Giles – The Poetry Marathon

Giles Turnbull
Giles

I am a blind poet living in south Wales, UK. I lost my sight 9 years ago, so have written poetry as both a sighted and blind poet. I've been writing since high school and have started taking it more seriously in the last 5 years. My debut pamphlet, Dressing Up, was published by Cinnamon Press earlier this year. I used to play piano and am trying to re-learn it now I'm blind. You can find me on Twitter at @Bix_cool

The Long View


Hmmmmm, I wrote about the view from my window in hour six, so I'm going to remember the view from my tower block office, at the top of a very steep hill. The 'ugly, lovely town', is Swansea, now a city, as described in that quote by poet Dylan Thomas.
The Long View
You can almost see the earth

curve 

from this D-block

window on the twelth floor.
You can watch

the buses pull up

and pull out

destined down toward 

the ugly, lovely town
You can join the gathering crowd

peering down into a bedroom window

watch an in flagrante couple
 

part,

the lady cleaning up

discarding the tissue 

from their open window.



									
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										Strange Sweet Laughter
									


									
										

This poem is actually about Mopsy, the very first cat in our family, who lived to be a grand old lady of 19 and was named after the rabbits Mopsy, Flopsy, Cottontail and Peter, in Beatrix Potter's The Tale of Peter Rabbit. :)
Strange Sweet Laughter
You will be remembered

you will be missed

as sure as this

time next year will come around again

leaving victims of the verb

to be Decembered.
Neither taken by the hand nor kissed

one more casualty of the vain

hope that New Year will change

tomorrow's game

and fortune will raise a glass

and join us getting pissed

or partaking some other herb or poison

to transform days

into daydreams.
With strange sweet laughter

Passed

like water

stretching beyond the horizon

and the sunset after

evening glitter caught your eyes

and all else ceased to matter.
You will be remembered

amongst driftwood memories

dashed on rocks.

You will be missed

and every sigh that passes lips

along with breath

will echo with your voice,

never lost.
									


									
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										The Art of Wearing a Dress
									


									
										

I'm using the descriptive text on the Wiki page about this painting, which provides a lot of description. I do enjoy writing ekphrastic poems, responding to the painting's title and description. I feel the Madame in this painting is the kind of Bond girl who would appear in the novels of Ian Flemming.
The Art of Wearing a Dress
spies love a lady

who wear dreses 

with a mind of their own

ready to fall

from the shoulder at the hint of a glance.
In a room of mysterious shadow

the skin can sing

a siren song

if the dress possesses

an equally dark soul.
									


									
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										Baby’s First Bathtime
									


									
										

This is only a short poem so it's not overly loaded with exaggeration, but pro rata to the protagonist's size, I suspect it's certainly got in its money's worth.
Baby's First Bathtime
I'm drowning

you bastard

get me out of here

you mongoose

there are no nerves in your elbow

can't you hear

I'm in pain

bloody blisters 

I can feel them forming

it's fucking burning

and I'm normally

such a sweet tempered boy.
									


									
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										smile for the Camera
									


									
										

I read this in a newspaper a little while ago, about an octopus that photographs visitors to her tank. I've not done a very good attempt at this poem though.
Smile for the Camera
Rambo resides at Sea Life

eyeing up her subjects

to fit them in the frame.
Waterproof camera at the ready

eight legs feeling for the shutter

say cheese, or fish
Cephalopod
 

snapper

of the octopus kind.
									


									
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										Maggie, Cat of Kepler
									


									
										

This was news in 2015, a planet called Kepler 452b was considered very earth-like and potentially capable of supporting life. My old cat, Maggie, who I had to leave in Rochester, NY, would love being in a weightless environment, so I let her clib abroad a satellite orbitting station.
Maggie, Cat of Kepler
She loves this weightlessness,
 

has learned to shoot herself around 

gracefully anchoring tostrategic surfaces 

to watch imaginary fish

swimming in the blackness.
Orbitting above

Kepler 452b, 

Earth 2.0 

an intergalactic restraining order

keeping it human-free
A ping-pong ball drifts past,
 

thwacking it so it bounces around the walls 

she calmly ducks 

to let it pass by her on its circuit

like a tiny moon.
									


									
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										White Hairy Monkey (Fu Ding Bai Mao Hou)
									


									
										

I love teas, my favourite being the Chinese white teas, which are the top 2 buds of the tea plant, which are left to dry in the sun, with no roasting. White teas are caffein-free. The White Hairy Monkey tea of this poem was what I drank at my first pamphlet launch, at Waterloo Tea in Wyndham Arcade, Cardiff, Wales.
White Hairy Monkey (Fu Ding Bai Mao Hou)
Brethren of Silver needle,

a pale sweetness enveloping

that opens to yield umami in droves

when strained from my green
 

Yixing clay teapot,

its frog lid

guarding its secrets.

									


									
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										Why Me?
									


									
										

I've been pondering writing something like this as a prose piece, but there's no reason it can't work as a poem. It is, sadly, the true story of my life, and how my losses are so small.
Why Me?
The question I never asked,

when diagnosed Type 1

when the vending machine arrived

hooking me on the sweet stuff.
As one eye's loss

killed my perception of depth,

depositing me on my arse

looking back at sidewalk kerbs.
When the right eye followed suit

and kidney failure ensued,

and immunosupressant drugs

let brain lymphoma in.
Why me did not apply,

until lymphoma finished off Emily at age 19,

leukemia my classmate, Chris, age 14

when I finally asked, “Why me?”
Why the fuck am I still here,

why are they not?

my trials essentially self-inflicted

theirs most certainly not.
I made cancer look

like beating it was a stroll in the park,

I would have given anything,

to be in their place.
									


									
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										The Caffeinator
									


									
										

I really struggled with this prompt. I don't really know any famous movie characters that well that I can use their typical wordings, without which it's hard to write in that character's voice. I was about to give up and go off-prompt, but then I remembered a visit to a coffee shop in the town I live in Wales, where a female police officer popped her head around the door and produced the folowing scene, very reminiscent of Arnie, so I've used that. This scene relates to the female Terminator in movie 3 of the series. I'm afraid I've not done it as a personna poem but hopefully that's ok :)
The Caffeinator
The street surges against my back

until the doors 

part

to yield cappuccino.
Tables full of half term kids,

the steam machine 

wheezing like and asthmatic air raid siren.
And the policewoman came in,

in search of something,

leaving like the Terminator,

“I'll pop back later,”
leaving the frothing milk

to breathe again.
									


									
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										Tap Dancing
									


									
										

I love re-telling ancient myths in modern settings. I've done a couple before and have one in mind to re-tell the story of Eros and Psyche, with Psyche being blind rather than blindfolded. I struggle to think of how to re-set that one though, so I'm turning to a different myth for this hour — the story of Narcissus, who falls in love with his own reflection in a lake.
Tap Dancing
Time slows down at the dripping tap

where a yelow hose lies limply

uncoiled like a snail-trail 

leading back to a green shell.
An adolescent 

sent to dowse the plants

stands

transfixed

drip
 

	drip
 

	drip
Cheekbones and nose

captive in the graceful reflections

fall

to rest

adoringly,

blinklessly gazing back at the sky
Tap Dancing

*****
Time slows down at the dripping tap

where a yelow hose lies limply

uncoiled like a snail-trail

leading back to a green shell.
An adolescent

sent to dowse the plants

stands

transfixed

drip
drip
drip
cheekbones and nose

captive in the graceful reflections

fall

to rest

adoringly,

blinklessly gazing back at the sky 
									


									
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