An awful lot of rambling

So you come to the end, or getting close,
life becomes a ticking bomb and you're left
ruminating, (why do I think of cows munching grass?),
adding up all the life choices, wrong paths,
ill fated decisions and then compare
to the simple things, the things that now
I long for, bird song, squirrels and owls
hedgehogs and pheasant, a woodpecker.
I see life like the magpie colour
with the odd badly chosen colour thrown
haphazardly, with little thought, on
and a lack of symetry and spelling words
backwards because, just because its fun
and how we made up secret languages
and danced to horrible eurovision hits
that I can still hum today.
The sky is pearl today and ochre tones
splay in the autumn sunshine.
I feel like wearing burnt caramel
but I was unremittingly black today,
black shirt, black boots, black and gold skirt
and I played to an audience, I can do host
with strangers in a school hall
but it makes me think about love
and the sneaking feeling that somehow
it has always eluded me, or been short lived,
or perhaps just non existent.
I say I have loved and I have
children and dogs and cats, a donkey
my pony, then a horse, a goat and a guineapig
|I love early mornings and black coffee,
sometimes, Earl Grey, just the leaves
and barely steeped, then drunk with
scent filling my soul.
Ah, these maudlin thoughts but only to those,
I don't feel sad, just slightly bereft
I wonder who will light the charge
on this ticking bomb, ignite and
roll down like the slopes of my childhood,
down hills, cycling like a maniac
with no brakes to stop,
I wonder if love will follow me
and leave a dusty trail into
the maelstrom of nowhere.
Perhaps I have known such a great love
that when it ended, I numbed my soul
and skirted (skirting boards?), flitted
through life like an ephermeral ghost
creaking footsteps on my staircase of life.
I have loved, given and taken
I'm a slow moving truck
sliding unaccompanied on a hill,
or a dodgy fuse
or a firecracker that got left in the damp.
Perhaps I am just a parody of
a eurovision song, with dodgy dance moves
or that break, just at the top of an aria,
you know the one, that one
the one that tears your heart in two.
Or that song, send in the clowns,
you don't have to sing well for that one
just place your soul and let mascara tears
drip, slide, slip while I nip into the next cubicle
the one called au revoir




Poetry by Elle The PoetBay support member heart!
Read 396 times
Written on 2020-10-17 at 18:19

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Secret languages, spelling words backwards, Eurovision hits: yes. This is a poem to read and to re-read. Thank you for posting it.
2020-10-19


Christopher Fernie The PoetBay support member heart!
Dear Elle,

poetbay.com, like most social media platforms, is a community of remote souls: we write, we post, we comment, we keep in touch from afar. Who knows how we would have got on together had we been members of a face-to-face creative writing group!

Over many years you have been one of the most autobiographical poets on the 'bay', bringing your life story to the after-dinner table with great aplomb. I have enjoyed reading your work, not least because it is lyrical, romantic and life-affirming.

And you have not finished yet!

With best wishes,

Chris
2020-10-17


josephus The PoetBay support member heart!
A few of us here are of an age where this strikes home. It did for me. You write so compellingly that I was sorry when this ended. And it ended so stunningly.. au revoir! Masterful use of language and style!
2020-10-17