FEATURED | Blog

There Was a Time I Wrote Poetry…

There was a time I wrote poetry. Then it turned itself off and prose returned.

If you write, have you ever had that happen? I’m not really even a fan of poetry and rarely read it for pleasure. And yet for probably a year and a half it simply came to me on a tram, or walking down the street, already arranged in three to five-line stanzas.

Three books came from that, roughly two hundred poems in each; Corner of My Mind, Broken Pieces and The Smell of Tweed and Tobacco. Here’s a sample from Broken Pieces. See if it speaks to you…

Big Boats

Big boats and big horses, alike
The same feel between the legs
of rising power, eagerness,
galloping across watery fields

This animate thing held in the hands,
rolls and plunges under me, alive
A forty-footer, close hauled and flying
Rail down in green water, she hisses
and wind hisses back from the shrouds

Shoulders braced against her wheel,
leg out, to ride the thrust of sloping deck,
so like a shying thoroughbred
The wind is unpredictable, un-tame
It lies peaceful and grazing, head down

Then pricks its ears, neck swinging up
to snort, reminding who has power,
who merely holds the reins, sits deep
in its roiling watery saddle, waiting

Then we’re off and hunting-horns sound,
sliding into blue-green troughs and rearing
A bridle full of halyards, lines snapped taut
She’s breathing hard, this bloodline
carries years of careful breeding

She knows her way to the finish, running free
Wanting only a quiet word, a restraining hand
stretched along her neck, trimming sheets
to show respect for all these animated forces

No patience now for faulty horsemanship
Bring her close to the wind and heel her over
Big boats need their head to bring you home

I can still write a poem if the circumstances call for one, but they no longer come as they once did, twenty years or more ago. And yet I like them, pull a volume down from my shelf from time to time and crack it open randomly, making myself smile.

RECENT POSTS…

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE…

The Dark Side of the Moon: Vol. 4

Jim Freeman’s views of American politics are salted with irony and lightly peppered by humor, a relief from the unending rants of the far left or far right and reasonably balanced by common sense. They’re here as Freeman wrote and published them at the time, unedited...

The Art of Writing Non-Fiction

Non-fiction is all too often ignored by the novice writer looking to be the next Hemingway or John Le Carre. But it’s a captivating and powerful form of expression that allows writers to delve into the realms of reality, explore human experiences, and shed light on...

This Whole Matter of Writing Limited to “Sensibilities”

There is actually a debate going on, among writers of all people, as to whether it’s useful to re-write history’s greatest works in order to protect the ‘sensibilities’ of readers. Those who come down on the side of ‘sensibility editors’ seem to feel it’s damaging to...

Culture is Born, not Declared

The thing about company culture is that it doesn’t make it happen by stating you have one. The culture we belong to has to do with our tribe (and I mean by that our close friends and associates), our background and history and the way we were raised. In the same way...