A Poet in the World of Reality Options

[Guest_Toumai_*]

A Poet in the World of Reality

Poets muse,
waiting:
for inspiration,
enlightenment,
perfection.

I’m impatient,
gossiping
outside school:
road works,
celebrities,
holiday horrors.

Poets feel.

I am touched by:
sunburn,
beggars,
gastric ’flu.

Poets notice:
prismatic sunbeams,
striking gossamer;
rainbow magic.

I wonder where
sodding scary spiders
crouch, waiting;
spinning in the shadows
menacing my existence.
So much debris;
so much fear.

Poets brave
the unimaginable:
writing it ...

I take:
children to school,
cat to vet,
recycling to dump,
offence ... too easily.

Poets take:
liberties,
lovers,
drugs,
forever deciding
where to place one ...
    full
         Stop
                .

© Toumai, 2005

Thanks, James, for much-needed pre-crit

[Guest_Toumai_*]

Hi Grace,

Thank you so much for dropping by.

This is a very interesting concept between classic poets and a modern day 'mum' poet. Quite intriguing! The higher plains of thought and the rushed existence of the modern world are very well contrasted here.

Thank you very much.

I think the injection of the word 'sodding' here adds to the rushed, harried feeling of a housewife and mother's feelings of frustration

That was the intention ... will probably think about it for ever (like that full stop?) so it may well stay.

If you mean poets such as Byron or Coleridge et al, then I think the word 'drugs' would be better as 'opiates', since they did not mainline or snort or whatever,~ but drank tinctures of opium (Laudenum), or smoked pipes of opium . In which case it would be 'Poets took': As it stands it might indicate that most poets take drugs

Well, I drink coffee and the occasional glass of wine

I think I am coming to the conclusion that I am more along the lines Nina suggested with this: I am contrasting a 'mom-type' life with a 'poetic' life as imagined (cos poets can't possibly be normal mortals, surely, can they?)

Having been an 'academic' for years I have to admit that about 1% of the time was spent really thinking - the rest was arguing (with colleagues, computers and funding bodies) or on all those tasks that we like to pretend are 'work'.  But the perception of academics is very different. I think here I'm giving poets a bit of the same 'respect' (or not)

I was expecting a last comparison Fran. Since you write from the points of view alternatively, then the natural sequence would end with the here and now. I think a final comparison would finish this off nicely. It could even be a funny comparison, since I was smiling at the mother's reactions (whether you intended that or not.)

Yes, another would balance it better. But I do rather like finishing with that full stop. Plus I think the final verse is suggesting that the poet might consider herself as one?

Love,

Fran