Photographs

Photographs © 2006 Natasha Forder

The Parking Lot

The lot was filled with a multitude of its usuals

The grey tarmac almost hidden at a quick perusal

Parking bay one had its everyday guest

A small bright red car, no rust, no mess

A complete contrast to the visitor in bay two

A faded pink number rusted through and through

There were lots in silver and a number in black

Were there any colours missing in this rather large pack?

Some had big wheels, some had small

Some had sat navs and GPS, and some had none at all

And the one with the pink hanging furry dice

Was definitely a girls car, done up like that, so nice!

By Natasha

© 2010 Natasha Forder

The Piggy Bank

The Piggy Bank © 2011 Natasha Forder

I am dumpy and round with short stubby legs

I am shiny porcelain, decorated in patchwork at its best

I glisten in the light, the light to which I look up at

And my colouring is white, green, yellow, brown, red, blue and black

The hole in my back is an open slot

But my hole down below is bunged so as to stop

The savings of my small owner from falling straight through

And being lost forever in her fairy tale room.

By Natasha

© 2010 Natasha Forder

This poem was written about the piggy bank in the picture.  I'd have liked to have photographed it in a fairy tale setting to fit in with the poem but alas I didn't have one!  The poem was written for an exercise given in the Teach Yourself your evening class Creative Writing course.  This exercise was to look at an object and write down observations about it taking into account its size, shape, contour, colouring, the way light strikes it, whether shiny or matt and anything else.  Without even thinking about it my observations became this poem.  Even when I am not trying to write poetry it ends up as poetry!

Some of my favourite poems

• Song - Emily Brontë
• Parting - Charlotte Brontë
• Lines Composed In A Wood On A Windy Day - Anne Brontë
• A Birthday - C.G. Rossetti
• The Song of Shadows - Walter De La Mare
• The Song of the Western Men - Hawker
• A Sea Song - Cunningham
• In Flanders Fields - John McCrae
• Twas the Night Before Christmas - Clement Clarke Moore

All of these poems can be found on the internet.

Suomi

Sauna, Kahvi, Metsä, Järvi

Laiva, Meri, Kylä, Saari

To Suomi I travelled, a short trip by plane

Flying over its archipelago, my excitement hardly contained!

Though to the sauna, I didn’t venture

Not on these travels, though I think maybe not ever

The kahvi not to my liking, never

But this also too strong… too bitter so I’ve heard for any Brits pleasure

The metsä I passed on journeys between city stops

Not to see this time, just for me an endless vision of tall pine tops

I walked around the järvi, looked across it with its small island lands

Photographed its water, its boats and its beach like sands

The laiva in the harbour, took me to visit the island fort

And in the night light I looked back to the city port

The Meri coast, here it is calm with gentle breeze, warm sun

I walk past park and market square, red church and statue, just one

Kylä of wooden houses through which I wandered… this, a place not yet out of time

Despite fire and history it still stood faded but fine

I visited the saari, via bridge not boat

I walked its circumference, but it was small, you must note

Sauna, Coffee, Forest, Lake

Boat, Sea, Village, Island

And my next trip to Finland it’s certainly a date!

By Natasha

© 2008 Natasha Forder

This poem was written to accompany a series of photographs taken during a holiday to Finland.

The Princess and Her Lover

Once upon a time there lived

A princess in a tower

There she lived until one day

Her love dropped by with flowers.

The princess out of her window looked

When her love called out in woe

To see him with a bunch of roses red

With a matching ribbon and bow.

My love please don't forsake me, he said

For I heard it on the news

That you've taken the hand of another

Leaving me quite confused.

A silent tear she did weep

For he was her true dear lover

But family harmony she was trying to keep

By agreeing to marry another.

Feeling as distraught as him

She decided on a whim

To leave her tower and her betrothed

And run away with him.

What a scandal in the news

Not the princess and her lover (who incidentally lived happy ever after)

But about her previously betrothed

Who was now married to her mother!

By Natasha

© 2011 Natasha Forder

Danse Macabre

Rise up and come danse with me he said

Danse you will to my “merry” tune

As midnight turns on this all hallows night

You will danse until this dark becomes dawns first light.

Danse my dead, my fiddle is tuned

Listen well to this my command

As hand by hand you take hold a circle to complete

Then faster, faster side step you will leap, leap, leap.

In the pale, pale moon and icy wind

Chalk white bones did whirl

The sound striking – bone on bone

Heard louder and louder above the fiddles drone.

They moved in time never missing a beat

Until the cockerel crowed

A summons back to deaths long sleep

Until next year – lovers parting kiss and weep.

The dead may sleep but deaths work goes on

Drawing more danser’s near

Is this too where we will one day awake?

To his fiddle and danse macabre – or is this just a superstitious fear?

By Natasha
© 2007 Natasha Forder

This poem is based on one of my favourite pieces of classical music; Danse Macabre by Saint-Saëns, which takes the poem of the same name by Henri Cazalis as its setting.  I wrote this poem for a Halloween theme night that Basingstoke Writers Circle hosted.  

What's in a name

I've started a blog!  The first hurdle was what to call it.  After much deliberation I decided on "The Forget-Me-Not Blog".  And whilst thinking of names I couldn't get the following out of my head, which Juliet said whilst on her balcony:

"What's in a name?  That which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet."

From my favourite scene in Romeo and Juliet.  Anyway back to forget-me-nots.  They are one of my favourite flowers and the one for which I never used to be able to remember its name when it sprang up every spring, ironic really with what they are called!  Hopefully my blog name will not have the same effect :)
The second hurdle is what to write.  I thought if fitting to write a short poem about forget-me-nots, it just seemed the right thing to do.  What comes next?  Who knows!  Come back and take a look from time to time and see :)

The Forget-Me-Not

In spring time the forget-me-nots raise their heads

Pretty little pale blue flowers in amongst the flower beds.

Every year when their green leaves though do first appear

I wonder to myself what have we got here.

I don't know how it is always so easy to forget

With a name like they have it should be there in my head.

I ponder a little longer on how it can possibly be

To forget the forget-me-not so completely.

It isn't until the little blue flowers begin to grow

And the busy bees hurry from flower to flower, to and fro.

That I suddenly remember from somewhere deep down inside

That the name is forget-me-not and happily I sigh.

As this time next year, of course, I will not forget

As the name will be forever imprinted inside my once forgetful head!

By Natasha

© 2011 Natasha Forder