Chris Armstrong's Blog: CuratedLines, page 6
August 12, 2023
Elegies of Time
I don’t write many long poems … most of my poems are less than a page, but occasionally an idea hits me that merits something more – or so I think at the time! These poems take longer to write and usually demand some research work – probably why there are so few of them – only four in my Mostly Welsh collection.
Not so long ago I had this idea to do something on TIME. It has fascinated me for a long (err!) time – how we see it – experience it – understand it – WHAT it is! I rememb...
July 24, 2023
Twixt Pen and Eye
I, poet, may write of love
and in that moment feel
a meaning clear:
yet my soul knows love
my hand will never pen
You, reader, read that word
and think to know my mind
I say you cannot know the love
my heart placed behind that word, only
your sense of the love you thought you saw
The poet can never truly speak
and have his reader know
his soul’s pain, his heart’s love.
Each word you read is ever stolen
from my page
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June 27, 2023
Recent Writes
I thought it would be useful to provide an index to the poems and the short story that I have written in the first half of 2023. Most are available here; the few that are on external sites are starred and will open in a new tab.
The most recent poem is at the top of the list working back to ‘Annual, again’ posted here in mid-January.
Short story – The Story Teller
Poems
Stars *
...June 14, 2023
Grimalkin
A grey shade in the cottage shadows
a paw lick of sinuous silence
a tail flick of smoke
a pounce on time’s toll
Like a smoke devil escaped the chimney
she inhabits the lounge at night
never settling
she drifts across the hearth
Like the umbral weight of her past
she settles beyond my sight
I sense only the leak
of light left by her passing
Like the presence of an unseen wraith
she is at my supper table
to fill the empty chair
across from me
Like the gentle press of death I feel
her weight ...
May 31, 2023
The Story Teller
A short story
In the wake of the recent and ongoing discussions about artificial intelligence, a short story about the growth of computer learning… and where it leads.
Back in the eighties, or twenty years before the end of the last century as—for added effect—I tell my grandchildren, when PCs were microcomputers and windows lived on houses, I wrote a short program. I gave it a vocabulary divided into somewhere around ten nouns and verbs, six or seven adjectives and adverbs and ...
May 23, 2023
Trecefel
I wrote about the creation of this poem back in March in a post called The Welsh Swagman…
The story of Trecefel, a farm near Tregaron begins in 1846 when, following his marriage, it became the tenancy of a man born 28 years earlier near Talsarn in the parish of Llanfihangel-Ystrad in Ceredigion. That man was Joseph Jenkins.
Bryn Du
Above Caron’s dark Teifi flow.
Beneath the white wood.
Beneath the black hill.
Sweet meadows and pastures lie
around a house
...
May 4, 2023
The Den
G. had no idea what had woken him, what had brought him alert and fully awake to the bedroom window in his grandfather’s house in the middle of the night. The gibbous moon lit the garden a little from behind the drifting clouds and a summer breeze ruffled the hedgerow, but apart from that it was completely still and quiet. Now that he had moved to the window—quietly so as not to wake his brother—he felt wide awake and on this hot and stuffy night had no wish to return to his bed. He w...
April 30, 2023
The Door
Unknown reader, be glad that I have opened the door and let out
the dust of my verse for you to see an age after the words first found form on the screen, or
perhaps I have let in your imagination so, turning, you can see a single almond
blossom, pink amongst its pale russet leaves, to tempt your words out
Unknown traveller, on this day, stay, venture out
and, before they fade, gather memories of your Spring in fragrant vases around the room, so
your thoughts today can grace some future ver...
April 26, 2023
Publication Announcement!
… and it’s published! Much excitement at being able to announce the availability (Amazon or here) of my latest collection of poems, Lost Time.
Lost Time brings together a collection of poems written during the last two to three years. There are poems that relate to Place, the Sea (always a strong theme for me), Writing, Memories and Time… and a few poems brought about by Covid and lockdown found their way in at the beginning.
Brought together, the poems are (I suppose) exact...
April 25, 2023
Proofs
We are at the proof-reading stage! Unusually, this has thrown up a couple of minor emendations which – in once case – are easily dealt with. The other is going to take a couple of attempts! The spine – on which would normally appear the author’s name and the title of the book is slim enough that only a small font will fit… so we are experimenting to try and get it as large as possible!
THEN… we will publish!
Nearly there! Really, really, nearly there!
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