H2O
This month's poem was chosen by Ross Kightly. Ross read through every poem on every profile and says it was very difficult to choose a winner. He narrowed it down to a shortlist of 25 and then, eventually, chose this one. He says, "It manages to make a single molecule so articulate and significant! Finally, it’s always a matter of personal taste, I suppose, and - as a non-scientist craving scientific literacy - I tend to respond positively to poems that are coming from where this one is."
Here's a video version of the poem.
Find out more about Norman and his work at http://www.writeoutloud.net/poets/normanhadley
H2O
Remember me? I’m the other molecule you all know
Two aitches straddling a single O
There are trillions like me
In the rivers and sea
A shimmering skin
Around a paperweight world
Yes, I’ve been through seven Londoners
Swilled around in Cromwell’s wine
In vain I diluted the Christ man’s vinegar
Rode the Jordan out of Palestine
I drifted north, linking arms
To crystallise in a spinning flake
Dozed a century in the glacier’s creak
Calved in a splash from a spray-bound snout
I was ridden by bears across the salty swell
Shrinking in the drip melt till
The bears swam in me then I swam in them
I regretted the darkness of their lungs
Later I was exalted, to the rim of space
Gulped by engines of furious devising
Scribbled in staves across the blackboard sky
Loitering in droplets before the reckless rush
Back to gravelly headwaters,
A homecoming salmon, barren of spawn
To slither once more down the mountain’s tilt
To an ocean already cold to my longing
How long must I journey on this ceaseless conveyor?
A belt-loop spliced without beginning or end
Feed me to a furnace stronger than the sun
Hammer-forge me into a helium haze
Let me bubble through the giggling throat of a child
Stretch the skin of a shiny balloon
Scale the vacant blue and never rain again
Here's a video version of the poem.
Find out more about Norman and his work at http://www.writeoutloud.net/poets/normanhadley
H2O
Remember me? I’m the other molecule you all know
Two aitches straddling a single O
There are trillions like me
In the rivers and sea
A shimmering skin
Around a paperweight world
Yes, I’ve been through seven Londoners
Swilled around in Cromwell’s wine
In vain I diluted the Christ man’s vinegar
Rode the Jordan out of Palestine
I drifted north, linking arms
To crystallise in a spinning flake
Dozed a century in the glacier’s creak
Calved in a splash from a spray-bound snout
I was ridden by bears across the salty swell
Shrinking in the drip melt till
The bears swam in me then I swam in them
I regretted the darkness of their lungs
Later I was exalted, to the rim of space
Gulped by engines of furious devising
Scribbled in staves across the blackboard sky
Loitering in droplets before the reckless rush
Back to gravelly headwaters,
A homecoming salmon, barren of spawn
To slither once more down the mountain’s tilt
To an ocean already cold to my longing
How long must I journey on this ceaseless conveyor?
A belt-loop spliced without beginning or end
Feed me to a furnace stronger than the sun
Hammer-forge me into a helium haze
Let me bubble through the giggling throat of a child
Stretch the skin of a shiny balloon
Scale the vacant blue and never rain again
