Thursday, September 15, 2005

Another Day


The week clicks past
A ratchet and cog
The shudder of morning traffic
Judy coughing on the carpet
Licking her swollen paws
You are reading
Propped awkwardly on three pillows
You didn’t sleep well
Your arm hurt and your back
Freefalling in your dreams
I look around
The second hand
On the cartoon clock
Moves another notch
My Gaudi mug steams with coffee
Behind my eyes
A vague ache
I can’t pin down
Blurred shapes shrug in the angular light
Judy is panting on the crooked rug
She wants her breakfast
I must get up
Get started
On my book of the maze
I stand barefoot on the rug
that will be whipped away
before the day is done
A turn of the cog
A tick of the clock
The pant of the dog
You drop your book
Sigh in your sleep
It’s just another day



14 comments:

Roger Stevens said...

I've been tidying up my office today. There's so much rubbish and... stuff. There's stuff everywhere. Piles and piles of it. I think I probably need a skip. And I came across some notes on a little pad that I wrote one morning - last year? Anyway - it's shaping up quite well as a poem. I thought it was about time I wrote something not set in France.

Patry Francis said...

I love the rhythm of this one.

Russell Ragsdale said...

Very much a return from Provence!

Russell CJ Duffy said...

being the oddball that i undoubtedly am i have, in my head, given you, and some of my other 'blogging buddies' either band identities or solo act equivalants.
e.g. Michael is 'The Incredible String Band'
Floots is 'Fairport convention'
and you dear sir are 'Steely Dan'.
intelligent poems without trying to be clever.
excellent rhythm to this one with an almost tick tock ending.

PS. and of course Messrs Becker and Fagan named their group after a vibrator!!!

Sue hardy-Dawson said...

Lovely slow and intimate, thank-you by the way for the anthology flier, almost ready, lifes just a bit chaotic right now (in the nicest possible way).

Wastedpapiers said...

I like poems like diary entries I must admit. Its a gift to make the mundane and everyday sound poetic and exciting. You have it!
Where can i get one?
As for tidying- i can heartily recommend it. I tidied my workspace recently and was able to do much more work afterwards. It really was quite uplifting to have a bit of table that I could see!
I like the idea of being associated with the Incredibles- thanks CJ. I went through a Steely Dan phase at the time of Pretzel Logic and errr that next one? Such well crafted songs that stand the test of time.

Russell CJ Duffy said...

Aja?

Wastedpapiers said...

I think it was Countdown To Exeter City?

{illyria} said...

an apt description for my in-tray travails as well.

amiethinggoes said...

i like this one. very poetic way of describing your day.

and it's fun going thru old files and just a lot of old stuff, sometimes underneath of it all there's long lost treasure to be found.

Nan said...

The strangest thing when delving through old files is to find a snippet of note with part of a poem in your own handwriting that you don't recognize at all. (Did I write that? What could I have been thinking? This has happened to me more than once, and it's a little unnerving!)

rusty said...

Very in-your-face and yet subtly laid back....

Russell CJ Duffy said...

Michael. Ah yes, I went there once and on the way back said Aja! (as you do!)

EATING POETRY said...

I love it! Another day turned beautiful just with words.

By the way, I love the little rhyme you left on my blog... seems like you started a rhyming chain.