Poetry Wednesday - The Words Don’t Agree

Words as pictures, words given autonomy

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Hello poetry people,

Hmm, what shall I amuse you with this week? I’ve been handwriting out my poems into a sumptuous journal, using ink called Writer’s Blood - how appropriate, and I’ve rediscovered I quite like a lot of my old poetry and not so much some others. (Written about here) So I think I’m going to give you the one I have just written out without making a single mistake - which is rather unusual for me.

So I wrote this poem when I was long-time struggling with getting the start to a new novel I had in mind. And then I walked into a book shop and saw my story already written down. Basically, the story had buggered off to find someone else and that was why I was struggling to get going. The words just didn’t agree.

Photo by Birmingham Museums Trust on Unsplash

The Words Don’t Agree

I want to weave stories like opulent tapestries
vibrant and intricate, oozing character and plot.
I want to regale, inspiring reverential attention, 
by a great open fire on a fierce winter's night
roasting sentences like marshmallows
to be stickily consumed by plot greedy minds;
whilst images, like chestnuts, split apart
to rise with the embers on the hot smokey haze.

But the words don't agree 
favouring a shorter route;
impatient, impetuous words
demanding release without the delay
of paragraphs and chapters, 
of end plots or character arcs.
I want to tell tall tales in long form
not notes dashed down
but my lines are truncated,
ignore punctuation,
and split in all the 
wrong places.

So the words have their way 
and I write what they ask.
Stories don't hang around 
to wait for a mere chance of expression;
shrouded by the fire haze 
of poetic composition, 
they leave.

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