Jane Dougherty's Blog, page 16

Migraine sequence (seven lines)

1.

Daylight
though it throbs
stabs behind the eyes
is still a release from the dark
and the twittering
flickering dreams
of horror and pain.

2.

Rain falls in gentle showers
from blue and white skies
barely tarnishing the gold of dandelions
the sheen of green shoots

and the indigo spears
of midnight muscari
stand unchanged.

3.

Deranged visions crash finally
into damp earth
drip from glossy leaves
sun-glittering
and I can pick out the warblers’ song

the woodpeckers stare quizzically
waiting for me to leave.

Night falling

Night falling

Night eats day,
stray clouds,
shrouds hang black,
slack sails, no swell,
bell or candle to light
night.

Flight, wind-gathered and slow,
glowing day done,
sun set,
yet still gold gleams,
streams behind the hill,
rill-bright, the blackbirds sing,
wing-flutter in hedge-home flight.

Poems 2 & 3

I went back to the magnets and looked at the second and third sets of tiles. I haven’t rearranged the Oracle’s words, just let her tell it like it is. The messages are not very clear (except in parts).

2.

Have a pound, a smooth bed, you/his.
This is delirious, could be their crush.

Faster, spring runs to a stop where the sun don’t shine,
urging blood for watching—

it smeared these peaches pink as I was eating,
petal pink.

3.

I am ying, never yang,
swimming through life like honey
and the lazy whisper in my head
that says, yes, you can have that gown

~all blue and purple with rain~

women can scream too,
use their tongues to corrode the edifice,
and if you say we are just bitter,
that is why we must.

Some storms

Last night there were violent protests all over France (govt reform of the retirement pension regime) and an electric storm travelled across our area. As often happens, it followed the Garonne at a furious rate, and we only saw sheet lightning, very briefly.
This morning, the Oracle gave me this poem that I find disturbing and shall probably go back to her later, check that she’s feeling better.

Some storms

My storm is the one you should run from,
the one you watch to make sure it doesn’t boil,

but even a mother is not only milk of human kindness,
she will walk, treading fierce in the footsteps of the lost

to the shore, and when the storm breaks, it will not be
madness that draws up the sea in a roaring mantle of fury,

but the mother’s despair and the child’s blank eyes that
cradle this world in spent arms and put time to sleep.

March 17

March 17

This was a day of blue and green,
wind across the meadow rustled
stalks and thrushes,
feathers ruffled.

Wind across the meadow rustled
unsteady shoots, bold
grass green

stalks, and thrushes
leapt skyward,
joyous,

feathers ruffled,
silver-
tongued.

Replying to a gif of a dancing leprechaun

Replying to a gif of a dancing leprechaun

I am so tired I cry
for little things
light as a torn feather
the nip of the north wind
an empty place
silence
and listening for the voice
that is missing

listening for the voices
of all those missing
unsung unremembered
whose feet dragged in the mud
sank with no marker

while the north wind
still mutters
thought not so loud as
the inane chattering
into green pints.

Stories

Stories

There is a place with a history,
read it in the stones,
with its own tongue, its own stories,
music plucked from particular winds
and tides, the laments of birds.

Listen to the past, the deep past,
peel back the layers of untruths
and mockery, the glitter, the ridiculous,
and listen to the sorrows.

There is a place there, unique, its own.
Listen hard before its song is drowned
by the single, persistent, global note.

Night sky

Night sky

This night sky so clear
I see the layered gauze of space
threaded and sequined with star-specks
pricked with planets
and the wandering fire-threads of meteors .

Dandelion days

On the hill above the woods the big farm sits
amid ploughed fields and flocks of crows
a sentinel cedar in place of gate
a weight of sky full of March wind blowing.

Instead of lawn before the house
dandelions shine bright as suns
clustered constellations
about the feet of dog stars.

Cat

Cat

The cat is not old but deaf.
She roars, perhaps she still hears
vibrations, warrior calls
from fierce days, moon nights of prowling without fears,

exhilaration of dark
blood shed, fur and cracking bones,
iron tang on tongue, last cry
caught in sharp teeth. Silence stalks now, cold as stones.