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Poetry


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Double Helix

By Bagheera

11 April 2006

Listening to a late-night radio programme one evening last week, the following doggerel suggested itself .........

Double Helix

And if you travel far enough you’ll find

Lights of your home port twinkle in your mind

A constant compass needle, seeking home

The lodestone of your heart, where’er you roam

Away I wandered, many years ago

With a need to seek – though for what, I did not know

I travelled freely, where I felt I must

My feet itched, and I called it “wanderlust”

But suddenly, unlooked for, another takes my hand

We were both ‘strangers, living in a strange land’

Another cog meshes, another wheel spins

Another chapter of my life begins

The compass needle quivers – what verdict is delivered?

It’s Westward Ho! Liverpool’s siren song is strong

She smiles, and follows me back where I belong

Without complaint.

More years than I can count have flown

And with each one, I know our love has grown

It’s said our nature’s in the genes

Plotted in the Double Helix of our DNA

So if the tug of her inner compass means

Another turn of the wheel is on its way

Unquestioning I’ll pack, and follow where she goes

Circle left, or circle right: the dance step flows

Once she followed my lead, now I’ll gladly follow hers

My youthful wanderlust still burns: a blessing, not a curse!

The circle turns a second time, the compass needle swings

To foreign shores I will return once more

And trust what the helical twists of the future brings

Cogs within cogs, wheels within wheels, the circle turns anew

Hand in hand, heart to heart, I’ll face the future unafraid with you.

Reviews

Written by brook_rivers (484 comments posted) 11th April 2006

Great to see you in the poetry section Bags!

I really liked the subject of this poem, and the word wanderlust, is that your own creation?. It was a strong start. The only thing I will say is you started off with a regular rhythm and a neat format but towards the end the rhyming scheme seemed less fixed and I didn't like the layout of your last stanza, perhaps you could break it up into two stanza's?

well done though

Written by shadowplay (41 comments posted) 11th April 2006

This has a really nice, lyrical quality, that reminds me of John Masefield. You're good at creating a romantic aesthetic in the poem, but I'd like to see more about where you travel to perhaps? This is more a personal opinion, but I'd like to keep reading this piece, as if it might become a long saga of a troubled troubador...

The second, more technical issue I have, is that you appear to address the wanderlust as 'she' without explaining who the 'she' is. Perhaps in the first part of the poem you could clarify this, so that your last stanza works better. I can but echo brook_rivers about the formatting of the last stanza too, though that just requires the tapping of the enter button rather than some massive literary deconstruction.

All in all, I like it. I think I'll go and look at some of your other stuff.

Written by amboline (183 comments posted) 13th April 2006

For somebody who claims to know nothing about poetry, this is pretty good going

I agree with the previous reviewers; the lyrical quality of this piece is very strong, very captivating, but there are places (especially in the last verse) where the rhythm varies a little too much for comfort. You've got some excellent, unforced rhymes in here though - finding rhymes which work and don't sound contrived is one of the hardest parts of lyrical poetry, and you've made it seem pretty effortless!

thanks, amboline ..........
Written by Bagheera (683 comments posted) 13th April 2006

......... sometimes I feel like one of the theoretical monkeys hammering at a typewriter who will eventually reproduce the works of Shakespeare: the words just seem to "appear" on the PC screen withoutany conscious effort on my part :roll

Glad you liked it - the uneven rhythms and rhyme patterns (esp. towards the end) weren't planned, they just "happened" :eek

Written by JD (12 comments posted) 15th April 2006

Hi Bagheera,
i like your poem, i read all the reviews, i am true believer that a poem from somebodies heart is wrote just how that person intended it to be, that is what gives us our idividualality of words
JD

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