poetry diary

This is a poem I wrote nearly 25 years ago, in 1986, which I am going to rewrite in the next few days in response to a prompt from we write poems. It reads as a little artificial to me now, but I do still like the gentle rhyming and its simplicity, and I think I just allowed the words to flow with the rhythm. I was doing an engineering degree at the time, if this is any excuse (?). It’s a bit odd seeing how long ago this was – and I still exist (and write poems)!

Existence but a line
in the poetry of the world.
Love no more than a rhyme
in a stanza of life’s ode.

The soft consistent beauty
of every grain and cell,
a source of constant bounty
for all to read and tell.

In myriad interpretation
verses might shift and change,
but no sum of contemplation
can rearrange the page.

One instant understanding,
time then turns your head,
and views always appearing
in different hues are read.

Seek not imposed uniqueness –
the words alone are fixed.
For each in their uniqueness
to diff’rent meanings led.

© 1986 Matthew Rhodes

This poem is a response to the weekly prompt on Big Tent Poetry. It started as a list poem, but became slightly distracted.

A tin of beans, to start;
three types of leaf for lunch;
garlic cloves, for your heart,
and a biscuit thing, to munch.

…crunch.

Two bottles of red – stop
right now, that is enough
to last a week, so drop
those thoughts of bacchante.

…tough.

A toothbrush and shampoo –
back on track, you can pack.
Mushrooms – there are too few!
go back and find the rack.

… smack!

Watch the toddler on the floor
his mum’s nearby, so what’s the fuss?
OK, I will obey the law;
come quietly and hey, no cuffs!

… gosh..

this prison cell is not so posh.

© 2010 Matthew Rhodes

The first line of this poem comes from “To believe in mermaids” by Donald Harbour, and is a first experiment in linking with others, prompted by We Write Poems Prompt #34

To believe in a mermaid
is to create waves that brush the rocks,
and gently rock the boat –
at first only at night, in the silence of the small hours,
and smallness of your room.

The waves that brush the rocks,
wash away memories and worry cracks,
seeping into pools, bubbling,
and outlasting tides, trap shimmered scales in sunlight,
averting eyes and tempting glances.

Shimmering scales refract
sky and sun and air, distorting perceptions,
drawing on and in and out.
And suddenly there are new relationships –
the vastness of the world.

To believe in a mermaid,
is a start.

©2010 Matthew Rhodes

This ending year compressing all that’s gone before
stops, in the end, quietly, like a mouse reaching home,
and vanishes, suddenly, down the hole. It’s gone
leaving a moment, only, of emptiness suspended.

We face the void.

This New Year will be different. The words unwritten,
and unread, can tell new tales; open new doors, release
promises made before, and stronger dreams. Each dream
hangs above certainties, solid in predictability, and dead.

I’ll take the chance.

There’s been time enough to think. Time enough indeed:
I have talked, consulted and discussed. I know the score;
the best guesses, lost youth and failed promise. Potential
untapped, effort unmade. You had your chance.

I want one more.

Now I know. Shadows at least. How could I be so wrong
before? When the world was an oyster and the fork
poised in hand, without training or love, meaning nothing.
Now I have it all, and must restart. The die is cast.

In with the new.

Time passing, like a car on icy roads;
‘an accident waiting to happen,’ they say
But they are not in the car, like me and
you – deliberately heading for
that patch of frozen snow. Murky
in the gloom.

At least the pond beyond will be
refreshing.

If we survive.

Turn the wheel,

Now.