I haven't written a poem since I quit smoking 10 days ago. I have lost the ability to concentrate. I have felt restless rather than inspired. However, I decided to challenge myself to write a poem for this week's post. I decided it was time to force my mind to focus. I decided to prove to myself that I can write - and that I can write without the aid of cigarettes... It was a challenge, hence the lateness of this post.
Coventry Blizzard, 1990
During
the night it fell at steady rate. Large flakes racing down
through
street light shine, through the searching full-beam lights
of
a lone motorist travelling home on white tarmac roads;
his
tyres pressing a snow leopard print along the length of the street,
creating
two shaky lines of imperfection
which
nature quickly filled and smoothed.
By
morning, cars had been transformed into cotton wool hills,
phone
lines draped down wooden poles and slithered across the ground.
Communication
severed; a city left to wait and thaw in silence.
We
missed school; built a snowman in the front garden,
gave
him two stone eyes and twiggy arms. Finger-carved a smile on his face,
placed one of dad’s silk ties around his neck.
For
the rest of the day I sat in the bay window, watching. Thinking
I
could bring him to life with nothing more than hope
and
the power of my own mind.
At
lunchtime I ate jam sandwiches, drank warm blackcurrant squash.
Kept
my gaze fixed on the snowman’s stone stare,
waiting
to see a blink, anything to prove him real.
But
I saw nothing, nothing except two little girls in t-shirts and jeans.
Like
a modern Dickensian scene they struggled
with
a pushchair through the snow;
a
sack of potatoes where a baby would normally sit.
The
children’s lips were the colour of winter’s first frost, their skin
ghostly
like an early morning December mist,
and
as I sat in the window, the snowman slowly shrunk.
Thinking.
Hoping. Wishing for something else.
Thank you for reading,
Lar
Lar