So this one is slightly late in the day, as I didn’t know it was World Poetry Day! (And I call myself a Marketeer, terrible) but I thought there’s no way I can let the day pass without doing somewhat of a tribute to one of my favourite art forms. I know this is a travel blog, but separately to this I am an University of Kent student graduate, and I studied English and American Literature and Creative Writing (I know it’s a mouthful).

It was prior to this that I discovered a Love for expressing myself via poetry, and even after studying it the feeling never left me. My love for travel came later in life, after I had left university, in fact. Delightfully, there were points in my travel where these two loves combined, and where they did I was left with unique mementos that I can keep forever.

I’m going to share a few below in honour of the day. If you are a a lover of poetry, or travel or both I’d love to read yours, and/or hear your thoughts.

Shakespeare and Company | Paris

Inspired by the bookshop Shakespeare and Company in Paris.

Hungry hungry hungry
For the pages of the past
Old, crisp, long, short, known, undiscovered
But all so delicious

Even with people
The silence ensues
Just the ticking of minds
And the shuffles of shoes

Rooms upon rooms, upon stairs
Upon turns, it never ends
And I am glad
But so new here

The turn of a page
The brightness of an eye
It is the perfect scene
Drawn out by a pen

Slow in my steps
As I return to the start
Devour I did
but now heavy in heart

A nod to its master
A bow to its keepers
This is a writer’s feast
I will be full for days

Beneath the Thai sun | Thailand

Inspired by the beautiful scenes of Thailand and memories.

How strange
That beneath the Thai sun
You let the layers of society leave you
Until you were light, arms swinging and out for embrace
Your bright soul, so whole and forward facing did take
My hand, my heart, my thoughts so fast

And now, my memories
Which cut just like glass
I have only these worn-out photos
And an ever weary heart

Light | Berlin

Inspired by a painting seen in Berlinische Galerie, Berlin.

In the messiness of my mind
There is a window in the corner
There is brightness between its squares
It is a blue so divine

Why condense such happiness?
So small I thought it not reality
A hiccup in my brain I cannot touch
It is a window to my dreams

The Complication of Feelings | Malaga

Written on the Malaga Centro beach.

Oh tell me what it is to feel for another
A trap, an attack, a test, I wonder
All guilty, all affected, all attested to this number
A time old tale worth timeless humour

And you sit there, apparently your own human being
Waiting on affirmation from another human being
And if within that time, one could compare your heart to ice
Even the smallest acknowledgement, turns that ice, to ice cream

And that ice cream drips down, down to the cone
You are solid in nothing – which makes you resolve
‘Tis better not to have, than to melt your being
And to crave that which is out of your control

But please now admire, how he holds me so
My gaze, my waist, my attention is whole
Discard my thoughts, my thoughts are him
So much for intentions and words, I am a human being

A London Li(f)e Desired | London

Inspired by a long walk through London Bridge.

London tonight
It moves with the mood
Changing like the loose emotions of a London crowd.

Life is choppy
But you must not crumble, only stumble –
Then say it was the fickle wind.

Lie like us
While the truth sinks to the water bed
Pretend like you don’t see ripples in the water.

Lie like us
In the words that you sound
You’re proud; you’ve mastered the London style.

*

I couldn’t finish this post without putting one of my favourite poems in as a bonus for you to enjoy, like I do every time I read it. This is not written by me, but I love it. An exert from poem by Charles Bukowski called So you want to be a Writer?

*

So you want to be a Writer? | Charles Bukowski

don’t do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don’t do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don’t do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.