Intangible

For dverse a spirit quadrille.

Spirit, ineffable,

in wisps of mist,

leaves driven by the rain,

wind among branches,

rustle of deer’s passing,

heat haze rising, drifting clouds,

breath of birds, of tiny shrews

shrieks in the night

(owl bravado)

smoke rising, logs sighing,

our whispered words before sleep.

 

Hare

A quadrille for dverse

 

Beneath the hedge

long ears turn

antennae

capturing vibrations in the air,

nose twitches

with the scent of dog stalking,

flanks quiver

with pounding heart muscles

tensing with the vibrating, quivering

scent-sounds,

alert in every pulse of the blood

for the moment to leap.

On freeing a walnut tree from an invasive fig tree

The dverse quadrille this week has to include the word ‘set’. I have spent a goodly part of today wandering about in a badger’s set (virtually, for the purposes of a story) so I had to join in even if the poem isn’t about a badger’s home at all.

While it is wet

it will not set

but the clay

today

is dry as bone

and alone

I cannot dig

around the fig

to get it out.

No sprout will shoot

nor root

delve beneath this tree

if I can’t get it free.

 

Leap in the dark

The dverse quadrille theme word is extinction. A quadrille is a poem of exactly 44 words.

 

She hurried her child through bone-dead streets

where shadows played giants on crumbling walls

to the chasm where millions wept and leapt

into the dark and the roar of flames.

 

The child peered down and troubled asked,

‘What place is this?’

‘Extinction,’ she said.

Seas of untranquility

 

Where is the tranquillity

in a world rocked by missiles, mining, murder,

and multinational monsters with Hydra heads?

No water runs clear,

nowhere does not bear our mark

the dirty paw print of the half-thing

that slouches from one broken dream to the next.

The voiceless

A very grim quadrille for dverse this time. Life is like that, not all beer and skittles.

 

The land is silent,

sealed in concrete skin,

the orphans of elephants

murdered for their tusks,

the circus acts,

the dogs and calves in cages,

waiting for the knife,

the falling forest trees—

for those that cannot speak,

if you care,

be their voice.

 

 

Speckles and dappled freckles

A quadrille for the dverse prompt.

Dappled light falls soft between the leaves,

like spots on tabby coat and speckled frog,

and in the meadow bright awash in motley,

wildflowers blow.

 

Sun spots scatter sparkles

on the dark lake swell

till night falls and solemn stars

fill the freckled sky.