Give me five…
So often
I casually say
What?
That?
Oh
I just
Dashed it off
In five minutes.
It’s nothing.
And usually
It is.
four…
If they told me
I had just four minutes
Not to write a poem
Boil an egg
Walk to the station
Drink a cup of tea
Make and eat a sandwich
Or listen to a single song
But to break
A record
Long held
To be
Impossible
I’d run a mile.
three…
We grew up thinking
One day,
They’ll say
This is it:
You’ve only got three minutes.
So that even now
To be given
So little time
Still has the power
To scare me.
two…
A couple of minutes, no more –
Then I have to be out of the door
And when time is so tight
It’s quite tricky to write
Will I make it? I’m really not sure.
one…
And now it’s just me
Against the clock.
Can my four fingers
Outrun its two hands
And get to the end
First?
Or will I simply
Run out of
These poems are the result of a ridiculous challenge I set myself the other day. I had a quarter of an hour before I had to leave for a meeting, so I gave myself exactly five minutes to write a poem, then four to do another one, then three, and so on. Lots of fun, but it made my brain hurt.
Gonecycling (again) 