January 8, 2024January 8, 2024robertfredekenter

Approaching Base Camp, Malvern Hills – A Hybrid by Ivor Daniels (text & design), Erica Daniel-Lowe (watercolours), Ella Daniel-Lowe (buttons)

The text of the poem embedded in a torn-paper topography landscape visual poem. Approaching Base Camp, Malvern Hills,
for my first Coronavirus Vaccine. 15/3/21
The approach is flat. The Motorway. A left
turn. A straight road West.

The backdrop to my life-
changing chances vaccine jab,

is, thank serendipity, these hills.
The highest ground ‘till Wales.
I chew the fat with myself,
on jagged edge horizons.
A cartoon carving knife. A Toblerone.
On Local Alps for Local People.
The gristly skyward tops of graphs
we have to see each tea time.
My Dad he loved the hills. This
passion only topped
by his skills as a healer.
I walked around Paris
once, after a funeral. A
strange cocktail of grief
and ‘I’m glad it wasn’t me’
in my 80’s blood.
And here we go again, Boys.
Strange times.
Strange labs.
Strange Pet Shops.
Strange jabs.

Author Note: The words of the poem are superimposed on a watercolour of the outline of the Malvern Hills, and the length of the poem’s lines correspond approximately with the silhouette of the hills. Kind of a family creative moment in time / place project during Lockdown.

Bio: Ivor Daniel lives in Gloucestershire, UK. His poems have appeared in A Spray of Hope, wildfire words, Steel Jackdaw, Writeresque, iamb, Fevers of the Mind, The Trawler 2021, Roi Fainéant, Ice Floe Press, The Dawntreader, After…, Alien Buddha, The Wombwell Rainbow, Block Party, Black Nore Review and Lit.202. Find him on Twitter: @IvorDaniel

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