Visual Poetry

My City Calls (Visual poetry)

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

10 years of this blog!

AD MULTOS ANNOS

Poem "My City Calls" typed up in the shape of a city, including a Gothic Cathedral. In the sky, chimes, smoke, snow or rain, typed in special characters.
Inscription "C.C.A.A.", very clear, on old broken stone monument.

Celebrating ten years of this blog with two new versions of one of the first poems published here: “My City Calls” typed up as a cityscape around a Gothic Cathedral and as a church bell.

The additional letters at the end might be the notes of the bells – but they are also a clue to the identity of the city!

Poem "My City Calls" typed up in the shape of a church bell, with some ornaments of special characters.

You can click on the visual poems to read the text more clearly
and go to the plain text via the link above.

Visual poems My City Calls (Cityscape) and My City Calls (Church Bell). Christina Egan ©2024. Developed from the text My City Calls (1995/2012).

Von stählernen Waben (Wortbild)

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment
Visual poem of the text Von gläsernen Waben. The words are typed up into a grid with large hollows, like buildings with yards. Some words are located in these spaces, like people walking about. In the centre, the words “Du” (You) and “Ich” (“I”).

Visual poem developed from the text Von stählernen Waben (see below). Christina Egan ©2024.

For the English text version and links to similar poems, see When Webs of Steel / Von stählernen Waben.

For the English visual version and for a related word cloud, see the previous post, Webs of Steel (Visual Poetry).

Von stählernen Waben

Von stählernen Waben und gläsernen Wänden
beschränkt auf ein spärliches gräsernes Eck,
steh’ stille und spüre dein Blut in den Händen:
Du hast ein Gesicht; und du hast ein Geschick.

Will keiner dich kennen, verstehen und lieben,
gibt keiner verborgene Neigungen her,
hol’ Atem – hol’ Atem – und freu’ dich am Leben:
Ich weiß es ja, bin ja bei dir übers Meer!

Christina Egan © 2015

When Webs of Steel (Visual poetry)

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment
Visual poem of: https://eganpoet.net/2015/12/11/when-webs-of-steel/. The worda are tped up into two squares, with some in the middle, like a person walking about in the yard of a building.
Word cloud on black, most words pale, some words glaring. In the middle, "glass", "steel", "doors", "sun".


Visual poem developed from the text When webs of steel (see below). Christina Egan ©2024.
Word cloud Steel & Glass of twelve English poems about big cities on this website. Christina Egan ©2024.

Visual poem typed up on a Word document. Word cloud designed on Simple Word Cloud Generator.
For the German version and links to similar poems, see When Webs of Steel / Von stählernen Waben.
For the inspiration for the design of the word cloud, see Glass Mountain (Potsdamer Platz).

When Webs of Steel

When webs of steel and walls of glass
confine you to a square of grass –
stand still and feel your sap pulsate:
You have a face. You have a fate.

When no one listens, no one knows you,
when no one loves you or else shows you,
take a deep breath – take two – take cheer:
I know, across the seas. I’m here.

Christina Egan © 2009

Buntbetupft

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Buntbetupft

Nur
einen
seligen
Sommer,
einen zweiten
und dritten tanzten
du und ich inmitten einer
buntbetupften Wiese unter dem
Summen der Hüpfer und Hummeln,
unter des Bussards hoher Wacht.
Und keiner von uns beiden
wußte, was bliebe,
und keiner
nannte es
Liebe.
Aber
das Leben
war gegeben,
wie es nur Kindern ist,
Heiligen oder Toren oder eben
Liebenden, und die Freude war stark
wie die Pracht der Mittsommersonne.
Die Erde war rund und bunt, und
ihre Haut duftete uns! Wir
drehten uns schnell,
alles drehte sich
um uns, es
war ein
Heute,
hell.

Christina Egan ©2021

Drawing of three old-fashioned spinning tops.

The shape of the poem emulates two children holding hands and whirling around, or two spinning-tops…

Illustration from ‘Children’s games throughout the year’ (1949) by Leslie Daiken.

Brief Encounter (II/III)

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Brief Encounter (II/III)


Out of the sea,
out of thick mist, a reddish
disc rose: the sun on a wilful day.
It was around solstice, but it would not
bring enough light, nor enough heat.


It tasted like honey, hazelnut cream,
like the unbearable sweetness of a rose
you can feel on your tongue, it tasted
like grapes, a whole bowl full,
 or it might have.

Christina Egan ©2024

Poem about a red fish in dark water in the shape of a fish, in red print on dark background.

Visual poetry: Brief Encounter (I).
Text and design: Christina Egan ©2024.

Brief Encounter (I)

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Brief Encounter (I)


Tiny
and arched
was the bridge,
of gleaming green
wood, between leaves
of palm-trees, lush, polished,
larger than a new-born child.
Through the muddy water
underneath, something
slid by, slid through:
a blood-red
carp. I was
startled,
I was struck.
A fish like a flame.

Christina Egan ©2024

Bright red koi fish coming out from underneath curved green bridge across pond

Photograph: Christina Egan ©2013

Brown Butterfly / Brauner Schmetterling

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Brown Butterfly

 

Found, found on sandy ground:
bronze brooch from an unknown age,
bright map of an unknown land,
O quivering flower,
brown butterfly!
Where have you flown…?
Little butterfly,
your mirroring wings
are dust lifted up from the earth
and assembled to beauty of heaven.
Grace, grace beyond a name.

Bright admiral butterfly, maroon with 'eyes', on purple cone of flowers.

 Brauner Schmetterling

 

Gefunden auf sandigem Grund:
Bronzebrosche verlorener Zeiten,
bunte Karte ferner Gefilde.
Du erbebende Blume,
du bräunliche!
Wo flogst du hin…?
Schmetterling,
deine Spiegelbildflügel
sind Staub, der Erde enthoben,
gesammelt zu Himmelsschimmer.
Anmut, namenlose Anmut.

Huge tropical flower, orange and wide open, with human hand for comparison.

The shape of the poems — and their
colour — emulate those of a  butterfly.

English poem: Christina Egan © 2005. 
German poem: Christina Egan © 2017.
Photographs: Christina Egan © 2013.

free-range (mails and messages)

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Same text again, set as if written by a typewriter and framed as if forming a computer screen.

free-range

mails and messages and more moving across the screen with
flashing offers and tickers with freshly baked news and
more mails and messages from fresh friends and flickering
fake facts and friends’ fake faces and fake friends’ faces
and updated offers with mute music and lyrics of true love
for globalised consumers and certified free-range chickens
in the multiple-award multilateral information gain game
and upgraded offers of true love and reminders to join in
the flash mob on times square please click here to request
your rights and download the rest of the revolution now

Christina Egan ©2017

Gifts

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Gifts

My love, I’d so much love to give you a gift:
a kite with the face of a friendly dragon,
a goblet carved from a coconut shell,
a rocking-chair on a scarlet rug,
a house by a little lake,
a little lake,
a life –

But I have none of these things to give away:
only smiles slotted through half-open doors,
kisses smuggled on underground trains,
words typed on a cluttered screen…
only these worthless,
priceless
words.

Christina Egan © 2008

You can find a poem shaped like a spinning top at Toys / Baskets / Bowls,
one shaped (and tinted) like a bush at By the Brittle Brown Fence,
and one shaped (and tinted) like a balloon at Red Balloon!