How high?
Quite high?
Not very high at all?
Really high (higher than our garden wall)?
As high as in the film The Aeronauts’?
How high?
As high as an elephant’s eye?
High enough to watch the clouds go by?
Higher than a leaping building?
Higher than an all time low?
As high as an outfielder on grass, fielding?
Higher than a geographical lake – obviously an ox-bow?
How high can a butterfly
fly?
I ask, because,
I’ve just seen a butterfly
flutter by –
three feet off the ground.
“When is a poem not a poem?”
Good question.
Yet, I have no good answer.
“When you read something
and it doesn’t aid digestion…?”
Possibly.
“When you don’t have the earworm swimming around your head like a serpentine simile…?”
That’s a fine image – maybe it’s then.
“On a Tuesday, at half-past three – that’s when it never happens for me…?”
That’s pretty precise – sounds quite concise.
“Anytime!”
I should say ‘yes!’ or ‘no!’ Truth is, I just don’t know.
“So what was the point of asking?”
What indeed, my friend, what indeed.
The sky is high –
“Why?” I ask myself.
I’ve asked it before,
because I just wasn’t sure,
why the sky was that high.
This time I ask,
in my rhyme,
“Why am I…
awaiting a reply?”
“What do we want?”
“A prompt!”
“When do we want it?”
“Now!”
“What will the prompt be?”
“Don’t know!”
“Why not?”
“Because that is how life is when you are having a conversation with yourself!”
“Oh.”
“What do I want… what do I really want?
hello? Anybody out there?”
A tumbleweed rolls sedately across my mind, then is gone.
The big day arrived;
the day I’d waited for
for a long, long time.
I’d sent off my rhyme,
to the address that was given;
and awaited the kudos,
the cheque…
I waited,
and I’m waiting still.
Still I wait,
as a waiter should;
and here’s a tip –
waiting is good.
How long should I wait,
and for who,
what and why?
Where should I draw the line?
When to do so, I can’t define.
Perhaps now
would be the moment
to.
