You’ll notice there’s a gap here. The last poem, dated 5 March 2021, brought an end to a fairly long and productive spell of poetry writing. Was there a reason for this?
By looking at that poem, A Moment, Maybe, you’ll find a sonnet describing the end of a relationship. Did this happen to me? Yes. Did I write this just after the end of a relationship? No.
In fact, the sequence of events was this:
5 March - I wrote the poem
6 March - I read it to my partner (as I had always done with all my poems)
7 March - She ended our 8-year relationship
She did not of course end it because I wrote the poem. It had been on the cards (unbeknownst to me) for a long time. But writing a poem about a break-up and then having it happen almost immediately can kill anyone’s creativity, instantly. This, then, explains why my writing ended so abruptly in early March.
My ability to supposedly make something happen, just by saying it, is something I laughingly call my ‘powers’. Famous people have died the day after I wrote something related to their life - that has happened three times now. Of course these are all coincidences, and I have zero belief in any supernatural nonsense. But it does make life interesting. I am a lethal reincarnation of Nostradamus, apparently!
By early April (I’m writing this on 15 April 2021, but I’m adding it in situ to the blog so have had to give it an arbitrary date) I am over the shock of what happened, and back in full flow. My powers are still working - I wrote a poem, Infamy, with a line ‘The king is dead, but long will live his name’. The very next morning Queen Elizabeth’s husband, Philip, was indeed dead. You may say he was not technically a king, but ‘husband of a queen’ is as close as it gets, and that is a massive coincidence. He had, after all, been on this planet just shy of 100 years, and I wrote that line the night before he died. Was this just a coincidence? Yes, of course.
Need another? On the day of the death itself I was explaining this crazy coincidence to a friend. It’s important to note that my friend is female and has suffered with serious back pain for decades. She said, in a text, and I quote, ‘Don’t write about me unless it’s about being pain free’. Earlier that day I had already written the first draft of another poem, The Limousine, which includes the line ‘The pain she feels will never fade away’. Again, a coincidence, but these things certainly add colour to an otherwise unremarkable existence.
And before you ask, my powers do not work to order, so please, no assassination requests!
