A simple poem to start.
The Family Plot
low sky
lazy wind
February
10 o’clock Tuesday in Widnes
is as grey as those words sound
we bring bright plastic flowers
for this grave without a headstone
someone has stolen the vases
and red Christmas bouquets
that we had put on before
This is a true story. Me and my sister went to change the flowers on the family plot in February and the vases and Christmas flowers had been stolen.
I’m not sure about the poem, but I like the starkness of the telling.
This next one is all fiction. It wrote itself over a couple of weeks but the form eluded me until I hit upon the prose poem layout.
casual crimson
the three billion cells that collectively composed his person suspected this new red shirt is the business
as he walks the town to divine the best spot to be seen in
the rain has other ideas and forces his feet into the nearest sports bar
to sip blood warm beer and stare at real life on the big screen
there is nothing else
he will not get to fly his kite heavier as it is than the wet air
wisdom descends and he knows why his shirt was so reasonably priced
the fabric’s dye had stained his skin a deep crimson
and then he knows in his bones that the outcome of this night will replicate itself across all his weekends
and that it welcomes him into the kind of life he never imagined would be his
The phrase to fly one’s kite is an old saying means to have a good time. It seemed to suit to the poem.
Here’s Anna Ternheim.
Until next time.