insubstantial
even as you seek
the memory
has gone
so you stare at the ceiling
in the darkness
the shortest day calls to you
later
you will sight that dream fragment
as you turn the steering wheel
too preoccupied
to give it attention
so it flees
is content to taunt your sleep another night
Until next time.
Here's a surreal little poem that presented itself as an idea but had to be coaxed into becoming a poem. Many thanks to the Secrets for their perceptive comments and assistance.
Running on Empty
halfway
down
the page
his words
ran out
and the poem
not even captured
just sentences
in need of scaffolding
he checked his dictionary
empty
blank pages
awaiting a refill
he did not bother the thesaurus
it tutted at him
in that annoying didactic way
he could call out the page side recovery service
but the wait would be an hour or more
besides last time they told him
you need a whole new vocabulary mate
and look at them metaphors
worn away to thin things they are!
perhaps if he made a cup of tea
it might rally the other letters
I liked the idea of words running out like a car runs out of petrol. The idea of a page side recovery service followed on from the breakdown idea. I had difficulty finding an ending. I also liked the idea of the thesaurus being too proud to help. In reality the thesaurus was my life saver.
I think the poem is complete. It shall be put to one side for a while as usual.
Here's a poem about a memory. I did glimpse on the horizon the sea framed between two hills. Actually the last time I was there the weather was too wet to get a photograph!
every morning
term time, early 80s
I looked to the sea
on the horizon
framed by hills
an unequal triangle
grey and distant
so very different
from the Mersey
that I had lived by
after thirty years
of life lived in the lowlands
I again live by the sea
and once in a while
I’ll drive for an hour
and reacquaint myself
with the lopsided symmetry
of that isosceles view
The poem is pretty straight forward and I think it is complete.
Until next time.
I have said on more than one occasion that political poems do not stand the test of time. People's memories are too short, events fade, new outrages occur. Here is a poem I have been working on for some time. Thanks must go to the Secrets for their assistance in finally bringing it to the page.
post midnight
predawn
I am the unsleeping opposite of wakeful
jaundiced under the petrol station sodium lights
the empty newspaper bins wait
it’s too early for the news
but I know what they will say-
thirty one bodies fished out of the Channel
Now a poem on a lighter subject. An event at the university where I work.
Just Another Day at Marjons
and we have been tasked with the making of a video
a parody of a parody filmed on a phone in the rain
the wind will steal away your words only to replace them
with the sound of the sea in a shell held to your ear
I think it explains itself. It did have this second stanza but I think it is unnecessary.
we go inside
shoot scenes in the public rooms
no one stares
stuff like this happen all the time
Here's Lana Del Ray with Chemtrails over the Country Club.
Until next time.
disinfestation
before the house sale was agreed
buyers demanded the ghosts be removed
so contractors were appointed, a date set
an amount shaved off the price
and the workers arrived to divest the property
loading reluctant spectres into sealed skips
then driving them away to wherever unwanted memories languish
that ambushing taste on the tongue
a face half glimpsed in the crowd
the 4am telephone that rings and rings and rings
The last line of a poem can, when you have read it, make you reconsider the whole poem. This is what I wanted to achieve with this poem. I wanted to recall the feeling of the landline ringing in the night. It happened to me on occasion when I lived moved house. The landline telephone was similar to a delivery company and I would get calls in the night.
Here's Sault with Bitter Streets.
Until next time.
