Beware, Poetry.

It’s Sunday afternoon. I have appraisals to finish, still haven’t started the Chesil Theatre 10X10 entry, we’re in the middle of cooking, and there’s lots to be sorted before the return of the work week tomorrow. So, naturally, I’ve written a poem. It’s a bad one, because it’s in blank verse. Blank verse, without a recogniseable meter. Sorry.

“Blank verse is the poetical equivalent of Abstract Art. By which I mean, it’s rubbish.”

Henri de Starqueville, 1972*

Anything helps

Yesterday

I saw a woman.

She was holding a sign that said

“Anything helps”

And I thought “No.”

 

“Apathy doesn’t help.

The sideways slide of the eyes

Erasing the woman from the mind

Easing the passage of the pedestrian

Whose pockets jingle as they stride by her.

 

Prejudice doesn’t help.

Assuming that the cigarette

You’re smoking is proof that you

Will waste any gift on the wrong appetites

As if I have the right to decide that.

 

Faith doesn’t help.

At least, I don’t think

That my views on god, or

The righteousness of my beliefs

Will be welcome or useful, or

Even be tolerated unless they accompany

A more concrete demonstration of charity.”

 

These thoughts occupied me.

It was only today, looking back

That I realised, despite these thoughts,

Despite her sign saying “anything helps”

I had not

Given her

Anything.

 

 

*No, there’s no such person. This is my view. Blank verse is a terrible, terrible cheat, but this is how the poem turned up. Once again, I’m very sorry.