Geographer poems on Hello Poetry

Jillian Elcie Dec 2014

He cranes tiredly over folds of parchment
As sunlight falls across his ashen features
And the restless night becomes lost
Within a sea of fading maps and broken compasses.

Worn pencils collect on hardwood like dust,
And discarded errors in calculation fall into the corners.
He stumbles weakly between varying levels of consciousness,
And exhaustion claims an inch more of his body
With each exasperated flutter of his eyelids.

He spins the globe to his right with a lazy hand
And catches Africa with his finger
Wishing that he could’ve been anywhere but here
Because it is immeasurably heartbreaking
To have the entire world at your fingertips
And to have never seen any of it.

j.s.

#poem #sad #world #travel #wanderlust #map #globe #geographer

Aaron Mullin Oct 2014

Towards an Indigenous Science

I've always been in place,
in situ
Maybe (just maybe) ...
I'm sui generis?

When my lifeline intersected with spacetime on this continuum
I found myself moving toward a collision course with duality and non-duality
Moving towards a zero-point

What are we talking about?
Nothing (Rafelski & Muller, 1985)

As a geographer, the mimetic expression was dualistic
As one plane flowed through another;
as fiat lux flowed through Medicine Rock
I found wisdom

I further explored the duality @ this place
(also known as University of Lethbridge)

The U of L is an interesting duck

It walks like an Albertan university
It talks like an Albertan university
But one of these things is certainly not like the other

The U of L got its chops as a house of learning for the Liberal Arts
Follow those roots and you'll see conduits to another spacetime known as UCBerkley
U of L memetics share material memories from the birth of the Free Speech Movement (1964)

And as Arthur Erickson drafted up his plans for Canada's centennial gift to the Province of Alberta, I'm sure he would have been partaking in the pleasures of this particular spacetime

I'm sure at the very least that he was listening to Hendrix wax on about Castles

As Erickson designed this modernistic monolith called University Hall
There were influences such as Arthur C. Clarke and his novel 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
He was certainly knowledgeable of the Blackfoot stories of the Old Man
And of course as an architect he would be versed in gravity and how built structures on a ***** tend to creep toward base-level
Strange but true, Erickson's first degree was in foreign languages

So what I see is Canada's premier architect wrote a poem for us in 1968
In a foreign language
And that poem would be expressed over the next forty to fifty years

Some of those primary poetic elements were:
Berkley, California
Hippie Movement
Creep (or gravity)
Base level
Blackfoot creation stories of the Old Man
Jimi Hendrix poetry and his savage musical genius

"and so castle's made of sand melt into the sea, eventually."

So let's reinterpret that line to be more U of L centric
(through my glossy apertures)

"and so monolith's made by man melt back into god eventually."

........ ....... ...... ..... ..... .... ... .. . zero~point . .. ... .... ..... ...... ....... ........

REFERENCES

in situ: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_situ

sui generis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sui_generis

Spacetime: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacetime

Duality: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duality

Non-duality: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nondualism

Zeropoint: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-point_energy

Nothing: Rafelski & Muller (1985). The Structured Vacuum: Thinking about Nothing. ISBN 3-87144-889-3

Geography: Science focusing on places and spaces, on humankind's stewardship of the Earth, and on the inter-related problems associated with environmental, economic, political and cultural change. The study of spatial variation in both physical and human phenomena on Earth.

Memetics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memetics

fiat lux: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Lethbridge

Medicine Rock: http://www.uleth.ca/artsci/first-nations-transition-program/medicine-rock-story-our-blackfoot-name

Wisdom: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom

University of Lethbridge: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Lethbridge

Alberta: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberta

Liberal Arts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_arts_education

University of California, Berkley: http://berkeley.edu/about/

Free Speech Movement (1964): http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/FSM/

Arthur Erickson: http://www.arthurerickson.com/educational-buildings/lethbridge-university/7/

Jimi Hendrix: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimi_Hendrix

Castles Lyrics: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/jimihendrix/castlesmadeofsand.html

Modernism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernism

Monolith: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monolith

2001: A Space Odyssey: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001:_A_Space_Odyssey_%28film%29

Blackfoot Mythology: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackfoot_mythology

Creep: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downhill_creep

Base Level: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_level

Foreign Languages: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_language

Poetry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poetry

Hippie Movement: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_hippie_movement

Creep: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downhill_creep

Blackfoot Mythology: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackfoot_mythology

