Hey friends, happy Monday, and welcome back.
It’s been a while since I did one of these. My last post was on December 15th last year: just over three months ago. My absence is due in part to the Christmas period, which is busy for many of us, and was particularly so for me this year. I’ve also recently started a new job (in my other life as a software engineer), which has occupied much of my focus these past months. Lastly, I’ve been trying to linger a bit more in my work: take time to produce more robust pieces that I have more confidence in, rather than finish something quickly to get it out for a self-imposed deadline. This has meant that I’ve been working more slowly and sure-footedly, with less material available for publication here or elsewhere.
Nevertheless, I’m glad to be back today with some new work to bring to the table.
My post today includes three pieces: two new poems, Postscript and [I am a paper boy…], as well as a fragment or small poem from a recent trip to Portugal. I’ll begin with the fragment, which is inspired by the work of W. S. Merwin, and which I intend to incorporate in a larger piece of work.
coming here for years I saw the country vanish before my eyes cafeterias & chrome the old women corners & entranceways soot-blackened as if by ancestry like them I too was just stepping out of myself now I too do not know where I have gone
I adapted this poem from notes I made from a recent trip to Lisbon for my partner’s 30th birthday. I’ve been going to Portugal for just over half a decade now, and in that short time, I’ve really seen how the country, and in particular its capital, has changed and buckled under the massive influx of tourists. It’s a strange and sad thing to witness a traditional way of life vanish right in front of your eyes. I wanted to capture that haunting feeling of loss in my words. Merwin’s technique, in his later work, of removing punctuation from the poem, really lends the poem a ghostly or “floating” quality, which I love.
The second poem, Postscript, was adapted from some notes I made on another visit to Portugal (this one over the Christmas period), when I visited the famous Lisbon Oceanarium. It was a nice touch, and very specially Portuguese, that the aquarium contained many framed quotes from Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen, a well-known 20th century Portuguese poet (although largely untranslated into English), who wrote many lovely poems about the sea.
Postscript
This is how it begins:
I was nameless
and I was with my name.
Stood back-to-back.
On the one hand a tether
but in another world
it could lift both of us free.
And yet I loved
coming back to life:
the tail lights
& manta rays.
Saturdays in the Oceanarium
& spaghetti for dinner.
You took my picture
in front of all that glass
& I was a silhouette
before the sea:
an eclipse in blue. Both like
and unlike myself.
Nights when the moon
gleams over water
calling out forgotten names
I feel my tongue
begin to silver too.
The final poem that I’ll share today doesn’t really have a title as of yet: I’m calling it by its first line [I am a paper boy…]. I believe this was either written earlier this year or else towards the end of last year.
I am a paper boy. push through me & you’ll be met with air. in my body my laboratory i’ve experimented with vanishing, a fool’s art. my heart’s a fake one, a flame of red something like a tongue. I told myself it was strength but didn’t want to be here anymore. I am origami, baby, fold me up & you’ll get flesh & blood, blood & guts. I’ve never been the child my parents wanted me to be, seizing things quickly & clinging to them beyond belief. I have become something like a sieve, filter paper. nobody knows my body is a door. you can fall right through me & meet with with my other side, the shadowlands, wild moors. something jewelled like a kingdom. or green, an oceanic roar.
I hope you’ve enjoyed the poems included in today’s post. I’d love to hear any thoughts you might have, so please drop a comment below, if you’re so inclined.
A final note on the title image: this is a still from one of my favourite animated TV series, Neon Genesis Evangelion, which originally aired when I was a child. The film is set in a post-apocalyptic world where humanity is terrorised by giant metaphysical beings known as “angels”. In the episode from which this image is lifted, Shinji (the protagonist) and his friends pay a visit to The Japan Marine Ecosystem Preservation Organisation, where efforts are being made to restore the oceans to their former pre-apocalyptic state. It’s a rare moment of comedy and levity in a show which is otherwise quite dark and weighty.
Welcome back, Jack! I love the overall feel of your poems, and "I am a paper boy" is a great title.