Sunday December 21, 2008
“It’s quite nice, really,” I said. “If you look at it out of the corner of your eye. All soft and nurturesome.”
Graham turned to regard me with undue solemnity. ”I do believe you’re turning Welsh,” he said. ”Either that or you’re going twp.”
“Well, I’m not twp. Poets can’t be twp. Quantum, is that.”
“I thought you weren’t a poet any more. You said as much the other day.”
“Ah. Well. Just shows how wrong you can be. I finished a new poem this morning:”
IN NOVEMBER
All that was left were seven red petals,
rain-plastered to dirt-brushed stone
by an indifferent sweeper of paths.Trees, condensing sodium yellow, dripped
small jewels onto the darkened ground
left featureless and shadowed in the night.I sat on the bench, unwisely, to watch
in silence as the poppy flowers leached,
thinking how different it could have been.–John Bailey, December 2008, Vale of Neath
Twp, indeed. Means ’stupid’, does twp, taken literally.
