Tag Archives: Mental Health

on poetry

Ink drawn down by a ball
Tracking the shapes of symbols
Forming letters, leaving words
That flowed down the arm
Impulses sparked from synapses
Passed out of the cranium
Onto a leaf of compressed tree
Watched through the eyes
Images impress on the retinas
Checked back into the head
Compared with the thoughts
Originated in a jumble
Memory, imagination, emotion
Characters coughed up from a character

~

n.b. NaPoWriMo 2023, Day Twelve: Where’s it from, what’s it about, what’s the point? Or something like that.

CLP 12/04/2023

Lights

On four separate pylons, one per corner
The things to look for, Proper Lights
Not strung out beads along the top of each stand

A symmetry of steel sentries attending the stadium
Perspective rotating the shining pins
As the train curves into town
Or the main road breaks into capillaries
Until proximity fixes the view

Neck craned I'd seek the service ladder
Wondering who had nerves steady enough
To climb, climb, climb, climb up
Change a bulb, weather the descent

Would he need to count the rungs up to do his work
And then again, count down until safely grounded
To help concentrate on scaling each spire
one hundred and thirty-four feet six inches high

Visible from the crest of Portsdown Hill
Lights that marked my Home, Pompey
Lights that turned Roker's terrace roofs silver
Or from the M6, over Birmingham
Lights arranged in two pairs A and V
How bright they were at Aston Villa

The No 19 moving slow on the High Road
Spilling passengers outside the ground
Beneath the illumination of White Hart Lane

At Barnsley, the lights' glow drawing the crowd
Into Oakwell over the gentle rise
gantries emerging from below
as we step closer through feeble snow

Easing into Crewe, Peterborough, Swindon, Ipswich
Eyes fixed on the lattice work
Head rotating to hold the sight
To note the architectural twists
to relive or dream

Another football ground for the lists
Been there: won, draw, defeat, abandoned, postponed
Not been there: next season if...or in the FA Cup

"I can see the lights"
I'd shrill as a child
And still, as a child
when no more a child

~

n.b. The NaPoWriMo 2023, Day 7 prompt a list poem, that is not quite a list, but has list poem qualities.

I have two lists on the go and I am not the only one.

CLP 07/04/2023

on time

three a.m. again
memories of you flood back
vixen barks in street

~

CLP 01/04/2023

Coast

westerly pulling at loose coat hoods
white horses whispering of rain
turnstones picking through kelp
gulls laughing from beachfront roofs
wet sand slowly filling in footprints
faint moon fading in morning azure
Venus sinking with all our hopes

~

CLP 30/03/2023

on colour

grey grey grey grey grey
grey grey grey grey grey grey grey
white blackthorn blossom

~

n.b. Thank goodness for the flowers on a day like this!

CLP 29/03/2023

on rain

caught on fresh buds
jewels refract glint of light
supplicant flowers

~

n.b. In England, as Spain, rain is becoming a rare commodity. A joy to feel it fall, fresh on skin.

CLP 28/03/2023

on time

looming in shadows
another month presses in
don't let it crush me

~

n.b. One day at a time, please, one day.

CLP 27/03/2023

on time

years ago we met
you couldn't find the right key
now, you play them all

~

n.b. Fantastic to regularly hear new music from https://contradusk.bandcamp.com/album/piano-selections-2015-2018

This link will take you to a retrospective collection of Michael’s own piano pieces.

CLP 26/03/2023

on Ukraine

recruitment drive posters
repeated lies in Moscow
swap son for a box

~

n.b. All recruitment campaigns for armed forces show healthy, fit, young people, looking confident; money, fun, patriotism, (death, killing and being seriously maimed are in the unwritten small print).

CLP 26/03/2023

on time

held by golden thread
improvised quilted patchwork 
stitches unravel

~

n.b. What is this ‘planned’?

CLP 24/03/2023