Tag Archives: Separation

on light

If I can't see it
does this mean that I am blind
or you've dreamt it up?

~

n.b. We cannot win arguments about beliefs, it is a well-known fact.

CLP 03/05/2022

on friendship

at nights's darkest point
I woke knowing you were here
it wasn't a dream

~

n.b. How strange and lovely it is to feel another’s presence despite their absence. I woke, reached out and realised this presence was in my heart. I smiled, returned happily to sleep.

CLP 28/04/2022

Pillow Talk

Where were we when you said
It is okay for me to say "tu"?

I could not reciprocate, there is nothing
in English to convey such subtle change

That step from formal to familiar
From mannered speech to intimate

It exposed the Anglo-Saxon in me too
My lack of ease dealing in grey

My lack of language to express
Emotions too layered for me to grasp

Our travelling to and fro
Became too much

From me to you and you to me
To be apart meant to ache

To be together meant knowing
We two would soon have to part

When we reached where the way divides
We knew we'd take two different paths

~

n.b. NaPoWriMo 2022 Day Twenty-Two prompt: Repetition.

CLP 22/04/2022

Office

One of the darker months
The phone rarely rang
Her typewrite ribbon fresh
The keys unimpressed
Cartridge paper laid in the tray
Gathering a carbon copy of dust
Once the post was checked
Orders filed and queries placed in pending
She'd roll the chair under its desk
Lie on the floor
And sleep

Next door, under neon I sat each day
Writing out lists of prospects
From Kelly's Directory and Kompass
Industrial estate after industrial estate
Postcode by postcode
For the territory salesmen
Occasionally compiling a report
about small electrical domestic appliances
Or drafting the blurb that would sell
Slow cookers, steam irons, sandwich toasters
I turned up most days
Before the news of Lennon
I couldn't imagine

She and I spoke so rarely
I forgot her name, she mine
The thin-windowed false wall
Partitioned us
Her with perpetual weariness
Me with accumulating grief
I wonder still
What brought us together?

~

n.b. NaPoWriMo 2022 Day Twenty-One prompt: person / job / art / unanswerable question.

CLP 21/04/2022

Inexplicable

New moon over the lake
Perseids showering the peaks
Sheer
beauty
of
Creation
You had to be there


So very silly
Like children repeating
Poo
Wee
Willy
Bum
You had to be there


In the Arrivals hall
After unexplained delay
Waiting
Waiting
Waiting
Waiting
You had to be there


At the station
Unstoppable
I thought it strange
We had
had
a
plan
You had to be there


Lockdown over Europe
My body burned for you
Sunshine
spring
flowers
birdsong
You had to be there

~

n.b. NaPoWriMo 2022 Day Eighteen prompt: five answers to a single (unstated) question.

CLP 18/04/2022

on Ukraine xxiii

reading a poem
are you a star dancer or
dreaming of dancing?

~

n.b. Thank you for reading my poem. We don’t know each other, but I wish you well.

CLP 11/04/2022

on time

what is going on?
I have got all night, all day.
how long have you got?

~

CLP 06/04/2022

Elmer Sands

Vastness of sky
I float, a star on the shallow bay
Evening spreads; a deepening bruise
Nothing hurts for now
Tomorrow? Do not think of morning
Of waking

Darkness incoherent, bright follicles
Emergence of colours
Lights. There, the red of Mars!

Eventually this fades
Sea changes; follows the wind. I rise
Tomorrow will come, for better or worse
Even for us, my love

~

n.b. This provoked by the prompt from NaPoWriMo 2022: I have however, produced an acrostic from the first line of 'Crucijada' by Federico García Lorca.

CLP  06/04/2022

Absent Witch Constant Spell

within and without
about and above
on water in air
held by limbs of dark woods
spun out in high clouds
in setting sun and rising stars
broken moon on the lake
dancing through Alpine mist
sunk in thermal pools
strung out by pylons
with their infinite lines
caught in corners of rooms
by fine webs I'll be bound
while her butterfly wings no more can be found

~

n.b. Yes, it’s April again tomorrow and using prompts from those beautiful people at NaPoWriMo, welcome to the write a poem a day global challenge.

We have kicked off with an Emily Dickinson based prompt:

“The absence of the witch does not / Invalidate the spell”

n.n.b. Witches and their spells may be good or may be bad, but there’s always magic.

CLP 31/03/2022

on luck (on Ukraine xxii)

cold rain and Covid
are we heating or eating?
anything else?

~

n.b. Escape your oppressors, come to the UK. You’ll be welcomed with warm hearts once you have passed HM Border Force with your visa.

CLP 30/03/2022