writing – Page 27 – don't confuse the narrator

where are the words?

Although I’ve never made much of an effort to publicise this blog, over the years it has slowly acquired several hundred followers. Knowing that there are people who read it makes me feel more of a responsibility about weekly updates, and if I haven’t any ideas or haven’t got time to write anything, I’ll try at least to find a bright flower photo or something, just to reassure people that I am still around.

I feel guilty, then, when I fail to post anything at all, which is what happened last week.

I’ve been going back and trying to collate old poems and I’ve come across several I scarcely even remembered; this one seems particularly appropriate given the lack of recent words on the blog. So, here’s a poem for National Poetry Day:
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serial poetry

Currently, my mind seems as empty of poetry as the teasel head is of flowers. But I am used to the emptiness, and the idea of “writer’s block” is not something that particularly bothers me.

Recently, a friend said she would sometimes take “as long as eleven hours” to write a poem. She is a skilled writer, with many small prizes and multiple publications to her credit, so this clearly works for her. But her writing seems to be more methodical than mine, and I gather that she works on each piece diligently until it is complete before starting the next one.

This is not at all the way I work.
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forbidden favourites

Although most people agree that autumn starts with the equinox, which doesn’t fall for another week, it seems that Christmas is already looming, with cards on sale in the shops, and gift catalogues dropping through the letterbox. I never sign up for printed catalogues, but they arrive unsolicited, and offer temptations in the form of all sorts of trinkets and knick-knacks I never knew I needed.

Of course, once you start to buy gifts, some sort of wrapping is required. The latest catalogue offered this interesting set of gift bags:

Gift bag description: "sprinklied with irredecent glitter"

It’s not a charity I had ever thought of supporting, but if I had more time, I might be tempted to offer my proof-reading skills at a reduced rate.
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brown study

Well, it’s not the study itself that’s brown, but many of the small objects on the shelf are. Some are natural, others man-made; some were gifts, while others were picked up around the garden and elsewhere.
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swallows II

Dark blades slice through the air, turn
sideways to the sun, flash silver, turn
into bright fish that glide in endless blue.

There are no swallows in the picture as they move too fast for my limited photography skills. The sky, on the other hand, is never-ending blue and doesn’t pose the same problems.

The post title is “swallows II” because this is not the first poem I have posted about swallows.