Phil W. Bayles

Or: How I Started Writing Poetry

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We’re currently in the process of moving house, and it’s taken up a lot of the space in my head that I usually save for writing. So to split the difference, I decided to write about moving house.

I started jotting down thoughts in a notebook, and before long I was shocked to discover that I was, in fact, writing a poem; something I’d previously thought about as likely as a penguin doing trigonometry.

The other night I got up at an open mic event and read this particular poem out loud. It seemed to go down rather well, so I thought I’d clean it up and share it here.

Its title is “The Big Crunch”, and I hope you enjoy it. Perhaps I’ll write some more in the future.

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Three years ago, we flung our front door open with a Big Bang.

With every unpacked box, our universe expanded.

Magnolia walls exploded with light and colour.

Chaos gave way to order

as we filled the bookshelves and unpacked the wine glasses.

Before long, new life appeared

and order gave way to chaos again.

Now, slowly but surely,

we are

starting

to

contract.

There is entropy all around us;

in picture frames propped against walls

and disassembled tables

and the inky blackness of overstuffed bin bags.

Soon, our universe will shrink

to a pale blue dot

then a singularity

small enough to fit in the back of a van.

This is how the world ends.

Not with a bang, not with a whimper,

but with the click

of a key

in a lock.