Hurtled downstairs
into my arms.
‘Where are you reading next?’
Three old fellows
fawning around her
shrivelled. She
was oblivious. (Fools
hadn’t seen her with beautiful
young man earlier,
dark to her ash-blonde.)
First night I heard her,
advised quietly:
‘Don’t apologise.
Your words are good.’
She nodded wide-eyed.
I was celebrity guest,
she was starting.
Four years later
she enchants children
(poetry as magick)
is Festival Director.
[Poem #85]
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....