Textu is a form invented by poet Fady Joudah. Including title and spaces, it must be the exact number of characters as a text message: 160.
What is Beauty?
The skin on my inner arms
like crinkled paper
or tiny waves
arriving close and quick
on advancing tide.
Not everyone can see
not all know
how to look.
***
In My Dream
I conversed with lightning,
and a large moss-covered rock.
Mostly, THEY spoke:
Get out of the way!
Or else be one with the earth,
like the first people.
***
Because I Grew So Old
I can tell the value of leisure.
Poet Eileen Miles
says writing’s waste of time.
She likes that, chose it.
But it’s not
that the time’s empty.
***
After Midnight
Night begins to quiet;
quiet begins to enfold us.
In that quiet
our inner dreams,
usually silent,
begin to speak;
only to mute
as light hits the window.
***
Tiny Things
also have life. That coastal
algae 2 microns across, shaped
as a perfect dodecahedron.
What happens to them
when bits of the bigger world
become extinct?
***
Always a Sucker for a Pretty Face
Of course I fall in love with beauty –
why I'm a poet.
Following a light
into whatever distance
for
its own sake.
Even when
not deep.
***
Poppi Sleeps
She's having little dreams
and murmurs,
deep in her inner world
which plays
on her outer.
Do cats need dreams
as we do? Are they
messages
or simple release?
***
When I Give You a Poem
I want you to see it
as cut glass
facets catching light
to feel its weight
solid
how it fits your palm
hear its call
up at your ear
like a shell
***
Rain Comes Down Hard
It’s good to be
cosy in my home,
high up.
So much flooding
lately, year by year.
Noise of the water
all night
survivors tell:
huge relentless
power.
***
Poetry
Young
To give my life to
making with words
something beyond words.
Old
Yes what I've given
do give my life to
poor recompense
scant attention
not reason to stop.
Sharing with Poets and Storytellers United at Friday Writings #126 where I invite others to join me in playing with 160-character pieces, whether in verse as textu or in prose as very short stories.
