On scribble

Verse for looking back on the pandemic

Again, again, slow-flowing afternoons,
The sun a drug, the Morris coffee mug
At risk between my cumbrous finger-tips:
I dare not break it now, so late in life.

The Gard(y)an strewn, both front and back,
Absorbed, as on a soporific tide
I’m eased towards the shallow bays of sleep,
Wherein I’ll wake and reckon I’m seduced.

But earlier that day a different world,
A conflict of familiarity,
L’s novel which I felt I had to write,
Concerns a woman with a tale to tell.

Those gristle words, I’ve chewed them endlessly,
They may have lost all juice they ever had,
All novelty, all chance of dark surprise,
Chanting a dirge of dull uncertainty.

And yet, and yet, L is my gift, my love,
She strives as I strive for some clarity, 
Too strong, too quick to simply fade away,
Too permanent within my hollow skull.

Outside there’s Plague but I am armoured now,
And I may doze or write a line of prose
Or find a rhyme as lo! I find I’ve done,
Or, evening time, pour out some pricey booze.

I’m lucky, and that’s not always the case
With age, more like a vacancy.
But I have sunned and worked this word machine
And passed some time in staying – well! – alive.