Tag Archives: Virginia Lowe

Poem of the Day

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Forgetting how to ride a bike

 

My father loved the stars

In another life,

permitted education,

his facility with numbers

might have made him

a famous astronomer

instead of an accountant

See that bright one?

That’s Beetle-juice

I remember him telling

Yes, I’d say meekly

wishing to please

But I couldn’t of course

It was all just fuzzy blobs

 

See that milkbar on the corner?

No I said. Didn’t want to be sent

somewhere I couldn’t see

Stupid child! they thought

It never occurred to them

that I really couldn’t see.

 

So on my seventh birthday

a bicycle purple painted,

with Virginia

in gold down the crossbar

the most beautiful bike ever seen

I was terrified

to ride it, I couldn’t see

where I was going,

what was in front

I walked it to school

to Brownies after school

to have it admired,

to show it off

but I couldn’t actually ride it.

 

Six months later

my myopia finally spotted by a teacher

I learned to ride with my new glasses

I was never very good

never enthusiastic

never worthy of the bike’s beauty

The skill now long forgotten

Virginia Lowe
  • Submitted in response to Poetry prompt #8

poetry-prompt-8Virginia said: I was myopic (short sighted) from birth, but no one realised until a teacher called my parents when I was seven. I didn’t know of course – that’s just how the world was – it didn’t occur to me that it might look different to different people.  After I got glasses I was fine – but never really confident riding a bike, however beautiful the bike was. Now I’m old. When they removed the cataracts from my eyes, they fixed the myopia as well, so no more glasses! There are some things I miss though, especially the pattern of circles of light through a dense leaf canopy. But now I can see the birds instead. I’ll never go back to bike riding though.

I first wrote this poem in response to a prompt on another poetry site, Silver Birch Press. The prompt was ‘learning to ride a bike’. It will fit into my autobiography in verse (not yet published) A Myopic’s Vision.

Poem of the Day

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There’s a Rainbow in my Pocket

 

Inside the pocket of my shorts it’s dark and not too clean,

But you might just decipher the colours red and green.

There’s a length of string that’s red or faded nearly pink

A piece of a tangelo skin that’s sweeter than you think

A dandelion head there is, that’s rather sad and squashed

A blade of grass that’s all green now but changes when it’s washed

A toffee wrapper, blue as blue, that’s sticky-d up the dark

As well a stone of purplish-grey I found when in the park.

 

Rainbow colours but oh no, not the rainbow with its glow

Far too dirty, far too dank, it all needs cleaning to be frank.

 

Hard edges, cooling to the touch. I take it out and rub it clean

Angled just right toward the sun, its transparency is seen

In coloured bands breaks up the light,

and then stream through the colours bright

A wondrous pleasure to bestow

the prism bears its own rainbow

Virginia Lowe
  • Submitted in response to Poetry Prompt #3

poetry-prompt-3

 

 

 

 

Poem of the Day

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The Lost Cat and Sweet Violets

 

There once were some children who found a small cat

Homewards they took her to sit on a …

Cushion, and just then she wanted to eat

So they gave her a plate of nice juicy …

Carrots – but she didn’t like orange she’d rather have red

So they found her some roses to try them…

As food. But she turned up her little pink nose

And said she would never eat flowers unless they were…

 

Sweet violets, sweeter than the roses

Covered all over from head to toe

Covered all over with sweet violets.

 

© Virginia Lowe
  • Submitted in response to Poetry Prompt #42

Prompt5

Comment: The lack of rhyme makes the rhyme obvious and amusing, and as Norman Lindsey (The Magic Pudding) remarked, children are most interested in food. So here it is.

 

Poem of the Day

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Words and Birds

by Virginia Lowe

 

A queue of curious pelicans

A cue of queueious pelicans

The English language

Never ceases

To amaze

And amuse

 

Mother counted sixty four

swans and pelicans

on Lake Colac once

when I was a child

in the days

when the lake

was full

before

climate

change

hit.

 

  • Submitted in response to Poetry Prompt #7

Prompt7

Virginia says: I wrote this poem for exactly the reasons given in the poem. The memory, and amusement at ‘curious’ and ‘queue’.