Since 2010, inspired by National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), I’ve had a project of writing fourteen 14-line stanzas each November. Even though my favourite stanza form is an Onegin stanza and not a sonnet, I called this project LoSoRhyMo – Local Sonnet Rhyming Month.
If you want to read past Novembers’ verses you can click on the LoSoRhyMo tag at the bottom of this blog post. Or you could go to my Publications page and buy one of the six little books made up from these and others of my adventures in verse. All but one of these excellent volumes are self-published. The exception, None of Us Alone, is a kind of Best Of published by Ginninderra Press, and I have to thank Tricia Dearborn for her help in selecting the poems for inclusion in it.
Here goes for 2021
November verse 1: The swimming pools have re-opened So good to be back in the water. I like to see it lap the Tiles as I swim laps or when granddaughter clamps her lips around her smiles to keep it out. First thing this morning in the slow lane, I'm relearning other bodies aren't a threat, even unmasked, bare and wet. After bushfires, epicormic shoots adorn the trunks of gums like bloomers on their legs and bums. Post-lockdown, thanks to hypodermic double vaccination rates, we put on hope. We tempt our fates.
A note for readers who noticed the Emily Dickinson reference: for no reason I can think of, the actual Emily Dickinson line (with ‘Miles’ instead of ‘Tiles’) often hounds me like a non-musical ear-worm while I’m swimming laps, so I had to include it here, however awkwardly.
Me fail? I fly! 