Thought it might be nice to post up the poem that kick started OYO’s piece below :) We had initially intended it to be an ongoing back and forth collaboration of words and images, but life as usual had its own ideas of what to do with our (you guessed it) time!
Oyo,
I have brewed you an epic - this is just chapter one,
intended to kick start collaborative fun.
Feel free to go wild if you like what I’ve written,
Unless you’re too busy… (Chewed off more than you’ve bitten!)
Its a sonnet in 3 parts, each from 3 different views,
Im refusing to edit - I’ve got nothing to lose…
Its a story of the fortunes and follies of time,
That for metaphorical purpose was chosen to rhyme.
One the one hand the narrative makes sense on its own,
But its the structure itself that hits most close to home,
For the pace and the meter and the choosing of words,
Means as much as the bits about sailors and birds.
I hope that it sparks a small light in your brain,
That can flicker and grow and turn into flame,
That if thusly inspired by my improvised scripture,
Could possibly turn into one hell…. of a picture!
So here is the poem, the sonnet - the story,
In all of its half-hour unrevised glory,
May it increase our friendship and make us grow stronger -
And PS the next one will be slightly longer!!!
TIME (PART ONE)
Sitting cross legged, at the end of the harbour,
In a haphazard costume of discoloured armour,
between rickshaws and fishmongers, the buyers and sellers,
was one of the worlds all-time best storytellers.
He woke with the sunrise and slept with the moon,
not moving one inch from midnight to noon,
with his gaze fixed square on the sailing men’s shoes,
he knotted his fingers and conversed with his muse.
And no-one would guess it, at least just from looking,
what heart wrenching stories he had inside cooking.
While weeks would go by without one single word,
not even to rats, or the sea, or the birds.
The men would ignore him, the women would laugh,
the children would tease him or spit as they passed.
The shopkeepers cursed him for turning their trade,
but he patiently weathered the insults away.
He had no concern for the business of others,
for bakers or soldiers or fathers or mothers,
for the tales of wars and kings long forgotten,
or the wailings of those whos hearts had gone rotten.
He was more than content to leave past in its place,
And leave past things to past people, that time would erase.
At sundown, when the past people had left him at last,
It was time to weave tales that would yet come to pass.
For the stories that spun and shone in his mind,
were no trifles or ramblings from things left behind,
they were not biographic or hampered by time,
but visions of futures - of yours, and of mine.
He was the keeper of fire, and the spinner of time,
the father of chance, and of reason, and rhyme,
Whos inscrutible methods are beyond the conception
of those who still peddle in petty deceptions.
So the world kept on spinning and spluttering round,
The gnarly old man who sat still on the ground,
All the while concocting his chronological brew,
as his hair and his beard and his fingernails grew.
Ships would go out, and come back with the tide,
Cities would light up on fire from inside,
The end of a day that had come, and gone by,
While old father time barely lifted an eye.
