Lee Jane Taylor’s writing explores the experience of illness and wellness, domesticity and nature, imagination and memory, with a view of the sky.
Check out new poem “Time-Lapse Portrait” in the coming 2025 edition of “Aotearoa Poetry Yearbook”. Anthology book to be released and in bookshops from August!
Find Lee’s poems “Personal Pronoun in Greyscale” and “She is Being Not Enough” in “Tarot Poetry”, online journal, June Edition out now!
Lee is keeping busy working towards a Masters in Creative Writing.
(First published by Tarot Poetry, Dec 2024 Edition)
1 Light Streaking
In plastic envelopes floating kicking joy
sun in eyes barbecuing skin already pink
taste of chlorine and the white noise roar
of fun I am a star fish smiling unabridged
for the woman behind a mechanical eye
with my cousin posing giggling in
heart shaped glasses Marilyn and
Madonna in mind later still in white linen
dress and court shoes leaning hands tilt
with precision meaningful position of chin
eyes watch the lens seeing the eyes
first trip to Europe first digital snaps
together relaxed, fixed in place by great
monuments of history, memory, births, war
pregnancies and victories all store faithful
in boxed wires until electric mayhem poof
outsourced digital mind melt metal smote
smell of plasticated smoke memento lost.
2 Visual Trailing
Now platforms gathered momentum
amass populations of memory investment
smart phones become sensory organs of
the internet, pictures of me store in a
strange cloud more fungal than cumulus
roots grown in eccentric locations New
Mexico deserts, factory basements hosts
of hard drives pictures seed in digits one
mouse click, spores electric race into outer
space refract back to Earth’s gravity
pictures of me channel through fibrous
roots underground into a study where
a face appears on a screen – me
awkward at a dinner ocean view selfies
see the camera see it reflect in sunglasses
always see it look back even in sleep see
filters and zoom angles in mechanised
dreams pictures of me disappear in sheer
volume reduce to visual trail I am mere
molecules in a single cell of memory within
a vast shrooming digital hive of mind.
3 Illusory or Hallucinatory
After pictures of me in hospital databanks
maps geographic of moles, my ulcerated
mouth, that rash, the lining of my gut
each bump and fold each shade of red one
hundred images imbed splices of spine
its awkward bend my brain in black and white
slides rendered all waiting to be read, each
temple layer casually perused by curious
file surf glance through my insides all of my
secret places once sacred soon dated
scored and recorded.
4 After-imagery
Pictures of me, too many to count
they float in envelopes, posed fixed
by monuments some lost, some stored
random images collect on platforms
dispersal in electronic fungal blooms
finally, pictures of me, my interior bodily
treasons kept locked by government agency,
an account of self saved for perpetuity.
The Sky House is a place and a state of mind. Protection and escape. Somewhere to Be and not Do. What is the house of your imagination? Your own sky house shelters you, protecting your inner calm from the cold of isolation and the storms of loss. It is somewhere we must each build for ourselves, from the inside out.
What does the sky house of your dreams look like? Is it a version of your current home? Or a former home? Is it a tree top pole house? A log cabin? A bach by the sea? A rustic villa? An apartment looking over a Venice canal or a city park? An igloo?
What are the sights and sounds that inspire you? What are the scents that delight you? What are the textures that comfort you? In your mind’s eye, bring these into your house and spend some time detailing these talismans.
Does your sky house home pets? Perhaps these are actual pets, current or former. Maybe in your sky house they can talk, sing or bring you a cup of tea. What animals do you admire? Challenge your imagination to include the furry, wild and wonderful in your ideal place. Fish might swim in the clouds outside your window. Honey bees and forest wasps may be gathering the latest gossip for you.
Scan your memory, search images, look through books of nature, architecture, art, gather details for your own ideal imagination house. Take a few moments each day or every week to focus on and develop your vision.
Imagination grows like a garden, needing only your attention to water, space and light to flourish. You will be amazed how rich a place your sky house can become with a little practice.
Whatever your own sky house looks like, spend time there. It will always be there for you.
Take care x
Image is by C. Dustin from Unsplash
Check out Tarot Poetry, December 2024 issue for lots of poetry nourishment including new poem;
“We are the Sad Ones”
Find at http://www.tarotpoetry.nz
Take care everyone x
Inspired by reclusion, a year’s headlines, and the song by David Bowie.
We are the Sad Ones, silent we hold
to stones of privilege in each hand by
the cold of unreclaimable duties, we stand
human, our heroes all dead, arms too full
guts too frail to man controls.
–
The sad ones see unfolding power
ripe everywhere in everyone but not
in us, in us just articles of anger
lodge in throats, tired voices wait
for only Hope is worth negotiation.
