Jane Dougherty's Blog, page 12
April 6, 2023
Roses
The NaPoWriMo prompt is similar to one I’ve seen before and not wanted to try, using the look of the words in an unknown foreign- language poem to inspire one in a language we do know. I had a go this time, because the example given used a poem in Portuguese. I don’t know Portuguese, but being a Latin-based language, many of the words look familiar, so there was something to hang a poem on.
The poem I used is Anel de Chamas by Ana Marques Gastão. It is posted with an English translation which I didn’t read.
Roses
Nights, we sleep, you a rose, sulphur-flamed,
bitter-tasting in the golden darkness, that glitters
with the star-sharp steel of your eyes.
Roses give, bud, open, fall in scented petals with no remorse.
You keep, hoard, lock away, and even a lover,
must settle for the image you toss carelessly into the mirror.
Wrapped in thorns, heart, veins seething with fire,
a guard tower of petals and thorns, you watch with contempt
your arid desert blooming, my untouchable Damas rose.
National poetry month day 6
Please visit Paul Brookes’ blog to read the poems and see the artworks that inspired them.
After the rain
They sailed out with a sky, fierce dark and red raging,
on a sea thick as oil and the black swell rising,
while we waited and watched, as winds lashed, and oceans
poured monsters of whale-waves over the cliffs.
Though we peered through the spray and the kelp-spume flying,
the night was as black as a Good Friday Mass,
and as red as a planet lost out of its orbit,
blood red as a moon with disaster to sow.
The morning came quiet, wind sifting the high dunes,
sifting the sand where we waited in vain,
sifting the debris splintered and broken,
scattering what we had before the black rain.
April 5, 2023
Walking by the Tolzac
New walk, on the way back from the vet.
Walking by the Tolzac
Tolzac winds deep and strong,
rushing over irreducible rock tumble,
green and lush as spring,
bright as otters.
We walk alongside, unable
to swim or fly or leap, path-bound,
where the trees hang, new-budding,
grass criss-cross tracked.
And in the trees along the river,
the deer hide, and spring comes
thick and green, and the white and pink
quince blossom tastes of deep earth,
rushing water and blue bee-filled air.
National poetry month day 5
Please visit Paul Brookes’ site for the artwork that inspired this poem, and to read the other contributions. A good set of poems today, in my opinion.
Mazes
We planted cities once, like berries on a cane,
stalk and branch and kernels inside warm husks.
We walked paths straight as fox tracks, once, from
here to there, and always back again, the kernel calling.
We gathered, planted, sowed, reaped beneath the sun
and rain, and the round of seasons back and forth.
Cities are mazes now, and we have lost the map,
or perhaps just thrown it out with the unwanted husks.
April 4, 2023
Fox waits
For dverse, a poem about what is going on outside my window right now.
Fox waits
Beyond the window, light fox waits
in the growing grass, crouched
patient belly to the damp and seething grass,
waiting for the food to come.
Fox eyes watch the light that falls,
and fox nose sniffs the air for cat
that comes to find the food
they leave behind the barn.
Owl call falls on indifferent ears,
the deer that barks away among the trees,
a phantom trots, as light as winter breeze,
fox death is never far away.
The field is dark the night is bright,
the smell of cat is far, too far to care,
and sharper is the smell of food.
Fox will be first to eat tonight.
National poetry month day 4
Please visit Paul Brookes’ blog to see the artworks that inspired this poem, and all the other contributing poetry.
Water lilies
Water washes through this world,
carries its cargo of fish-flowers
through all times, all spaces,
water world that mirrors the sky,
and how it blossoms with stars
risen from the deep ocean’s floor.
Leaving
A triolet in unorthodox iambic pentameter for the NaPoWriMo prompt. It’s a while since I wrote a triolet.
Leaving
Night’s passing, but bright morning won’t restore
the path the stars took, where the river flows,
it follows you beyond the tight closed door.
Night’s passing, but bright morning won’t restore
what you took with you, all we had before
the dark fell, and no wishing slows
night’s passing. But bright morning won’t restore
the path. The stars took where the river flows.
April 3, 2023
Magic 9
I missed the chosen form last week, so I’ve caught up this evening. It’s a Magic 9, and you can read the other examples on Paul’s blog here.
I had intended to give each line nine syllables, but this attempt asked for ten, so I didn’t argue. I’ll try this form again using nine syllables to make it a square poem.
A momentary memory
I ask, do you recall the day, the hour,
when we stood on this edge and watched the moon
rising through the clouds, burst like a flower,
white-petaled rose, a waterlily floating
on some oriental pool? A shower,
shooting stars fell soft and bright as feathers,
you wished, for what you never said, but our
hands and hearts have always held to this strewn-
blossomed path, in sun and dark clouds’ glower.
Bee
In my tautogram sequence I missed out ‘b’ so here it is.
Bee
Bee bumbles, bandy-legged,
beneath bramble-branches,
bedraggled blackbird
bestemmia bestiole bruyantes,
badger berates bejewelled brouhaha-brewers
behind briar-canes,
bemused boy
beats bee-humming bushes,
bitten by badger, bolts,
bewailing bee bewitchery.
And I’m adding the ‘t’, first one I wrote in my enthusiasm, and will be the last I post. I admit, I am heartily sick of this form.
Thrush
Thrush trills triumphantly,
thunder-voiced,
the tongue that transports,
tender-toned, terror-scorning,
through titanesque torrents,
their trumpeting tirades thrashing tree-boughs,
top-mast toppling,
testament to temeraire Turdus-Philomelus,
the tempest troubadour.
