Tuesday 13 March 2018

Falling Asleep to Puppet Theatre

I wrote a poem about 5 years ago when I was staying at a guesthouse in Taidong in Taiwan - it was about falling asleep in front of the telly, on which there was a programme of Taiwanese puppet theatre playing. I've just been reading about, and watching videos of, the brilliant Murray Lachlan Young. The following poem is my 5-minute attempt to rewrite that old poem, while emulating Young's rhymes:

and when you slump down in your chair
vision starts to go: eyes dropping, drooping
whether it's bedtime or not, you do not care
your thoughts wander to ancient gods swooping
as your dreams gather your mind's eye sets
to lightning scooping

and though really it's just the telly noise
from where you're sat it's become really real
so that on-screen battles of toys fighting toys
become burning exchanges: every blast you feel
as one mystic being kills another again you think 
you yourself have been run through with steel

then you wake up and realise where you are
it's just a front room with a fan going and a TV on 
someone outside's just pulled up in a car
all that fear and apprehension might well be gone
but still on the goggle box
a wild witch floats past, graceful as a swan

what's puppet theatre anyway, when storms gather outside
watching children's programmes in a foreign land
I really do need a guide

2 comments:

  1. Great blog!!
    I also have a blog, and I'm trying to get visit from every country. I would really like to get a visit from Guernsey
    If you can, please come back and visit mine: http://albumdeestampillas.blogspot.com

    Thanks, Pablo from Argentina

    ReplyDelete
  2. Good luck/buena suerte!

    Best wishes from Guernsey.

    ReplyDelete