I used to go to a Writers' Group. After a few months, I felt secure enough to recite a "real" poem there. I had road-tested some of my manky, mingin Itchy-Coo rhymes on them. I had
made them laugh by reading accounts of my early days of teaching. They
had heard my attempts at children's stories and not been impolite when
subjected to a most ill-advised attempt to translate one into Scots.
I thus felt confident enough finally to run a serious poem past the group. If they responded well, I intended
to send the piece for consideration by Biggar's Brownsbank Committee in
the hope that they would display it in the town's poetry garden.
"Volts are green," I read, trying to avoid a cliched poetry voice.
"Green as the sea-snakes tracing across my oscilloscope screen . . ."
When I got to the end, there was silence. I decided to break it
myself. "I got the idea for that one day when I was summarising the
quantities used in electricity. I was writing each one in a different
colour on the board and I realised I wasn't choosing the colours at
random.
"Voltage is green to me. Power is yellow."
Nothing.
"It's like the way we give different colour to the days of the week. Monday is red for me, but Saturday is sky blue."
"Errr . . . do you do that? That's really weird . . . that's really interesting."
I never tried a "real" poem again. But here is that one in full.
The colours of physics
Volts are green
Green as the sea snakes
Tracing across my oscilloscope screen
Current is blue
Outlined in silver
Like the sparks that spit
From the pitted dome
Of the Van de Graaff machine
Leaping charges
Charge is white
White as the polythene rods we rub
With dusters as yellow as power.
(I'll get my coat)
