Perceptions – Poem

What are eyes

but organs adjusted for light?

They see me

in one dimensions.

I see myself

with myriad thoughts and senses.

Together and against each other

we reflect

falling and floating in flux.

I feel like my toes

are inches from a ground

that ever recedes.

The world pushes in and out

all around me.

Invisible pressures press upon me.

Their great inhales and exhales

never touch

but warp none the less

sucking in this vacuum.

Life around me stretches and contracts

I can do naught but go along.

From the outside

how now must I look?

From the inside

how now have I changed?

I land on wobbly feet

vision hazy

ears ringing

all senses and thoughts

tingling

from the lengthen and shorten

until they relax, recede and settle.

Your eyes still see me

never the same as before.

I find myself

from this mere moment

ever different once more.

 

 

 

AJG

An Ending + Lazy Posts

This is a lazy post. Or perhaps its a rational one. I think its both. The below poem was a fragment to a poem. The start of a poem that was meant to end, but was left. I like it however. As although it is small and was the start to a poem, it is also an ending. It is both. Going back and trying to change it would alter what I felt before. It would add the me of now to the me of then, and, although we are the same people, we are in different times and places. So in that way, it is rational to leave it as it is. And it is also lazy to leave it as it is.

 

An Ending

A peach sunset falls slowly over the bay.

The beach cools, the tourists shake their towels and stroll,

the shadows on the green hills darken.

I sway in my seat, sip my beer, and mull.

Isles Poetry – “Out of Place” – Routines, Breaks, Resistance Training!

This is another poem in my collection, “Isles”.

Now about habits, routines, taking breaks from these routines, and fighting through resistance. What are your routines? Sometimes they are hard fought. Waking up early and getting to work on something. Sometimes they are such a habit, that they happen naturally. Often times we have had these routines but they have been broken.

This has happened often to me, and it is sometimes hard to get back into it.  Though a routine for me is the best for quantity…sometimes not for quality. My routine is usually to write in the morning after exercise and breakfast and during tea time…but after days of this routine under threat, what can I do? I become frustrated and it becomes harder to start again with a different routine. For me I try (try) to look at the change as a good thing. A holiday to improve the quality of my writing and focus on another aspect of writing, such as editing my writing, writing down ideas, putting physical copies to digital, and reading more. Also thinking positively that, although I am not writing, I am supporting that writing.

Those are a few points from me, though if you are really struggling two books, “The War of Art” by Steven Pressfield and “The Power of Habit” by Charles Duhigg are great books to help kick start you and give you lasting change.

Finally, I would love to hear how you mix up your routines…how do you break through resistance…how do you make the best of a bad situation?

Cheers and enjoy the poem!!

AJG

Out Of Place

The seasons have different names here:

Low and High, Wet and Dry.

Clean and Dirty. Easterly, Westerly.

The wind berates the island

pushing debris in from the sea.

‘How could you do this?’ Tourists scold.

How can the locals explain

that it’s not their trash

but others out of place?

The “big clean up” must happen anyway

as the High and Easterly approach.

They scour the shore

clearing refuse of every shape and sort.

Stacking it and burning it all

so that a pernicious cloud

stalks the brush and thicket.

This is where I exercise

another thing out of place

amongst the palms.

Picking a stretch of beach

to sprint, push and squat.

On every length I spot

some bottle brown glass and

fill a cup with the shards.

I face the sun reflected waves

breathing the heat,

feeling the sand beneath me

once tiny parts of something else

wondering about all the pieces of everything

from every corner of the world

that have washed up here

forever and before

out of place.

Wednesday – 2nd of October – Just East of the Andaman Sea

I have been a little quiet lately. Just a little. To save my self from tiredness and headaches, I have created a digital switch off in the mornings.  The old notepad is out and the pen and all the glory of sitting outside in the sun drinking tea. This has led to a lot more writing, though it has led to a lot less blogging which includes reading all-a-y’all’s words, too :-(. You know how it is, though? Enough!

Here is another poem for my project called ‘Isles’ called ‘Underwater’. The poem is, well, read it and find out. The compilation is of poetry inspired by my 3 months of chosen isolation living on Phi Phi Island, Thailand. I have pictures, too, that may or may not accompany and relate to the writings on my Photo Feed on the right of my Blog. If you would like to read more, select the category called ‘Isles’ to see them all. Or not. It is your internet time and I know how precious it is!

I would like to share something profound with you. Something pithy…but I can’t…so a little random list.

Bands of the moment. Tyr and Evile.

Food of the hour. Poached Eggs.

Creature of the day. Those tiny little moth like things that just seem to go around in circles.

Book of the moment. The Paleo Solution. 

TV show of the minute. Hell on Wheels.

 

Hoped you enjoyed my randomness.

Goldbot

Isles Poetry Project – Underwater

Underwater

 

Alone in the canteen fluorescence riding the bow of a white row of tables.

A pack of smokes sits like flotsam on them, Captain-less.

The chef emerges from the kitchen. He makes a bee-line for his booty and

once restored takes his plunder back to work.

