A Poem a Day Rip-Offs

'Sitting at a laptop creates an image that I carry back.' (Jay Cool) A neck with a thousand folds. A bump harboured by an anxious nose. A line, puckered into peaks and troughs, of 48 years near gone. A thought. It is not me. Just an image. An image of another me in another time. Not me now. Now, I write myself into being - smoothing out the lines and carrying them over and back. Copyright owned by Jay Cool January 2019 Inspired by the line  'Sitting in a room creates a room that we carry with us.' (From  'Feel Piece 4' by Hannah Ensor and Laura Wetherington.)

From the soles of my walking shoes, I shake you out and  s c a t t e r you. In my sole, a part of you remains. I find a tool, dig you out, keep you close - potted and thriving, you grace my front door. Every day, on my return from work, you greet me. In the trenches of Flanders, you were grated into m i  l  l  i o n s of pieces, one of which, must surely have found me and brought itself back home to England. Your soul in my sole. 'Yellow Rose' courtesy of Pixabay.com A yellow rose. Sourced. Living. Copyright owned by Jay Cool , January 2019 Inspired by a reading of  'I hear a dog who is always in my breath' , by Samuel Ace.

Reluctant bridge crawls across from December into January failing to tip me off as the tips of my fingers reach     out    and   hold                 on s t r e t c h e d whole wholly reluctant full of holes and   unretractable. Not for the first time, I have the feeling of being holy - goddessed into 2019. Copyright owned by Jay Cool, January 2019 Inspired by the poem 'January' , by Helen Hunt Jackson.

'Sunflower' courtesy of Pixabay.com A sunflower life reaching up to the highest point before falling back down again and being painted back up to balance of the tips of a  brush. Copyright owned by Jay Cool, January 2019 Inspired by  'Death to Paint Us' , by  J. Michael Martinez.

'Egg' courtesy of Pixabay.com Yoked by a runny egg at its core a lost eye a beak blunted by your desire for happiness. Copyright owned by Jay Cool , January 2019 Inspired by Ada Limon's poem,  'Publicity' .

'Cucumber' courtesy of Pixabay.com If I sliced it into twenty slivers and sliced each sliver into a sluice of a slush I would no longer have a cucumber Just a soup that once consumed would slither through my inners and slip out into the sewers sloppy Copyright owned by Jay Cool, January 2019 Inspired by the 'last cucumber from the garden' by Giovanni Singleton.

'Bubbles' courtesy of Pixabay.com The conception of bubbles Mango masses for ever Forever bubbles that pop and disappear into old age One-off bubbles momentary Did I dream them up? Copyright owned by Jay Cool, January 2019 Inspired by the poem 'Hair', by Franciso Aragon

'Sleepy Sitter' by Jay Cool How 'tis to be - by soft brush swiped with chocolate shades of Christmas; to feel one's cheeks, once so milk-white, wiped out - by melted orange? Copyright owned by Jay Cool, December 2018 Inspired by the poem 'False but Beautiful' by John Rolin Ridge.

Image courtesy of Pixabay.com At night, I dive into whirlpools, slip-sliding and twizzling round and down, round and down, on pillow-seat into the depths and the coils of my mattress springs. At night, I spring into life, into my real existence, into my mortal world. If my mother were to meet me here, would she know me? At night, my toes grow deep into myself, into my roots. By day, I am nothing. Copyright owned by Jay Cool, November 2018 Inspired by  'Self-Portrait as Semiramis' , by Mary Kim Arnold.

Expiration is not my desire. 'Autumn Tree' by Jay Cool To don an orange wig is not to wear a portent, or to be tree laden with oranges midst autumn leaves of speckled brown, muted tan or luminous yellow; a sign of the seasons, confused, muddled and merging into one. For years and years, I have grown wild, have come close to splitting the stitches that bind me to the wishes of others, of people not my own, of people not myself. There is bewilderment as you read the thoughts of an eccentric, as I reach out and grow my tendrils around and beyond my crumpled purple hats, so that my fringe is tentacled to the electrifying clouds of rainstorms. How hard it is to carry scores of the critical corrections of cowboy bosses on my back, and still to stay compact, within the seams that contained my compulsion to crackle on. Nonetheless, there is a place above the rainstorms, where my crusty poetry lives and grows, a place still inhabitable by the parts of myself t...