Monday 17 November 2014

Woodstock Poetry Festival - This weekend in London

Woodstock Poetry Festival

Feel the entire room go still, holding their breath to a stunning love poem.
Enjoy the mystery of not knowing what each reading will contain.

Don't read out a poem which needs sharpening, people need my best.
Do read out a tight poem, even if it is almost too risky, for that murmur.

Clap extra loudly for the first time reader, welcome her in.
Look and listen to the reader being filmed, take in her voice.

...














My mother has just got out of the car to go back home, but we waved at her to come across to the Serbian cafe. I could see her do a bit of thinking, then turn the zimmer frame to make her way over here. We all took photos of each other and talked too loudly. My brother took this one and my father is just to my brother's right, next to my mother. I had lost my cards and wallet, so was down to a £1.15 small espresso. I tipped every bit of sugar into it since it was included in the price. Wolfed down the biscuit too.

The necklace was one I'd found on the tarmac in the rain. No one took it from the top of my car, where I put it to be found by the owner, so I decided to keep it. Wearing it in public near where I had found it was not a very clever thing to do though. I imagined someone walking past and thinking it was just like the one they'd lost... All I would have had to do was hand it over and say sorry.

...


This weekend in London

Carry the breakfast tray my father has made for my mother, put it on the bed.
Wait for the next request, don't rush the morning, let her sleep.

Stand outside the shower room, waiting for my mother to finish.
Make an improvised tube of toothpaste for her from a corner of a plastic bag.

Sit on the bed with her sharing a hot chocolate and a danish from the cafe.
Never mind about past dramas, just live in each half hour.

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