Tag: original poem

reflection

On rainy nights the streets
are twice as bright. Light runs
in rivulets down pavements, streams
along gutters, swirling into storm drains, drips
from balconies and falls, dimpling
puddles.

 
 
(This is really only a true observation where there are streets with cars and street lights. Out here in the middle of nowhere, it seems to have been raining constantly for as long as I can remember, and there are no such cheerful lights to be mirrored and multiplied. Country living does, of course, have other compensations, but at the moment my mind is too waterlogged to think of them.)

nine lives

A friend has told me that, before he started discussing poetry with me – by which he probably means before he started listening to me rant about it – he thought poetry was mostly about “kittens”. By which he definitely means hearts-and-flowers and Hallmark-style fluffy kittens.

There is far too much bad cat poetry out there. I don’t mean Roger McGough’s Bad, Bad Cats, which contains gems such as The Cats’ Protection League; I mean the self-indulgent, fluffy stuff that gets me ranting about poetry.
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new year, old writing

John Hayes’ 2010 horoscope for Gemini tells me it’s

an excellent time for writing, asserting your views and for catching up on your paperwork. However, if you identify too closely with your views, you may take a difference of opinion too personally and so there is the potential for disputes and disagreements

That’s a neat reminder about the difference between the writer/ narrator and what is written. And it’s not always just the reader who forgets this distinction. Paraphrasing Hayes: If you identify too closely with your writing, you may take criticism too personally.
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new year

Orion
greets the new year
with open arms

 
One thing I love about writing, is that it forces me to learn. I’m limited to my phone camera at the moment so was looking for a copyright-free photo to put alongside this piece, and I’ve ended up discovering lots of things I probably should have known about Orion, but didn’t.
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Boxing Day

on a foreign shore: icing-tipped waves
toss tinsel into the clear air. We play
at Wenceslas in the sand, taking it in turns
to be the page. We look for sea holly and sing
carols under the curious gaze
of a parrot in a palm tree.