Daisies

For the Secret Keeper’s weekly writing prompt

The prompt words were:

INSPIRE | NIGHT | MIND | NEAR | WANT

What inspired the mind

That worked the night and moulded space,

Sculpted the cold and made a world?

What power there was in breath,

Heavy with a thousand gases,

Bright with the fizzing lights of fission and fusion,

To produce the ever-swelling ocean,

That rolls to the edge of eternity and beyond.

Was it desire to create a masterwork,

Or was it simply the need to be?

Not enough to be the dark,

The pulsing nothingness of the void,

Not enough to feel the cold, bitter and unchanging,

Not enough to be the only thing.

I, though, hold a daisy in my hand,

Delicately, between forefinger and thumb,

Close enough to see the yellow flecks of dusty pollen

Glinting, sunspecks,

While the dripping globes of last night’s rain

Shine bright as any star.

Did you not know that this was enough?

While you howl in some black hole,

Some brilliant nursery of new stars,

An explosion, implosion, radiating pulsar,

Among the fierce, unknowable colours of your space garden,

I watch the rain fall upon the daisies.

The stars, did we?

The words for the Secret Keeper’s weekly prompt are:

PAINT | CLEAR | DARE | COVER | DANCE

Painting ©Mika-Pekka Markkanen

Night paints the sky clear of day’s troubles,

bumbling jostling clouds, whipped by a sharp wind,

the irritating dance of erratic bird flight,

and the waving branches of thoughtless trees.

Night covers you in a soft blanket,

still and pale as you breathe softly,

softer than ever your daylit words.

Through the window, the stars.

You turn and they are there,

drowning in the depths of your eyes,

crying their silent glitter.

My fingers itch to touch you but refuse the dare.

You watch unperturbed, as dreams drown,

and I wonder did we ever dream the same,

did we ever touch the same stars?

Blossom drifts

Secret Keeper’s prompt words this week are

DRIFT | BREATHE | LIGHT | HOLD | LIFE

Photo©tsuna72

Blossom drifts,

Feather-light,

Caught in the breeze.

Hold tight,

Life flees,

Into yawning rifts,

Breathing shifts.

Following the river

I didn’t think today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was going to do it for me—to write a poem using very long lines—until I realised that the poem I had written for the Secret Keeper’s writing challenge was exactly that. Not quite 17 syllables but when you get to 15 who’s counting?

This week’s words:

TRIP | FIRE | RIVER | EYE | MELT

By the way, Secret Keeper’s blog has had the phishing alert treatment too. Just ignore it.

I follow the flood tide river on its journey to the sea,

With its burden of stark black driftwood and tangled greenery.

The river waves curl glassy, as far as the eye can see,

Rolling to the ocean that took you so far away from me.

There was ever a winter chill in the air of those last nights,

Cold as the witch of winter of our childish fancy’s flights,

That the fire burning in my heart could no more put to rights,

Than it could melt the wicked ice beneath the glittering northern lights.

This is home now

The Secret Keeper’s prompt this week was to use these five words in a poem:

PLAIN | LAUGH | SITE | ROCK | SECRET

This is home now, this broad plain,

Filled with lushness and a tranquil river.

This place is mine, to learn and to know,

Down to its smallest crevice, its most secret flower.

This place will be my rock, my anchor,

When the way ahead is fogged with rain,

And black birds flap across a lowering sky.

My castle hath a pleasant seat,

Though tears may come,

Now, I hear only laughter.

A remembered voice

Second attempt at the Secret Keeper’s challenge—a poem incorporating these words:

SPACE | FRIEND | EVENT | MOVE | AIM

A remembered voice calls to me in the night,

A lover hailing from the depths of space,

Celestial happening, movement of starlight,

I’ve never seen the contours of his face.

Weightless air one day I aim to be,

And leave the bonds that tie me to the earth,

For the stars call those who have the eyes to see,

Who seek forever love and know its worth.

In the garden plot

The Secret Keeper’s five words prompt this week:

WORTH | SPARK | PLOT | QUAKE | SPY |

A nice set of words that tripped off the fingers like spring chicks.

Photo © Gegik

In the garden plot that quakes with stirring life,

A green spark ignites the flourishing,

The quaking, stirring breaking of bounds.

Bonds of winter snap and fray,

In the cloudy light of day, with rain in the air,

Snow on the hills,

And a blackbird that spies a worm,

Worth its weight in blackbird gold,

Of spring sunshine.

Mud

The Secret Keeper’s word prompt this week was this sequence:

| CLEAR | WAY | BAN | PATCH | REBEL |

I didn’t think I was going to make anything out of this set of words, but this poem (with a slight bending of the words) came without too much bidding.

photo ©Alison Rawson

On the bank of the river side,

Patched and seamed by running feet,

Birdprints prick the shiny mud,

Smoothed then dimpled by the tide.

Blackbird clears away the mould,

Unctuous ooze of last year’s leaves,

Where worms and snails hide in the dark,

And spring rebels against the cold.

Walking the old paths

The Secret Keeper’s word prompt this week was to incorporate these five words into a poem.

WALK | OLD | PROMISE | VIEW | BEAT

I wrote the poem then looked for an illustration. This one is perfect. I don’t in the least mind borrowing the persona of a bent and bowed Ukrainian lady.

Photo©Juanedc

Walking the old paths that climb full of promise,

Treading the road for a view of tomorrow,

But the bend keeps on turning, never arriving,

And the bend behind curves the past out of sight.

 

Today’s at my feet with buttercups swaying,

Pouring enough gold to fill empty hands,

Heart’s pulse beats time to the song of the blackbird,

Golden and silver threads weave tales of light.

 

Hands filled with gold, face turned to the morning,

Though clouds bar the sky, mist covers the sun,

Hope is in wing beats of gulls on the skyline,

Carrying dreams from the depths of the night.