Three Line Tales: Perseverance

For Sonya’s Three Line Tales prompt.
photo by Linus Sandvide via Unsplash

 

Almost five hundred years since the abbey was destroyed because a king needed a divorce and the extra revenues weren’t to be sneezed at either, and still the ruins fascinate.

He wanders the silence where grass covers stone flagged pavements, and birds nest in niches of crumbled stone where once prayers were muttered, lifting his torch to the sky opened by fallen roofs.

There is still so much majesty in the soaring stone that has never surrendered to either fire, cannon or the elements, so much that sings in the stonework and architectural grace—he tosses his torch into the petrol doused kindling—time to finish the job.

Winter sun sevenling

The sun shines in bland bands
of bleak light, weak-warm
and the yellow lost its heart.

It falls flat and famished
across the wintry green,
and I look to the hollows in the hedge

for rags of the soft night.

Progress report

I have a few success stories to crow about, so I’ll let them all go here.

First, I’m proud to have three poems in the anthology As the World Burns published by Indie Blue. I get a special thrill that my third entry is the poem that closes the collection. Yes, my desk is a mess but I can’t tidy it because of the ladybirds hibernating on it.

 

Second reason to be cheerful, a haibun of mine is one of the Ekphrastic Review’s five nominations for the Sonder Press’s Best Small Fictions anthology!

Third—my second collection of poems, birds and other feathers will be available in kindle version from November 27th (husband’s birthday) but the print version will have to wait until I’ve seen a proof copy, and that is in the hands of the postal service.

And last, but not least, I have finished another novel! I know, I do this often and nothing happens. One day though, I hope to be able to say, and somebody has picked it up.

Three Line Tales: High tide

For Sonya’s photo prompt.
photo by Andrew Donovan Valdivia via Unsplash

She had never seen so many leaves before, not when playtime stretched long and hot for all the hours of a summer’s day.

She shrieked with delight as the hot wind made the rustling ocean swirl and dance, rising at her back full of voices she thought must be the song of the leaves.

But the song was a war cry, and the wind brought more and more fallen leaves, an ocean of them, enough to drown in.

11 – 12

My second haiku up on the Pure Haiku blog. Thank you, Freya!

purehaiku

on the midnight grass

star blossom–light of ages

falls in silver hush

© Jane Dougherty 2020

I write novels, stories, poems, rants because I have a lot of words still to use up.

This haiku is part of our ARTURINA theme!

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Three Line Tales: An idyll

Three lines for Sonya’s photo prompt.
photo by Simon Berger via Unsplash 

A fairy tale, we said and sighed, pointing at the shining roofs and onion domes rising above the lake mist.

Whichever lucky person lived there, we said, must be in a state of beatitude, bathed in the beauty of nature, in tune with the universe.

We never wondered why the swans were all making frantically for the lake shore and flying far, far away.

11 – 10

My haiku was on Freya’s Pure Haiku blog yesterday. Misunderstood the date…

purehaiku

storm on the meadow-

is this how the stars wage war

stripping pale treasure?

© Jane Dougherty 2020

I write novels, stories, poems, rants because I have a lot of words still to use up.

This haiku is part of our ARTURINA theme!

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Haibun for small mercies

For the dverse prompt, a local snippet.
Not much happens in our town. Looking back through the regional paper for the last week or so, it looks as if nothing happened at all. I do get FB notifications though from the wild life refuge just outside the town, in a nature reserve, out of bounds to the general public unless on an errand of mercy. Lots of good things happen there. Centre-de-soins-de-la-faune-sauvage-de-Tonneins-

P.S. If you look at the site, the most recent post is about the release of a buse variable, a common buzzard. The FB translation has chosen the other meaning of buse — a nozzle. You have to laugh.

Quiet and slow flows the world these days, but the men with guns still stalk the lazy fields, the wooded pools of the flood plain and its blue sky-gazing ponds, keeping the countryside safe from deer and pigeons. Quiet and slow, and in the river bend where no one walks, not even armed, is where the healing works. Here in the quiet, we take our foundlings, babies bereft, broken or off course, weak, wounded or too weary to care, and in the quiet on the river bend, on this domain, out of bounds of gun and dogs, pieces of life are patched up, wild lives reclaimed. So many small victories beneath the hail.
after the floods
and winter frosts the daffodils
always shine

Growing away

For the dverse prompt, a 144 word (exactly) story incorporating the line from Liesel Mueller:

‘there is nothing behind the wall
except a space where the wind whistles.’

©Christine Matthews

When I was small, the path to school followed two sides of a high stone wall. There was no door, no entrance, and I told myself that there was a magical garden full of trees and flowers on the other side, where no snow fell and no farmer shot the pigeons.
I grew up and, hating the cold northern place, went away, only returning to clear out my parents’ home. Wandering the streets in search of memories, I came to the wall, walked around the third and fourth sides until I found the door.
I stand here now, feeling the tremor of childhood magic, turn the handle. It isn’t even locked. There is nothing behind the wall except a space where the wind whistles, and dead leaves pile in nervous drifts. But among the leaves lies a child’s winter scarf and a dead pigeon.

#WorldBeesWeekend poetry and artwork challenge. Have you written published/unpublished poems about bees? Have you made an artwork about bees? Please submit by DM to my Twitter account or message me on my WordPress account. All submissions will be posted.

Another challenge from Paul—it’s bee weekend.

The Wombwell Rainbow

-Amy Shelton. She has a collaboration with poet John Burnside called Melissographia as well as a new body of work in progress with him too – Bee Myths. There is a recording of John Burnside reading Melissographia here. http://amyshelton.co.uk/melissographia/
There are a few signed limited edition hand made Melissographia books available on her website.

– `ees by Neal Zetter

The Day I Became a Royalist.

The memory of that day’s still sweet,
the way the sun filtered through hedges
beginning to explode
with blooms of hawthorn and chestnut;
the coconut trace that floated up
from yellow bubbled whin;
the excited buzz from her fans,
humming as I set to work.
Deaf as beetles they were,
yet they danced their tales
while their friends watched
and felt the vibrations.
I longed to dance too,
but my rebel feet refused.
I looked the part.
In fact, I was smoking,
with all the…

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