Things we see or don’t

Running late. The medication is starting to work and I can see a bit clearer now. The Oracle gave me a cadralor. Nothing to do with anything.

• 

Things we see, or don’t

1.
In my forest there are roses,
the sun slips
between bird-strung boughs
and the rain in silver patters,
language of dreams.

2.
He brought me flowers,
gave me slabs of meat to cook,
his friends to tolerate,
loud and boorish. No one noticed
when I slept in the garden.

3.
I remember a pair of shoes, blue.
She never wore them, like the red dress,
not me, she said with a smile.
it stormed when she died.
She’d have liked that.

4.
There’s a picture of the north pole,
how it was, with the ice
and the long black shadow of a white bear.
All gone, but we prefer palm trees
and sun anyway, so no loss.

5.
A celebrity’s plastic face, souped-up sunsets,
Ferraris and Porsches, a selfie
taken with the moon in a space station,
none more beautiful than the daisy,
crushed beneath your tread, rising again, slowly.

Wind and the stars

I went over the same set of words three times this morning and got three cadralore. This is the third one. Time to stop asking.

1.
The wind rose and blew away love.
Perhaps I was lazy,
hearing music
where only the night howled.

2.
Do you dream or sleep too deep for fantasies?
I walk forests and hear the leaves
crisp and dry underfoot.
Night and day.

3.
More roses hang on the bushes
than the sun will ever ripen.
Too late now, the swallows have gone,
and we’re all for the dark.

4.
Once, we thought we could stop the moon,
bring her close and hear her song.
We watch the sea now,
and how the waves creep ever higher.

5.
The juice of summer has gone,
but we are still. Leaves fall, stars,
but who’s to say there’s truth in dead rocks
and none in dreams?

Not what you get

1.
Sadness takes the shine off the new bauble,
scatters the fluff of thistledown,
crushes tiny insect gems into glitter,
turns spring dance into winter trudge.

2.
Red and raw is the road beneath the moon,
as if day had never been, will never come,
bare and bald as if there had been no summer,
as if no birds had ever sung.

3.
Sea eggs are bitter;
they rust like bolts on the beams of wrecks,
turning clear water to blood,
hatching shadow-fishes.

4.
I whisper you diamonds,
but love wanes as it waxes,
and what we wanted was just a shot at love.
At least that’s how I remember it.

5.
Feet cry fast as they grow into forests.
The words in my head
speak a language I don’t understand,
though it blows sweet as honey.

To be, and not to be

I was finishing writing a cadralor poem this morning and it struck me that it’s the perfect form for the Oracle. Each stanza takes the words/theme from a different page of words and the Oracle slips in the message in the closing stanza. It’s a hypothesis anyway. This is what she just gave me.

To be, and not to be

1.
Rust, such a pretty colour.
Though it comes from ruin and decay,
creeps in the sordid places, acid-damp,
it runs the woods with the deer.

2.
You always said I was blue,
hair the colour of bilberry juice, honey-skinned.
I was a peach by any other name.
I never told you what that was.

3.
Day screams before it soars
into the world the moon has left bereft,
the raw cries of owls,
drunk with sunlight, fading.

4.
Crush these dried lavender flowers;
the smell will linger for centuries in the fabric
of gowns packed in a cedar chest,
as long as it is never opened.

5.
We wish for the rain to stop,
like we wish the bitter words could be unsaid,
the war never started, but the sea is still the sea,
and salt water will never run in this stream.

Too many trees

• 

Too many trees to see the wood

1. I often wonder why this, why that,
   why me, why not. Sometimes I forget
   to run with the wind of what is.
   
   
2. When there is no sun even at midday,
   the shadows vague, the world is flat,
   and I cannot see beyond the streaming panes.
   
   
3. Dog drags himself from his bed panting,
   nails clicking on the tiles, looking for water
   or the no-reason verve that once made him run.
   
   
4. I always wanted this, and now I have it,
   I feel the damp rising,
   the swirling aquifer beneath the calm.
   
   
5. Gleam of light on water,
   a stray sun finger probing the tree shade,
   and a damselfly ignites.

Things I have decided today

1.
I will write nothing new
until someone accepts that what is already
is good enough.

2.
I will unpick and rewrite
turn the angle of the mirror
until a reflection smiles back.

3.
Writing courses, editors, conferences,
and other events are for those with time and money.
I’ll be the thief who finds the back door open.

4.
Hyperbole is easy as smiling
but it’s not a substitute for criticism.
Bite every coin before accepting it.

5.
Inside my head there is a head
beating against a wall
but the same words keep falling out.

Beginnings endings

1.
Heat is a vibrating mirror
of summers past
and cicada songs.

2.
Along the stream
all the branches are black with winter
and lost birds.

3.
You had a favourite scarf.
We wrapped it round and round ourselves
until each felt the other’s heartbeat.

4.
How do I hold these stars
if even the sky
lets them go?

5.
The most important things
run their course and die
but Disney lasts forever.

Cadralor anyone?

This is a new form I discovered today and gave it a go. You can find out how to write one here . Most of the examples in the magazine aren’t my thing, but I like the idea.

How far?

1.
Into the night you go
and the cat into the dusk
I light a lamp.

2.
Streets fall silent here
but further in the hubbub
strums night’s chords.

3.
Take the bus north
and you’ll see the ocean
where the stars fall.

4.
Winter breath streams
pale as river mist
but the sobbing is blood-red.

5.
In dreams the sound
of footsteps leaving is the same
as footsteps hurrying home.