Category Thoughts

Fair Game

freyathewriter 38 Comments

They swagger, these gifts of the gods
Draped in Savile Row
Handmade brogues squeaking
Signalling their advance
Sleek terminals flashing green and red
The latest billions to be made
Orchestrated by one perfectly manicured digit
A rarefied world, this domain of the trader
Tiger women diluting the testosterone just enough
To become the next female BSD.
(I don’t have the balls
In all senses of the word).
They all walk and talk a good game
Ride the highs and lows with aplomb
Possessing animalistic grace, a certain panache
Revelling in the glory, drowning the losses in Moët & Chandon
Or inside their bonus-bought classic car
Seats rubbed smooth with 90mph sex and cocaine
Shagging the pressure away in a City side street.
Rare beasts, these,
Stalking, hunting down that one trade
Chasing mammon, winner takes all
But I wonder, when it comes down to it
When I see those who drew the short straw
Carrying their belongings in a cardboard box
Incongruously shabby against their Cartier adornments
Leaving their ivory tower for the last time
Facing down the cameras as journalists hunt in packs
Trading titillation for the headline news
I wonder – do they think it was worth it, after all?
Probably.

*****

This week, Brian, our host at dVerse Meeting the Bar wants us to consider character – something more akin to penning short stories and novels, rather than poetry. Fabulous! I love a challenge!

My take is all about that much-maligned character, the City trader. I have worked in the Square Mile since last century (no, really!) and have met and seen a few in my time. Some are as bad as the press paints them, many are not. All of them have guts, that’s for sure! I haven’t based my poem on anyone in particular – consider it an amalgamation of many traits I have seen (in traders and other types) over the years.

I hope you enjoy my offering – and please do join us! The hosts all work extremely hard to make the community a success.

Sunrise

freyathewriter 35 Comments

Return me to a gentle land
Gather me in, take my hand
Restore my mind to calmer days
Remove the scene that still replays
over and over, jamming my head
Bring me serenity, a constant thread
of restoration, courage anew
Let me forge ahead, source my strength from you
Know that with each breath and every pace
I take you with me, see your face
Hear your laughter, envisage your smile
Yes, we are parted, but just for a while
Life is but a moment, a wrinkle, a sigh
This is only adieu, Dad, not forever goodbye.

******

Because time passes, pain eases, gratitude settles in and new dawns are always possible. Amazingly, I wrote this poem before reading Grace’s introduction at Open Link Night – and yet it just seems to fit. I have so much for which to be grateful.

Please do visit the dVerse Open Link Night for examples of some very fine poetry indeed – and be inspired… Join us!

Silk

freyathewriter 46 Comments

And so the tissue-thin skin
covering the scar, sealing in the hurt and anger and grief
and burning, scalding emptiness
has stood well against the test of time.
Or so I think.
A famous sportsman has a skiing accident
A businessman dies in a London underground station
Another throws himself from a tall building in the City
A famous actor’s life is cut short – snap – just like that
And the delicate strands of the healing unravel, tear, gape.
The wound is opened, the bloody depths are revealed.
My throat stretches and aches to keep back the tears
and my eyes burn.
I am reminded that grief is not a path from A to B.
It meanders, traverses peaks and chasms, navigates switchbacks and
launches me into the air.
My parachute is gone, only ropes snaking my ankles –
freefall beckons and just, just when I think I will hit the ground
I am yanked back, ligaments and muscles tearing with effort
to just keep going.
It’s the hardest work I ever imagined.
Because that sorrow, that jolt, that catch of breath isn’t for those who have died, or are unaware.
It is for the souls left behind, making new patterns out of just getting through
wanting it to be temporary-permanent-over-never to end.
What’s left on the other side?
It is this. Just this.

******

This week, I am releasing some of my pent-up emotions. Life is filled with light and shade. This is how it is, sometimes.

Please do visit the dVerse Open Link Night for examples of some very fine poetry indeed – and be inspired… Join us! I will link up to this week’s post later today.