A couple more fragments from the poem I posted parts of yesterday:
Christmas Morning
Santa hasn’t let us down: look how
he’s stuffed the stockings
full of trinkets and tangerines,
games and gifts and puzzles –
enough to keep the kids
from worrying Mum who’s busy
in the kitchen; enough, we hope,
till everyone is ready
for their presents after lunch.
A few fragments from a long and rather rambling seasonal poem:
Planning ahead
Mindful since the summer sales
of nieces & nephews, great aunts
& ageing uncles, I have squirrelled away
a score or more of little packages;
nondescript bundles and boring
plastic carriers are tucked
on the top shelf of my wardrobe, stuffed
under woollens and jumpers, hidden,
made invisible by dullness.
This morning, I waited in the half-light for a bus that finally arrived 40 minutes late: there was no one about, and the only noise was the rain, an occasional car and a few birds. It gave me plenty of time to think, though it was too wet to get a notebook out to try and capture any of the ideas.
(I suppose I could record memos on my phone, but how you’re supposed to skim through an audio file later, I don’t know.)
Mind you, I actually believe that writing a thought down too soon can ‘fix’ it before it is ready, and I may carry a phrase or image round in my head for days or weeks, occasionally even years, before I finally anchor it to the page. Continue reading “grey’ku”
Actually, the figure in the sky that has caught the attention of this crowd is the Archangel Michael.
The scene is from one of the glorious stained-glass windows designed by Edward Burne-Jones for the Cathedral Church of St Philip, Birmingham, UK. Specifically, it’s from the window illustrating Judgement Day, so it seems a good picture for the last day in the Mayan long calendar.
If you’re still around to want more information about the windows, you’ll find that, and more about the Industrial Revolution in the West Midlands, over at the Revolutionary Players website.
(Just in case the world really does end, this has been programmed to post automatically.)
I’m not good at Christmas presents. (To be honest, I’m not good at Christmas.) So, when I arrived at my elderly mother’s house earlier in the week and was told a curtain rail bracket had broken, it seemed that fixing it was something practical I could do in lieu of a gift. Not only that, but since I look for poetry in domestic life, maybe it’d be inspirational. Continue reading “ranting and railing”
don't confuse the narrator 