Poetry Blog by Philippa Atkin

I love the way that words jiggle in my head,

They push and shove and jostle, fighting to be said

I can’t grasp their derivation or their urge to visit me,

Or why, swift upon arrival, they’re so anxious to be free.

There are words all lithe and lissom I can flex and shape at will

Which have raucous alter egos, born cacophonous and shrill

They make their exits differently, eac...

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I have poured you a cup of sunshine my love and laid out a blue sky day on your plate
I have dusted off the heavens so that your face is reflected there
I have rinsed the grass green, scrubbed the leaves squeaky clean and buffed up the tree bark 'til the pattern shines
I have rearranged the blossoms into pleasing symmetry and asked the Nightingales to practise a lullaby 
I have plumped up clou...

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Standing at the graveside I watch the mourners come 
And weigh up the equations of my life’s eternal sum

They are certain in this moment that I am worth their pain
But will I, in the years ahead, walk in their thoughts again?

For I question, now it’s over, who will remember me
Beyond a brief dead end inscription on the thriving family tree

I must balance all the harm I did, against the...

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Wandering Blue

I’d like to sail the heavens in a boat that’s made of glass,
Gazing down at myriad beauties, as I soar and pass. 

I’d wheel through foaming skies, above the snow-capped tops,
Over endless grassy plains and fields of burnished crops.

I’d float aloft the jungles that team and pulse alive
And beat swift across the deserts, where the arid creatures thrive.

But mostly I wo...

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IN THE TIME OF QUIET
No one’s told the daffodils about the pause to Spring
And no one’s told the birds to roost and asked them not to sing
No one’s asked the lazy bee to cease his bumbling round
And no one’s stopped the bright green shoots emerging through the ground
No one’s told the sap to rest, deep within the wood
And stop the sleepy trees from waking, wreathed about in bud
No one’s tol...

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