I’ve got a poem half written
like I’ve got a new lover
and I don’t want to say who he is
yet.
Wherever it is, the poem is the centre
of the room. All the time
I am making the bed, going for a jog,
taking a shower,
the poem rings.
Can it wait? What’ll I say?
A thin flame runs up my legs.
On the bus I think of other poems.
Now I have six half-written.
I am a slut
with petrol in my hair.
*
Rachel McAlpine
Squish the words.
Spit the pips.
That’s a poem.
Not the squish
but the pips.
*
Rachel McAlpine
Squash a sonnet
to a pellet
with a mallet.
Did it!
*
Rachel McAlpine
You write because
you decide to write
when a sudden jagged
uninvited light
bites the eye of your mind.
You write because
you don’t not write
the way you used to
not write.
*
Rachel McAlpine
Listen to reason.
This won’t take long.
You’re reading.
I’m writing.
That makes us
born lucky
dead lucky.
*
Rachel McAlpine
A baby’s cry
in a pop song.
How can a baby
pray?
A baby’s cry
in an opera.
How can a baby
disobey?
*
Rachel McAlpine
Ancestors surround you
with a calm possessive air.
Nobody knows your neck squeaks.
Nobody knows your heart
is a bowl of poems.
*
Rachel McAlpine
Last night
I ate a snack
of gruyere, gherkins
and potatoes.
Later checked my diary.
That squiggle did not say
‘meeting OOW’
but ‘Tom Scott’s play.’
*
Rachel McAlpine
A tall thought
a built thought
is a dissertation.
A short thought
a wrought thought
is a minuet.
*
Rachel McAlpine
I am writing a book.
It will take some time.
The book has a title: Flatlantis
and another: Tropical Ice.
The poems will grow like pack-ice.
They will flow like sweat.
They will be easy to read.
They will be hard to write.
When the book is published
I will be a grown-up.
How will that feel?
Curious.
*
Rachel McAlpine
Poems in the wild—Rachel McAlpine 