Permanence and Illusion

Monday 23rd January

I read a poem out loud at the writing class today, and instantly wished I hadn’t.  Nobody, not even I the author, really understood it.  It was right at the end of the class, people were a bit tired and ready to leave and I was the last to read my piece.

I won’t bore you with the poem itself, it was called Permanence and Illusion and is I think another of my ‘the differences between the sexes’ things; where the man is all cold logic and precision and the woman a bit more vulnerable, with hints of sacrifice and suffering.  Anyway no-body really got it, so it couldn’t have been that successful could it?

Strangely I still love it, especially these two couplets :

I thought I knew all about you / could read you like a book / but turning around for a second I found / you’d changed in the time it took.

And the sharpest stone in your armory store / the one that cut me to the core / was soft at the edges, rounded and smooth / a net to hold and bathe my wounds.

Yes, I know a stone doesn’t have a net. And how can a net bathe and soothe my wounds?  I don’t know quite what I meant but for me, it works. For me the words just make sense and are beautiful.

Pity no-one else saw it.

I will read some prose out next time, and hopefully mine won’t be the last piece to be read next time.