I have completed the Oxford Online Short Course in poetry writing, which has been a hugely enjoyable challenge.
The exercises have been well out of my comfort zone, and the products have included an elegy:
Destiny
What will survive of me but some flakes of skin,
stray hairs on a comb or a photo in
a long neglected book. Still, hopefully,
when I lie there crowned in mournful lilies,
they will reminisce on moments of bliss,
a wealth of achievements and kindnesses.
Or is destiny a dirge in the dark?
Like a pervert crouching poised in the park.
A sonnet
A Day at the OfficeIt’s important that we do not forget,
despite the resentment that’s left unsaid
and the hellishly dull conversationswhose point is their lack of destination,
we all enjoy a fortune that’s likely
as a snail crossing the Serengeti.
Almost every single office supply
from the coffee machine to the WIFIrouter, is a historic rarity,
manufactured in some Chinese citywhose streets teem with unwritten poetry,
as the attractive new secretary
helps to load the printer the proper way
like how people once put kids in mass graves.
A villanelle
Villanelle on an English Dinner Party
For people who seem to talk about everythingfrom Chaucer to the price of coke,
they never actually say anything.
They tend to suppress their innermost feelings,and stick to predictable tropes,
for people who seem to talk about everything.
Though they'll claim to have had a wonderful evening
around the electric piano,
they never actually say anything.
They pour their hearts into the organising,
but the truth is in what they withhold,
for people who seem to talk about everything.
A chunk of their household outgoingspays for this, but it only shows
they never actually say anything.
They avoid topics like sex and dying,till one day they finally explode.
For people who seem to talk about everything,
they never actually say anything.
and a sestina
Sestina on the Shadow Industry
On the outskirts of town there are factories,
and in them they manufacture shadows,
professionally stacked in containers
to be shipped everywhere. In reality,
the more you think about the shadows you buy,
the more respect you have for all the work
that made them. Wherever it is you work
you are involved in the network of factories,
offices, and shops. All so you can buy
your own collection of shadows
to lovingly build your own reality.
It’s tempting to forget about the containers
that end up in seas. And still more containers
are needed to clean them. Even the most noble work
is contributing to the pollution. In reality,
we are being destroyed by our culture of factories,
offices, and shops, because of our love of shadows.
I honestly think I enjoy it more when I buy
a shadow for a friend, than when they buy
one for me. Watching them open the packages,
and witnessing their joy at receiving new shadows
makes me feel glad of all my gruelling work.
Appreciating the bounty we receive from factories
often blinds us to the reality.
When I think deeply about the reality,
and the deeper impact of everything we buy,
I sometimes wish they would close all the factories,
and stop shipping all the packages,
and take time with the Earth to work
on ourselves, instead of finding solace in shadows.
What will our descendants think of these shadows,
and how will they survive the environmental reality
that we left them. All in the name of production and work.
will science somehow figure out somehow to buy
their way out of catastrophe. Is the answer in packages
that are currently being stacked in faraway factories?
As much as we poets reject the world of work,
we dream of our own shadows ending up in packages,
which the reading public will someday buy.
There's a problem with line-breaks, or lack thereof, but it'll do for now.