The Smell of Winter

The first draft of this poem was written in the autumn of 1978. It has been reworked this winter. There is always one day every autumn, especially where I live in Ocentejo in the mountains, when you suddenly realise that winter is on its way. There is a smell of cold in the air. Soon. this is replaced by the smell of log fires burning.

ONCE

Today's poem is about two ONCE workers. The ONCE is the Spanish National Organisation for the Blind. The Cupón Diario[7] (daily cupón) is drawn daily (Monday to Friday) as a five-digit number and a Series number. Each ticket costs €1.50. Prizes can vary, based on how many of the five digits a particular cupón has, or the sum of all numbers on the cupón and the Series number. The digits have to be in order to win, from left to right. The lowest prize is effectively a refund of the €1.50 that was used to purchase a ticket. ONCE lottery tickets are sold on the streets by authorised cupón sellers, as well as in ONCE kiosks. These are clearly identified by the word "ONCE" and can be found along the high street, at airports, and in shopping malls. These points of sales employ the blind or partially sighted.

What it is about

This poem was written for a competition about Greek mythology. It didn't win.

A Garbled Message

I have posted A Garbled Message, a poem I wrote just after I arrived in Spain for the first time in October, 1977. It gives my first impressions of the city of Logroño with its two bridges across the Ebro, on the one hand the modern iron bridge is sharp contrast to the elegant stone Roman bridge, part of the pilgrim road to Santiago.

New poems

Putting up some new poems and some not so new poems these days.

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