What a delight it has been for me, if not for you, to have found many of my old poems.
The other day, I climbed up into the attic in search of some poems I wrote when I was still a schoolboy. I was not certain that I still had them but I thought I would have a search. To my sheer amazement, I discovered them bound in a foolscap ring-binder. They were there, just as I recalled them; each poem had been typed on paper using a portable typewriter. Sure the paper was now yellowing but my work was still fully legible.
Oh but how I cringed as I read some of the poems. How puerile and how dark they now seemed. As far as poetry goes, they are crap … but they are my crap (think I’ll use that as a motto).
These were the poems I handed over to my English teacher (you may remember this from a previous post). Perhaps now I realise why he had not written any comments on them; they simply are not worth commenting on.
Despite my reservations regarding their quality (or lack of), I am really pleased to have found them again and I shall, from time to time, share some of them with you. (Unless I receive a lot of comments begging me not to.).
Remember that these poems were written back in the early 1970s, well before the days of modern performance poetry and at a time when poetry was influenced by TS Elliot, Ted Hughes and John Betjeman … not that these hold a candle (ugh cliche alert) to those esteemed poets. If the poems seem immature, remember that they were written when I was a lad in the midst of my teenage years.
The first poem I have chosen to share here is one called Snowflakes Fall. It is not a poem I remember writing but it is one of the least offensive and most ‘twee’; which is why I have chosen to share it here.
Snowflakes Fall
Silently, almost unseen,
They start to fall.
The snowflakes sail spirally down
And begin, my mind, to enthrall
As they melt upon the green
Into miniature rainbows and fade,
But their cause is not lost
For soon their comrades come
And cover the ground in furry down.
Helpless, I look through the window
At the once green glade
Now shrouded in white.
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