Tag: free verse

An anemone also

This is a whelk.
When it dies its shell lies
On the sea bed until……

A growing hermit crab
Takes up residence.

In his new home
The hermit does not
Feel the arrival of a ragworm,
Which crawls into the same shell.

Later, an anemone also
Settles on his shell.

So the ragworm, anemone and
The hermit, all live together
In an old whelk shell.

When the hermit feeds,
The ragworm takes his share
And the anemone clears up
What is left on the floor.

If attacked, the great claw
Provides an armour-plated door.

Taken from a display in an aquarium on the Cobb in Lyme Regis. By Nathan Lechler.

The spineless man

My dad had
an affair with his
21-year-old secretary.

He regretted it
almost immediately when she
started standing on bridges
and threatening suicide should he
go back to
or pay maintenance to
his wife and three
very young daughters.

Disgusted, my mother
refused to have him back. The spineless man
was then marched up the aisle,
vasectomy reversed, child produced. Anti
depressants ensued, along with
the loss of any meaningful
relationship with his
previous three daughters.

He currently works
long hours with a
serious heart condition to
support his wife and her
expensive horsey hobbies.

Meanwhile my mother
grew strong, witty and
wise. His daughters all
suffered. The lure of
a youthful admirer!
More fool him.

From Where did it all go wrong?, 9 February 2011. By Marika Rose.

Strumpet

hushed homes
dishevelled and stuck
with oxlips, primroses, cowslips, violets, and
TeenInPinkBikiniStrippingOnWebcam
manifoldness and steadfastness of the universe
is as truly whoring trade

From spam email, 24 January 2011. By Laura.

The Tip of the Bud of the Lotus

In a certain lake swarming with geese and cranes,
The tip of a bud of lotus was seen one span above the water.
Forced by the wind, it gradually moved, and was submerged at a distance of two cubits.
O mathematician, tell quickly the depth of the water.

Lilavati

There is something divine in the science
of numbers. Like God, it holds the sea
in the hollow of its hand. It measures
the earth; it weighs the stars; it illumines
the universe; it is law, it is order,
it is beauty. And yet we imagine
that its highest end and culminating point
is book-keeping by double entry.

From Longfellow’s novel Kavanagh, preceded by a translation from Bhaskaracharya’s 12th-century Sanskrit text Lilavati, via The Lumber Room.

What did you talk about?

Early ambitions to work in the arts,
old cinemas, theatres and pubs,
home ownership,
Eddie Izzard’s theory on cat psychology;

Cubism, Aperol, synaesthesia,
the size of Yorkshire, Venice,
Harry Potter, Peggy Guggenheim,
marathon training, Glasgow, siblings,
sleeper trains, bleak landscapes,
the attentiveness of the staff,

plus sailing stories, basking sharks
and how ‘Jaws’ has traumatised
us both for life.

We had a lot in common.

Taken from a Guardian blind date interview 8 January 2010. By Rishi Dastidar.