Tuesday 20 January 2015

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.)

Monday 12 January 2015

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.)

Tuesday 6 January 2015

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.