Friday, 9 December 2022

TUMBLING IN THE SLIPSTREAM

Another poem that wears its origin on its sleeve. I was in a car driving down the M5 looking at a spider's web. The rest of it took sometime to shape.

you drive down the M5

we talk

the sun sets behind us


across the wing mirror

a web flexes

vibrates in the turbulence


I think of my own anchor points

how little it would take

to send me tumbling in the slipstream

Someone said of Burning Music, my first collection, that it was all rather accessible, as if this was a bad thing, no cryptic verse to worry over long into the night. At the time I was upset by this, thinking the act of producing a book was akin to climbing Mount Everest. Now I wear my accessibility as a badge of pride. 

I wrote this after watching a man cross the road. It is what it is.

he is his own master


the crosses the road

disdainful of the traffic lights


his odd splayed gait

carries him safely to the other side


what need has he for lights that inform

when to step forward    when to wait


he knows best

Here is a song from 1970, The Move, in all their glory.

Until next time.  

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