Verse Portraits: March 2010

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, lapsing and resuming) pace. I've labelled these verse portraits, but they're more like quick sketches: mere glimpses, impressions....

Saturday, 6 March 2010

The Man in Malang

(Central Java)

He stepped
from a shop doorway,
stood.

Our eyes held.
Then I was past
in the taxi.

A fair woman,
considered beautiful
there.

And he
lean, dark,
piratical.

Not Indonesian.
Too tall, curly-haired ...
a mystery.

That was all
until, back home,
headline:

These men missing,
believed dead.
He, centre photo.

Portuguese engineers,
East Timor take-over
(1979).

Already escaped
that day?
Or

visiting
and went
back ... ?

[Poem #86]

Sharing this, years later, with Poets and Storytellers United for Friday Writings #149: The Joy of Walking Away. (Not exactly on prompt, which fortunately is not compulsory, but at least it involves leaving.)