Blog Entries by Jonnie Falafel

Scraping The Barrel (A Villanelle)

I love the villanelle form in poetry. It's usually used for deadly serious poems, the most famous villanelle being Dylan Thomas' Do Not Go Gentle Into That Goodnight. However, I recently came across a wrly funny example by Wendy Cope Villanelle for Hugo Williams, mildly chastising him for bastardising the form. I decided to write my own in the same tone.

I'm sure all your friends will agre...

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Wednesday 8th January 2014 3:15 pm

Hung Out To Dry

by Jonnie Falafel

Hung Out To Dry

If God the father sent Christ to die
For the sins of you and I,
Wear a crown of thorns, bleed and cry
Oh dad you've hung me out to dry,
Forsaken me, nailed me high (heave and sigh) -
Then I don't understand the truth,
Of this cosmic act of child abuse.

Where one cannot do otherwise, blame
Cannot be assigned. Judas & the Jews
Constrained, fitted up, put in the frame,
...

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Saturday 28th December 2013 6:10 pm

The Absolute Need

by Jonnie Falafel

Owls hoot in the oaks

the jasmine is heady,

I look from the window

and watch them together

scoop the moon from

the shimmering surface

drunk & unsteady,

I almost believe

we'll be happy forever

I'm 54 and I'm ready.

I almost believe

we are marked,

we are blessed,

so I'm keeping the vigil

to h...

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Tuesday 3rd September 2013 12:05 pm

gay sex sex and sexuality spirituality

For A Second I Forgot #2

by Jonnie Falafel

Sometimes I feel a poem doesn't quite hit the mark. I work it and re-work it and often just let it go - put it out there. In it's original form this was a poem that started off as two separate poems which I then merged. I had at least 20 stanzas to choose from and experimented with changing them around and cutting up couplets. This revision of For A Second I Forgot, I think gets to the core of th...

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Sunday 4th August 2013 5:10 pm

Apolide ~ (For Gregg)

by Jonnie Falafel

On Carmel beach he saunters

where turquoise meets the border,

His arms outstretched

His upturned palms

Seek signals of a different order,

Eyes the milky horizon line

For signs of calmer water.

His sullen self numb

to the laughter of companions,

neither one thing, the other or either,

Frei nor Frum, Jew nor 'Goy,'

...

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Monday 15th July 2013 5:57 pm

Camp

by Jonnie Falafel

By the dull electric lamp

arose a vision so intense,

undimmed by squalor, stench and damp

in that Polish prison camp.

Emblems of their offence,

pink triangle and yellow star,

tattoo just below the sleeve

a hunger for tomorrow,

for reprieve. A hope that

what began in sorrow

would not end in grief.

A fa...

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Saturday 22nd June 2013 4:58 pm

holocaust homosexuality jewish identity love

The Poem Fails

by Jonnie Falafel

The poem fails

It cannot render traction

Or the queer zero,

Rehearse location

Or mine gravity.

Panic & lapse

Immune to weak forces

Arise on threads of absence

In mechanical waves,

Muted by observation

& uncertain rules

In the chamber of bias.

An adumbration transpires.

Wanton longing. Dimension

Flattened & tamped.

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Monday 20th May 2013 3:51 pm

Physics Poetry Science

Peter Goes West

by Jonnie Falafel

I do not presume to judge you

Now that you are gone,

The leaf would've fallen anyway

The bird would've flown,

Taking talisman, tarot deck

And Ayn Rand tome,

On a journey to far West

Your spiritual home.

Land of parking lots and desert malls,

Skateboards on the board walks,

Beggars in the bleachers

watching volleyba...

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Friday 17th May 2013 5:56 pm

death Loss Memory

Clock Watchers In The Woods

by Jonnie Falafel

It's my first memory of social embarrassment. I loudly proclaimed my older cousin Barry “sexy” and brought the pickled onion crunching crowd to a glowering halt. His shirt collar was open and brought over jacket lapels, his hair was slick with Brylcreem. It passed for style in those dismal days and I'd confused style with sexy. I have no idea where heard the word before but clearly it was a f...

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Sunday 5th May 2013 6:47 pm