I asked myself one day what made a poem a poem. I might have done better to ask other people, obviously, because it turns out I don’t know!! I decided it might well be a mystery, and also rather subjective – a bit like asking “What is worthy of being called art?”

I took my scalpel to a poem to find its heart
To hear its beat in rhythm and metre
To identify the elements of semantics required for life

But all I found were footprints
An echo of voices
And a mist that vanishes as you reach for it

Recounting maybe how you felt when laughing at the bus stop
Waiting forever
But meeting someone you would wait forever for
Then missing the bus because
You didn’t remember it was why you came

Telling with almost no words at all
How love ended
And with it everything

Painting a picture without brush or colours
Yet more vibrant with each syllable
So it is fixed for all time
Above a mental mantelpiece

Remembering the slow decline
The fading of hope
The last linger
Scattered as sun-sparkled dew
Upon the roses