The Phone Rang

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The Phone Rang

The phone rang. Somebody said
I had to return home at once.
He was in intensive care.
He had been better, why this now?

I had to return home at once.
I would take the six o’clock train.
He had been better, why this now?
They’d said he’d be home for Christmas.

I would take the six o’clock train.
She was there, she was with him.
They’d said he’d be home for Christmas.
I needed to see him and he would be better.

She was there, she was with him,
so I couldn’t talk to her.
I needed to see him, he would be better.
He was recovering, or so they’d said.

No, I couldn’t talk to her.
He was in good hands.
He was recovering, or so they’d said.
He must have known I was coming.

He was in very good hands.
That was as much as they would tell me.
He surely knew I was coming.
Everything would be OK now.

That was as much as they had told me.
I was standing on my threshold.
Everything would be OK now.
I saw my mother and understood.

I was standing on my threshold.
The dining room was full of people.
I saw my mother and understood why
they’d wanted me to come home at once.


This pantoum was my Week 4 assignment for How Writers Write Poetry.

At the Cinema

I am at the cinema. The screen lights up. There are words on it and the words suddenly come alive. The words are dancing and spinning. Some are very bright, others flicker and fade out. Some are big and bold and take over. Others are happy to stay in the background, tiny and barely legible. Those are the important words, I am thinking. If I could only read those words, I would find out why I am here. At the back of my mind something is nagging, a faint memory, like a badly remembered tune. There is something familiar about the words dancing on the screen. It is as if they had once been mine, it is as if I had owned them once. Could I have written this? No, that is impossible. I don’t see myself in the movie any more. I have completely disappeared from this poem, I have faded out. These words are bold, free and independent. They have been loosened into the world. There is nothing I can do now to control them. I have become a mere spectator, one of the many people sitting in the dark room, watching the movie play out. I am nothing to this poem now.


These two poems are my assignment for How Writers Write Poetry, Week 3. They both speak about the same "incident", a crazy dream I had.

Poetry

This is my How Writers Write Poetry Week 3 assignment. The challenge was to use the whole page. Here I have rewritten one of my NaPoWriMo Day 27 poems.

This is what the original version of the poem looked like:

A Month of  Poetry

Needle
and thread.
Words on a string.

Stacks
of lines
like cracked china.

Need
to forgive
myself these transgressions.

The Termites, Version Two

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The Termites

I blame it on the termites.
I can hear them rustling at night.
In the morning I can’t find my stuff.
My thoughts, so coherent the evening before, lose all structure.
Things i wrote in my notebook during those dark hours make no sense.
some letters are missing and i can’t read my handwriting



This, second version, of The Termites is the result of some silly experimenting I did during Week 2 of How Writers Write Poetry.

And here's the original version:


I blame it on the termites.
I can hear them rustling at night.
In the morning I can’t find my stuff.
My thoughts, so coherent the evening before,
lose all structure.
Things I scribbled in my notebook
during those dark hours
turn to gibberish.
Some letters are missing
and I can’t read
my handwriting.

The Dog, at Night

The Dog, at Night

He barks, he howls,
he announces his presence.
The noise is his message.
As long as he walks his rounds in this street,
there’ll be no sleep.



How Writers Write Poetry, Assignment One