Poems for now

nothing in this
afternoon louder than the
angry sparrowhawk

stream trickles
almost-dry aflutter with
thirsty wood pigeons

and sun slants
in golden shafts through tired
boughs where warblers wait

for ripe figs
and the whipsnake
to leave

Blue barque blue whale

Another florescence sequence.

I saw no stars falling,
heard no sirens calling,
no winged horse, I’m trawling through sea-dreams.

A blue barque with white sail,
a fish hawk with red tail,
an ocean with blue whale and green waves

wait on the edge of sleep,
silent fish dart in deep
waters, where flowers weep their goodbyes.

Florescence sequence: Day night sleep

For Colleen’s weekly prompt, a syllable-counting poem of my invention. This is a sequence of three Florescence poems, three lines of six, six and nine syllables respectively, with a rhyme on the sixth, twelfth and eighteenth syllables.

 

 

Beneath the bird’s egg blue
of sky by rain washed new
and clothed in heaven’s hue, all seems clear,

though in the darkest night
the brashest city light
casts shadow black and white—monochrome.

Yet take my hand, we’ll run
till days and nights are done
swept up into the sun, there to sleep.

Sevenlings: chicory among other things

Morning warbles

beneath soft grey clouds

gentle as pigeons.

 

Morning oriole whistles

she squawks back

domestic banter.

 

Cool morning bustles before sky-gong sounds brazen-hot.

 

The camera is not a pair of eyes

one eye perhaps and selective

it sees a single plane not the depth

 

I see a froth of white lace on a green sea

pools of sunlight in the troughs between waves

reflections of sky through broken cloud

 

becalmed in a child’s caught breath of wonderment.

 

Distant chaffinches converse,

a buzzard wails, ignored,

wood pigeons flutter-call among the leaves,

 

all soft and low,

a murmur, flowing background, like streamwater,

a moving hush, all listening­—

 

a warbler is singing.

 

Bluer than blue eyes

scraps of sky perhaps

morning chicory before the sun

 

Waiting for the heat

watching the sky

but then the blue will fade and close

 

Time flows a river each moment perfect.

From dusk to morning

 

Deer are barking

across the setting sun

a world apart

 

through the long grass

snake glides

climbs the fig tree biblically

taking the slender boughway

over the hedge top

 

in the path

yellow feathers strewn

midnight feast

 

oriole flutes an elegy

for lost kindred

in the gold of morning

 

small corpses

cat-kill

laid by the path

an offering to the night fox

are gone by morning

 

Conundrums

 

in the dry heat

among smooth shiny things

the sun picks out beacons

sometimes diamonds

sometimes a hay stalk

 

sometimes a hay stalk

shiny smooth

drying in the heat

flashes like a diamond beacon

because the sun

 

because the sun

a broken stalk of fescue

shiny smooth

flashes diamond bright

sometimes

 

sometimes

in the dry heat

diamonds shine

smooth as hay stalks

caught by the sun

 

caught by the sun

sometimes

we see hay stalks

where there are only diamonds

flashing

Gogyohka for a midsummer pause

Hay lies waiting

beneath the sun beating

and an oriole is fluting

his endless questions

that have no answer

 

bees swarm loud

in the hot silence

heavy as honey

sweet as syrup

and the brazen blue throbs

 

with a brazen beat

cicada hiss sssss

among limp leaves

while water runs slower

dying and drying as its bed shrinks

 

spring is life in movement

floods and rising green shoots

now we hold hot breath

thinking of the crisping of leaves

and the first cold shadows.

Haiku for the longest day

For Frank Tassone’s summer solstice prompt.

the longest day

a day for mowing cutting

the year in half

 

all the golden stalks

the meadow

a battlefield

 

the gyre narrows

hawk objective probes beneath

the fallen grass

 

how did they know

before the engine’s rattle

that death was coming?

 

feather swarm glides

in untouching pattern

through the blue

Evening drifts

For the dverse prompt.

 

Sinking sun sweeps

with broad brush

swallows

 

dip drinking deep

of rain-washed air

golden motes

 

fly gnat-winged

into dusty dusk

of gilded light

 

night brings wings

soft silent

owl-flutter

 

I watch the first star wake

rocked in the cobalt cradle

of the cosmos.

Tidings

storm again the grey

so familiar a cover

to the rain-lashed world

 

and the dimming

of the light

before the night

 

no dusk

of soft golden

fading

 

drumroll and lights

yet we pull the shutters closed

on the spectacle

 

no moon rides

no stars glow beneath the waves

of such heavy seas