Clearing Ground - Poetry by Martin Alexander

Hunting for poems

I'm hunting poems in the jungle.
When I catch one I shall stab it with my pen
and stick it in my book with spit
and glue. I expect that it will wriggle
for a while, and snarl and struggle to be free.
That’s the sort of nuisance that a slippery poem can be.

Sometimes I see peaceful poems sleeping in the shade
and when I pounce they wake, bemused,
and find themselves stuck firm in place, confused,
and wonder how they got there. But it’s too late:
they’re stuck and find they have no choice
but resignation to their fate.

I’m sad when poems get away:
they let me catch a rippling glimpse,
a tantalising sense of shape and then
dissolve themselves in undergrowth.
I’m dazzled by a gleaming eye,
a graceful swerve, a rhythmic gait.
My fingers clutch the empty air
my pen stabs sharp – there’s nothing there –
the poem’s gone and it’s too late.

But the ones that I like best of all
are those that seem compliant:
they let me toy with them like mice
then eat me like a giant.

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