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....


Tuesday 21 April 2009

Best Be Nameless!

She’s an offence
looking to be taken,
a deprivation
eager to be felt.

He puts his foot in it
innocently again,
is surprised again
by the sudden
sobbing reproaches.

Petite, shapely,
curly blonde
girl-next-door,
she looks happy
and as pretty
as a Christmas angel.

She looks sweet,
uncomplicated.
All she wants, she says,
all she longs for,
is her father’s love.
She stabs him repeatedly
and twists the knife.



[Poem #73]

Wednesday 15 April 2009

'Grandpa Daddy'

The distant Grandpa,
the one I never met,
who lived across the water
like the rest of my Daddy’s
fabled, extensive family,
all those unknown
aunts, uncles, cousins.

I was grown
before I was told
of his love of the glass,
which took him so far
from Grandma.
A popular, dancing man,
charmer and flirt.

I still have the delicate
poem he wrote for me
when I was born.



[Poem #72]

Charming Billy

always looks joyous,
fixes my back quickly,
admires my vibrant shirt,
tells me that if I Google his name
– I already know, I’ll find
a noted American poet –
asks after the progress
of my own writing,
adjusts my neck adeptly,
says, 'That’s great,
get outa here!'
(American himself)
with a big grin,
adjusts the payments
to suit our budget,
treats every patient
as a treasured pal,
charms me.



[Poem #71]

Friday 10 April 2009

The Cardinal

Took him in dislike
the first / only time we met:
the Church’s rising star
chairing the prison inquiry;
attentive, serious, seeming to care.
(I represented reform.)

Nothing of course happened.
I saw his report: contrary
to his reassurances on the day,
leaning hard to conservative.

Since, pedophile scandals
he failed to act on;
banning gay worship.

'Pompous, arrogant…' says my husband,
watching him pontificate on TV.

Too right.



[Poem #70]

10 years later, the Cardinal – having risen very high in the Church – was himself convicted as a pedophile.

The Witch

Slender.
Long, dark hair.
Softly flowing clothes.
She came to my market stall
requesting an aura drawing.

Afterwards, on impulse,
I asked her telephone number.
When she wrote her name, I said,
'You’re X’s Tarot student!'
'And you must be
the mentor she talks about.'

I invited her into the coven.
She’d been a Solitary.
Years later, coven scattered,
we two still meet for coffee,
swap books and DVDs.



[Poem #69]

Thursday 9 April 2009

A MySpace Friend

I first fell in love
with her mysterious photos:
flowers, landscapes, self-portraits
washed with unearthly colours;
still think her blue period
most beautiful of all.

Then I started reading
her words, at once mystical
and confessional – a journey
through alcohol, recovery,
depression, regeneration …

and permanent paths:
the friendships, the art,
while holding fast the hand of God.
Full lips, long hair, soft heart –
yet a warrior!



[Poem #68]

Tuesday 7 April 2009

Peggotty

Forty years all but one day
older than me.

Soft fat woman,
voice like honey.

Lying gowned in flowing purple
one liqueur chocolate
in smooth fingertips.

Musk and lavender wafting
from a cushiony bosom.
A yielding cheek for kisses.

Her garden had swings
and winding paths,
nooks for hide-and-seek
among rhododendrons.

Gave me '18 Poems
by Dylan Thomas'
one shared birthday –
1962, my 23rd. I have it still.



[Poem #67]

The Man at the Next Table

Hardly noticed at first
absorbed in coffee and book
then the phlegmy cough intruded
loud, recurrent, unscreened by hand.
I raised my book higher between us.

Elderly. Weathered.
Baseball cap, t-shirt, work shorts.

Laughter. Interjections.
Was he communicating
with wife or friend at the counter?
Followed his gaze. No-one. But …
ah! someone invisible in the other chair.

Met him walking later.
Not so old after all. Maybe 50.




[Poem #66]

Cross-posted from my poetry blog The Passionate Crone, where it appears as: 2009 April Challenge 6.

Sunday 5 April 2009

Enemy Alien

I was fifteen.
My posh new stepmother
drawled with rounded vowels.
Stank.

Scent heavy, sickly.
Eventually I understood
it overlaid
the reek of spirits.

Stout stomach;
fluttery, floral
afternoon-tea-party frocks.

She stole the dress
Mum bought me,
sold it for charity.
(Someone saw.)

Hid my most treasured books
under the hedge
to rot in the rain.
Blamed my little brother.

Yes,
she was mad.
I’m alive, she’s dead.



[Poem #65]