Friday 18 August 2017

LOVE GONE SOUR

A  poem about endings. Not sure I can explain exactly where it comes from. 
It is danger for any writer is to rely their usual tropes. To write from the default position, so to speak. Each poem needs to be unique, bespoke to the requirements of the concept.

Love Gone Sour

She informed me I'm like that song.
That I know the one,
that I've heard it on the radio.

She expects me to provide her
with the exact analogy
she can use to criticise me, again.

It was one of those points in life
that makes you add up the scores.
The kind that makes you question love.

A brief crystallisation of an awareness
that your life doesn't have to be like this.
Another push towards the door.

You know you will walk.
I am off to see Ryley Walker [again] next weekend. Here he is with the band.

Friday 11 August 2017

SOMETHING ELSE

I  was working on the allotment the other day, watering in the polytunnel, and that old blues song about never missing your water until the well runs dry came into my head. Over the rest of the after noon this poem wrote itself.

Something Else

He carried water to the well.
The yoke was heavy,
the water angry enough to slop.
That none had asked him to,
was for him, beside the point.
He may have claimed
it was for the general good,
or Phariseed his pious intention.
There was an unquenched fury
in his every step.

Some people live their whole lives like that.
I think as it formed that I was trying to capture the essence of passive aggression
I tend to write more in my head these days. To get the poem into some shape before I write anything down. I don't think it's a better way of working just different.
Here is Peter Tosh with his version.

SHEILA'S POEM

I have nothing to say about this poem.
It speaks for itself.


Sheila's Poem

We had hoped for death.
Crash landing
on this unexpected plateau,
where life continues mechanically
and the identical days merge.
Sometimes, across a great distance,
you speak,
words faint
ever more slippage.
There are no dials to turn,
or amplifiers to power up,
that just this once,would grant us 
clear communication.
Until next time.

Friday 4 August 2017

TWO TRAINS TRAVELLING

I was just reminded of a Little Feat song, Two Trains, which must have subconsciously influenced this post's poem.
Things like this happen all the time. We draw inspiration from all that is around us.


Early on our temporary parallel path
she gifted the key to understanding.

It was nothing special,
a pressured, bad decision
with domino consequences falling.

She had hers.
I had mine.

Two trains travelling in opposite lines,
alternate endings wait in the wings.

The difference was this:
I kept my own counsel. 
She saw nothing remarkable in me.

I sped away onwards towards today.
I have to confess I had to look up, just now, if it was onwards or onward- Paul and Jinny I need your grammar skills now!
Here is Little Feat with said song.
And here they are in all their live glory.
Superb stuff.