Poems or prose?

Written for Carry On Tuesday and Sunday Scribblings

I used to write quite a bit of poetry . I even won an award or two. But one day I stopped . Not through choice ; my muse suddenly decided she preferred prose to poems. Today I decided to make myself write some verse, and despite spending ages struggling with rhymes and rhythms, my apology for a poem was pretty dire. Then I applied the same theme to a chunk of prose . It flowed out in exactly the way my poetry once did – it was all done in five minutes. By this time next year it could all have swung around again; who knows . Anyway I’ve posted both . Perhaps seeing them one above the other in print might give me the push I need to practice  my verse . 

The summer flower has run to seed

The trees have shed their leaves

It’s cold outside

The sky is grey

And winter’s here indeed.

But in the pub I sit beside

A fire of crackling wood

A beer in hand

A plate of food

I tell you, life is good!

Not so many weeks ago all I could see from the window was a palette of colour. Gaudy blooms adorned well tended beds, trees were dressed in quivering leaves of green , and puffs of whitest cloud drifted across a sky of deepest blue . Today it is different . The summer flowers have run to seed and the trees are no more than frosted skeletons . A leaden sky presses down on all who venture out and the freezing wind whispers winter .

I turn my head from the window and stare into the orange glow of a crackling log fire . I feel a warm glow in my cheeks as I raise a pint of frothing ale to my lips . I watch as a cloud of steam floats upward from a bowl of comfort food and assaults all my senses. From the bar comes the sound of jovial chatter and the clanking of glasses . Here in the inn, winter is kept outside . As I throw another log on to the fire a voice in my head reminds me – life is good