Verse Portraits: Friday Writings

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....

Showing posts with label Friday Writings. Show all posts

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.)

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]

Sharing, 17 years after writing, with Poets and Storytellers United, for Friday Writings #222: Legacies. This lady's whole self was her legacy. (I started writing a new piece about her, then remembered I had this.)