Whoops. I saw this photograph here as an intended inspiration and had run with it before I read the fine print and discovered that it was supposed to be a tanka. Whatever that means.

I don’t really know how murder got into it but, you know, these things happen …

***

I’m hearing helter-skelter

Hearing clickety clack

Hearing metal wheels screaming

On a railway track

The whistle is a blowing

We’re racing with the wind

I don’t know where we’re going

But I know that I have sinned

Shackles on my ankles

Chains upon my wrists

They can’t control my thinking

But they can control my fists

I’m going down for murder

Going to pay for my mistake

There’s a guy and he was laughing

There’s a body in the lake

I don’t regret what I have done

I’d do it all again

I slit his throat, I watched him drown

He wasn’t laughing then

He was messing with my woman

Then confessing what he’d done

He thought I’d like to hear it

He thought it might be fun

I had a little fun with him

I cut him with my knife

I watched his body sinking

Then I went and did his wife

And now it’s helter skelter

There weren’t no bags to pack

We do the crime, we do the time

I ain’t coming back

***

Having publicity outed myself regarding my dreadful understanding of the word ‘poetry’ I thought that I should avoid the form and write something short that could not possibly be mistaken for a poem.

As usual, though, I had absolutely nothing interesting to say of my own so I stole an idea from Daffni who mentioned the concept of putting one’s head under water. Feeling a bit under siege myself, it sounded like a good idea.

This is what I had to say ….

If you hold your head under water for a while you can visit another world. It doesn’t have to be an ocean – the bath tub will do. But an ocean works best, I think.

It is not silent. Your ears are super sensitive. There seems to be a lot happening down there. You can hear stuff that comes from miles away, maybe from over the horizon. Or maybe from another galaxy. Who knows?

But these are sounds that you haven’t heard before and so you cannot find any meaning in them.
You are not frightened. It is peaceful and it is welcoming, this meaninglessness. You stay as long as you can.

Eventually, though, you have to come back up for air and, when you do, you find the world exactly as you had left it. You understand it perfectly.

So you put your head back in the water.

What is Poetry

But a quest

And a question

Without an answer.

***

But, yes. Seriously. What is it? Anybody who bothers to read my mostly silly posts will note that I frequently resort to very simple little rows of rhyming lines in order to get attention. I’ve been doing it since I was about twelve and have never really grown out of it. I have never matured into a poet, in other words. So I am reluctant, for the most part, to refer to this stuff as poetry, though it does, by some standards, fit the definition. Just for the record, though, rhythm is far more important to me than rhyme.

But I am not a poet. I aspire to be one, perhaps. But not one who writes poetry. If that makes sense.

So I am a bit confused with stuff I read that just seems to be rows of lines with no obvious rhyme or rhythm but rather more defined by not being presented as prose. As though hitting the return key at the end of every sentence (or even mid-sentence, better still) and omitting a word here or there to add some obscurity transforms a page of words into poetry.

I’m sorry.

It doesn’t.

It might not be prose

But that don’t

Make it poetry.

Most likely though I am missing something. I would like someone to explain it all to me. I’m serious.

Have a look at this …

Three o’clock in February

All the sky was blue and high

Banners and bunting

And people bunched up between

Greetings and sadness

I did not write the words above. I wish that I had. Is it beautiful? Sad? Thought provoking? I believe so.

But is it poetry?

No, it is not.

It is, in fact, the very first paragraph of a book written by J.P. Donleavy.

With the return key interfering.

If I had actually written those words I would be some way to considering myself a poet. But I would not claim to have written poetry.

This post is based upon recent experience. Upon returning from the US, I was forced into isolation for two weeks and, whilst there were certain aspects of the experience that phased me not a bit, there were others that were challenging. Kate posted a thing about masks featuring some cute puppy dogs. My response had very little to do with either. Sorry, Kate.

***

I wear a mask, my darling

To protect you from my breath

It’s Covid Nineteen, baby

And it could result in death

We bathe in separate bathrooms

We eat a separate meal

I don’t know how much longer

I can cope with this ordeal

I haven’t touched you sweetheart

We’ve not even shaken hands

I’m suffering so patiently

But no-one understands

You know me so well, cuddle-pie

You read me like a book

Do you think there’s any chance

I might just take a look?

I’ve lost all sense of feeling

As separately we dance

I’m lost for words, but may I ask

Could you please lose your pants?

***