Qatar Poems - Skyscrapers at Dawn

Jutting through the fog
The inner city buildings
Pierce the leaden sky
Standing erect in their
diaphanous gowns.

Qatar at dawn
Before the heat burns
Away
the emphemeral
covering that
Separates the building tops
From the ground.

In my 32nd floor cocoon
I enjoy the majesty
of the new day.

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You Know Who You Are

Coming at me sideways
from an unexpected source
We quickly struck a chord
of shared experience
Across the web of bits and bytes
A cyber friendship
In the making...

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Attention Rebel Poets: George Elliot Clarke on Spoken versus Written Poetry

What the Spoken Word poet knows that the page-poet has forgotten is, POETRY is meant to be performed. In the Western tradition, it descends from Ancient Greek performances of sagas and plays. EVEN IF a Spoken Word poem LOOKS simple–TOO simple–the only way to know its real power is to read it aloud, for oneself. Eliot said, “No verse is ‘free’ for a poet who wants to do a good job.” I say, “No poem is ‘good’ UNLESS it can be read aloud.” - toronto poet laureate george elliot clarke

This quote sums up why spoken poetry is so powerful and often threatening to academic poets. There is a raw edge to performed poetry - a theatrical component that doesn't sit well with the aridity and extreme objectivity of the academically trained and lauded poet.

The interview that this quote comes from can be accessed here:

It is a thought provoking discussion, suitable reading for any outlaw poets out there...
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So good to be back

Even as I flew over

the patterned fields

the love returned.

England,

Ancestral home

Point of departure

place of places.

Green fields not paddocks,

meeting with friends.

We left Heathrow,

Mark and I,

my younger brother by hours

not days,

and dallied by the Thames

at Runymede

home of the Magna Carta

Friends are what makes

life bearable, memorable

and fun.

Thanks Mark

my friend

and fellow traveller...

Qatar Poems - Eid Number 1 Twice

Ramadan is over,
Eid al-Fitr is here,
The Feast of Breaking the Fast,
The Sugar Feast,
Bayram,
the Sweet Festival,
the Lesser Eid.

The first time it came,
All was new and strange,
but the second brings
with it the
understanding of
a blessed time,
in the world of Islam.

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Houses Away from Home

In my world I have one home,

Made up of many houses.

Dispersed In Nelson, 

Hamilton,

Christchurch

and Doha.

But Amberley Downs 

is home of homes,

Snuggled on the

peat filled fields

of Newstead.

Qatar Poems - Gondolas

Under the painted Villagio skies we rode the gondola,
Steph and I.
Not Venice,
But a Qatari similitude.
With eyes half shut,
One could almost
Be in the Merchant's city,
City of dreams,
Of Shylock and Portia.

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