She sat down beside me,
as I waited on the southbound platform
for a train my ticket would let me catch.
She looked a perfect match -
for someone at the top of their game -
shame.
She said she was a lawyer
in the city, I saw a barrister's wig
riding on the Metro from Gateshead to
the Toon. I wrote her in my
notebook, so that I could hate her-
later.
She had a place in North Umbria,
I pictured her clothes in Wooler
or Shilbottle, and smiled a little.
So, smiling back, she flicked a
northern smut from off my shoulder -
bolder
than the northern girls
I know. She asked me what I did:
I said I’m a Guerrilla
Writer.
'Dian Fossey?' Still, a
smile played on her glossy lips:
she dangled a shoe from
her toes.
And she asked me next if
I was married or a lonely writer
and I said no to both her questions.
Then she took the train southbound
and her first class seat for the city -
pity.
Comments
Lorraine_Mace | October 26, 2007 - 12:30
www.lorrainemace.com
Very clever and entertaining. Much deeper than it seems on first reading. If you really haven't been published I cannot understand why not.
Ewan | October 26, 2007 - 14:22
Kind words, gratefully accepted. No,I really haven't been published. I did a CW course with the OU this year. I do now have a growing pile of rejections though.
crush | October 29, 2007 - 10:00
I like the poem - I think it is clever and tricky but it works.
Are you sending stuff to small mags?
Crush
Ewan | October 29, 2007 - 10:13
Yes, but it's a bit hit and miss. Everyone wants exclusive use, naturally, and, living in Spain I can't get my hands on any hard copy magazines. I'm pretty much stuck with E-mail submissions. I have quite a few rejections. Nil desperandum!
regards Ewan
Daffni | October 29, 2007 - 14:30
Daffni
Cymru am byth
http://www.meirionnydd.f9.co.uk
I really enjoyed this. It tells a story in a clear consecutive fashion and metrically with those stanza end rhymes as almost a kind of exclamation mark. Very clever.
And, having just been reading the forum posts on form, doesn't this show that free verse does not have to be formless?
anipani | October 31, 2007 - 09:11
anipani says i thought that the flow of this was great, very entertaining read, and one day, i want to be able to write as well as this. love the style, jsut love it. ani