Tilting at titles

This poem is a bit of fun, made up of the titles of the poetry collections that I find on my bookshelves, plus one or two novels and short story collections, most of them by friends. See credits below.

Tilting at titles

(a found poem)

After 60 years of loving

it’s just you, me and the birds

working out the meaning of flight

while my family and other superheroes

are playing house

and the kith are strumming a banjo

until the dying notes fade

into the spaces in between.

We tilt and listen

to the thought of fresh rain

while turning the pages of

the scrap book

and we write in the fire diary

and we look

to find the road towards humanity

and to search out the white tower

and, maybe, to come back to Avalon,

or perhaps we’ll just end up at no. 52

on the Broadstairs road and be

in Margate by lunchtime.

With thanks to:

Maggie Harris, Alan Kellerman, Christopher Meredith, Jonathan Edwards, Katherine Stansfield, Jo Bell, Samantha Wynne Rhydderch, Reuben Woolley, Ros Hudis, Martin Locock, Adam Horovitz, Carly Holmes, Dave Urwin, Liz Whittaker, Ann Byrne-Sutton and the 52 project.