Out of ideas

Reed and I are feeling very uninspired at the moment. Macbeth on the battlements, ‘To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day,’ uninspired, though I admit that at least we aren’t afflicted with the upheaval of nations and an entire wood-ful of critics. Merely minor illness, lack of sleep and entirely too much snooker. The blog needs feeding regardless of any not-particularly-extenuating circumstances, so we went for a dig in The Card-Board Box in the study. As I think I mentioned in a previous entry, Reed used to write poetry. And, possibly with a teenager’s wilful desire to humiliate her elder self, she kept them all. And today we found them.

I will not dwell on the Bob Dylan phase. Reed shares her birthday with the man and has never been entirely rational on the subject (she shares a birthday with Queen Victoria too and I don’t see her donning a lace cap to introduce the Christmas Tree to her puzzled subjects). There were however a great many ‘technical exercises’, sonnets, villanelles, sestinas, terza rima, some truly filthy limericks (I’m saving those for the future obligatory ‘drunk post’). A lot of these are rather fey unrequited-love-poems to the various young persons who pinged in and out of her fancy. We felt very wistful indeed after reading them. Where are all those pretty creatures now? Are they too tubbier, more creased, more inclined to regard a glass of wine and a hot bath as the epitome of a good evening?

Anyhow, you-all didn’t drop by to watch me staring off into the the distance and sighing like furnace. I have decided to post one ‘unrequited love’ villanelle Reed wrote at seventeen that I do know the sequelae of. And Reed? She has gone off to fiddle with the espresso machine. She seems a little self-conscious today.

Blind Paper

Blind paper holds these words of fire,
Crushed and set aside for burning,
And no-one need know my great desire.

With each mild letter I make myself a liar;
To end ‘with love’ is meant as warning:
Blind paper holds these words of fire

And I mean them as much as any heart-sick sigher
But I have no faith you share my yearning,
And no-one need know my great desire.

I would hand my poems to the Town Crier
If I could ascertain your heart’s turning.
Blind paper holds these words of fire;

‘Tis better so. I’ll find a buyer
Of silly love-songs for the undiscerning
And no-one need know my great desire.

But if you should ever of silence tire
And tell me… Well I cannot keep longing;
Blind paper holds these words of fire
And no-one need know my great desire.

14 March 1993

Reader, she married him.

Occasionally, when feeling terribly brave or terribly caffeinated (it comes to much the same thing), I shall be posting a poem or some such short work-in-progress for your amusement. I would very much like to invite criticism, please God constructive criticism. Obviously, I would love a bazillion people to all tell me my work is sublime and wonderful and incidentally, can they send me a cash donation and possibly some chocolate, but I am now very caffeinated indeed so I am asking for honest critical appraisal. Comments will be used to create a follow-up post. Discussions good. Me shouting into the void, not so good. Note use of word ‘appraisal’. Say ‘your poem is not very good, because the rhythm is all over the place and this metaphor is hackneyed,’ and I will cry and curse your very name but I will leave the comment up and maybe even think about it, and re-write, and re-post, and soon I’ll be calling you ‘Sensei’ and you will be calling me ‘Grasshopper’. Say ‘your poem sucks and so do you,’ and I will delete your comment with a tinkling laugh and tell all my acquaintances that you have improbably ugly genitals.

And if anyone else wants to join in and have their poem or prose be the star of the show, please send it to Editor at this blog. Don’t be scared. I swear she’s nicer to just about everyone else on the planet than she is to me.

And now for the poem. I wrote it several years ago, before my panic-stricken I-can’t-write-poetry-why-am-I-even-trying phase. If this goes well, you can expect a fresh poem next time.

Astronomer and Comet

Shining ice, written
Across the blackboard of night,
Silver word among
The punctuation of stars,
Unaware that I read you.

That blue planet there,
Spinning as I fall past it,
Is watching my path,
Its gaze as necessary
As the sun that makes me blaze.