I think the front page needs brightening up and I have no time to think of anything particularly witty or apt to say, so here’s a photo I took a couple of days ago down by the river for no better reason than that I liked the colours.
Hopefully, even though I’ll be travelling, I’ll find some time in the next few days to write something more here.
And because I’ll be travelling, perhaps I’ll have a few new ideas.
The last few posts have been fairly rural – which is reasonable given where I am at the moment. But to carry on from yesterday’s insomnia, I’ve dug out this older, rather more urban piece:
night shades
Sounds rise through plaster, wood and dust; they twist
between the ceiling joists, and round ceramic tiles to twine
with moonlight, drifting, woven in dreams, until
they filter into consciousness. Then,there are no more dreams:
the sounds contract
to words as hard
and tight as fists that punch
into the sobbing night.I hear the darkness
catch its breath
and a banshee wail
drags the dawn
closer.
In A Far Cry from Kensington, Muriel Spark wrote:
the quality of insomnia depends entirely on what you decide to think of.
I don’t suffer from insomnia. Ever. I do have a few sleepless nights. And when I do, I tend to try and write poems in my head. The repetition is often just as effective as counting sheep.
Continue reading “insomnia”
We’re always so keen to be moving on to new beginnings, I though it might be good to dawdle a bit, like the river is doing at the moment.
Unlike the year we moved here, when I heard the water through the open windows on the first night and thought it was pouring with rain, this year the river is very low and practically silent.
So, however inconvenient the heavy rain is, I’ll have to hope for a wet winter. Or a very cold one, so there’s plenty of snow to thaw and fill the rivers next spring. (See what I mean about always wanting new beginnings?)
Continue reading “first day of autumn”
You what? He spits.
His knuckles clench, thumbs
tuck to fists and elbows flex;
he squares up, rises to his toes,
knees bent, ready to dance, then
stalls.
Hands dip to hitch
his slipping jeans.
The photo was kindly provided by a friend, nephew of Stan Roberts, when I said I didn’t have any ideas about what to post to the blog.
I think the intention was to inspire me to write a new poem. Instead, I thought it made an interesting contrast to the modern wannabe fighter in this piece written a couple of years ago, inspired by a lad in the village.
(And, yes, despite knowing very little about fighting of any kind, I do know that wrestlers and boxers are not the same.)
don't confuse the narrator 