Here’s a short poem called “as i purge my soul”. As the COVID-19 lockdown has become The Great Spring Clean (that’s how it’ll be referred to in the history books at least) I’ve been purging. I need to do an emotional purge and learn to let negatives go.
I’ve been hitting a bit of a creative drought of late. Lockdown has thrown my routine and my mental health hasn’t been the best, so having some prompts to get my started has been helpful. (Apologies for anyone who has come looking for new prompts from me recently!)
A group run by Peoplespeakup that I usually go to has been running Zoom sessions, and a piece of homework was to write a piece using the 13th line of the 13th page of the 13th book on the bookshelf. The piece needed to be 13 lines long.
The book that came off my shelf was the rather apt ‘The End We Start From‘. The line was ‘the crap floats own the plug like tiny beasts’. Here’s my effort…
as I purge my soul
the crap floats down the plug like tiny beasts
each one a prototype of the hurt i create
each an amends filled with helium
launched into the everlasting blue
I let go but never really let go
tied to forget-me-nots heavier than lead
moored on silted beds
trapped in concentric circles and spiral jetties
wound too tight to float too flighty to reel
stock checking my over analytical hypocritical paradoxes
i wish i could name all the beasts i dredge up
as I purge my soul
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