THE NIGHT IS STARRED

 

Two poems from workshops.

The first from a Secret Poets meeting last week. Liz asked us to think of a favourite place and to write down words that described it. We than has ten minutes to write an acrostic. This was mine.

Solitary chimney

adrift from its history

notes the industrial past of this

trapezoid square

silent, taken for granted

As you can see, I was writing about Sants in Barcelona. We have often eaten breakfast near the chimney in the square. 

The next poem came from an exercise I set myself, to pick four lines from four different novels and use one as the basis for a poem. 

at the insistence of the impresario

he must occupy the seat of honour

and so is seated with due ceremony

ostentatiously the music then begins

a vast brass wind that skirls about the tent

and how the townsfolk stare

read his face for clues

raise palms to cover mouths

speculate on his pedigree

throughout the unfolding entertainment

should his gaze stray from the ring

he sees one or more sets of eyes taking him in

after nuanced farewells he is the first to leave

martial music highlights his exit

the night is starred, hot, still

his white suit crumpled hours before

past midnight he walks the empty streets

the bells muffled by the darkness

call out each passing hour

The poem took its shape from that first line from a book. The line was so unlike anything I would ever write that there was a freedom to take it anywhere. 

It does not feel completed and I am of a mind to call it dream, though that may be a cop out.

Keeping the Catalunya connection going here's 4 Hiverns.

Until next time.