News: a suicide
far across the world.
I didn’t know him.
But I remember
his mother’s words:
‘O golden child
the world will kill and eat.’
It ate her first.
She never saw him grow
so like his father.
Didn’t know her either –
but through her poems
we think we know.
‘Famous because of scandal’
the know-alls say.
Perhaps.
But loved for her words,
beauty and passion
living on.
[Poem #64]
This began as a game some bloggers played in 2008, to write about people who'd made an impact, in the same number of words as one's age, every day for a year. I did them less often and went on longer, adding one word each birthday. I stopped in 2016 and incorporated them into my main poetry blog. In 2019 I resumed the project and gave it its own blog again, with a new name, where it may unfold at its own (slow, intermittent) pace. I've labelled these verse portraits, but they're more like quick sketches: mere glimpses, impressions....