As always, I am endebted to my little notebook for the inspiration for the following poem.  Each time I have my post swim cup of tea I write something, anything in the notebook in the (sometimes) vain hope that I will produce ideas that can be taken further.

     This poem's day's notes started with a diatribe aginast a free-loading past neighbour; went on to berate myself for not writing up my impressions of the firework-crowded evening and night and early morning of Sant Joan, and from there a musing about the necessity I sometimes find to write a little signed and dated note to myself to prompt action.

     As soon as I had mocked myself for needing such a stimulus, I thought to myself that there might be a poem somewhere in the concept!  And so I started makeing more directed notes - and six (small) pages later I had drafted out what I thought might be key ideas towards a final poem.

     As is often the case with something which seems to be flowing in the notes, the actual writing of the poem was much more difficult: and it is always a warning sign when I use a word like 'eschew' in my primary thoughts!

     Anyway, I set to and eventually produced a draft which was essentially like a burning candle: the grease was dripping down the sides all around the central flame, but was not forming a coherent single statement of poetic purpose.  Whatever that might mean!

     The essential idea was one of writing to oneself, and signing and dating that writing to give it more significance and force.  As if a mere desire by itself was insufficient to make something happen, in spite of the fact that you had decided that it was worth doing.  This led on to the idea of 'signficance' - what is or might be important.  I was then taken back to an actual changing of the lino in the kitchen where, when it was taken up, a whole series of newspapers was revealed acting as a sort of crude underlay.  As a child, I was very impressed with the ancient quality of the newsprint (even though, given my age, it didn't need to be very old for me to think it antique) and I can remember looking at adverts and reading news that had absolutely no significance for me at all - it could just as well have been about the Neolithic as far as I was concerned: it was years old, when I had not reached anything like double figures!

     I suppose (I hope) that if I went through the same experience now, I would be able to relate the historic newspapers to my concept of time and I would be able to place things and wonder at the contemporary approach which might not have been substantiated by history.

     I was then taken by the ways in which we try and get outside history and time, by using a date and signature to transcend transcience.

     Essentially, I suppose that I consider myself slightly childish (childlike?) in thinking that a mere date and signature is any more meaningful than a simple scribbled note, but the motivation for this poem was also a concern for truth - which involves belief and faith and also, make believe.

     I'm not sure if this is a positive or negative poem; and I'm not sure what that might mean anyway.  But I am pleased with how the poem has turned out and I am still reading it to discover what I might have meant.

     As always I welcome any participatory response!

Promise

Time was, when, finally,

the lino in the kitchen’d had its day.

As it was taken up

(before the use of underlay)

a cache of newspapers would be disclosed;

brittle as crisps and prone to crumble

into ochre dust, as long past news

became its own grave dirt.

Narratives of those found leaves?

Fleet urgency, now lost and gone

through life’s rolled relevance.

Outside pages - faded wraiths

of Yesterday’s significant events;

unpunchlined jests, that can’t endure

inside the world-big goldfish bowl.

Then . . . passing stories after all?

We live within the social now,

a physical that’s selfie stamped:

what can be pictured - is a truth.

What image should intention make?

That move beyond the present-past

to sculpt the chaos from the dark?

Gestures can pretend to faith:

a shake of hands, or one raised up;

a spit and grasp - time honoured modes

that hold no more significance

than air.

But set it down & sign & date,

on paper cheap or vellum dear,

and it becomes a part of time

and quite apart from it as well.

So, all those (signed & dated) notes

I write to me (to finish work; to send it off;

to contact friends; to get things done!)

among the lines where poems lie;

the scribbled contracts I take on -

are really my jejune attempts

to nudge belief beyond the now

and make believe the future’s real.

Any responses most welcome!