–
We the seeing unseen, by sun unkissed
when we go to them our heroes will all
look back at us cool from the coal abyss
say inequities lisp our hubris, us Sated
Ones spill godless prayers as we fall,
–
our respects unsaid, We are the Dead.
*
Original poem by Lee Jane Taylor
Photo credit; Reign-Abarintos for Unsplash
“When I Reach for your Pulse”, Rushi Vyas
It takes real talent and skill to write about a subject as difficult as a parent’s suicide as something fascinating and insightful. This book is a gift to anyone who has lost someone and struggles with stigma.
“The Artist”, Ruby Solly
A really enjoyable read. For those of us with an interest in mythology and traditional storytelling this is a gem. The local setting made my heart flutter (yes, I am a mythos nerd).
“At the Point of Seeing”, Megan Kitching
A collection of contemporary poetic reflections about us and of nature in a beautiful and highly cohesive style.
In my downtime I have been attempting adventurous forays into the formidable precise literary mind of Maryanne Moore. I try not to bog down into myriad opinions of her extensive revisions of her own work. Whichever version of her works you read, like me I expect you will find it difficult, fascinating and satisfying. Even her titles are thought provoking, for example; “Diligence is to Magic as Progress is to Flight”.
Take care everyone x
Lee has two new poems published in this month’s edition of “Tarot Poetry”, Aotearoa NZ’s beautiful and free to access poetry journal.
“Body Falls” and “Self-Palinopsia”
Read here:
Take care everyone x
The sculpted shape my life makes, its carved impression into what surrounds, is small
while the details divide and multiply on close inspection, more
complication, more busy function
–
my shape fits snug into the around, much as a ring on my finger, the worm or lion in their notch
of food chain, a stubborn outcrop of rock
holds against an unseeing whole
–
of ocean, watch – it licks us away slow, each mundane gesture of survival here is an overcoming
forebeared, the ocean tastes us with all the time of a world
everything swallowed returns, our forms
–
forged in connection, rejection, bleating its strangely affecting feline chords the sea
returns our forms to the wordless, from where
we, scraped and molded, emerge.
Original poem and image by Lee Jane Taylor
(Photo by Duskfall Crew on Unsplash)
Underground tunnelled land new home, notes of asphalt and smoke, weary eyes light votives to unknown gods; Rūamoko smiles sees she
steps in the habit of boats human destinies float in her shoes respire through her skin, thin amphibian inhalations of sleep excretes salty wishes creeks
run with tadpoles dream the shock of legs muscular long but her will is not so strong as her cup, soon succumbs to whim;
Swimming thoughts become devilled eggs blanche her in watery depths moves cold doesn’t see herself coming doesn’t know herself as she goes.
Rise must make surface gasps with eyes closed stows each heartbeat now a stranger, tamps in her chest suggests a chill new blowing in
gulp the thrill savour the gusting pong it is fathomless autumn, and everything everyone is kneeling to the mustard flow already she allows its
golden mouth upon her soul dragging licks along her sagging throat it will swallow us whole, moths clocks the orbs of dynasties all swoon in
its amber wake, we fall and the fallen only breathe to leave strands of protein wipe the future from the corner of her eye sign her name
where only patterns remain beyond the shrill rush of waterways the still of ponds this god won’t play any game of muses is always mute caprice is
ruthless beauty laughing in the face of moons and suns, she takes six seeds she tastes the rite of queens on her tongue, she eats them one by one.
Rūamoko meanwhile he smiles youngest son husband of death chief executive of quakes and volcanic change, replenishes her plate, with kūmara
petals purple and white proud blooms of stress the earth well washed from her roots mind rinsed in gloom, we sit together in knowledge of seasons
her meal is freedom her food is doom in colours of fire and riches is replete, this harvest is inevitable tides of dominance, tender and complete.
Yesterday an echo of Persephone walks our coasts, victim complicit alone Demeter’s name never breaching these shores parental grief too vast
for ocean passage, she returns below summer done gleaming patapata in hand gleaned from koru frond Papa’s tears Rūamoko nods in kinship
their origins so far wide their stars collide and settle in the underbelly of life, both knowing the strife a child lives in void of a mother’s forgotten natural power.
“Papa” or “Papatūānuku” in NZ Māori tikanga is the spiritual mother and embodiment of the land. “Demeter” in Greek myth, when her daughter is bonded to the underworld, her grief causes the first winter.
If you need some poetic chill time now we are back into busy work school havoc, you may want to check out Tarot Poetry’s December edition! It is a beautiful issue and features two of Lee’s poems – “An Invalid’s Catalogue of Old Beginnings, Index 1 and 2” as well as “Fall Out of Key”. Read online here:
home
Sky House Poetry 