Right, time for some complete rubbish! True, though. My notebook’s all crinkly now.
I had to get out of the bath
And grab a pencil and a notebook
For lying in the fragrant bubbles
I was seized by inspiration:
Hunched up in the tepid water
I will write a bath sestina
This, my 63rd sestina
I am writing in the bath.
Now the page is curled with water
Which makes writing in my notebook
Difficult. But inspiration
Struck when I was in the bubbles.
They are quite expensive bubbles:
‘Soap & Glory’. My sestina
Smells of balm and inspiration.
But the earwax-coloured bath
Is uninspiring and my notebook’s
Getting damper in the water.
I am happiest in water
At my best with scented bubbles
Alll around me. Though my notebook
Will not thank me, my sestinas
Must be written in the bath
If that’s when I get inspiration.
I was short on inspiration,
Out of luck, dead in the water
So I chose to have a bath
And drown my worries in the bubbles.
Suddenly today’s sestina
Came. I had to get my notebook.
It’s a lovely hardback notebook
Full of scraps of inspiration
Plans for limericks, sestinas
And haiku. It isn’t water-
proof. It does not like the bath.
Grown in water, my sestina
Foams and bubbles in the bath
Damp notebook. Damper inspiration.
Tom Juniper Poetry 