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Just to get you up to date with where we’re up to. For the Fringe Friday events The DGPS were focusing on the classics. I managed to mismanage my time that day and instead booked myself in for a tattoo and a children’s birthday party, so ended up missing the reading. This is what I prepared for the event, it has not been previously shared so any comment will be appreciated, as I’ve never attempted humour before. :S

* written as freewriting after reading Shakespeare’s ‘Shall I compare thee…?’ and Andrew Marvell’s ‘To His Coy Mistress’.

I’d love to celebrate your beauty

I’d love to hold your beauty in epic verse
With words that would chime for all of eternity,
So when people would read of it, they may understand true admiration and love.

I’d love to hold your beauty in epic song
With a melody that would melt their hearts for years to come
So when people hear of it, they may know the depth of respect and commitment.

I’d love to hold your beauty in epic verse
But unfortunately, these beer goggles wont last so long
So instead of harping on my dear, let’s get it on before your beauty is gone.

* I then attempted to write a sonnet. Having struggled considerably on previous writing course, I recall a tutor pulling me aside and giving me this advice “write from the heart, nothing else will do. Look deep into your heart, and what it is that truly gives you purpose”, a little daunted by this I began to write. And this is what I wrote:

Shall I Compare thee…?

Shall I compare thee to a chocolate cake?
Thou art more lovely and more chocolate laced
Fudge chucks do shake the darling buds of taste
And a single slice is all too small a plate.

Sometime with cream the taste of chocolate chimes
And often is its brown perfection ate
And every layer from layer is claimed as mine
By chance or greed or my deciding fate

But thy eternal hunger shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fudgy cake
And ne’er will Slim Fast brag of pounds mislaid
When buried in bowls lay the slimmer’s face

So long as chubby hands may grasp
So long lives this, my chocolate love will last.

The Dead Good Poets Society

*a friend of mine set up a local poetry group 'The Dead Good Poets Society', and once a month we meet and perform our poems, it's quite informal but lots of fun. The following are the previous poems performed.

What if you're wrong?
And I'm not ill at all
But still, you fill me so I rattle
From all these pretty pills you feed me like bird seed.

What if you're wrong?
And I'm not ill at all
And still you watch me from behind your protective glass
As though I'm some crazed animal who might pounce and mame without warning.

What if you're wrong?
And I'm not ill at all
And still you slash the layers of my sanity with jagged jaws for information I don't have
So sure the answers are concealed beneath the surface.

What if you're wrong?
And I'm not ill at all
And all your care and understanding do nothing more -than drive me mad
So that answers and pills and protective glass spout from my nose and bite you on the ass
With a print that spits "YOU'RE WRONG!"

(this was written shortly after a shock diagnosis of Bipolar disorder)

I forgot to miss you

It’s been ten months, and three days,
and four half hours since you left
And I forgot to miss you.

I forgot clear away your things
And still find a shoe beneath your bed
Where you left it,
never knowing the scent would ever intoxicate me
And now I’ve forgotten why I cannot move it.

I’m still sure I hear your calls when the air is still
And imagine the conversations we’d be having in the morning
as I try to start the car.
Shopping, so mundane that when a stranger brushes by
A smell, I turn, I see. I crumble.
Some unknown soul stole your scent is staring back at me
But still I’m clinging to his arm, so sure that this imposture must be you.

At night I wrap your jumpers around me
Still safe inside your invisible arms

And every year I still buy you a card,
Drop it into the sea
And wait endlessly for your reply.

It’s been ten months, and three days
And four hours thirty eight minutes
And I forgot to miss you.

(written in response to my father passing away)

to begin with

Hello,

My name is Sarah. I'm a mother, student and performance poet. This blog is three parts diary, one part poetry. If you're reading this I hope you find what you're looking for on these pages. Comments and constructive criticism are always appreciated."