not enough poetry

There’s definitely not enough poetry on this blog recently.

This morning, while walking back from the village, I heard something scuttle across the road and turned to look, only to find it was just a dry leaf blown by the wind, not an interesting small creature that would inspire me to write something new.

Then again, the scampering noise and the slight incongruity reminded me of the white mice in this piece, which dates all the way back to the year 2000:

That certain feeling

The hum of conversation kept me warm as woolly gloves,
while buffet smells were circling round my head like hungry doves;
the lime-green music they were playing was enough to make you sick
and the texture of the lighting made my thumbs begin to prick,
when I heard her smile come echoing across the crowded room
and I caught in distant memory a glimpse of her perfume.
Her voice caressed my neck like tiny fingertips of ice
and I saw her laughter skip across the dance-floor like white mice.
I touched her gentle scent and felt it warm against my skin,
but her name upon my tongue was bitter-tasting, like cheap gin.

I remember it was prompted by a quotation in a review of a novel – possibly Headlong – by Simon Ings: “I have tasted jazz, and it’s as sweet as honey and tart as a lime.”

How disappointing to realise that over ten years down the line I still haven’t read the book.