Everyday Poetry

I've been thinking of the phrase "be careful what you wish for" this week.  After months of wondering when or whether we would have a spring,  or indeed a summer,  it's suddenly here in a blaze of heat, and I'm suffering!  On the myriad grey days that make up our year We think we crave the sun, but don't really. We want neither the scorchingly dry, no cloud days,  Nor the fuggily humid, trapped under a duvet sky days, Where we escape to cooling shade, or indoors. What we really crave are those rarities, Days we can live our lives without sweat Running into our eyes, down our back,   Between our breasts; easy, breezy days, where We can feel the sun on our skin without it burning,  Where the heat is quickly quenched By each Mr Whippy-white cloud, as it scuds on by.  ©  Copyright 2024. Chris Auger. All Rights Reserved

I've spent the morning in a friend's garden, at our monthly poetry group meeting.  We'd decided earlier that next month's theme will be insects,  when this happened.  We sit, in an awkward silence,  Trapped by a peculiar British sense of politeness,  None of us wanting to mention The bug entangled in your hair.  For each beat of each moment It struggles to escape the silvery strands, We try to focus on our faltering conversation, Our attention hooked by the blackness of the bug  In its fine gossamer trap, Each of us hoping it will free itself So we won't have to intervene.  Abruptly, one of us cracks,  Reaches out to free us all,  And we breathe our secret sighs of relief. ©  Copyright 2024. Chris Auger. All Rights Reserved 

Not surprisingly today I've been thinking about my Dad,  and realising that I don't remember anything specific about any Father's Days spent in my childhood, except for the gift we were encouraged to give him: 5 Hamlet cigars.  Sold as small and compact,  we never knew each one was equivalent to 10 cigarettes.  Smoking 2 or 3 a day, my Dad believed he was cutting down.  Each year, for Fathers day, we'd ask our Mum For ideas on what to gift our Dad. Inevitably,  We'd end up with the neat little box of five Hamlet, A treat he hadn't bought himself.   In their compact, cream cardboard box,  Wrapped elegantly with a printed red ribbon, Associated forever with the strains of An Air on a G-String, They were impossibly sophisticated to my young eyes. My Dad, a smoker since his own childhood,  Had switched from cigarettes to these miniature cigars,  Believing them better for his health.  We'd laugh at his ability to produce a stream Of dragon breath, at his skill at

I've been mulling this over for a few days, having just the phrase 'green-tunnelled roads' in my head. Somehow the rest followed on,  after I wrote the first line down.  We drive down green-tunnelled roads Where branches meet and greet and tangle, Turning the sky bright emerald.  I've been a sucker for roads like these Since a childhood of Devon holidays,  Driving out from the farm to distant picnic spots -  Lynmouth, Ilfracombe, Looe, Hartland Point - Through densely-dark tree-formed tunnels Which cradled us in mysterious seas of green leaves, Before spitting us out into high-banked lanes, And the blazing blue of the coast.  ©  Copyright 2024. Chris Auger. All Rights Reserved

In the middle of a windswept field, Among strawlike clumps of mown grass  And a constellation of nodding buttercups, The shrill whining of tiny insects in my ears, I sit, watching you casting a line Again and again over the rippling water, Your fly dancing on the surface Tempting the trout to bite. Each time the sun hides behind a cloud, Each time the wind whips round my chair, I think of walking back, Then your patient persistence Persuades me to stay, just a while longer.  ©  Copyright 2024. Chris Auger. All Rights Reserved

Another one about me today, this time prompted by catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror this morning 'before I had my mirror face ready'. The woman in the mirror squinted, and frowned, Said her face was too old, her arms too fat,  So I told her to stick out her tongue at the miserable old crone, And she laughed her lines away. I painted her toenails a purply-pink, Dressed her in shorts and a leopard print top  Pulled her outside to soak up the sun, Get some free vitamin D to lift her mood. I took her swimming in a mosaic pool Where she lost count of the lengths, Absorbed in the strength in her arms, As she stroked her blues away. Next, I sent her packing with a picnic,  To reflect, by a lake, on that silly old fool, Who appeared in the mirror that morning. Wielding her pen like a sword, She cut through the last of her doubts: Sure, she was old, and could lose a few pounds, But her body was strong, her mind still alert, And with luck, she'd get even older. ©  Copyright

Yes! I know I'm 6 months early but I saw a competition to write a poem about Christmas,  and this popped into my head.  It's far too simple to win any competitions so it doesn't matter if I publish it on here.  I'm buying my presents early, I'll be putting them all in the post, For I won't be around this Christmas, To join my loved ones in a toast.  Instead I'll be packing my suitcase, I'm off to the south for a cruise, I'm swapping the snow for suncream, I'll be beating the cold weather blues.  Once on board there'll be plenty of parties, I'll be dancing and staying up late, Then each day the Canaries will call me To enjoy their warm beaches.  Can't wait!  ©  Copyright 2024. Chris Auger. All Rights Reserved