Creative Writing - Sample Poems

Lyrics for at Least One Love Song

After driving most of the day,

you give up trafficking in society

and decide there are better ways

to make a loving. Or at least

other angles from which to view

the corpse of your former life.

It hangs in every tree you pass,

never more glistening now its breath

has gone, mist for lost birds to fly through.

Car door ajar, you bend and listen

to the road, expecting a heartbeat.

There is a rattle, a train carriage

coming loose, then rejoining.

The engine, which might be your car’s,

keeps on with methodical digging.

Down there no one asks questions

about punctuality or what is the reason

for driving away. And not for the first time

today, you know the meaning of life:

love is a long, slow allegation. You stare

down the tunnel it makes.

*first published, Blast, 2006