You watched over me.
Adults were trustworthy then.
I liked our conversation, still do;
realised only slowly
others didn’t perceive you.
When I was 43, a magician friend
introduced me to his mentor.
You! So I learned
your name and identity.
Giver of writing, patron of poets,
great magician yourself.
And my friend; somewhat fatherly.
I’m told you are most correctly
named Tehuti, but I call you Thoth.
[Poem #52]
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....
Thursday, 28 August 2008
Wednesday, 27 August 2008
At the Book Fair
At the book fair
for self-published authors
my table was next to hers.
Happenstance?
We hardly stopped
talking and laughing.
She’d written her own
spiritual adventure
prose shining like poetry
in a hall of atrocious verse.
She was Crone, skinny 81,
wool cap around her ears
a light festoon of grey curls
embroidering her chin.
Age, she understood,
had made her whole.
We were sisters at once,
magickal.
[Poem #51]
for self-published authors
my table was next to hers.
Happenstance?
We hardly stopped
talking and laughing.
She’d written her own
spiritual adventure
prose shining like poetry
in a hall of atrocious verse.
She was Crone, skinny 81,
wool cap around her ears
a light festoon of grey curls
embroidering her chin.
Age, she understood,
had made her whole.
We were sisters at once,
magickal.
[Poem #51]
Tuesday, 26 August 2008
Dancing Partner
Looking back I see
a thin, slightly nervous boy.
Then, I saw tall, dark, handsome
and sophisticated. I was 17.
My friend’s party.
He, new in that crowd;
me, home on holiday:
each, to each
a glamorous stranger.
They had Buddy Holly’s
latest record, Rave On,
played it over and over.
We danced. The night was warm.
But Buddy died and I
flew away, back over the sea.
[Poem #50]
a thin, slightly nervous boy.
Then, I saw tall, dark, handsome
and sophisticated. I was 17.
My friend’s party.
He, new in that crowd;
me, home on holiday:
each, to each
a glamorous stranger.
They had Buddy Holly’s
latest record, Rave On,
played it over and over.
We danced. The night was warm.
But Buddy died and I
flew away, back over the sea.
[Poem #50]
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