nostalgic

We're getting a new computer network at home, and getting rid of an old hard drive or two. (not sure, there seem to be computers coming or going in every room at the moment) In salvaging emails, my dad found a bunch I thought were lost forever. When I was at Oxford I went through a stage of writing poems and sending them to all and sundry. This caused some interesting interactions between my school friends and university friends, some of it questioning my sanity, some appreciating the um, quirky, poems.

Looking back at the things I wrote, most of them are pretty silly, but there are a few I like. (One of them took on a life of its own: I discovered it on someone's page of their favourite poems. No idea how it got there.) Here is one of the better ones. (I hope)

Paperbacks

A perfect slab of words
Newly cut from the printer's block
Layers of pastry pages
Crammed with words
Succulent as raisins,
Spiced with commas and full stops

Half read and half digested
Front cover curls forward invitingly
Spine splays the early pages
The rest so far untasted
Waits to be devoured

Dog-eared and well thumbed
Tasted by many
Stale puff pastry
Succumbs to mould
As word-ants crawl among the crumbs.