Nothing Easier

It’s been a long time since I last posted any poetry, probably because I still harbour the hope that some of the poems will get published in magazines and hardly any of them accept poems that have been published on your blog anymore. But this weekend I spent some time going through my notebooks and collating all the random fragments from workshops, slivers of early morning inspiration or even just fun notes to self, so I thought I could share some of these oddities in the weeks to follow, in among the book reviews and Friday glimpses of houses to yearn over.

Nothing Easier

than writing a poem.
Just follow the instructions.

Bring righteous indignation
and slam it hard on the table.
Remember to temper your anger
By using capital letter
At the start
Of every line.
Use a list format.
Keep adding to the list.
Use lots of pages – there are
trees to spare on this planet.
Besides, repetition is the mother of all good writing.
Be forever mournful, waiting and watchfully wanting.
Vary your line lengths.
And sentences.
Include animals from all over the world, with Latin names,
but not ones we might have heard of like equus.
Don’t forget to describe in detail their plumage,
anatomy, habitat and make connections
in unlikeliest of places to prove your erudition.
Finally, end with geographical incantations,
fade out to that most melodious of exotic place names
Zanzibar.

Open Link Night: Fragmented Poetry

I’ve not been feeling very inspired to write poetry lately, so it’s been just the odd line or fragment which I’ve jotted down. So, with apologies for the very rough nature of this poetry, here is my contribution to Open Link Night over at dVerse Poets Pub. For far better poetry than this, please check out the other contributions there.

There’s a reason to this rhyming

and a pattern to my longing

if only I could uncover it.

* * *

I don’t want you to be as you were at the start.

I want you to be like you never were

the spark I thought I caught in you.

* * *

In the midst of this scorched landscape

infected pools simmer.

There are rare pockets of days that have not

had sunlight drained out,

days when I can sit on a terrace

with a coffee made by someone else

and think of ceramic exhibitions

without using cracked glaze as a metaphor.

* * *

Can this be the end

if it’s of something which never was?

You never promised me a rose garden but

I thought all that scrabbling around in dirt

would lead to some flowerful weeds along the way.