My Poetry.

Well, it’s My Poetry, such as it is…

I thought it might be an idea to put my own stuff on its own page, though it’s also elsewhere on the blog. There’s not a lot yet, but it’ll grow slowly – possibly.

I have no real talent for poetry. Sometimes, though, something will pop into my head almost fully formed, needing only a final polish. These happened that way, but it doesn’t happen very often.

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I have remembered a thing…

A time when dawn never came unbidden, or too early; when snow could never be too deep or crisp; when the jingle of harness and the clink of milk-bottles announced the coming day, in counterpoint to the dawn chorus of birds not yet decimated by chemicals and prairie farming, and the clatter-scratch of the knocker-up, as he trod his round, come balmy dew or raging storm.

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A time when lust and love ran side by side in my blood, and neither were sated too often; when people were old at 50, and for ever; when summer sprang to full bloom between July and September, and the seasons ran, orderly, in their allotted spans. When autumn gales boomed through the streets, demanding combs and kites, and fish and chips came in yesterday’s newspaper, all the better for it, and scratchings were free.

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A time, when small children raced in the streets, heedless of a mother’s cries to stay close – and never came to harm; when little kids really did hear sleigh-bells at Christmas, which wasn’t Xmas; when people were nice to each other, and to themselves – a lost art; when a skinned knee was a major disaster, and major disasters happened to someone else, thousands of miles away, and the world was unimaginably huge.

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A time when my blood sang brightly in my ears, lying quietly abed, waiting for sleep, and my bones rode easily within my flesh; when pain was a sudden, and fleeting, thing – here, and goneforgotten in a flash; when the footfalls of midnight mice rang like thunder, in the days before thunder came to sound like the footfalls of mice, and when each new day was joyfully greeted as a friend, to be enjoyed, not cursed as an enemy, to be endured…

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I have remembered – how it was not to be old…

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OK, I’m not that old, but I was having a bad day! It was prompted by a Guardian article claiming that some up-market restaurants were tarting up scratchings and charging absurd prices (scratchings are the bits of batter that litter the fryer after frying fish – if not removed they’ll burn and taint the oil, and they’ve been traditionally given away since god was in short pants as they are a waste product and have no value, except as a goodwill gesture to customers).

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And this one was for an ME website poetry page (and a really bad day), which seemed to be overrun with enforced jollity. Hey, my life may be shit, but I’m not depressed, was the main message implied, while every word written gave the lie to that, so I thought a little reality was in order:-

Intimations of mortality…

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This is the way we go on.

One day at a time, one meal at a time, one pain at a time.

We turn away from all our fear, for to acknowledge it would be to imbue it with certainty.

We eschew our demons, denying them lest, in their reality, they destroy us.

But they are us, and may not be denied with impunity but, still, we try, we try.

We do not turn, as the hollow footsteps near, echoing down time’s passages,

Or at the distant swish of scythe, ever closer, as if, by our disregard, they will become unreal.

Who knows, perhaps they will?

For now…

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I’ve had a rethink about the last one, and I feel that this works better:-

Intimations of mortality…
This is the way we go on.

One day at a time, one meal at a time, one pain at a time.

We turn away from our fear, for to acknowledge it would be to imbue it with certainty.

We eschew our demons, denying them lest, in their reality, they destroy us.

But they are us, and may not be denied but, still, we try, we try.

We do not turn, as the hollow footsteps draw near, echoing down time’s passages,

Or at the distant swish of the Reaper’s scythe, as if, by our disregard, they will become unreal.

Who knows, perhaps they will?

For now…

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This one was written for my own website (PWME = Person with ME), as I was emerging from the bleakness of an ME relapse, and on the verge of a new relationship (at least that’s what I thought at the time – turns out I was wrong on both counts):-

Pwme’s Blues…

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There are only so many tears you can cry
‘Til your heart stops breaking

So many nights, without sleep
‘Til the dawn’s pale waking

So much hurt to be borne
As the sun mounts the sky

Will the burden this day
Prove so hard that you die?

Would you live for tomorrow?
Your heart soar like a dove

If the chance came along
Could you live, would you love?

If the chance came your way
Could you seize it with glee?

Give it all that you can
And cry fuck you! ME…

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I’ve never been happy with the ending of that, but nor have I found anything better than the expletive for encompassing the anger and frustration that ME can cause.

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An experiment with the haiku form:-

My Home…

Bricks in three tiers

Piled near the road

Though Spring, my soul withers

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Garrison Keillor writes of a Japanese form, the zazu, which is a three-line form, like the haiku, but without the strict 17-syllable format. Sadly, it doesn’t exist. It should, though, as imposing the 17 onji (phonetic symbols), of the Japanese haiku onto English as 17 syllables is plain foolish. Not that what I think will change anything!