Writhing Writing

My handwriting has not always been
the microscopic scribble I create today.
At eight, learning joined-up writing
my steel nib stabbed unasked through the page.
I blotted the monitor's inkwell spills
navy circles spreading on spongy pink.

Twelfth birthday boxed fountain pen and Quink ink,
but pages and pages of notes to take!
Speed made me closes the holes on my 'e's,
tighten 'a's and 'o's and lose elegant loops.
I still rush to give birth to my thoughts,
sowing the words like seeds

From my poppy-hued pencil now poking
above my knuckle, waving in distress.
CUMBERLAND inscribed in gold on one side
tells me it was born in a stone factory
at the sheep-grazed foot of mighty Skiddaw.
I can suck it in my search for inspiration.

Why do I cultivate these poems on the page?
To gasp at prospected ideas?
To drop my audience's jaws or spark smiles?
To erupt emotions and mirror myself?
These harvests drive me to cast my pencil
against the frightening snowy desert of A4.

17 October 2006