Yesterday and Today

Yesterday

my name was desert.

Only spiky cacti grew in my barren landscape.

Today I’m dank, dark earth, with the promise

of tulips in a myriad of colours.

Sometimes in my nightmares

I’m the white faced clown

with bleeding eyes.

In my dreams

I’m the girl on the flying trapeze.

Susan Jane Sims

From Irene's Daughter,  Poetry Space Ltd 2010

With thanks to Susan G Wooldridge for the above writing idea from Poem Crazy: freeing your life with words. Three Rivers Press 1996

I came across Poem Crazy about five years ago. It is inspirational.

Creation Story (1)

In the beginning

there was the cool touch

of a flagstone floor.

Baby soft feet.

And then a big brown bowl

and a swallowing up.

A lap’s crazy heat.

Soft petals. Wet cheek.

Mum dead heading roses.

Susan Jane Sims

This poem was first published in Obsessed with Pipework. Later in became the opening poem in my pamphlet collection Irene's Daughter published in 2010.