original poem – Page 84 – don't confuse the narrator

sea sounds

While I was in the south, I managed to get an hour or so to walk along the marine parade at Alicante, which is as good an excuse as any to post this old piece, written in response to a challenge to write a favourite joke as a poem:
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progress

Hemmed in by mountains,
they built church spires –
antennas to speak to God. Now,
high-rise office blocks and flats
impede the signal.

(The village in the photo has grown enormously since I first visited seven or eight years ago. The pine on the left of the picture kindly obscures the crane perched up on the heights in the north, while the one on the right obscures the modern apartment blocks that remain unfinished to the south east, victims, apparently, of the crisis in the Spanish construction industry.)

night noises

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.

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insomnia

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.
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first day of autumn

I really intended to post this yesterday – on the last day of summer. It’s a glass half-full or half-empty thing.

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?)
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