Poems for an online writing course, 2009

POEMS FOR EMMA COLE'S ONLINE POETRY COURSE (January 2009)

Kennings, Cinquains and Haikus
Kenning = a two-word description, a riddle with two linked words per line.
Cinquain = a verse of 22 syllables in 5 lines with syllabic rule: 2, 4, 6, 8, 2.
Haiku = a verse of 17 syllables in 3 lines with syllabic rule: 5, 7, 5
- preferably making something clear in the final line.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

FLUNG STONE
A stone flung sudden
nearly grazed my flinching face
and flew to its nest.
(Sparrow swooping close)

SEED PODS
Looking at spring plants
she said, the seed pods are full.
- So are mine, I laughed.

FEBRUARY 14th

Up against a wall
heart-pounding knee-trembler bang:
Tommy-guns rattle.

[a reference to the St Valentine's Day Massacre in Chicago;
based on a long-abandoned draft for a Valentine poetry competion]


PUT AWAY
Christmas
decorations
tree & lights & fairy
left-over crackers put away
at last.

BABY
My child
sleeps, wakes and wails,
cries because awake, bawls
for breast, burp, play, rearranging,
changing.


MORNING
Johnny
fought to the end.
This funeral morning,
with his dry-eyed wife, preparing
butties.

PORTRAITS OF DEREK

Lib-dem candidate
(in the local elections)
Junior manager
(until the last recession)
Neat as a Mormon
(even when years out of work).
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
2 pencil sketches
(restarted, altered)
1 semi-formal portrait
(painterly, crafted)
1 "60-seconds" graphic
(vivid free-flowing paint lines):

He bought the last one
for the bright wildness
of his hidden self
(cheap at only a fiver!)

["extrapolated haiku" : 5, 7, 5, 7, 5, 7;
5, 5, 7, 5, 7, 7; 5, 5, 5, 7.]