Poetry
What it’s all about, really.
Poems below, and an incentive to submit to the National Poetry Competition. Read all about it here.
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What it’s all about, really.
Poems below, and an incentive to submit to the National Poetry Competition. Read all about it here.
I wrote this poem about 20 years ago after a difficult Poetry Society AGM, the last one I ever attended personally. It was meant as a kind of manifesto for the organisation. It was first published in Acumen, then in my third poetry collection, The Way to Go, published by Loxwood Stoneleigh in 1999.
THE CARROT MAN
(for the Poetry Society)
This is no church, although we do divine
the soul, and those who enter here are urged
to wipe theirs on the tabulae outside,
to leave the purse-strings but bring in the purse.
This is no stock exchange, but you are free
to audit us. We deal in paper prophets
(at a loss, sometimes, for words). Come clean.
What’s in it for you? We run with foxes,
you with hounds. Canine kin, we scent
the dog-eat-dog about you when you bark
in language we’re not meant to comprehend,
but being linguists, do. It is no lark,
is it, that draws you to this lair? You’ve heard
the pen is mightier than the sword, and want
a piece of it. Here. Take it. Write a verse
if you can; a cheque, please, if you can’t.
This is no prison and you are no guard,
though it has come to that before and may
again – words on prison walls in blood
and a clear light shimmering, anyway.
(c) Leah Fritz
I published this poem in Poetry News about six years ago. Somehow I feel it wants to address itself to the present situation.
Can I Take Your Coat
Let’s work back through it all,
starting with the outer layers—
first, today’s residue, dark-eyes,
bad-feels, brushed aside only
to reveal a tissue of thorns,
too much history that could be
poisonous and needs to be removed.
What’s left, an indifferent varnish,
cracked like parched earth or dry lips
dissolves slowly in methylated spirit,
dabbed on with a cotton-wool bud.
Next, there’s a viscous pigment,
purple bound in egg, a clinginess
that spreads all over you and must
be pared away with a scalpel blade.
And then, at last, the original picture,
dove-white streaks on cobalt blue,
love’s wind in the sea’s feathers.
Log Jam
What clogs up the rivers
of the world
is being wrong
and stubbornly
holding on
until logs
and fallen trees
and all the other stuff
that floats down a river
piles up in a jam.
What releases the jam,
so a river
continues
on its course
towards the estuary,
clear and freely flowing
force of water
bringing nourishment
and energy,
is saying sorry.
Vicki Feaver – 14th July 2011