Everyday Poetry

This one came in a rush, while listening to a podcast this morning.  It was a really helpful podcast about how to react to triggers so they don't result in a spiral of emotions.  For me that spiral can lead to comfort eating, which ultimately creates more emotional destruction than the original trigger! But I'm getting there, slowly.  The rush of blood The flood of heat The hit in the pit The quickness, the sickness The hole that needs filling The filling, the filling The feel of the feelings The shame, the blame The here I go again The pain left behind The whole thing unkind. © Copyright 2024. Chris Auger. All Rights Reserved

Draft a poem in which the speaker reveals something about the other/s who exist outside the poem. See if you can include or imply what others might be voicing. Swathed in a comfy sweatshirt Easy fit joggers Well-worn slippers She's let herself go She's got herself dressed Kitted out in leggings Breathable top Supportive trainers Not so much a gym bunny as a hungry hippo  Every journey begins with the first step Dolled up in a new mesh top Leather look jeans Cute boots Dog's dinner Sexy mama Ignore those negative voices Brush off those shoulders Live as a wise woman once advised:  Wear what makes you happy. © Copyright 2024. Chris Auger. All Rights Reserved

Our latest exercise is to do with Voice, using each person's idiolect to strengthen and reinforce my poetic intent. Right you are then! I don't think this is quite what they had in mind,  but I'm doing this for me.   Don't talk like that it's lazy! It's flowers, not flahs. My mum was always picking me up, Worried this street talk would not help  Attain the future she wanted for me.   Years later,   As middle class as she could have desired,  I overheard a man say he had to buy  Flares To sweeten his girlfriend.   I'm assuming it wasn't trousers. © Copyright 2024. Chris Auger. All Rights Reserved

My friend Judy prompted this one, sharing a hard task she has to do,  to write to her friend who is terminally ill.  I've had to write a few Sympathy cards lately,  and always find it hard to find the right words.  How hard it is to fill the blank white space, to summon the perfect words, to express just how much your heart has been touched, your life enriched, etc.  How much better to share throughout our lives at special moments spent together how much you mean to me how glad I am to have you in my life how I'll treasure these memories forever. © Copyright 2024. Chris Auger. All Rights Reserved

I am to write a poem (15-25 lines) based on a photo or film still. The only rule is I mustn't write explicitly about feelings.  I chose a photograph of John Lennon and Yoko Ono taken in New York four months before his assassination, as it reminded me of hearing about the news at my daughter's first birthday party,  and her distress at being photographed. August 1980 Caught offguard on an empty sidewalk, On the way into a Brownstone apartment, Yellow cab kerbside, He stands, one hand on his hip One draped over her shoulder. He faces the camera, Eyes behind tinted glasses. A roll is shot for posterity. December 1980 Newscasters around the world,  Tight-throated, white faced, Read headlines printed in black on white: John Lennon Shot Dead. The gunman aimed for notoriety, Shot him on the sidewalk Outside his apartment block. Four bullets in the back. As the news comes on the radio Shocking our disbelieving ears My daughter's staccato cries Echo like a siren throughout the hou...

A return to normality,  and another OU writing exercise. Using Martha Kapos' poem 'Finding my Bearings' as a template, create a poem using the following structure:- 1. 4 sentence fragments 2. A quote from somewhere 3. A question 4. 2 sentence fragments 5. A complete sentence 6. 3 sentence fragments I've been stressing a lot lately about my diabetes diagnosis, feeling guilty about letting it happen,  and mourning the end of spontaneous eating. This is what emerged (it's very typically me, and nothing like Martha Kapos!) Reality, Type 2 A refusal to believe it would come to this, A head buried neck-deep in the sand. A sick empty ache in the pit of the stomach, A need to know everything, all at once. "There is no cure for Type 2 diabetes" How could I let it come to this? Each mouthful now analysed, charted, Each choice questioned, justified. Welcome to Reality 2.0 No more affectionate sweet treats, No more ice-cream consolations, No more chocolate highs. © Co...

The last day of our holiday is deliciously relaxed,  no more temples,  just cruising up the Nile,  with a soft warm breeze keeping us cool.  Here are some snapshots from the top deck.  egrets stare  on rafts of water hyacinth, stab and swallow stare again. bow waves herringbone the width of the river each following surface a mirror of bank and sky. the split between  sunseekers and shade dwellers shifts with the sun's progress east to west. traders in small boats call hello, hello throw table cloths onto top decks  to tourists high above. the slip, the drift of water past land, past palm trees, minarets,  towns of waving children, a series of camera clicks. © Copyright 2024. Chris Auger. All Rights Reserved

Although a relatively minor monarch,  reigning for a short number of years, Tutankhamun has perhaps achieved the greatest 'immortality' of all the Pharoahs- thousands of tourists flock to Cairo to visit his remains and photograph his tomb in the Valley of the Kings 6,000 years later.   This wasn't the immortality I sought when I ordered my tomb to be packed tight with golden goods and royal riches. I planned for their usefulness in the afterlife  where I would mingle humbly with the gods, my status as pharaoh understated, understood. My tomb was sealed, to prevent thieves from robbing me of my greatness; it stood six thousand years.  Then came the greatest thieves of all, plundering my tomb, stripping my riches; Demotion to the lowest rung amongst the gods. My fragile body now lies back in its tomb, exposed,  without its outer casings, no sarcophagus, no gold, no lapis, no turquoise, no coral. My trappings lie many miles away, inside glass cases, admired by...

Today we visited the Temple of Horus at Edfu,  where I was reminded of the importance of paying proper respect to the deities.   Looking back, I should have been looking down, paying more attention to the ups and dips of the floor, instead of making polite way for incoming tourists.  I should have known I'd jinx my luck, by not wearing my scarab necklace, by pointing out how all the sculptures had well-defined knees. After all, this was a temple pharmacy, a sacred place where sculptures round the outer hall drew large the part the priests were asked to cure.  Down I went.  A grazed elbow,  a bruised knee,  a greater dent in dignity; nothing a brush down and a dollop of antiseptic cream couldn't put right.  But, at the next temple along the Nile I'll be sure to show proper respect to the deities flanking the entrance pylon, instead of seeking the perfect shot of their statues for instagram. © Copyright 2024. Chris Auger. All Rights Reserved

All the pretty young instagrammers  pose and pout and flash their V signs taking selfies in the foreground, while no-one notices the sphinx's smile  held for decades too long for all the tourists' cameras, has slipped. © Copyright 2024. Chris Auger. All Rights Reserved