Pondering poetry

One thing I've always loved, though perhaps haven't concentrated on as much as I should have, is writing poetry. Mainly I write poems to be obnoxious - "I wish all RV's would spontaneously combust" being a prime example - or I write little bits here and there as a helpful way of reminding people about things  -e.g. My friend Myles said he'd give me coding for a particular statistical test one afternoon, three weeks later it still wasn't in my grasp so I thought I'd jog his memory. I think that one went something like this:

Oh dear Myles Menz, you're my means to some ends
I'm desperate for AICc*
To fulfill my quest for the statistics test
If you have a moment or three
Please send it to me, I'll be filled with such glee
And then I'll be richer and wiser
And I'll work out some trends, tidy up odds and ends
With this new wonderful analyzer

*(say each letter separately)
 - as you can see, very very helpful (coincidently, the code arrived on my desk that very afternoon).

But anyway, back to the point of this blog, I've always thought that one day it would be amazing to write something that wasn't entirely self indulgent. Perhaps write something serious or possibly a book for children. My main concern is that I sometimes feel as though I lack originality and find it hard to sit down and think of something creative. What I think now is screw originality, what's more important is to get the practice in, get words down so I think I'm going to attempt to post a stanza or two of something, anything each week and see where it goes from there.

Conveniently I have a stanza for this week. I was just playing a game of solitaire and it popped into my head.

Will I stumble blindly forwards through the dark and through the frost?

And abandon all I stand for, abandon all that has been lost?

Should I be forever grateful that from my path I have been swept?

In the end it didn't matter, in the end I only wept.

Perhaps I'll expand on it later, perhaps not. I like the repetition in it, I like also like the meter.

What I really want to concentrate on is some sort of fantasy poem set on Nightingale Island. I have nothing in particular in mind at present, I was just looking at my map the other and noticed it and other island in the Tristan da Cunha group and was struck by how dramatic it seemed. I don't have synesthesia but I do like to try and match colours with sounds, weekdays and other oddities, and as soon as I read Nightingale Island I felt like it seemed to be dark purple with silvery flecks. Probably nothing, but I think I'll dwell on it more.