Creative writing | March 2020

Does anyone want to read poetry in the middle of a pandemic? I hope so, because it's kind of got me inspired to write - and I came up with this little number last night. As they often are when I post them on my blog, this poem is a first draft. But I like it a lot and I hope you do too. Feel free to let me know, but don't be too mean about it...

Photo by Kristopher Roller

The Dancing Dodo: Pandemic Poetry #1

I want to get out of here, I thought:

to step on cracks and hold your hand

again, and whisper secrets into the core 

holes of bricks all the way home - remember 

how it feels to dance with the devil and the 

dragonflies. To feel the rain bounce off

the streetlights in the early hours of a

Saturday morning as stars fall from the

sky hundreds of miles away, clattering to the

ground - a series of near misses as the headlines 

cry for what could have been. To smudge red 

paint on my aching lips and stroke the pavement, 

mimicking the heartbeat of a city that sleeps too much and

too softly. My skin tingles and the floorboards creak and salt 

gets stuck in the gap between two kitchen drawers: time 

keeps going. The world belches and all at once the clouds

roll in. I need to see urban foxes sneaking into building sites 

and scavenging moths from damp grass, and peel back this 
unwanted safety blanket as it begins to cause a rash - but for 
now I’ll keep my secrets to myself, and dance with the Dodo instead.