THE LAST POEM I wanted the last poem I ever wrote to be profound and clever and I wanted to write it outdoors. But the weather was awful and my coat was unsuitable, so like a dutiful idiot in my wooden hut I wrote it with a carrot carved in the form of a pen. Luckily I was only ‘like’ a dutiful idiot and not an actual dutiful idiot, thus the poem that was my last turned out to be quite a good one. Thank heavens for similes as broad as grins. And the poem in question? It went like this: A parrot in a garret drinking claret and a pen that is a carrot are disparate. POEMS OF THE FLOATING WORLD Haiku floats like boat The middle line does not sink– Watertight canoe A shipshape limerick from Iran was drifting in circles like a fan. Each line was a hull, three pecked off by a gull, and it became just a catamaran. A bold ode to a seaworthy sight floating on the estuary, a schooner getting ready to leave at night to take advantage of the light of the moon, while the navigator hums a tune to Luna because the sooner they arrive at their destination, the faster this crooner will be reunited with the woman he calls his wife. This is a four-line poem about an anchor that was weighed and brought to the surface a surprised mermaid. And this is a rhyming couplet about a ship sailing into a sunset. Poems are rowing Distant islands are closer Rhyme schemes are drowning The syllables are counting We say tanka very much
Rhys Hughes has lived in many countries. He graduated as an engineer but currently works as a tutor of mathematics. Since his first book was published in 1995 he has had fifty other books published and his work has been translated into ten languages.
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