The MBS Poet

The Early Morning Warrior

2012-01-20T15:05:00.000-08:00

It is 5am
Get up
Get going

In the office
at 6.45am
Refreshed
eagerly getting
to the most
Important work

Before the phones ring
The emails come flying in
And the peace and quiet
shatters...

DK

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Poetic Craft - Condensation

2012-01-14T15:45:00.000-08:00

The art of a good poetry is to crystallise a human experience into a poem. This means that you need a good grasp on the language you are writing in. The craft is in working on variants of words until the poem is just right. This takes time and thought. Many of the best poems look like they have been written effortlessly but the blood, seat and tears are hidden behind the finished poems in it's iterative drafts.

Happy writing

Grant aka drkelp

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I hate ties

2012-01-10T03:17:00.000-08:00

Having worked for many years in clinical and business environments I have had a hate/love relationship with that modern Elizabethan accoutrement, the tie.

I hate my tie

dangling lifeless thing

that it is

hanging limply

useless strip of limpid

cloth upon my chest.

I love my tie

colorful and bright

male plumage

of the corporate club

the old school tie.

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A Poem on the MBS Acronym

2012-01-07T17:00:00.000-08:00

The acronym MBS in my blog name stands for Master of Business Studies. The poem below comes up with some alternatives:

Mad - madly in love with poetry
Bad - purveyor of trashy and terribly bad poems
Safe - because on average a bad poet earns as much as a good poet i.e. $0.00

Maudlin - the feeling when that poem just won't come
Blah - the feeling when it still won't come
Serendipity - the inspiration that falls from above to solve M&B above

Muse - she that comes but not when called
Bouyant - the feeling when she does arrive
Satisfaction - the feeling about the end product.

Ciao

Grant aka drkelp

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Fragment of a Poem by Neruda

2012-01-06T21:20:00.000-08:00

I found this fragment today in a book I am reading:

to have lived
through one solitude to arrive at another,
to feel oneself many things and recover wholeness.

Pablo Neruda

This describes my life and poetic experience. As all poets know the craft is one of solitude but the end result, the poem, can encapsulate the many things becoming one.

Happy writing and reading in 2012

Grant aka drkelp

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Night Time Stealth Poetry

2012-01-02T04:42:00.000-08:00

Why is night the time
To vent my spleen
Upon the page?

At night
The stillness creeps
entering
into my consciousness
like a stealthy cat,

Maybe the day is far to real
To allow me
To wander, explore and
Inhabit the place
That lies
Between my mind
and heart.

The place called the
Night Time Stealth and Poetry,
Arcade.

DK

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2012???

2012-01-01T01:55:00.000-08:00

Another year
2012
What will it bring?
Poetic inspiration?
or dryness of soul.

Still every day is new
Every year is new
Every poem is new
I am new
because poetry
breathes life

into the poet and reader alike

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Back in Aotearoa

2011-11-26T19:23:00.000-08:00

Back in the Antipodes
The land of the Long White Cloud
Aotearoa
New Zealand

Beaches, Barbecues
and Jandals
Awaiting the
Long Hot Summer

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The Naming of the Poem

2011-06-18T06:09:00.000-07:00

The name comes last you know
You have to write the poem
before you call it
anything

Its like a baby
fresh from the womb
Whose name follows the placenta
self evidently

God knows
what this ones called?

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Today I Ate a Woolf

2011-05-28T08:53:00.000-07:00

Today I ate a Woolf
Not a Common Woolf
or even a Common Reader Woolf

Instead it was a Diary Woolf
Volume Four, 1931
and it slipped down a treat

Like a well aged Wine
Aged Woolf
Tastes mighty fine.

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Poetry is Such Hard Work

2011-03-23T10:13:00.000-07:00

Writing poetry is such hard work
That I avoid it at all costs
But cunningly the muse
Sneaks in and in her
most persuasive way
Gets me to put fingers to
the keyboard
and write...

How she does it
I don't know
but better men and women than I
have tried to resist her alluring charms
and failed miserably

So the Score is Muse One, and Me Zero

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The Night Watch

2011-01-31T02:56:00.000-08:00

Tears and worries
multiply through
the abyss of the night

But mornings rays
disperse the murk
and despair
and restores
the soul

Proust on Poetry

2011-01-04T12:11:00.000-08:00

I am reading Proust's In Search of Lost Time and enjoyed this snippet on poetry.

