So for my first post I will start from the beginning.
Shoals of Starlings is the title from one of my very first poems, which I wrote probably around 15 years ago? So it seems an appropriate place to start.
After a hiatus of 5 years it has now been a year of tentatively returning to writing poetry again. One thing I found myself doing is to try and write past poems from memory. I thought it would be interesting to place the original and the remembered side by side; to see how time have distorted their imagery and meaning.
Although in the case of these poems it wasn’t so much a re-imagining of the old poem, it was a new poem calling to the old one; a declaration that I had started writing again.
Okay, so I know officially it is known as a starling murmuration, which is a fantastic phrase in its own right but I am a sucker for alliteration (a poetic pleasure I am not ashamed of). A shoal describes the shifting formation so aptly I feel.
Original
Shoals Of Starlings
Coursing through the channels of my wrists
sprinkling stars from their headdresses
wash my face from cupped hands full of flight
hold you close in my glittered arms
so you can feel the shimmer
as the shoals of starlings
change direction within me
The declaration to begin writing again
Shoals Of Starlings
I miss the shoals of starlings
slip sliding above the city
their feathers like flints
striking the streetlamps
keeping the sun ticking over
Prefer new version bit haiku-ish – tho old one has magic. Could put altogether and re-edit to make even better.
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Hi Wendy, thank you for your comment it made me think about turning them into a two poem sequence.
Shoals Of Starlings
1.
Coursing through the channels of my wrists
sprinkling stars from their headdresses
wash my face from cupped hands full of flight
hold you close in my glittered arms
so you can feel the shimmer
as they change direction within me
2.
slip sliding above the city
their feathers like flints
striking the streetlamps
keeping the sun ticking over
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Reblogged this on Shoals Of Starlings.
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