British poet Chris Kinsey has had five collections of poetry published. Most recently, From Rowan Ridge, was commissioned by Fair Acre Press in 2019. These poems are mainly concerned with the Mid-Wales border environment where she and her ancestors have dwelt.
This poem seems to capture the malaise that many of us felt during lockdown. Writers in particular seemed to be suffering writer’s block, and it’s great to be able to laugh about the lack of productivity – a release in this poem!
The Lazy Poet’s Day
The good poet is up blogging
on the virtues of being
at her desk by 5.00 a.m.
This lazy poet sleeps on until
her greyhounds land. All three
set like giant pieces of jigsaw.
The good poet races through
her Morning Pages chasing a shoal
of dreams, obsessions and ideas.
The lazy poet snuggles down until
a crescendo of dream-driven paws
pound her into rising.
Out in the gold-grey currency of dawn,
under the unspent moon, the hounds
sniff rime, mark squirrels catapulting
off whippy twigs. The lazy poet
spins with the pin-wheeling sun
through pines.
By now, the good poet is consulting
her spreadsheet and posting poems
through open submissions windows.
The lazy poet lags – a woodpecker
brands a silver birch, she sight-surfs
on a kingfisher’s back, calls the hounds.
The good poet permits herself one well-
deserved strong coffee. The lazy one
has three, a ton of toast and then
fires up her computer. The good poet’s
checklist is a quiver of ticks. She has
a brood of drafts.
The lazy one creates a word doc and waits
at the blank page. Outside winter gnats
do not wander lonely as a cloud but compete.
Keys depress. Characters form.
She clicks onto Zoom, joins friends
to practise Tai Chi and wonders
if wu wei, action-without-action,
works better for poetry
than it does for housework?