I Wish I'd Written This

That's all he knew

By Banana the Poet (Michele Brenton)

"It is better to travel hopefully than to arrive" said DH Lawrence wittily.

All I can say is, he must never have driven on the Autostrada in Italy.

This is one of my very favourite poems of all time. I like wit, whimsy and unusual rhymes. l like deadpan humour and throwaway lines. 

(Goodness, I've just created a three-line, half-rhymed verse about it! Quite unintentional but not altogether surprising. Michele is inspirational as well as inspired.)

I first met her (online) in her guise as Banana the Poet, during one of Robert Lee Brewer's April Poem A Day challenges at Poetic Asides. Even among the many talented and interesting poets contributing, she stood out. She's irresistibly funny and irreverent. 

Also she's entrepreneurial. She was a pioneer of online self-publishing a few years ago, and you can now find her series of 'Alternative Poetry Books' at Amazon. Please note that she can also write perfectly serious poems, and her books feature both.

What must be her most successful book so far recently topped Amazon's Kindle poetry sales. It is called Fifty Shades of Blue. You guessed it. It's a spoof of a certain best-selling kinky novel. It's a gem, very naughty in all sorts of ways while not being at all obscene — quite a feat. Like its inspiration it's a trilogy, but all in one volume. Innovative as ever, she has also produced a version of the first section illustrated by pictures of her own clay figurines, Fifty Shades of Clay. And there is even an animated version. (Also check out her animated The Real Story of Cinderella at the same link.)

Her non-poetry blog is The Prize Winning Banana Blog. She posts poems at Michele Brenton's Poetry Blog and Banana's Funny Poetry Blog. She is on twitter @banana_the_poet.

If you aren't already acquainted with this inimitable poet, you just gotta catch up!

Now, did you think I was going to leave you with just a two-line sample of her work (no matter how good)? No, I wouldn't do that to you. Here's a beautiful and intriguing prose-poem I'd be proud to have written. It's from her poetry blog; do check out the other treasures there.

Freeze frames

It is a gloriously sunny day, the air hangs lightly with a hint of freshness, still, warm, enfolding but not enclosing. I gaze out over the hillside to watch the goats pick their way up the shrubby, rocky surface towards the feeding troughs at the top edge that the shepherd has filled with water from the tap I know is there.

I remember the day we first walked up there and found in the middle of an otherwise wild landscape, a pipe with a tap which on turning, gushed clear cool water in abundance. It was as incongruous as the lamp-post in the Lantern Wastes of Narnia and typified the fantasy atmosphere of living on a small Greek island.

Here the colours are so clear and the air so clean we can stand at the top of a mountain further in height from the coastal edge and the sea than the top of the Grand Canyon is from its lowest point, and see every detail like a tiny architect’s model.

And the sunny days stretch ahead of us like a never-ending string of translucent pearls on a golden chain.

I hold your hand tightly and you squeeze back. We are together, here and now in this wonderful place, we are happy, contented and safe. I can feel your skin against mine; hear your steady breathing, slow and certain. I know if I rest my head against your chest I will feel that familiar warmth, smell the scent of you and hear your heart again as always. We don’t need to speak, I know your voice so well as I know all of you as well as I know myself.

Better probably, because I have gazed on you so many times, touched you and shared your space – I am inside myself and outside of you, learning your every atom, recording it and keeping it. Do you do the same for me? Even if you do, I know I will be forgotten. It doesn’t bother me.

You have a terrible memory, it is one of the things I learned about you and because it is who you are, I love, accept and remember it.

It is a gloriously sunny day, the air hangs lightly with a hint of freshness, still, warm, enfolding but not enclosing. I gaze out over the hillside to watch the goats pick their way up the shrubby, rocky surface towards the feeding troughs at the top edge that the shepherd has filled with water from the tap I know is there.

Your dark hair has started turning orange in places because of the strength of the sun. I used to have a brown cat and the same thing happened to him.

It is a spring morning. I am sitting in the garden in South Wales. You are curled up on the flagstones at my feet. I am wearing sandals and I can just feel your fur against my bare skin, soft and tickly. You are purring; you are radiating warmth. If I hold you against me the vibration will transfer into me, I know your smell, your frequency.

It is a gloriously sunny day, the air hangs lightly with a hint of freshness, still, warm, enfolding but not enclosing. I gaze out over the hillside to watch the goats pick their way up the shrubby, rocky surface towards the feeding troughs at the top edge that the shepherd has filled with water from the tap I know is there.

I hold your hand tightly and you squeeze back. We are together, here and now in this wonderful place, we are happy, contented and safe. I can feel your skin against mine; hear your steady breathing, slow and certain. I know if I rest my head against your chest I will feel that familiar warmth, smell the scent of you and hear your heart again as always. We don’t need to speak, I know your voice so well as I know all of you as well as I know myself.

You have a terrible memory. We are together, here and now in this wonderful place, we are happy, contented and safe. I know if I rest my head against your chest I will feel that familiar warmth, smell the scent of you and hear your heart again as always.

It is a gloriously sunny day. It is a gloriously sunny day. It is a gloriously sunny day.

I know I will be forgotten. It doesn’t bother me.

Poems and photos used in ‘I Wish I’d Written This’ remain the property of the copyright holders (usually their authors).