Hospital visit

A cascade poem inspired by the Michael E. Arth painting for the Words and pictures poetry challenge.

When you take the train with grandma into town,

All dressed up neat with roses in your hand,

The world seems changed, a very different place.

 

You hope her face won’t mirror what you saw,

The things a child is never meant to see,

When you take the train with grandma into town.

 

You search the crowds and dread to see his face

And what he’d say to you, his child, unblemished,

All dressed up neat with roses in her hand.

 

Roses smell the same, though nothing’s sacred,

Mother’s broken like your father’s love,

Today your world’s a very different place.

Words and pictures poetry challenge 2

Thank you for responding to last week’s challenge. The reblog buttons seemed to be out of action for some reason, so here are the links to your poems:

Ken at Rivrvlogr

Lisa at Tao Talk

Kerfe at K

Merril at Yesterday and Today; Merril’s historical musings

 

The tritina is a form that sounds easy…but isn’t. I’m pleased you gave it a try and even more pleased at the results.

This week I’ve chosen a painting for inspiration. It’s entitled Moscow Metro and it’s by Michael E. Arth. It’s an arresting scene, a moment caught on canvas, and I find myself thinking about that girl, who she is, where she’s going, and what the intense expression on her face signifies.

I wasn’t going to inflict a particular form, but I think a cascade might be appropriate.

Have fun and post the link to your poem in the comments. I’ll reblog if the buttons work for me this week.

 

At dusk and in the midday sun

 

I am storing all this sweetness for the end,

The blackbird song, the smell of garlic mown,

And I will watch the butterfly-flecked grass

At dusk and in the gold of midday sun.

 

So much will ripen, fruit fall from the bough

Before we dare to speak, to touch, to hold,

Because the leaves may all have turned to red,

I am storing all this sweetness for the end.

 

Vibrant, joyful, bud-unfurling spring

Has come, while fear stalks through the cautious day,

And haunts the dreams of silent, confined night

With blackbird song, the smell of garlic mown.

 

The house is still, the nestlings far away,

Hands flutter in the same gestes every day,

You watch the screen for news with furrowed brow,

And I will watch the butterfly-flecked grass.

 

Nests are built, the meadow blooms apace,

We cannot stop the sun, hold back the tide,

But hope to be here when this race is run,

At dusk and in the gold of midday sun.

There are mowers mowing

 

There are mowers mowing all the bright sprung lawns,

I hear them over hill and down the dale,

but blackbirds fill the evening hush with song.

 

Though unease rustles in the gentle breeze,

and streets are empty, only fear’s abroad,

there are mowers mowing all the bright sprung lawns.

 

No traffic noise disturbs the rushing stream

that runs between the banks where thrushes sing;

I hear them over hill and down the dale.

 

When lawns are smooth and green enough to please,

and doors are closed against the fading light,

the blackbirds fill the evening hush with song.

Where waves

My poems didn’t make the Ekphrastic cut again. You can read the ones that did here.

This is one of the poems I submitted for the Henry Ossawa Tanner challenge.

Where waves rise to meet storm clouds,

the lowering sky drops among black rocks,

and between is the place where life is forged.

 

Between the hammer and the anvil,

the red hot stuff is quenched and shaped

where waves rise to meet storm clouds

 

and last year’s promises are cast on the wind

with the broken packaging of dreams.

The lowering sky drops among black rocks

 

the complacency of sleek health and wealth,

yet here on the edge, raw and real, in the crucible of cold stars,

between light and dark, is where life is forged.

There’s a crack in the sky

I didn’t do the dverse quadrille yesterday but the word to use was ‘crack’ which inspired this cascade poem.

 

There’s a crack in the sky where the rain pours through

With the hiss of cooling dragon breath,

And cracks in the earth drink the serpent’s tears.

 

Will we say when the floods wash a world away

And Venice rocks beneath cruise ships’ waves,

There’s a crack in the sky where the rain pours through?

 

When carcasses rot in the desert drought

Some sip drinks in the shade while sprinklers play

With the hiss of cooling dragon breath,

 

And close their eyes as life trickles away,

Smug and righteous and hand on heart,

While cracks in the earth drink the serpent’s tears.

Poem in Nightingale & Sparrow

Thank you to Juliette Sebock for including my poem A blinding in the nevermore issue.

You can read the whole magazine here

 

Sweep down to the sea

A cascade poem for the OctPoWriMo prompt. The painting looks like the Cliffs of Moher, and the title refers to the Mountains of Mourne. Take your pick, both are magnificent.

Mountains that run down to the sea

Beneath a sky of changing cloud

The mountains that my ghosts have trod.

 

In purple light and winter snow

Memories in this dark soil of

Mountains that run down to the sea.

 

Black cliffs that soar white-strung with gulls

Etch in the bones a world now lost

Beneath a sky of changing cloud.

 

If ever I could ravel up

Time I’d return to walk again

The mountains that my ghosts have trod.

In awe

Second cascade of the day for the dverse majestic prompt.

Photo©Airwolfhound

Beneath the mountain, a round pebble I,

Cloud-mountains build their vastness overhead;

The falcon stoops, my land-locked heart takes flight.

 

The keystone of a soaring arch-ribbed vault

Looks down on me with pure and cold disdain;

Beneath the mountain, a round pebble I.

 

The darting swallow-specks that fill the sky

Fly where I cannot go, that blue realm where

Cloud-mountains build their vastness overhead.

 

Such grandeur mocks our proudest works, their vain

Pale imitation fails to move, yet when

The falcon stoops, my land-locked heart takes flight.

When the ocean fills with darkness

This is the third of the poems I wrote for the Ekphrastic challenge using this painting by Dale Patterson.

When the ocean fills with darkness, fish will fly

Into the murky sky on silver wings;

In their tender mouths the seeds of perhaps.

 

The spring is silent now, no birds to sing,

All fallen, and the deer have gone, though mockers said,

When the ocean fills with darkness fish will fly.

 

So many flew, their souvenirs all wrapped in gossamer

But in the ports no welcome banners waved, and back they fell

Into the murky sky, on silver wings.

 

These children, my children, may still look up and see

The dreams go flying by and take up the fading cry

In their tender mouths—the seeds of perhaps.