Two for one - Poetry Bus special offer

Well, when I first saw TFE's task for this week I thought 'no way'. Using two lines already written, mentioning a fashion designer (fashion...god, I am so far from it...you have no idea!). And then...and then...

These are the starting lines we were given:

'She was wearing Stella McCartney
I was drinking Stella Artois'

And I guess it came to 'yes, way' in the end as the poem they brought me to is below. You could call it 'doggerel'...but I might just call it 'another poem'. (I did have a longer paragraph here but I changed my mind about it and deleted).



Not a star in the sky

She was wearing Stella McCartney
I was drinking Stella Artois
There was something special about her
Not the usual down at our bar

Expensive and perfectly pretty
And not watching the keys to her car
So I took them and childishly hid them
Without them she'd not get very far

I could keep her stashed here in our lock-in
Woo her sweet with a heavenly jar
She might stoop, take me shopping for outfits
It's too long now I've been insular

Then I look at my glass - also pretty
It's half empty but pints often are
And I know I've the money for one more
But not two – this is no Shangri-La

So I'll miss her, the muse in McCartney
Never get to her secrets or bra
But I'll cuddle my liquid for comfort
It's my sparkling, my easy, heart's star


RF 2010


And on a slightly similar note I thought I'd add another poem I wrote this week. I didn't get round to a new train poem last week (when the rest of the Poetry Bus team did) but on the Wednesday after something did finally come to me (partly thanks to reading all the other fascinating, varied poems on the subject – links to them all here). Here's mine:



Just another brief encounter


I used to fall in love all the time
Several flights a week at the peak of the madness

Take this one long train trip years ago
I was heading due south (Paris to Madrid)

There was this young checked-shirt, all-American guy
(Blue-jeans, guide-book, back-pack, deck-shoes)

We talked in the sunshine of the vacant corridor
Just we two, just chatting, standing outside of everything

And I don't remember his name, a single word that was said
Or if there was a kiss or any embrace involved

But I remember that I loved him, that much for sure
For an hour, with a passion, like a woman possessed


RF 2010


And the photo at the top? Mark took it in a hotel in Amsterdam (he was there last month for a friend's birthday jaunt). Fancy, huh?

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