Tag: Snow Days

Poetry Blog: Icebreaker

We had a week’s worth of snow days for our first week of the half term, which meant that despite setting work and trying to get stuff done around the house, I actually had a bit of time on my hands. Struck by inspiration today, I sat and wrote a poem. It’s not in any way serious, although the actual physical acts described did actually happen. Part way through writing something serious I just decided it was too good an opportunity for something silly and so changed the way it was going. I hope you like it.

Icebreaker

After two days trapped in limbo by first, several whole inches of snow
and now an actual coating of not only quite thick but also horribly slippy ice,
action is called for.
And when people call for action you'd like to think it's you they have in mind...

You've already lugged the deadweight of a kid's beach bucket full of grit for miles across this frozen corner of West Yorkshire.
Your back, damp with manly sweat, is already hurty.
Now, you stand in what is either a power pose or your audition for Drag Race, shovel in hand even though the snow has made it's metal handle really cold and you've forgotten your gloves.
The only bloke in the street brave enough to tackle the ice. Behind their curtains they watch you, rapt, you think.
Frankly, if you're forced to say so yourself, you're a hero.  
They will call you Icebreaker. Maybe.

Seizing your tool and raising it high, 
you plunge it at the ice.
It rebounds with force but your teeth remain intact.
Oh, for an axe.
Not to be deterred, you plunge once more and a whole whisp of snow
leaps into the air...then lands back on the very ground you were working on.
Nevertheless, your momentarily spirits soar. 
You thrust once more, again, again and again, ignoring the cold and mindful, ever mindful of the imaginary fact that the whole street are watching and probably, later on, will take to their doorsteps to clap their appreciation of their hero key worker, only stopping when the last of the snow is gone.

Ten minutes later, wheezing and clutching your back,
you limp back to the house, muttering and licking the bleeding knuckle
that you nicked on your own spade,
having cleared an entire two square feet of treacherous snow and ice.
In your mind you are a gladiator who fears no foe.
In the hallway mirror you look like Albert Steptoe.

So, there you go. Luckily, I’m well practiced at laughing at myself, what with being a bit of a kn**head and all. In my defence it was very cold and the ice was very thick. I went out later and did more as well. And before anyone questions my logic, there’s a bit of a grit shortage so I was keen to use a little bit and then dig the rest of the ice out, saving some grit for later.

I have to say, it was a poem that I really enjoyed writing. I haven’t written or finished one in ages, but this one is more or less a first draft. I wrote it down in my note back with a few arrows pointing to late additions when I changed my mind about its seriousness.

I hope you enjoyed it. Maybe it’ll raise a smile the next time your clearing some ice and snow. If you’re as heroic as me, that is!

Poetry Blog: ‘Snow Day’

This was a poem I wrote after a couple of days recently where it snowed heavily. On both occasions our school closed and we reverted to remote learning from home. Sadly, I only stayed away from work on one of them. But more of that later.

I wanted to write about the sensation of a snowy day, rather than just pointing out lots of things that would be happening. I think there’s something still very special and almost magical about waking up to discover that there’s been snow and better still, it’s still there. Even as an adult, I still find it quite a captivating time and it definitely makes the place look a lot better, if only usually for about 24 hours. There can never be enough snowy landscape photos!

So, when you think about how beautiful the snow can make a place look, add in the anticipation as you notice that the sky is ‘full’ – because we’re all weather experts when it looks like it’ll snow – the sensation of the cold of a snow day – I always find it’s a different kind of cold when it’s snowed – it all makes for something very poetic. It was only right that I attempted something.

I found as I got part of the way through, that the notes I was writing from seemed to have a mixture of ideas; some about being a kid and others about being an adult in the snow. Two very different things! As a kid you just want to be out there without a care in the world, not feeling the cold or worrying about having any kind of accident. As an adult, I’m often completely on edge about the journey to work and getting stuck! So, I adapted as I wrote and ended up with a poem that contrasts those experiences instead of the one that I set out to write!

So here’s what I ended up with.

Snow Day

An eerie light creeps from outside.
It seeps under the blinds and reaches out, grabs you attention. The first hint.
Then through an opened window the glorious realisation, 
still the same rush as when you were a child.
Snow.

Today, you could be a child again.
The yelping toddler and the carefree teenager all rolled into one glorious experience
for an hour or a day. It doesn't matter.
A blanket of white wraps round you and keeps you safe and secure, 
blocking out the strain of the everyday, of adulthood.

Instead, you brace yourself, take crunching baby steps down the path,
clear the joints bwween doors and doorframes, the freezing of a finger in vain
as a sliver of snow slides onto the diver's seat.
The first part of a treacherous journey will be spent fighting the cold from every angle 
so you pray to someone's god and just keep moving.

You should be sledging, with the rush of a chill wind on your crimson cheeks,
the daring of your youth flooding back as you race down the snow covered hill,
clinging on for dear life, unable to control the smile and the happy noise that escapes.
For a moment, you don't care about what happens between here
and the well trodden flat at the bottom.

Back in the real world you hunch over the wheel
unable to take in the beauty of a landscape turned white by feathery flakes.
Adrenalin coarses as you slide to the side and you let out a sigh at every stop.
A warning light alerts you to approaching danger as you here an engine's struggles
and set you sights on simply cresting the next wave.

You wish it was possible to go back to the fearless child, 
whooping down that bank again, taking the shorter route left in a moment of doubt
or, more likely, tackling the whole run, head on, all the way 
down the hill on a sheet of plastic bag, spinning, out of control
until you stop, trudge back, delirious and dice with death time and time again.

But, in the furroughed brow of the here and now,
fun seems an eternity away as you fight against the same roads as every other day
your heart beating, like someone pressed a button that
changed the level on the video game and every bend and hill mus be aproached with 
a caution never seen before. That front door will never look so good again.

This was a very different poem to write. In terms of how it looked on the page of my notebook, it was like something I do at work. Lots of snippets of lines, bullet points, snatches of poem written wherever I could fit them and arrows joining some if not all of it together.

As I wrote it I changed my mind on what it was going to be and as I stated above, I included some stanzas about adulthood. However, I only had two half formed ‘adult’ experiences down at that point so had to write more and try and form a logical kind of ‘narrative’ as I wrote. In that way, it was a really tricky poem to write. I hope it doesn’t sound too cobbled together!

The whole adult experience with snow was summed up in January this year when one journey home from work in the snow ended up taking over six hours. So, I suppose it’s a good thing that the poem reflects this side of things too and the dread that snow can bring nowadays.

One other thing to point out is that I deliberately tried to include lots of sibilance and enjambment in there. The sibilance was there to try and replicate the sounds of sledging (there I go again!), the hissing and swishing of the plastic against the snow. The enjambment was there to pick up pace as I wanted to get across the recklessness of sledging as a child and the speed that you would pick up as you went down a hill. I hope that doesn’t sound too pretentious, but I wanted to at least explain what I was trying to do!

As ever, I’d love to hear what people thought, so feel free to let me know in the comments.