I am posting early this week as tomorrow, my usual day, I shall be driving up the M5 and M6 to Uttoxeter racecourse for three days of music and poetry. I am the festival poet this year and I will be live on stage on Saturday (1.30pm in the Real Ale Tent, the perfect place for poetry if you ask me, beer and poetry go together well).

I am also appearing in the Top Hat Tent over the weekend and I shall be running a couple of poetry workshops as well. One of the things I shall be doing is getting the people I meet to each add a line to my festival poem, I have no idea how it will turn out but it will be fun.

Those of you who live in this green isle will know that the weather this weekend is set to be sunny, the monsoon that we have endured for the past two months, seems to be in remission. In fact I caught the sun on Tuesday when we sloped off for the day to Saunton Sands and spent a happy day walking along the beautiful and deserted beach. That’ll teach me not to use sunblock.

A little poem this week about tinnitus, a disorder of the inner ear. If you have this condition you will know that tinnitus is “the perception of sound in the ear in the absence of corresponding sound”. I’ve just taken that from Wikipedia-thanks. I have known a number of people who have this complaint and I wrote this recently.

TINNITUS

Moon heavy, tidal rage across the world,

The sound of the sea in every shell,

Circle, fall, fade and roar

Into each ear this night.

Somewhere there is respite,

She knows where, so sleeps

Supple, supine, silent at my side.

Flow, flood and rage,

This is the soundtrack of my life.

I must hear the sea,

Circle, fall, fade then roar,

I will not sleep this night.

The idea for this poem came one evening as I was reading and it was one of those where I juggled the lines about. I think that when revising a poem changing the order of the lines can make it work.

Must dash and pack the camper for the first of my three festivals on the trot. Have a great week and if you are at a loose end come and join us at Uttoxeter. It’s going to be an amazing weekend.