Tag: Terse Verse

If music be the food of love
Is poetry a bowlful of life?

A question crossed my mind the other day – do I only spontaneously write poetry when I’m cross about something? I’m sure I’ve written happy poems, but the impulse to bash out some verse seems to come more often than not through irritation, stress or annoyance. And often banal and mundane at that – from flat tyres to ineffective dishwasher tablets. Take this one:

Duzzit doesn’t

Rare to see such disinformation
In a modern formulation
Dishwasher tablets are all the same?
But Duzzit is to blame
No discernible cleaning
A film all over my pots
Unilever and P&G may be pricey
But their brands leave no spots.

This set me thinking. I read a few months back that musicians live longer, poets die sooner. Is it a bit like comedians? Making people laugh is – by all accounts – a sad person’s trade.

Perhaps it varies from person to person. But, for me, I think poetry comes more often as a venting of steam than a bucolic breeze. Still, better out than in.