Hello Arthur,
                  I do believe you´re right about the last line. Thanks very much for the help with that.

Best wishes,   Mike




--- Alkuperäinen viesti ---
This an excellent piece of work that resolves its purpose without obvious
effort. To match the under stated manner of the rest of the poem , consider,
" ..its point far sharper than my pencil's.", for your last line. Whatever,
drop the ' ...will ever be.' A tad melodramatic and unnecessarily so. Thanks
for a good read. regards Arthur.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Horwood" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, November 28, 2002 11:19 AM
Subject: New sub An ordinary day


An Ordinary Day

It is early July and the morning sun
illuminates this page, my coffee cup,
a shiver of glass on my desk
and the hand that holds this pencil.

I am looking down at the street
beyond my window, quiet in its
mid-morning, Wednesday ordinariness,
exercising my words in this simple record.

You know the kind of thing I mean.
I want to evoke the nothing special
of everyday that makes it good to be alive.
I want to find the words to show

the quality of sunlight catching
the leaves on the hedge and shrubs,
the way the wind pushes the scattered clouds.
When I lay my arm across the desk

in this square of yellow light
it warms my skin without burning.
Through the open window I hear
the clatter and whirr

of a hand-pushed mower
a few gardens down the street.
In the pauses I can hear
the hum of traffic from the highway.

A woman and her dog pass and stop to look
at the parallel black lines
and gouged tarmac sliding off the road
into chipped slabs of paving

where yesterday a couple veered
under a lorry while tuning their radio.
I picked this shiver of glass from the sidewalk,
its point far sharper than this pencil´s point will ever be.





Mike