Aberdeen street art with tiny little me below.

Aberdeen street art with tiny little me below.
Using a limited amount of words can result in something quite meaningful.
I wrote this poem using a magnetic poetry set that I picked up from a charity (thrift) shop. I found the process of scattering random words across my writing bureau, and then carefully selecting the words that sparked my imagination both fun and challenging. Magnetic poetry is a great way to think about words, to explore theme and to construct something meaningful out of word chaos. You could also do this by collecting interesting words from newspapers and magazines, or writing inspiring words on scraps of paper that you hear someone use on a bus, or in the supermarket line. Pop your words into a jar, adding sticky words such as and, it, or, as etc. and have fun.
South Street Arbroath
Every day is laundry day on South Street.
White cotton flat sheets, stone-washed jeans; yesterday’s pink and yellow striped knickers
Dip and duck like multi-coloured bunting.
Children climb up from the beach
Where the sand hems the grassy slope. Plastic sandcastles filled with shells; razors
And limpets, purple mussels speckled with shingle, and a wee deid crab,
Protected inside a bleached Hula Hoop bag, Crumpled.
The children’s laughter rips through the flapping blankets as they zigzag,
dodging Mrs Campbell’s frilly knickers that joyride on the briny wind.
The postman waves.
He’s sinking useless junk mail through the rusty red letterboxes of
the fisherman’s cottages. Unashamed.
A peg pings and a denim leg kicks the sky, snapping the wind as it buckles around a
red rope.
Heaven rests like burning oil on the ocean.
A wrinkled man with leather lugs sits outside number twenty-five,
His eyes a hazy mist of blue sea, and cataracts.
He picks up his thick wooden board, red with blood and guts,
A deid head of a deid haddock with deid
Eyes. He wipes his knife clean on a Pizza Hut flyer.
©Eilidh G Clark
This poem was first published by Artist Moira Buchanan in her art exhibition ‘All Washed up’. You can follow Moira Buchanan on Facebook by clicking this link or visit her website.
I looked in to the distance, not so far away,
the sparkling lake was dancing
to celebrate a perfect day.
Spring burst through the mother earth
and coloured it with sun
painted it with brightness
and completed it with fun.
I looked upon the picture
and felt my soul awake,
then a temperamental notion
was to jump into the lake.
instead I breathed in firmly
and I fell into the day
and let this happy vision
take me out to play.
I walked into the open air
the suns arms hugged me tight
and I held that shiny feeling
til it disappeared at night.
©Eilidh G Clark