He loved one thing
The smell of onion and garlic
Cooking, leaking out
Of her skin, branding her clothes.
That promise of a meal, ready to turn
With repetitive force.
The comfort of nothingness
Of whole countries debased with
The same roughly chopped onions and garlic
Browning, burning
In that wedding present pan.
Apologies for the lack of blog posts. I have been writing, but nothing that I immediately wanted and needed to share. I’ve also been busy organising a writers’ group which is now ten strong. And this is the fruit of one of our exercises on Saturday.
This particular exercise was to read a poem and discuss, then write a poem based on it. We used ‘He loved three things’ by Anna Akhmatova.
We had an interesting discussion about translation within the group. The version I found online for free had the title ‘He loved three things: alive’. Other members went on to find different translations. It makes me want to read the poem in the original Russian, but I can’t speak or read Russian!
I only had time for one thing, so here it is.
beckydeans 
At least you’re back with us now. Looking forward to more. (There will be more, won’t there?)
Hiya Graeme, terribly behind with Christmas stuff but there will be loads and I am researching something big! Hope you are your family have a good one! I will try to make the writers’ conference though need to do some organising!
I think we all suffer with Christmas (in spite of my recent posts on the subject that you won’t have had time to read!). At this time of year, and especially with children, that’s what you need to focus on.
Looking forward to seeing something big (sorry, got a bit “Carry On” there…). Have a great time over Christmas and New Year – and hopefully we’ll see each other before too long.
I’m coming to the writers’ conference now, though probably late, so see you there.
Looking forward to seeing you. Hope all is well
Is it! I’ve even applied for a writer/author one to one as a poet! Very busy with work, but that’s a good thing.