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, lapsing and resuming) pace. I've labelled these verse portraits, but they're more like quick sketches: mere glimpses, impressions....
Wednesday, 10 February 2010
Sunday, 31 January 2010
His Ex-Wife
At first meeting, was glad
to see she looked old.
I was wearing my red jacket
and I wasn’t fat then.
Hearing her talk, liked
her forthright politics,
imagined being friends.
But how, disappointed in life,
could she like me?
(And I warmed
to one she despised.)
That was 18 years ago.
Her youngest tells me now
she’s near her end.
My stepchildren’s mother.
My love’s first love.
This stranger.
[Poem #84]
to see she looked old.
I was wearing my red jacket
and I wasn’t fat then.
Hearing her talk, liked
her forthright politics,
imagined being friends.
But how, disappointed in life,
could she like me?
(And I warmed
to one she despised.)
That was 18 years ago.
Her youngest tells me now
she’s near her end.
My stepchildren’s mother.
My love’s first love.
This stranger.
[Poem #84]
Sunday, 22 November 2009
Passing Stranger
‘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]
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]
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