new verse

a two-poem week, big news in these parts

[ok, not a big deal for my mate MC (http://www.peimic.com/; read the Thursday postings for his poetry) who manages at least two per day]

here's the first (second started, first finished):
(the second is here)

[title] Twelve seconds from Las Vegas

If I'd shaved off all the hairs from my legs,
or not paused to enjoy the sunrise;
If only I’d swum a little bit faster,
I’d be on my way to Las Vegas.

If I’d taken the spanner out of my bag,
or pumped more air in my tires;
If I’d crouched lower cycling into the wind,
I might be going to Las Vegas.

If I’d eaten just one more energy bar,
or maybe eaten one less;
If I’d tucked in tight behind runner seven twenty one,
I wouldn’t be twelve seconds short of Las Vegas.

fish of the day

cartoon in the Taipei Times:

new poem

(from poetry workshop in Didsbury Arts Festival)

Visitors must think you always wore trunks:
Pat's thin, young, athletic husband,
but you didn't of course, just on holiday,
and you weren't athletic and you weren't young
but you were thin,
so when the wasting disease came calling
you had nothing to give but yourself.

Married at 34 and a father at 37, 38 and 40,
you hardly played football with your sons
and never walked the Pennine Way
just swam from rocks once a year
your thin, white limbs dangling from the bright red trunks,
that elicit comments from Pat's fellow residents

She doesn't tell them these were working holidays:
one day of beach for six spent photographing
Northumberland churches
Welsh castles
or Ironbridge's iron bridge
black-and-white slides for your history students
who never saw the trunk-wearing you.

Photo after photo, coast after coast, year after year,
the same red trunks
the same black towel
with red, yellow and blue stripes
getting thinner and thinner
but never replaced.