Escalation

Escalation Climbing up the down escalator. Mounting anticipation, you are somewhere up there. Start off at full speed but by half way flagging. No longer the energy to climb further against the downward flow of stairs. Then spot you coming down the up escalator. You begin to stall, too. To my dismay, standing face to […]

February Prompt – ANTICIPATION

  So. You’re going to a party. You don’t want to go but it turns out much better than expected. That seems to be the way anticipation works – and it happens this way, too: You’re going on holiday. It’s going to be great. It isn’t. But there are other ways a poet sees it happening. Here’s a […]

The Glass Blower

The Glass Blower I could be a glass blower! And I would blow beautiful shapes, Watching bubbles forming, In the hot glass, I would watch bubbles fizz, And dissolve into smaller shapes, And from within, I would watch hot dyes, Infuse and diffuse, Forming beautiful colours, The glass would light up, Into its new shape,

Wilton Place, Dublin

  Wilton Place, Dublin    Every bit the country gentleman back then. Tweed jacket, twill trousers. Shoes well polished. Courteous manners. And quiet. So quiet he never said much about himself, only about his class or possibly a student. Most of these were flighty Spanish girls who chattered like parakeets, sent for safety to a […]

Lost for words

Lost for words “Here today, gone tomorrow.” That’s what we often say in our office, such a rapid turnover of staff. But not about him. He was “here for the duration,” really “had his feet under the table.” Or so it seemed. In fact, he was here yesterday, gone today. Paramedics roared up, lights flashing, […]

February Challenge 4

  People you have worked with… their idiosyncrasies… their effect on you. Here’s a poem by Michael di Placido: http://www.poetrypf.co.uk/michaeldiplacidopoems.html Former colleagues…    

Loyalty (this was from the prompt, but it took me somewhere else..)

  He was your animal twin, wilful and independent, nothing lap-dog about him, always running on the perimeter of distance a human voice could call him back from.   Something geometric in the positioning between you, a kind of invisible thread making time, distance and solid matter irrelevant. I swear, when you were away he […]

NO TITLE YET

The man from the Council papers the sky with regulations to make it look square. His clipboard is his insurance against pouring concrete into crevices where worms used to make wishes. A name badge is authority to melt tarmac over knobbly bits of earth where blackbirds left footprint kisses. Straightening the lines where things came […]

Digging

Digging Bring down the albums one by one from the shelf, leaf through page after page of photographs. Click onto further images held on computer. Faces, places preserved. Movement and voices, too, on video. Moments in time recorded for future reference. Fragments of the past to be picked up, sifted and pieced together like potsherds […]

February Challenge 3

  Picking things up off the ground. Here’s a poem by Anthony Thwaite: http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=1707 Not necessarily a poem about archaeology, but something you can pick up off the ground, take home. Maybe even treasure.