Assorted Poetry
During the last year I have found myself turning more to poetry to find inspiration as a reader and a writer (even if it is years since I actually published anything). Here are a few observations upon 2020 as well as miscellaneous scribings from previous years, often reflections on geographical or age related journeys.
'When we travel again' (long poem - opens in a new window)
Fault lines from the ‘Covid Interregnum’ (haiku and short poems opens in a new window)
'Novel Imprisonments'
The worlds
Inside our head
Hostage to new
Subject conditions,
Narrative flows
Suspended
Upstairs characters are
Left outwith authorial instruction
Unsure of their crimes
Staring at paintings
Maddened by the lack of facial Recognition.
History has unmasked us
Exposed plot continuity
Found us lacking skills
In forensic deduction,
It was there in the script
If we’d read ahead
In the present tense
Not the future past perfect.
Now survival steps
Back in the frame
Venturing out
To check what happened
In the spaces we used to share,
Amidst the heather and granite
The North remembers
The tithes and tides
That have weathered, drained
Scoured the land
For complicit hands
To be immune
From the herd
When the stampede
Occurs.
Something has come between us
Silky voices, protection rackets, Glove puppets
Gravity has bent us over
Compressed our friends,
In foetal positions
We tick boxes
Hang on their words
How we are all authors now
Except those index finger linked
In the blame game
Awaiting more backbreaking News.
Meanwhile
Narrative coups are afoot
Accelerated character Development
In this alternate reality
Spring is an alarming presence,
Hermit birds no longer
Sit silent on the fence.
We find ourselves in
Odd shoes
Morning dressing gown
Routine swish of coffee
Scattering corn
Turning leaves and twig
Earthing ourselves
From the shocking possibilities
Of clearing skies.
Blood trails have been swept
Free for swallows and kites
Healing rain forecasted
Murmurations of
New beginnings.
Late April 2020.
(c) J.Purkis
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Miscellaneous poems
Birthday Letters
Bundled by limp plastic bands
Under a pair of old gardening trousers
So much is retained
In the Woolworths plastic bag
Memory presses of thrifty calligraphy
And Saturday morning sweet smells,
Retracing the journey
The warm welcome of the
Creaking attic steps.
How we miss them
Their there-ness
Wrought from the slow times
Of the day scheduled
Appointment with kitchen table
Best tea and ink employed
The Home Service
Always relied on.
When friends forgot or had replaced us
With curt electronic missives
Catch ups became decades
Kisses, best wishes.
Unfolding their considerations
As the garden gate clangs
Now the dogs are silent
Forced to work the
Bare bone economy
At the lack of friends
To get their teeth into.
Here they are again
In pastel wash glory
Love guaranteed under cover
In print
We commit to what rumour
Cannot ruin
Out there the purity
Is visceral
Feral
A writer’s trespass,
Along permissible heathery paths
We beat our retreats
Time’s emotional backpack
Joggling our
Balanced
Literary waits.
Looking up, there’s Hughes again
Left on the shelf
Of feminist purgatory
Saving his get out claws
For a last reposting
Yet the hope of ‘Fulbright scholars’
Leaves me gasping again.
By the recycling bin
I let them go
A fistful of love
Palm extending
To the next generation
Blessing the day
Your day.
(C) J Purkis. March 2019.