THE FIRST DAY WITHOUT SOCKS

I've not been writing anything new this week. Sometimes it goes like that. I always say you have to experience life to write about it. Actually I've been painting the dining room, so not much experience there.

Here's a poem I've been working on for a couple of weeks. 

“Freedom is what we do with what is done to us.”
―Jean-Paul Sartre

the first day without socks

gifted a freedom he had not anticipated

it was true there was a price to pay

in rubbed skin for each step taken

but over time the rims of his shoes softened

his ankles calloused

and even the monolithic plastic soles

previously immutable

slowly took on the contour of each foot

the world limped along

economies faltered

and him by the side of the road

failing to flag down a lift

the rain started

so he began to walk

from somewhere to somewhere else

I was thinking about the economic consequences of the pandemic. How it will change our lives. How we respond to the place we find ourselves.

This next poem was an exercise I set myself while I stood in the queue for my greengrocers. Usually I try to write about the place I find myself when I'm abroad but this is me here in Torquay.

1^st Saturday after the Lockdown

framed face in first story window

cell small

hinged open to the max

smoke blooms

lost in grey sky

smells like weed from down here

in the Saturday line up

third in the queue for the greengrocers

It's interesting to just try and record what is around you. It makes you look at the world anew.

I got the new lp by Dinosaur, a British jazz group this week. It is boss. I can't take it off the turntable. Here's Mosking. 

Until next time.