In the liminal spaces between poetry collections, I will be periodically posting previously unpublished hand written fragments,the orphaned odes that did not find a home in any collection.
This is the 14th such fragment of some of the copious couplets and isolated ideas that did not turn into full form poems, but that you may find resonance with. I wanted to highlight where even the embryonic nature of two lines of rhyme can come from and maybe what full works they were influenced by or would go on to influence.
“Bloodshot” started with thoughts of the grim reaper (sleeper maybe) and his scythe and I wanted to see if “scythed” was a word. It was ,so I used it.So to use “reap” and “scythe” to describe how an eye shy of sleep can have a cut, broken look to its watery surface. An eye without glint or gleam.
Also perhaps reaping what you sow was in my mind , staying up too late or all night, by choice or not, whilst missing out on restorative REM time. This led me to the phrase “dreams of sleep”.
I liked that the dreams and sleep are always used in close configuration but I also wanted to introduce a surreal juxtaposition- An open eye that dreams to be closed.
Algo.
P.S. You can find the entire season 1 of my podcast, “Behind The Lines” on Apple Podcasts,Spotify and all good and evil podcast platforms everywhere.All 50 poems from my first collection,BE.aGaIN,are there in their entirety along with the stories behind them over 50 episodes!,Check it out!
P.P.S. Season 2 COMING SOON!!
Algo Poetry-Behind the Lines 