Invocations

For the earthweal open link weekend.

Night night go away
leave bristle bushes behind
to spike sow-thistled
drying brown stalks in withering sun

groundwater glares with Glaucus eyes
no saving us from drowning

we bend beneath the weight of the storm
ocean-pelted
reeds
will we rise again?

Running running away
filling earth’s pockets with dull change
chinking over stream debris.

What magic will work
without sun to turn pewter to silver
pay our thirty pieces
open the valves and bivalves
drink up Thor’s horn and make way below
for these cloud-fallen waters?

More rain

gauze
mist-rain
cold and damply falling

yet the birds dance
as if spring
is on the rim of the hill

who am I to contradict
such ancient wisdom?

gogyohka for flooded ditches

beneath this leaden sky
the water in the ditch
running
forgets to shine
and slides as dull as

Rain

I hear you rolling through the ocean sky
hissing like the incoming tide
through the poplars
boughs dancing like kelp in the current
and I hear you pass over
roar dwindled to pattering of drops
pebbles rolling in the backwash.

Silence follows
trawling clouds in the blue
as the season shifts changes gear
slipping into the cooling time
and the dimming of the light.
We sigh
in eternal dissatisfaction.

World is water

 

World is water falling splashing

lashing with steel whips

(drips) bough and stalk

 

the clouds cold wrath

frothing in over-spilling streams

gleams darkly

 

battleship grey they throng

songs of thunder in their hearts

(starts the drum roll)

 

From over-spilling eyes

skies pour an ocean to float the blue-buoyed earth

and still

 

birds trill and sing

fling all their hearts in open-beaked song

as long as there is a pulse to thrill the blood.

Storm starts

For the dverse prompt.

it starts with wind

the hissing of leaves

tree-waves rolling

spume spitting and birds flung high

on jetsam wings buffeted

 

it starts

sharp stinging

sand or salt

while cloud boils up

black and bitter with thunderous rage

 

rain lashes

no mercy for tender shoots

the old and brittle

storm howls with no words

though we listen hard

 

close the shutters against the gale

mop up the creeping fingers of wild water

listen to things bend and break

the loose masonry clattering

down the chimney flue

 

afterwards

when calm washes back

we wonder what we did wrong

as the singing picks up

where it left off

As clouds

 

In the rainy dark

the pale faces of marguerites

blow in unseen winds

and the oak trees billow ominous

 

~as clouds~

 

at dusk and dusk to dawn

the dark hangs swollen with rain

and births the morning

in joyous flood.

Gogyohka for a deluge

dim grey-green light

through water-grey blur

and the crooning of blackbirds

soothing the tedious drip

of broken guttering

 

by the pool of rainwater

murky brown with mud

a fire salamander gleams

exotic rainforest sprite

sharing the deluge with toads

 

awash the grass

the lane aflood

and hares race

oblivious to the downpour

the water veil of fading light

Head in the rain

 

Listening to the drip drip of rain on the migraine

and feeling the earth soak beneath boots, sinking

 

unstable and the air full of shimmering, I walk

beneath dripping trees, where birds watch for worms,

 

and the background noise shrinks to the song of

nightingales, tirelessly ignoring storm and downpour.

 

I walk a path between grasses shoulder high, bowed

by lead crystal drops, and the clamour soothes,

 

cooling the blood with rain drip dripping

from the pigeon-grey eaves of the sky.

gogyohka: yes, it’s still raining

 

birds

in the claws of the wind

torn from sky perches

wings bent to another course

slice through the rain