The following text is what I posted on fb that day.  Just realised I haven’t posted Day 20 – NaPoWriMo here. Came onto fb over an hour ago & got sucked into a quagmire of Easter posts, funny cat vids, ghost cars & a Guardian article “Top 10 Easter scenes in literature” which lead to several other Guardian articles I read until POEM OF THE WEEK Monday 7 October 2013.

The picture accompanying this online poem led me to write my own poem on a similar theme to Butlin (but less eloquently) & abandon the poem I had been thinking about/working on for much of the day.

Princes Street
(Holding its cup out to “Nicolson Square” by Ron Butlin)

Frozen on the silvermirrored ground
& in diamond focused digital clarity
Behind us the steeples stepladdering souls
to heaven are fuzzy & drizzlefaded
Hands buried in jacket pockets
Or, better, gloved
Under the brolley, from beneath the hood, or beret
We all look without looking, from the corner of our hearts

We know she’s there, but if we pretend she’s not
We can continue our golden walk to work, unencumbered

She, huddling in her shrugged shrunken hug
has one red glove on her lap
Perhaps to better emphasise bare finger tips
holding the paper cup
Her eyeshadow sockets stare off
somewhere at knee height but at no-one’s knees
However, the detail I’m most drawn to is,
that, the edge of her dirtybrown blanket is wet

*****

Image: Princes St.  Source Page: The Guardian, Poem of the Week: Ron Butlin.