Meadow Argus / Photographed in Solomon Islands / Michael Sammut
Adornment to attract an amour Sets of eyes bigger than a bird’s belly To scare off avian appetites And what sex is this butterfly beauty Flamboyant female like those of our species Or Cock of the Walk like most birds do Or did a Creationist God get carried away With his paintbrush in an inspired moment…
The Poetry Postcard Fest is a challenge which encourages poets to write an unedited poem on a postcard and send it to a stranger. Organised by the Cascadia Poetics Lab, who organise the participants into lists of 31 + yourself for you to address your offerings to. This was my first year and hearing about it just in time to register, I was on List 15. The lists are sent out in early July and you have until the end of August to send out your missives – to date I have received 20 of 31 possibles and now that we are into September, it is allowable to share the cards and poems you sent and the cards but not the poems you received. I will share these in the order of sending and I will miss out those which I have not yet received in case they arrive soon… Although the original poem is to be sent as written – crossings out, blots and all, I have typed them out for people who can’t read my writing and I am allowing myself to edit if I feel like it…
Dear Christopher
Can you surf in the Gulf on the outer edge of the Keys is there enough fetch to raise waves suitable for surfing and which way does the wind blow or is it calm enough to paddleboard- the latest craze! I took these brightly coloured boards at St. Ives in Cornwall where surf and art mix I thought they were surf boards but looking now I am unsure perhaps kayaks – another way to breast the brine I savoured their beauty in the sun too old to try them out…
Christopher’s poem was a fine metaphor of the various times of data, and night, on the peaks, seen as music – perfectly prompted by his card – Maurice Baquet playing Chamber Music…
The world is so full of wonders that even after fifty-seven years they can surprise and delight you most unexpectedly. The other night I got off my bus in Headingley into a slightly foggy and very cold night – so cold in fact that as I walked beneath the first street lamp, I saw that the air was full of glitter swirling gently about. This was freezing fog, not snow, the ice crystals were so tiny that I could not catch one on the sleeve of my coat and they were continuously aerialized. Imagine that they must have been flat though to give the size of glitter that they produced and there are of course snow flakes that take that form rather than the classic “snowflake” branching shape. Despite these scientific speculations, the experience was one of wonder and delight and like so many things in life it was brief and transient – by the time I got home and called my friend out to look, it was no longer apparent. From the sublime to the ridiculous… Other sights that have entertained me on my way home include watching the bouncers outside the Leeds city centre bars teaching each other dance moves and the falling down drunken young people. Nothing wonderful there though one may speculate that it is only the alcohol content of their bloodstream that keeps some young women alive in such skimpy clothes – they could die of exposure – indecent exposure at that!
