‘Frankie don’t dance’
his T-shirt says
and I’m sorry
for anyone who so restricts
his own joy,
so afraid of release
he fends it off
before it starts to begin.
‘If I can’t dance
at the revolution,’
Emma Goldman is said
to have said to Lenin,
‘I won’t come.’
Now that I like!
Me, I ain’t got
rhythm, trip over
my feet, and yet
I love to swirl and tap.
[Poem #83]
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....
Sunday, 22 November 2009
Tuesday, 6 October 2009
The Girl from Brazil
(Market Client)
I did psychic readings at Sunday markets,
I did psychic readings at Sunday markets,
approx. 1995 to late 2013.
Soft, young,
excited by life.
I feel, empathic,
the suppressed fluttering
of breath wanting to surge.
A dentist in Brazil,
here she must study
again another year;
doesn’t complain, enjoys.
She longs for love.
I’m glad to see it coming
though not just yet.
First she will visit home.
'In March,' she agrees.
I see the large, warm family,
her brother’s new baby.
Smiling, she’s love
waiting to happen.
[Poem #82]
Soft, young,
excited by life.
I feel, empathic,
the suppressed fluttering
of breath wanting to surge.
A dentist in Brazil,
here she must study
again another year;
doesn’t complain, enjoys.
She longs for love.
I’m glad to see it coming
though not just yet.
First she will visit home.
'In March,' she agrees.
I see the large, warm family,
her brother’s new baby.
Smiling, she’s love
waiting to happen.
[Poem #82]
Old Colleague
'I need a new photo,' she says,
'To replace that one you took
nearly twenty years ago.'
On her website the new one
shows her whiter-haired,
still smooth-faced and lovely.
Upper Yarra Valley
Neighbourhood Centre.
Educators, enablers.
Our shared philosophies
expanded each other’s
gifts: teaching, writing.
Life moved us;
we never forgot. Now
her best friend turns up here.
Rapturous reunion
via email. We swap
news, our latest books.
[Poem #81]
'To replace that one you took
nearly twenty years ago.'
On her website the new one
shows her whiter-haired,
still smooth-faced and lovely.
Upper Yarra Valley
Neighbourhood Centre.
Educators, enablers.
Our shared philosophies
expanded each other’s
gifts: teaching, writing.
Life moved us;
we never forgot. Now
her best friend turns up here.
Rapturous reunion
via email. We swap
news, our latest books.
[Poem #81]
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