Jane Dougherty's Blog, page 13

National poetry month day 3

You can see the images that inspired this poem, and read all the contributions on Paul Brookes’ blog here.

Winter fears

Shut and bar the door on this windy night
of midnight blue and scarlet scarves
entangled in the trees.

Beneath the stark and lonely trees, creaking
in the breathless wind, nothing walks
those paths that’s welcome here.

Winter wolves and winter wild, yellow-eyed,
the bitter cold and grinding teeth
of polar famine stalks,

the winding sunset red of scarlet scarves,
the blue-black of eternity,
chill the pulse of our spring-bound hearts.

Deer

Deer

Damselfly-water dances
dimple-running
deep in day-shadows.

Deer déambulent,
drifting dream-like,
where douceur deepens
to darkness.

National poetry month day 2

The artworks for this ekphrastic prompt are here, on Paul Brookes’ blog, along with all the poetry they inspired.

Dancing

Rain dance, sun dance,
hand in scarlet hand,
unbroken circle back to when
time ran river-smooth,

and we would sow and reap,
plant seed, rooted deep
beneath golden sun, bright rain,
indigo-swirling skirts and light feet

that danced the dance,
back and forth, the broad plain,
the furrows laboured, when we
took our part and nothing more.

A piece of dying

A poem, self-consciously surreal for the NaPoWriMo prompt. The list of words to use to construct the poem is (I think) an interesting one. I chose: owl, river, oyster, thunder, gutter, mercurial, salt, acorn and quahog. I have no idea what a quahog is, so I imagined the kind of wild pig that crashes about around here.

Association of ideas, I expect, but I noticed that one or two of the initial words cropped up in the questions suggested by other words, like oystercatcher answering the salt question, and quahog answering the thunder question.

A piece of dying

A piece of the sky calls me home
where the rugged skins of raw stones go,
when the angler fish swishes its light bulb tail,
and constellations close in tight ridged ranks,
spit out moon pips.

Higher still, quahog hooves
pound the drumskin of the sky,
striking sparks from clouds.

Thunderer, along the ditches,
I hear you on moonless nights, worm-troughing,
along the bottom where sludge gathers,
remembering pebbles,
their glorious raiment water-washed.

Slowly, drifting shorewards,
we all sift unseen (dust to dust)
into crusted fringes pecked by oystercatchers,

deep in the ground (where the dead men go),
to burst green innards, deeper still,
sucked sun-up, reaching for the great sea sky.

Full circle, a globe, a fish maw (round open),
a moon drips from its branch,
and nothing, not even crow, can catch it.

National poetry month day 1

Paul Brookes is celebrating National poetry month with an ekphrastic challenge. The poems are inspired by artwork posted every day of April on his blog. You can see them here.

Spring walking

Walking these lanes where trees bow and sigh,
spring-budding between ploughed fields,
while wind sings
ancient songs.

Spring-budding between ploughed fields,
already green blowing,
magpie-pied,

while wind sings
of feathered
nests,

ancient songs
for
lovers.

Spring treads here

The wind is blowing hard now, bringing handfuls of rain, and the blue sky alternates with black cloud.

Spring treads here

Sap is rising fast, driven by earthwinds
and the roaring from the ocean.
I can taste it on my tongue, salty and green.

Prune the vines now and they weep crystal tears
that grow and grow, until the whole world is inside,
then they drop into golden dandelion faces.

Every stalk is bud-bursting, flowering,
and her fingers brush them as she passes,
her touch gentle as daybreak and waking birds.

Haibun for the sleep thief

Photo ©Fentriss

There are foxes and badgers and hedgehogs that snuffle and rootle and dig beneath the windows at night, deer and hares that dance in the meadow, boar that dig over the soft earth beneath the willows and the poplars. There are barn owls and tawny owls that call or shriek through the dark hours. There are barking dogs, sleepless cocks and frogs that sing on the pond. But what keeps us awake is the chomping and chewing, scampering skittering and general cavorting of dormice in the attic, newly woken from their long winter fast, ravenous as wolves, rowdy as a pack of adolescents on a Saturday night.

Moon wind blows clouds
silver edged above the trees
owls etched in silver.

March wind

March wind

Wind blows hard
(spring a-coming)
scatters sunshine and shadow
in noisy dapples
racing across the green

echoes in the chimney
door-rattle
roars like aircraft bluster

I watch this earth in movement
ocean of green waves rolling
cloud ships sailing
while last year’s crow’s nests
sway in the bare treetops.

An apple

An apple

An apple
ant and aphid-holed
alights askew
aux aurores
afox agate a-hungry
avale an úll
avec abeilles and all.

Another apple alights
awaits approaching arabbit
arguably anxious
arabbit-teeth aglitter
a-pointy and affilati.

Clouds

A tautogram with added words (for sense).

Clouds

Cloud-drift, coral-pink-coloured,
cinnamon-scented, on the cusp of chimera-dawn,
and at compline, crepuscular carnage-crimson,
cinnabar-red, copper-bound,
cloaking the cerulean celestial coping
of the cosmos in cobalt caparison,
where constellated counterpanes
chorus in contrapuntal comet-stars,
contralto-chorded.