"My mother had to abandon her quest, but managed to extract from the restriction itself a further delicate thought, like good poets whom the tyranny of rhyme forces into the discovery of their finest lines" (Vol 1, p31).

While we live in an age of blank verse this thought still holds true. The force of writing and the discipline results in good poetry.

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stuck on train

2010-12-19T12:02:00.000-08:00

not a poem
more of a lament
I'm stuck on the train
problems on the lines
snow and chaos ahead
as we crawl from station
to station
to allow the
angry mobs to disperse
by bus.

hope against hope
that I will
be in my hotel
bed, warm and
content by
midnight.

Snow 2010

2010-12-07T05:00:00.000-08:00

Each year the allure of snow
lessens for me
At first it was fun
A white powder covering
of my antipodean past

Snow silently falling
covering everything with light
and lack of colour
But shovelling feet of snow
to get the car unstuck
to collect the milk for tea
is a pain to me

So I'm all for a non white Xmas

Living other Lives

2010-12-01T05:10:00.000-08:00

By reading your poems
Your words
seep into
Me

And attached to
the words
feelings nuanced
follow

Until I find myself
thinking like another
like you
savoring the
moment...

the valley

2010-11-22T03:22:00.000-08:00

from time to time
a valley intervenes
twixt the peaks
of life

you may feel low
but the water flows
through valleys
and puts the heights
into perspective

So hang in there
and take a draught
of water clear and pure
before you ascend once more

Powerless

2010-11-19T04:12:00.001-08:00

Life can be a pain
when aggressive and
unpleasant people
trample over your
feelings
proclaiming
that it's all your fault...

Poetry calms the anger
and restores
a tranquil
mind

To read or write
poetry
hits the spot
everytime

Poem without a Name

2010-11-04T21:56:00.000-07:00

not every poem
has a name
a moniker to call
it's own

some just
hang out here
alone
unnamed

but not for
that disdained
for poem is
what poem does

and rose is rose
whatever man may
say

so nameless poem
rock on
rock on
and comfort me.

post Sangria blues

2010-11-04T06:20:00.000-07:00

what started as a great idea
some tapas, nachos
sangria

the cup was red
inviting cool
it slipped down
o so easily

overdo it
and pay the price
of your
all too
frail humanity

blear of eye
and ache of head
it's Thursday
and I've got them
post sangria blues

The Dangling Pentameter

2010-10-25T22:35:00.000-07:00

Somewhere
my friend
there is a sea
where the poems
live
pre-written but as of now
unpublished

And all we have to do
is dip in and draw
a poem out by it's
dangling pentameters

Don't believe them
when they say
that poetry is hard
or I had an ode this big
but it got away!

All you have to do
is find the place
lie down and fish
in pleasant idyll
for the next big poem

DK

Farne Paradise

2010-06-27T03:37:00.000-07:00

On this wind swept rocky outcrop
Sts Cuthbert and Aidan
withdrew to
solitary contemplation
of that other world

Lindisfarne
that monkly island
was too racy and fast
for the contemplative
mind situated as it was
on a beach nestled against
the cold tit of the North Sea

A 16 acre island
home of many a
shipwrecked soul
became the portal
of heaven to
the retiring saints
of God.

The Dieters Spiritual Dream

2010-06-15T14:41:00.000-07:00

Inside I feel like
Death warmed up
as Satan, the fatties sage
tells me to eat myself
to destruction

But the bright soldiers
of India lead me to life
to self control
to the figure of
a swami, soulful
Wrapped in saffron
cotton robes.

The Curious Poet

2010-06-09T01:42:00.000-07:00

A poet needs to be curious, interested and engaged with life. it is our curiosity that leads us to the subject of our poems. I like the quote below:

One thing life has taught me: if you are interested, you never have to look for new interests. They come to you. When you are genuinely interested in one thing, it will always lead to something else. - Eleanor Roosevelt (1884 - 1962)

Advice for Depressives

2010-06-08T05:58:00.000-07:00

When you feel down
Stand in front of the
Mirror and fake a
Smile

Keep the false smile
and say
Happy
Sensational
Present
Treat
Cheerful
Laugh

The genuine
smile will
break
and the
clouds will
lift...