Grief

[Mike Daniels]

Grief makes loud noises
even in the quietest times
when the words are soft spoken -
as soft as a sad smile.

Grief shouts in your ear,
its the flashing light in your eye,
blue and blue, with screaming sirens.
Grief is the expression on a stranger's face.

Grief attacks on all sides,
opens up a second front
when you are distracted
by thoughts of chocolate cake and children,

when grief comes squirming up
and wriggles into your mouth,
erupts as a sob as unexpected as
it is alarming.
The whole train slumps to a halt
and teams of men start looking
for faults on the line, and
the other passengers stares.

Grief is the magic of deceit
and desertion - a paper bag
blowing across and empty
station car park, no trains stop here.

Grief is the whizzbang,
the sherbet fountain, the molten lava,
the espresso, the lewd act
in the corner of the room.

[Catherine Edmunds]

An excellent 'list' poem; some stanzas more effective than others. I think the best by far is the fourth. The poem feels as if it builds to this point. The last two stanzas, I'm not so sure about. They work, but they don't get hold of you by the throat the way that fourth one does.

By the way, a few typos: apostrophe missing from it's in the second stanza; last word fourth stanza should be stare; fifth stanza, an, not and.

[Mike Daniels]

Thanks delph.

My proof reading has become very sloppy - I put it down to tiredness/lethagy more than anything else.

This just wrote itself. I was on automatic pilot most of the time - I'll have to hack into it and sort it out soon.

Mike