Abuse
One day in the long forgotten present
I sat wailing at the waning crescent
Of the dark moon’s bulging cheek.
Cheated, laughed at, even beaten
By a sinful handsome cretin,
I’ve been hiding for a week.
I step out, my face is glowing,
No more crying, no more bowing.
But his smile, it makes me weak.
Eyes wide open, lips hot burning,
We go to bed, my stomach churning,
Yes, my life is up the creek.
C. Fox, 2005
This poor attempt at a poem harks back to my time volunteering at a women’s shelter. A harrowing time, not always successfully countered by my frequent creative surges.
But it doesn’t matter. Whether good or bad, poems helped me practise language, at least they did nearly ten years ago. Despite its casual, playful setup, it’s based on a conversation with a woman who was a victim and kept going back to her abusive boyfriend.
Nowadays I write the rare whimsical limerick, and mostly full-sized novels. Guess I’ve found my niche.
What do you do to indulge your muse? Write? Paint? Sing?
November 22, 2014
I feel inspired to write poems sometimes – it’s like the words write themselves – but more often than not my thrill comes from letting a character or two loose. I love the measured approach of poetry but don’t think I’m particularly skilled at it, although I suppose a lot of the skills are transferable to writing prose and other fiction. Not that I’m not already anal about word choice and the positioning of commas…
November 22, 2014
Thanks, Mark. Yes, I can’t write poetry to save my life (as evidenced here), but there’s a joy that comes from playing with words, and combining this playful approach with my mood at a particular moment is a private pleasure. But not one I normally post on my website. 🙂