Magnifying Glass

Since this blog started life as a poetry blog I reckon it´s time to post a poem. This one is from my collection, Midas Touch, published by Ward Wood Publishing. I have played a little trick in line 3. As is well known, there´s a certain kind of language, or diction, I should say, which is outlawed in contemporary poetry. Archaic terminology has no place in poems written in 2013. The basic premise is quite reasonable, of course, but my inner devil loves to break rules. `Greensward´ is a word that would not be accepted by most editors, quite rightly, I have to admit. Lovely, therefore, to smuggle it in as `green sword´. Heh, heh.


Magnifying Glass

At school we´ve all looked into one,
hovered it over a blade of grass
and seen the green sword´s cutting edge.

We´ve peered at the tips of our fingers,
the geography of whorls writ suddenly large,
and followed the Nile across green and yellow
to Abri, El Khandaq, Khartoum.

When the boy at the back raised his to one eye
and winked hugely, we laughed,
but the side of his face
stepped out of itself.

At arm´s length it made trees shrink
and stand on their heads,
a single leg pointing up
into a grassy sky.