1477

I wait until the train's announcement stops

When only the tap of laptops and the click

Of iphones can excuse the hesitation

Before the first ideas begin to tick.

But words lie scrambled somewhere in my brain

And only as they spill out on the page

Shaping themselves into familiar forms

Can I begin to see what they might mean.

Six lines to go after the first quatrains;

The end's in sight and now I must display

A pithy couplet to ensure the tag

Will capture all I really wan to say.

            There, it is finished, but I doubt you'll find

            Any hint of  what's deep in my mind.

This poem is about nothing;

Writing poems is easy -

Saying something is hard.

Brian Hick June 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 22.6.26

 1471

There are no rules in Poetry

The trendy teacher said

So all the children wrote a poem

Which had no form or structure

And simply dribbled on

Until it stopped.

If poetry has no rules

When does it stop being pros?

Brian Hick June 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 6.4.26

 1432

Jean de la Fontaine

Don't write about the rhyme scheme, make it work,

Sort out your ideas and don't shirk

The task in hand as if the need to rhyme

Were more important than the need to say

Something that's of value and to sway

The reader who has taken her own time

To contemplate your thoughts here on the page

The mysteries of image and the rage

Which only a true poet can set down

Within the confines of an antique form

Cajoling it until the verse it born

To acclamation, credit and renown.

Brian Hick February 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 26.2.26

 1431

I need to find a form which is my own;

Not any form but one which can flow free

As if I wasn't writing poetry

But simply paring language to the bone

So that it said exactly what I think

And you would understand in simple terms

The depth and the complexity which yearns

To be transformed, changed from idea to ink,

Until, as if osmosis had occurred,

Nothing stands between the latest germ

Of an idea, and translation's worm

Cannot withhold the power of my word;

            But here we have another Sonnet, penned

            As if pentameters were their own end.

Brian Hick February 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 24.2.26

 1429

knowing the rules

To write of Joy this form needs to explode

Yet, like the Masters, I'm bound by the rules;

Each sonnet, roundel, every type of mode

Encases all my verse as if the tools

I need to write have all been handed down

Unchallenged, unconcerned by what might change

Assuming what has been has won the crown

And I must keep my lines within their range.

But oh I long to cut the corset's laces

Swap pen for laptop, sonnet for simple line,

Throw out the narrow way, embrace the spaces

Sans iambic metre and sans rhyme.

I wish - but as this frenzied outburst shows

To give up form, I might as well write prose.

Brian Hick February 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 18.2.26

 1402

Maybe I'll have time and space

To write a poem which

For once is anything but me;

Not fictional but one

Which challenges the moribund,

The dull, the everyday,

Yet still aims to be succinct,

Profound, adroit and true.

As if!

Brian Hick September 2014

©copyright Sally Hick 34.20.25

 1246

How wonderful to be a poet, free

To conjure images of beasts and bears,

Juggle words so that they seem to be

Far deeper than the trivial affairs

Of office conversations or txt spk,

Which pass for communion, but snare

Themselves upon our deafness and the bleak

Technologies which ape a show of care.

Some would-be poets can't escape the vice

Of simply writing down what they can see;

No concepts, which sing out like mice,

Untramelled by discrete reality.

            Is there a place for we who draw

            Attention to what others find a bore?

Brian Hick February 2013

©copyright Sally Hick 8.2.25

 1181

This page is as empty as my mind - 

Buzzing with words, yet not a one in a place

To help construct a thought worth passing on.

Words fit so easily, as if each space

Were pre-ordained and, long before you read

These lines, the layout on the page told you

It must make sense because it looks so right,

So neat, so tidy, rhymes so good and true;

Yet by now I expect you've realised

That just because this poem's in sonnet form

It may have nothing in its fourteen lines

More than the words themselves, and it will dawn

            On you that words are simply not enough

            For poems must be made of sterner stuff.

Brian Hick June 2012

©copyright Sally Hick 11.6.24

1163

It must be great to be like Tennyson

Or match a Wordsworth's long romantic line

To ensure each reader grasped the meaning

And hearts were moved by imagery and rhyme.

So why it is that everything I write

Revolves around the trivia of the day

Rather than eschewing what is light

To concentrate on what I'd like to say?

And while I yearn to set the world ablaze

With insights into what is good and true

My verse it full of moans about the trains

Or packets that need scissors to undo.

Yet if my being grumpy raises smiles,

Perhaps it outruns serious verse by miles?

Brian Hick May 2012

©copyright Sally Hick 15.5.24

 

 1121

You do not want to read this;

The scribbled notes, the crossings out,

The clichés and the after-thoughts.

