean from days
without a kill.

Two cubs suckle,
hairless and pink,
mewling and squealing.
They could almost be
her own pups.

Their tiny hands grasp
at their wolf-mother's fur,
feeling for her teats.
Builders and conquerors
grow on she-wolf's milk.

(This poem depicts the she-wolf who, according to legend, suckled Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome. Here's the link to the video version: http://youtu.be/1HH4Lw8kZh0 )

The Almond Butter Migration

There was once a country farm
on which there lived three hornets,
who made a decent living
by farming almond butter.

Of course they had some almonds
who lived in sheds painted green.
They were quite a bit like bees,
but nowhere near as chatty.

Then the almonds went mental.
They caught two of the hornets
and served them up for breakfast,
but the third hornet had gone.

They decided to migrate,
but were not sure where to go.
They all voted on it quick,
and took the butter with them.

So it was that all almonds,
small and large, shelled and unshelled,
left the farm in their hundreds
and headed west on their way.

They took turns with the butter,
being careful to hold it
and not spill every last jar.
Almonds can be quite static.

Not in this specific case
as they were well on the move
and getting lost in the woods.
The butter was still intact.

Then the third hornet arrived.
The almonds were petrified.
Fortunately, they were brave
and resolved to stand and fight.

They fired butter at it
but the hornet evaded.
It attacked left, right and left,
stinging and stabbing about.

Then the almonds had a plan.
They lured the hornet in
with a jar of their butter,
and hid away behind trees.

The hornet feasted aplenty.
By the time he saw the trap
he was well and truly stuck.
Even his wings were useless.

He became a prisoner
of the new almond butter,
and was still in the tall jar
when the almonds reached paradise.

The almonds made their new home
by a lake in the woods.
They made more butter than sense
and were never farmed again.

(I apologise in retrospect about how long this poem is. It seems there's a lot to be said about almond butter, but not necessarily all in one poem.)

James Joyce and the Man from Greece

James Joyce sat down after wandering Dublin,
remembering he had left one story out.
What better than to borrow an old tale
from the Greeks and give it to a Dubliner?
Now a short story was too small,
it would have to be an epic or noting at all.

Half way through the Sirens episode,
Joyce heard a knock at the door.
He opened it to find a man from Greece
waiting on the porch. He said;
'Are you the scribe writing my obituary?'
'On the contrary,' Joyce answered.

The man told Joyce that he was from Ithaca
and asked if he could read the first draft.
Joyce hesitated before asking about his job.
The man said he just escaped Polyphemus,
but he had taken a wrong turn somewhere.
With no map or compass, he could be anywhere.

The man from Greece kept reading Joyce's book.
When he got to the Lotus Eaters he stopped.
'Where is this Dublin of which you speak?' he asked.
'You're standing in it,' Joyce replied.
The man seemed confused.
'This is most strange to me, last time I checked
I was going to meet Circe.'.

He went on to ask,
'Who is this Dedalus and Bloom?'
Joyce answered, 'Dedalus is me, Bloom is you.'
'That's no good,' the main said,
'If anything, Dedalus is Telemachus!
Why are you calling me as the Romans do?'

Joyce was stunned.
'I'll do a second draft,' he said.
'Good.' the man answered,
'It gave me a headache.
Now if you'll excuse me,
my wife is waiting for me.
I'm twenty years late as it is.'

(This is one of my attempts at being a "serious" poet having studied James Joyce's Ulysses two years ago. The results may vary but it was fun to write.)

At Home with Jixxa-nan-Ramba

Who was Jixxa-nan-Ramba?
Where did he come from?
I asked someone who knew him
when he lived at the house he called home.
He was an alien, crash-landed in Gloucester,
got a job in a pharmacy on the high street.

The alien had never seen a high street.
The sight of it confused Jixxa-nan-Ramba.
Then again, he had never seen Gloucester.
It was the opposite of where he came from,
and wondered if he could ever call it home.
He decided the pharmacy would best suit him.

Journalists asking questions at him,
following him down the high street
as he went to work, and on the way home.
Who are you, Jixxa-nan-Ramba?
Where do you come from?
The questions echoed all around Gloucester.

The alien working in the centre of Gloucester,
with the daily routine now familiar to him.
He almost forgot where he had come from.
He grew used to being seen on the high street.
Lots of people were friends with Jixxa-nan-Ramba,
but this familiar new place still wasn't home.

The alien decided he must go home.
He started work in the smallest garage in Gloucester,
and people began searching for Jixxa-nan-Ramba.
They looked everywhere but couldn't find him.
He wasn't to be found anywhere on the high street.
They wondered where all this madness came from.

With a loud crash, and scorching light, they saw him
one last time, as he took off in his ship over the high street
and went back to where he came from.

(This poem was my most recent attempt at writing a sestina, and when I say recent I mean last year.)

New Year's Greetings

Hello everyone. Hope 2015 is proving to be a good year already. I know I covered some of my intentions for the new year in my last post of 2014, but I thought I'd outline them a bit more thoroughly in this one.

I've already stated my New Year's resolution to write at least one post every week, with the posts alternating between poetry and other exciting stuff. I recently mentioned that one of my future posts will be devoted to the First World War. Needless to say, I will be primarily discussing the on-going commemorations of the centenary of the war, but also about my own projects related to it. Keep an eye out for further announcements about a First World War writing project in the near future.

The next post will be another poem. I expect the poetry output to be at least two poems a week from now on. I previously said that I will be writing more tiger related poetry, as I don't feel I posted many of them last year. There will of course be poems about other things such as other animals and Wales, but tigers will play a big part in it. Aside from poetry, I will also be writing a post covering the rise and fall of Project Tiger.

As for university, the work never ends. I realise that was somewhat ironic considering that I'll be graduating in July. A lot of the work will be to do with my poetry module, although I can't share any of it on this blog due to submission issues. I still have no idea what I want to do beyond graduation, although employment seems a good option. Whenever that happens, I'm sure there will be a post detailing it.

Anyhow, those are the updates so far for the new year. Hopefully I'll be able to stick to my resolution, and if I don't I might as well drop my poetry module.

So welcome to 2015, and here's hoping it'll be good.