Atlas by U A Fanthorpe

So much of what we read about love describes the passion, the anguish, the soaring highs and searing lows. But that’s not the whole story.

This is a poem about the real business of love, once all the Romeo and Juliet drama has been finished with. This is a poem about the realities of a happily ever after.

Often, in my Poetry Pharmacy, the poems I prescribe aren’t about comforting people at all. What people need more than comfort is to be given a different perspective on their inner turmoil.

Atlas

There is a kind of love called maintenance
Which stores the WD40 and knows when to use it;

Which checks the insurance, and doesn’t forget
The milkman; which remembers to plant bulbs;

Which answers letters; which knows the way
The money goes; which deals with dentists

And Road Fund Tax and meeting trains,
And postcards to the lonely; which upholds

The permanently rickety elaborate
Structures of living, which is Atlas.

And maintenance is the sensible side of love,
Which knows what time and weather are doing
To my brickwork; insulates my faulty wiring;
Laughs at my dryrotten jokes; remembers
My need for gloss and grouting; which keeps
My suspect edifice upright in air,
As Atlas did the sky.

Write Your Medicine Prompt:

To start, choose an image that catches your attention, evokes a rumbling of emotion. You may know why, maybe not. Sometimes it is writing itself that will help you see why that image resonates.

It can be an image in your imagination, a pic from your cell phone, or a random picture from a magazine.

The idea is to explore, in poetry, how this image makes you feel. Often the image that comes to mind or captures your attention is speaking to you, represents a part of you that wants to be expressed. In this context, writing is the deepest form of listening. 

Here is my image:

Here is my poem:

Like the wave
A memory of a dream
Swimming the depths
Surrounded with whales
I am afraid
I feel free

What is your image and poem?