I float again alone on the plastic blue chair. The fridge hums like a gentle tide

along with the thousand rustlings of distant palm leaves.

Not even the clock ticks but glides its hand around silently smooth

only the streak of an albatross high up in the firmament.

If I stare hard enough I could stop its flight. I breathe.

The breath leaves me and I dip into the underwater of the moment.

Creating silence and stillness. Starving for air but letting

the signals for oxygen drown along with everything else.

Feeling for my beating heart. Searching for my treasure.

At times like these I cannot feel my heart at all.

*

AJG

Thailand – 21st August

 A weekend away in Tonsai. My first over-nighter with a mate and his girl and my first night out drinking in a month. Curry to start, beers, ice-cream, black Russians, cocktails, Jenga, fire shows, tales on the beach, and drunken low-tide wanders. Morning smokes and beers, omelettes, coffee with rum, and treks over to the North side for coral swimming in the bays and puffs in the cave. Not all’s well that starts well, though. Van Damme and Blood Sport on TV was ominous for food poisoning and the next three days were spent in bright green bathroom visits. An easy week at work makes up for all.

Saturday Poetry Prompt Fragments

I had my little challenge I gave myself to write a few poems about the day and the happenings that was Saturday. I did pretty well writing about 6 poems in their rough and rugged state. I won’t put them all up now as it will take up a lot of space and they are sketches of final products, so I’ll put up some parts of three and hopefully together they will make a picture of my day, thoughts and activities.

Later on I will post up the complete poems individually and they’ll be added to my poetry project called ‘Isles’, which is a compilation of poems reflecting my experiences, thoughts, actions in Thailand.

Enjoy the fragments if only a fragment.

Peace and regards,

AJG

 

1.

It’s a massive cliché to say

that a day brings new possibilities.

Though I’ll say it because it’s obvious;

Appropriate to any day and especially

this one. Justified beyond creativity.

Specifically defined for this moment.

The hours of waking and the eager

excitement of a new awakening.

Seize the day is another cliché

but I’ll grab it as intended

and just like the phrase says.

2.

Centipedes curl in fighting on the ground.

Lizards awaking from their pathway slumbers

scatter into the brush. Butterflies

chase each other through the vines

with one thing on their minds.

A constant whir hidden close in the trees

singing the song of the tropical heat.

3.

A peach sunset falls slowly over the bay.

The beach cools, the tourists shake their towels and stroll,

the shadows on the green hills darken.

I sway in my seat, sip my Singha, and mull.

Thailand – 15th of August

It is hard being patient, sometimes. Especially with little time for it. It can be time consuming. It is one of those hot days where you won’t sweat if you can just stay perfectly still. But I have little patience for stillness or ‘Sabai, Sabai,’ as they say around here. I’m in the back and forth of moving from class to class and I wore a black shirt. Only mad dogs and English men out in this weather, they would say if the British had colonized here.

But colonization is a touchy subject. I hear they are the only South East Asian nation not to have been taken over. But then I hear that is a half-truth and the real history is lost somewhere. An attempt perhaps to start a clean historical slate. A reincarnation of the nation’s consciousness to a higher form. In this Buddhist nation, they must know it doesn’t work that way.

I’m not sure of any of it and not sure if I have the patience to delve into the truth. I’m a transient here to them and it might just be better to conform to their expectations. If they really did repel the white man, then it might be best to do just that. Drink my tea, eat my bacon, and swim in the clear blue sea.

Goldbot

Courage, Compassion, Connection: Thailand – 11th of August

I try to keep a sort of poetic journal of life – readings, locations, photographs, things, animals, general stuff that is going on.  I like reading a variety of books and usually read a few at the same time. Currently I am reading a book on science/botany, a couple of fantasy novels, and I just finished reading a self-help book called “Gifts of Imperfection” by Brene Brown. Here are some thoughts of mine inspired by hers I wrote a month ago.

“To practice courage, compassion, and connection is to look at life and everyone and thing in it and say, “I’m all in.” This may sound cheesy or like lines from a self-help book, but it is true, and dismissing it is easier than saying yes and then considering the largest question; ‘where to start?’ Because where can you start if you have been dwelling in shame all your life and reflecting distorted mirrors of yourself? You can’t live in the past, building a house on lists of apologies. And you can’t just change immediately and seem insincere.”

This may seem brief and incomplete and using the word ‘shame’ will bring up some negative connotations, but the word needs to be taken in the right way to understand it. For some people admitting to reading a ‘self help’ book may be a trigger for shame. However, most people will admit to working all day in depressing for job for something and someone that they do not like, but they would not set aside 30 minutes in a day to do something that is beneficial for themselves.

These are only brief thoughts from myself. I like self-help books because we can always find good advice and ways to become better people. I found this book by chance from another blogger’s (sorry, forget the name!) post. It is brief and has a lot of great personal stories and advice.

Peace and regards,

Goldbot

Driftwood

My life is before me.

Like theatre in a dream

I watch it happening.

Recognise that I am the protagonist

but only watch things unfold.

Whether I want them to change

or not

I can only drift.

Tag along steps behind.

The gentle currents of life

and its fates

nudging.

Goldbot