Poetry
Originally poetry came from the oral tradition and is therefore meant to be read aloud. My training and experience in acting and public speaking is consequently a great asset to this tradition.
The Creative Innovation Centre in Taunton, offers an opportunity, once a month, for all poets to share their work. For more information: info@creativeinnovationcentre.co.uk. If you are a poet who would like to enhance your performance skills see my home page on Voice Lessons.
I have been writing poems since I was 16 but only shared them recently. My poetry is stimulated by daily life and human experience; they are about any subject, and in different styles – depending on the ‘voice’ of the poem. They are also ‘works in progress.’
(In the unlikely event) Please contact me for permission to use any of my poetry.
Christinewinter2@icloud.com
National Express
An hour of fields
Of swiping green
And glimpse of blue,
Doing 65 in the middle land
Crawling pass a lorry doing 62.
The endless road
Of National Express.
Liquid silver cars
Shimmering in the sun,
A blue sign
Three stripes,
Two stripes,
One…
Costa Services,
Cost a lot,
We pass it by
On National Express.
We sit in rows of plugged in ears
Holding hands with mobile phones
A Ding!
Someone has a message!
We all look round
Or is it me?
No one talks
On National Express.
Swindon, Reading, Heston,
London beckons.
Houses full of cars,
Grey pillars like majestic tombs
Towering over a terracotta landscape.
Red lights…Green lights
We accelerate on orange.
A siren here
A siren there
Sirens sounding everywhere.
We fly over Chiswick
Pass Novotel
And glass house boat.
Easy hotel,
Premier Inn
Line up to take us in.
We crawl through dark
Streets that never see the sun
Pass cobbled mews and railings.
A patch of walled green
In Brompton Road.
Squashed legs, sore bums,
And floppy heads,
We stop on green
In crush hour best.
Then at last
At Victoria Coach
We come to rest.
We come
By National
Express.
The Mother’s Child
When she was a child
She walked like a child,
With slow deliberate steps.
Mother gasps and pants
With frustration,
“Hurry! Hurry!
We’re late”!
Now the mother
Is the child,
“Hurry! Hurry!”
Says the child
In frustration,
As mother gasps and pants
And takes the child’s steps.
A Ballerina
In my mind I see myself
Swanlike in dazzling white
With pencil legs and feet on point
I sashay across the floor
And twirl
The par de deux.
My legs are short
My hips are wide
But I am a ballerina inside.
The music fills my soul
And in my head I fly
With sissored legs
Across the neon stage
My heart in fluttering sighs,
I am a ballerina inside.
Although time has eaten the years
The childhood dream never dies
Whether fat
Or thin
Or old,
I AM
A ballerina
inside.
Tom’s Room
A Sonnet
A deposit of calm where baby slept
The smallest of rooms but so fresh and bright
Encircling arms around where secrets kept
In a cosy box, a womb full of light.
Soft lilac walls now turned white washed green,
Cream coloured furniture framed in a nest
A lullaby of squeaking birds unseen,
A boy’s bell jar hidden from the rest.
Some remnants left behind, a knitted boy
With button nose and smiling mouth he lies
Face down among rejected toys.
I sit and clutch him to my breast and sigh.
Pockets full of words now litter the floor
And a man’s suit hangs from the back of the door.
(A Shakespearean Sonnet: Octet, sestet, rhyming couplet at the end)
The Typewriter
You lie there waiting to be touched
Plugged in, set in motion
Letters reaching out,
waiting for words
Shiny smooth, black tipped grey,
Too good to be thrown away.
I remember the times
I’ve punched and chatted
With unforgiving keys,
And struck conversations
With dancing exclamations
And Bold impartations.
Smudged ink and tipex spoiling the view.
I remember the day
You set my life in motion
Making letters of introduction,
And now like a discarded lover
You are abandoned
For a newer model –
One that never has to be corrected.
I touch you one last time
And cover you with plastic.
There is no going back
Life moves on at a different pace now
The old has to be relinquished.
I take you on your final journey
And place you on a pile of toasters
Now I snuggle into software systems
And Micro soft words,
My new love sliding
effortlessly onto the screen.
My mistakes don’t matter anymore,
They are covered up
And remain unseen.
Molly
Who is the man who sits and stares?
He holds my hand and sighs,
He frightens me.
Who is this girl who looks so sad?
I don’t want her pitying eyes,
She frightens me.
I want my Mum
To take me home.
I want my Mum
To hold me tight
And say, “it’s alright.”
I don’t want to be here.
It frightens me.
Who are these people who shout and wail?
They are so old, they frighten me.
Who are these people in blue gowns?
With tired eyes and lips so pale.
They frighten me.
I want my Mum
To take me home.
I want my Mum
To hold me tight
And say, “it’s alright.”
I don’t belong here.
It frightens me.
They tell me I’m eighty-nine,
They tell me my Mum is dead,
They tell me it’s morning
And I have to get out of bed.
I clutch my bear and hold him tight,
And wait for Mum to say good-night.
They frighten me.
I don’t want to get out of bed,
I want my Mum to stroke my head.
I clutch my bear and hold him tight,
I want my Mum to say,“Molly,”
“you’re alright.”
Everything frightens me.
(Molly had dementia and I visited her every week until she died aged 94)
1973
Purple lips and panda eyes
We strut in knee length socks
Sipping cider through a straw,
“Come on, Come on”
“Here it is Merry Christmas.”
with glitter boots
and frizzy hair –
‘every body’s having fun,”
‘life has just begun.’
Lying on the floor,
Breathe in,
zip up,
Don’t eat all day
Satin pants are in!
And so are boils!
Hot bodies,
sticky foreheads,
Mascara dripping,
Pulsating beat,
Stamping feet,
Shimmering
waving arms
Head bursting,
Mind numbing,
Mesmerizing,
Here we come!