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2014 Pushcart Prize nominee. (more)

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The Face in the Crowd




The face has enough

I like to look
I like to look at her
I like the way her hair
Drifts across her face
Like an open window
I like the way her lips sit
An enticement
I like the whites in her eyes
The ethereal in her skin
Despite the make-up
But I would not like it
If she looked my way
I don’t want to read her expression
Her thoughts of me
I don’t want the moment to be ruined
I only want to scrutinize
So she can be angelic, omnipresent
Tender, immaculate
Just as she is.


I don’t want her to talk
She may say something I don’t want to hear
Perhaps something puerile
Perhaps something intelligent
That I don’t agree with
Or something to betray her spirit
Which I suspect
Is vain and self-serving
As she is young
And overdressed
With a singular arrogant air
And isn’t aware
Of the world around her
Or cares to know about it
And perhaps that is a good thing
And maybe I wish I felt more that way
But there are too many people
On the platform
And too many stories
For me to be indifferent.

Soon,
Almost now
One of those people will carry me away
With their story.

Yet
in this moment
She is all there is.


Passengers at rush hour, Victoria Station, London, 1927.
Victoria Station 1927


This poem was written in August 2012. I can't remember if it was based on a actual incident, as I people gaze a lot (don't we all) and have forgotten her (I've also destroyed too many brain cells over the years so I'll pretend that it's the former excuse), but it's highly likely that it did happen.



One slipped by. Now it's Shut for Business.




Ah Shut...



I've been away for a couple of weeks, taking a much needed break from the routines of work, parenthood etc.

I send out a lot of poems and rely on them to tell me if they accept it or reject it. I don't have time to closely monitor each site, so if they neglect to tell me, which does happen on occasion, I assume it's a rejection, or that it was lost.

Lost in the system


I only just discovered that a poem of mine had been accepted and published back in April. It's through the Mad Swirl site. You can find the poem here. It's called Shut for Business. Here is the beginning:

Shut for business

Stand high
Be outspoken
Not that it’s the message


The Best of Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum



I also have a story called In Memoriam coming up in a couple of weeks through another site called Drunk Monkeys. It's a simple piece using various methods of communication. For example, one part is from a letter, another is from a text, the core subject being a man who died. It was rejected fourteen times, the highest number of anything I've submitted. I was about to give up on it to be honest. Proves that persistence does pay off.

This is where I spent half of my holiday, in Indonesia. I was so relaxed, I never wrote a word.



My pic