Four poems

 Finding the time to record or write anything of late has proven a challenge. I cannot remember the last time I wrote a poem, so I thought it might help to get in the literary "zone" if I recorded a few poems by other people. The selection here is random with no particular link between the works beyond the fact that I like them.

The first offering is "The Only Son" by Rudyard Kipling, a lupine tale (appropriate for my next book) which shows that we often do not know our own relatives very well and that parentage can come in varied forms. This is followed by Stevie Smith's "Mrs Simpkins" which is also about family and reminds us that one person's vision of heaven may be another's vision of hell. Then we have the inimitable Oscar Wilde with "Athanasia", with echoes of Egypt (putting me in mind of my last book) and demonstrating again his passion for the natural world. Finally there is Hilary Llewellyn-Williams' poem "Ursa" in which a bear awakens from hibernation (or maybe something else is awake and hungry?). I have vague ideas for a poem of my own, and might record it if it is not unspeakably dire.