Martin Shone's Blog, page 47

Goats

Poem #51

Written for Jo Bell’s 52: Write a poem a week and the theme is … Goats

-

What is a sheep

but a cuddly goat

What is a goat

but a living ghost

wandering through the mountain’s misty mornings

or staring with those eyes

thinking

“I’ll have you mate!”

and before you know it you’re on your butt

being butted and nibbled

and before you know it

the goat has sex on the brain

and his eyes, those eyes … change, to a rampantness of hunger

they begin to eat you, to mesmerize you, to fuse your very soul with his

passion!

and before you know it

your brain is vomiting

as the goat is butting, nibbling, tasting … licking, straddling

Run away!!!!

What is Christmas?

***

Christmas, what is it

but a waste of electricity

a pagan festival removed

a flood of angels’ tears

the death of the butterfly

a time of impossible sorrow

the night side of happiness

a smile upon an expectant face

a forgotten memory

a mythology of remarkable provocations

or an open-hearted flower …

What is it

but a painful reminder

of our ridiculous humanity

***

The darker the bones

Poem #50

Written for Jo Bell’s 52: Write a poem a week and the theme is … Violence

-

The silent heart

of his silent soul

is

temporarily snagged by a thought or two

rising; bile rising

from the deep inner sanctum

of his core

nay deeper also than this

for the deeper one goes, the darker the bones

and inside his universe of empty

eruptions form in ragged shards of bliss

felt in his fingertips

burnt in his ears

with heart-pumps full of angst

such bliss; bile, sore expectant bile, rising

rising fist-clenches of sighing chaos

aching to breach

and so vomit

the shrapnel of his turmoil

He runs silent

through his darkness

blind to the love of his self

blind to the love of it all

to the love of you

The deeper one goes, the darker the bones

and within his soul

there lives dinosaurs of violence

just waiting

just waiting to be found

bliss; rising, rising bile of cowardice and confusion

if only he knew …

 

Your lightness

Poem #49

Written for Jo Bell’s 52: Write a poem a week and the theme is … Light

-

2.31 am, and the bed moves

with a gentle kind of ripple

as if someone either sat or stood up

or tapped the mattress

just slightly but enough to wake me

was it me chasing rabbits

or was it something which made the blinds glow

with a softness of white-blue

; your gentle feathers, how they become in the darkness – your lightness

I smile and say “Hello”

and once more the slumbering warmth envelops me

until I wake at 4.55 to the gentle half-moon’s light from my silent alarm clock

I had no dreams

only the usual plethora of scattered shadows

and yet, for those shadows to form

there must be a source

perhaps I should sleep some more …

and so I step into the half-light of morning

feeling the bite of winter on my nose

and off I trot up the hill

where the real moon’s light

offers comfort

I smile and say “Hello”

; ‘neath a duvet of stars is sleep’s eternal presence, waiting to envelop me

Novel update #5

A quick update. No luck with the competition, which is rather lucky I guess as I’m  not really fully sure where this thing is going as it is turning out to be a bit surreal, but I like it and that’s all that matters :)

I have finished the first drafts of chapters one & two and here is a little snippet of chapter three.

-

She dances, she pirouettes, she caresses as she sings within the cushion of her being and as she dances, her fragrance whirls and drifts into the many realities of time where occasionally there are little dimples of thought, of sound, of vibrations and through these she seduces the very inhales of mortal men.

So strong is this fragrance, those who are enchanted by it feel and even become to see the depth of her eyes and are thus unable to withdraw their gaze, unable to unbreathe her psyche, unable to exist without feeling the bite of her rapture, and so they drown in a suffocation of desire with a feeling of the utmost solitude.