#poetscorner is a feature in which PTL Editors ask writers to share a poem of theirs with the internet. We also ask them to divulge on how they started writing poetry, what inspired the poem in question and why it remains a personal favourite. The idea being to bask in the glory of the written and/or spoken word. Oh dear…
I guess it’s a bit of a cliché for a Literature student to sit somewhere, notebook and biro in hand and scribble out wordplay, or to pause in the streets and make a mental note of a scene or turn of phrase that, for whatever reason, suddenly strikes as important. But hey, I’ll take the cliché and continue to fit the distracted poet stereotype, because, for me, writing bits and pieces and phrases is like scratching an itch – getting some words out onto a page is often the only thing that stops them swirling around my head.
This poem is very obviously wordplay. I often find myself connecting words and expressions, partly just to see where I might end up, or to see how I can somehow express an idea that is just hovering at the edges of my mind, just out of reach of everyday speech.
It is also in some sense about the kind of mood that often prompts my word scribbles – a kind of heaviness or feeling of fuzziness around the edges. At times when I feel like this writing things that rhyme, or sound somehow right, can help to shake off this weighty feeling. It transforms into a sort of game for myself.
So I suppose this poem is about boredom, or inertia, or those Scottish grey days that leave you just a little bit damp all over. But it’s also about trying to find some playfulness in that, in trying to resist that soggy greyness that can numb the senses, and turning a dragging day into a game.
Waiting
One of those waiting days
When waiting games lack playfulness
Wasted days
A trick of chance weighted heavy with trickery
A lacklustre dance
A fit of starts
With no end points held out
Closed fists and shrunken faces
A day of botchery
Of butchered plans and stunted dreams.
The sky has smudged edges
Ominous painting etching pointed omens
On cracking confusions
Blurred beginnings tumble over heels
A day of stumblings
Mind mists move in close
Hovering as the world seems to suspend itself
In monotonous movements
Monotone palette.
Eloise Hendy
Ella is the Deputy Editor of LITERATURE at PTL. She owns a dog but suspects she is probably more of a cat person. The shame. Ella tries to be a green tea drinking, yoga practicing, artsy kid of girl but often her love for caffeine, white wine, tequila and dodgy mash-ups (Snoog Dogg/Grease anyone?) makes this difficult. But hey, a girl can dream.
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