My past has caught me up: this afternoon
I checked my e-mail, as I always do,
and found a message from an old flame who
I hadn’t seen since school. Out of the blue
a bolt that sends me tumbling through the years
to adolescent angst and teenage tears,
to poems scrawled in chalk while classmates jeer
and playground fights that fade when Sir appears.
I was his One True Love, there’d be no other.
At sixteen I was far too young: I fled.
But now he’s tracked me down; who needs the men
from Pinkerton’s when Google is your friend?
(Though Google’s failed me time and time again
in my attempts to trace his younger brother.)
Tag: re-writing
seeing for yourself
As I’ve said before on the blog (of pigs and poetry), I’ve had in mind for years now to write a poem about la matanza, but have never actually witnessed a pig slaughter. I’d just about psyched myself up to do so this year, but when the time came, the neighbour and his helpers only hobbled the pigs with ropes and then drove them away squealing.
Even this tile – given me recently by a fellow poet who hoped, I think, that it would inspire me to finish the piece I took in to the writers’ group for commentary back in December – isn’t a lot of help as it doesn’t seem to show the actual killing.
I was reminded of the fact I was prepared to witness a slaughter in order to be able to write about it when I was reading during my coffee break this morning.
Continue reading “seeing for yourself”
dissecting a moon dream
I mentioned the conversation that triggered my wanting to write this piece in the post of poetry, maths and cars. Although it’s still no more than a fragment, it seems to have reached that annoying stage where it’s settled and doesn’t want to be shifted, although I am not happy with it.
The road stretches long into the night.
To their left, the belisha globe of the moon
rises behind mountains made ragged
by pines. He says, I’ve driven
to the moon and back three times at least.
She watches his steady hands on the wheel
and hopes he’ll take her with him next time.
the present poetic
I recently sent a very early draft of a poem to a friend for comments. The piece began:
Catless for too many years, I have forgotten
the building of trust. She spends an hour
pacing, investigating every wall and angle,
exploring draughts from window frames
and under each door, establishing
her points of exit.
Leaving aside criticisms of the participles and the prosaic nature of the verbs – it was a draft, after all – I am interested in the comment that was made after the break on ‘spends’:
Continue reading “the present poetic”
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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don't confuse the narrator 