Jimi Hendrix: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimi_Hendrix

Castle's Made of Sand: http://youtu.be/PiBF_hJ3sSE

Glossy Aperture: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/422001427554852688/
Also GOTO: http://hellopoetry.com/poem/877844/inferno/

Indigenous Science: http://www.wisn.org/what-is-indigenous-science.html

#universe #oldman #monolith #spacetime #insitu #suigeneris #fiatlux #zeropoint #blackfoot

Brian Henry Meyer Jul 2011

Island Crumbling into the Sea

I saw you standing there
As you were staring straight at me
You mustn’t have heard me calling
Because you carried on walking
As if you hadn’t heard a thing
Like an island on the verge of crumbling
Into the deep blue sea
I am desperately trying to find someone to save me
From my dull reality
Like an island on the verge of crumbling
Into the deep blue sea

I Don’t want to come across as ***** or rude
But I’m not here to hold your hand and
Whisper sweet nothings in your ear
The ****** fantasies flickered through my mind!
As you stood there unaware
Of the fire’s you were kindling up
Girl won’t you let me fan your flames!
Ohh fan your flames! Cmon!

Opportunity came a knockin for a few swift moments
Only for father time to whisk that chance away
Ohh Where have you gone?
I’ve been searching for so long
So SO long
Like an island on the verge of crumbling
Into the deep sea
I am desperately trying to find someone to save me
From my dull reality
Don’t want to come across as ***** or rude
But I don’t just want to hold your hand
I saw you walking over there
I’m no geographer but I know my basic geography
The world ain’t flat
So by walking down there
You should be coming back
My way sometime soon
I meant to tell you all my thoughts and feelings
But I swallowed them up in the boldness
That is my pride
Hands so clammy
I choked on my words
Forming incoherent blabber
I want to be more then friends
Please disregard what those scousers told you
I don’t want to come across as ***** or rude
But I don’t just want to hold your hand
Let me take hold of this opportunity
I don’t want to spurn this chance to say
My hormones are about to implode
And I must confess
I don’t just want hold your hand tonight

Paul Butters Feb 2017

About Me

I’m a geographer who doesn’t much like to travel,
A writer who reads slow,
Artistic scientist,
With not a lot to show.

An enigmatic person
With strengths and foibles too.
For I am only human,
Very much like you.

A historian with a bad memory,
That just sums me up.
I have my limitations,
Yet still a half-full cup.

I may be self-effacing,
But have the strength to be honest.
I’ll get there in the end,
To fulfil what I’ve promised.

I know that isn’t a lot,
But I do have my talents.
When all is said and done,
My books do more or less balance.

I’m happy with myself I have to say,
So if you are a critic
Get on your way.

Paul Butters

Began this about 4AM!!! My favourite thinking time.

#people #humanity #me #introspection #humour #self-effacement

Kuvar Feb 2018

ADVENTUTER

I don't need a geographer
To take me round the world
I don't need a compass
To direct me south west east north
I don't need a sailor
To sail me in the dark light seas
I don't need a pilot
To fly me all way above the earth
Let me whisper the truth in your ears
My lady is the world
Inside her is the map
She takes me round the world
She magenetizes me to the paths
She sails my heart through the storms
She flies my mind out of the earth
And she whispers the truth in my ears
You must travel round me my Love
(c) Kuvar

#love #hearth #feelings #world #map #senamietsejoro #geographer #adventuter #experience #captain

Linguistic Play Sep 2014

Late night smoke break

Photography is natural
shutters laced in mascara
I capture things more quickly when things start to get to me
Teardrops on my lenses always did make things hazy
But most of the time I look for things in their simplicity
Like capturing your step
Just to learn the cadence
My memory is but a stop motion
Of everything set to earth’s rotation
and It always did seem creepy
That id remember things exactly
So I started pretending
That I forget almost everything
But when the theater lights go out
I replay all my favorite movies
Of exactly what life truly meant to me
Because with a photographic memory
Nothing is left coyly
Which comes to remind me
Of why I have to break things to see them differently
Because if you stare at a photo long enough
A thousand words come to mind
Which is why I was never a good photographer
And instead a bit of a geographer
Painting the world as I saw it
In the words that were left unspoken
Because they tend to make my life feel a little more vibrant
Like the saturation got turned up a bit
And it changed the way I remembered all of it

— The End —