Wait until I've typed it up

Or better still wait for the book

By which time all will be smoothed;

Each word a tin pearl,

Each line a universe

Of fragile meaning giving birth

To thoughts which at the moment

Don't exist -

And all this rubbing out will seem

Little more than Bottim's dream

Compared to Hamlet's tortured soul

Where words alone cannot console.

Brian Hick February 2012

©copyright Sally Hick 19.2.24

 1096

I am a poet - but however much I try

I am generally ignored, even when my verse

Occasionally charms with subtlety.

I am a poet.

Of course I'd rather live without the curse

Which comes from the disinterested eye

Or grudging praise from colleagues who still nurse

Assumptions that this writing phase will die

Like other whims - and might have been far worse;

But I'll convince them all and make them see

I am a poet.

Brian Hick January 2012

©copyright Sally Hick 16.1.24

 1093

If I am a poet, then I can write

Anything I choose to - that's because

The words often don't matter; it's the sight

Of them spread out upon the page which does

All that is essential.  What? - you want

Meaning, purpose, some integrity

To support these words - which I know won't

Begin to hint at what I want to say

But ramble on - in strict poetic style -

To fill the fourteen lines this sonnet needs,

Regardless of my object to beguile

Or yours to understand creative needs?

            Sometimes I think I should have stuck to stamps

            Where quality arrives in serried ranks.

Brian Hick January 2012

©copyright Sally Hick 13.1.24

 1091

          If this were a diary

          I would write down

Exactly what we did yesterday;

            Where we went

      Who went with us, and

What a splendid time we had.

        But it is a poem

 So I have to try to balance

      Form and meaning

        Style and metre;

     Ensuring all the time

   The impact is the same

      As if it were a diary.

    So why not write a diary?

After all, you never did like verse.

Brian Hick January 2012

©copyright Sally Hick 11.1.2024

 1075

This poem is not for you so if you find

You're reading it, please quietly desist.

I mean to hide this jewel from your mind.

This poem is not for you

Because it seems that when I persist

In publishing my poems to the wind

They're generally ignored or are dismissed

By critics with faint praise; so I've resigned

Myself to anonymity; my list

Of masterpieces hidden from all mankind.

This poem is not for you.

Brian Hick December 2011

©copyright Sally Hick 1.1.24

 1062

I read but cannot understand

Why this is poetry that counts

While what I write

Goes unnoticed,

Yet they're both just words

And mine at least make sense.

As long as music flows

The lines will all make sense

And cadences, which jangle or annoy

Will ease themselves like dischords

Just before their natural resolution,

And even if the body does not rhyme

The heart will strike the final chord on time.

Brian Hick December 2011

©copyright Sally Hick 20.12.23

 1057

This book is almost full of poems.

But now the last two sides

Stare at me.

Threatening their blankness

As if, even after all these

Neatly filled-up pages

There's still that risk

That awful fear

That nothing more will come;

Or worse

That whereas twenty pages back

A few lines made some sense

These last will dribble out

To fill the space

So that, flicked through,

They look like verse -

Although they might as well

Be spam, from

Silverhill's new Bodrum Kebab House.

Brian Hick November 2011

©copyright Sally Hick 13.12.23

 1002

Like the world itself it seems

That lack of form ar stark

Obscurity must fill the waking dreams

Of those who seek the poet's art,

Or else they will be ostracised

For purile hack regurgitations

Short of thought behind the eyes -

Just vapid limp-wristed emanations -

But we who know the ordinary

Trying to capture what we see

In words that readers, dim or merry,

Will understand, sans degree

From Oxbridge - let alone a guide

Sent from above or Brian Sewell -

            Plod on, though we know we must hide

            Our genius from those who chide.

Brian Hick September 2011

©copyright Sally Hick 27.9.23

 1001

       Why

      is Pope

so full of words

    which make

      so little

       sense?

Brian Hick September 2011

©copyright Sally Hick 26.9.23

 907

There was a time when I could simply write

What came to mind regardless of its worth

And, for my part, it seemed the very sight

Of lines upon a page laid out in verse

Were more than compensation for the time

It took to wrestle with the words and form;

And even if it didn't always rhyme

It pleased because you liked what I had drawn

From walking to the station, or the sight

Of distant starlings, foxes padding round,

Brief memories of childhood, sudden bright

Awareness, insight, caught if not profound.

          But now I seem to scrap more than I keep

          Wishing it more meaningful and deep.

Brian Hick March 2011

©copyright Sally Hick 8.3.23

 894

Patience I quoted in my first Valentine

As fifty years ago I did not write

Poetry, and probably lacked the time &

Patience;

But how I wish that I'd had the insight

Which half a century brings, so every line

I've written since that day would burn as bright

As that first flame, so fragile, yet a sign

Of all that followed, till the fire's light

Embraces everything that's yours and mine.

Brian Hick February 2011

©copyright Sally Hick 30.1.23