Poems 2 & 3

I went back to the magnets and looked at the second and third sets of tiles. I haven’t rearranged the Oracle’s words, just let her tell it like it is. The messages are not very clear (except in parts).

2.

Have a pound, a smooth bed, you/his.
This is delirious, could be their crush.

Faster, spring runs to a stop where the sun don’t shine,
urging blood for watching—

it smeared these peaches pink as I was eating,
petal pink.

3.

I am ying, never yang,
swimming through life like honey
and the lazy whisper in my head
that says, yes, you can have that gown

~all blue and purple with rain~

women can scream too,
use their tongues to corrode the edifice,
and if you say we are just bitter,
that is why we must.

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Cloud colours

Cloud colours

The course of the clouds describes
the arced belt of foam
racing up the strand
over and over again
a bow of bells
ringing the changes

~east to west day to night~

white floods the blue
air sun-yellowed
pigments refined from light
bright and high as the stars
deep as the burnt earth of Lascaux
and the dark of distant time.

Sunlight through the trees on the hill

Sunlight through the trees on the hill

Light
caught in golden leaves
a moment of magic glimpsed
between rain-dark tree trunks
spindle-fingered
letting their own raiment slip away

~while one shrubby tree-bush blazes~

magic
this single sapling garbed in gold
sunburst-bright
and hung with silent coins
defying the gloom
glorious.

Re-wild the mundane day 2

In answer to Paul Brookes’ hedgehog and tea towel questions which you can see here (WP can feck off with it’s stupid questions).

Once were tea towels

smart-checked and striped,
holes now united by threadbare,
unravelled warp and weft,
linted and loose-threaded,
shoe-cleaners, floor-wipers,
the unnameable rags
that line forgotten places.

~Not all forgotten, not by all~

a hedgehog home, deep in the pile
of cracked roof tiles and bricks,
beam splinters ancient plaster,
is lined with linen, embroidered with oak leaves,
spiked and span, gathered by prickles,
wind holes filled with moss,
a winter sleep away from spring.

Pastoral

Painting Kryzhitsky: Landscape with a pond

Pastoral

Quiet
full of sound
still as leaves
shivering in the breeze
morning grows
a painting
touch
by delicate touch

~ from tree to tree ~

warblersong
after summer silence
a gentle ripple
water music
and the sky is veiled
grey
soft enough
to line any nest.

Brief candles

For the penultimate day of Paul Brookes’ April poetry challenge, inspired by Anjum Wasim Dar’s painting, Oxygen. I’ve just written and sent off the final poem for the challenge with a feeling of a job well done, but regret that it’s over too. Please go to Paul’s blog to read all the poems. No regrets there.

Once there was a meadow

For NaPoWriMo, after the cleave form (and I’ve done a couple of those lately), the puente is about the closest I get to fancy formatting. Not concrete, more like Tudor brick.

Enchantment

For earthweal.

• 

Enchantment

When the leaves are drying, curling,
rattling in the rising wind,
sharp as the gunshots that ring
from side to valley side,
autumn’s beauty marred by brutes,
it’s hard to remember

~ spring ~

bird racket and squirrels leaping where leaves unfurl,
the stream racing after the rains,
light falling bright and green,
falling on a mallard turning in the flood,
her chicks bobbing boats in a baby’s bath,
their new voices thrilling.

Sundown

• 

More light in the sky at sunset
than at midday sluiced by rain clouds
treetop-touching

~a sky of pink gold~

hushed wind
fescue holds its grass-breath
while the blackbirds sing the sun down.

Dull day

• 

Turn off the sun, and the grey
seeps through the walls,
light bereft of colour, even meadow-bright
drained beneath the drizzle,
drowning flower-fire,
pink sparks dulled, and flax

~closed all its blue eyes~

the sky is swollen with wind,
too loud to hear protesting birds,
though the branches wave
with the anger of kelp thrashing sand-silt,
stirred up by the passage
of some monstrous fish.