I had a dream a while back where I was telling someone that I earned my living from writing – “But not my own words.”
No, it wasn’t an admission of plagiarism. I think it was a subconscious recognition of the fact that I am too busy translating to do very much original writing.
Continue reading “not my own words”
with primaries taut, they finger-tip
the contoured air, screeching
a splay-tailed upward glide to peakthen tuck – dip – swoop –
and skim the puddled mud,
gape-mouthed and hungering.
It’s San José – St Joseph’s Day – which is Father’s Day in Spain, and a bank holiday in parts of the country. It’s also the day that the swallows return to Capistrano, which is why I’ve chosen to post this poem. (Or, perhaps, this ‘poem draft’.)
Continue reading “swallows”
snowdust on the mountain;
weft of cirrus; along the bridle path,
a twist of lamb’s wool, bramble-caught.
(No photo of the lamb’s wool, I’m afraid – it looks awfully grubby when you try and take a close-up!)
Just a couple of hours to the east of us, in Madrid, the trees are already blossoming:
In fact, the blossoms are already shedding petals, which reminds me of Omar Khayyam:
And look a thousand Blossoms with the day
Woke – and a thousand scatter’d into clay
The round-shouldered cobblestones nudge
at my sandalled feet. They are smooth
as the pebbles that sang on an Anglesey beach,
as the present-from-Beaumaris paperweight
whose faded dragon still parades
across my desk. They are warm
as cottage loaves fresh from Powell’s,
or bakestones from the griddle. The gulls
shriek with the same harsh voice, but the river
is an unfamiliar olive green and runs
beside a motorway that leads me
away from you.
(Not a new poem, but appropriate for March 1st, the feast day of Dewi Sant.)
don't confuse the narrator 