Jane Dougherty's Blog, page 27
January 27, 2023
Grey day
Grey day
I hold nothing in my hands of this day,
no fragments of caught sun,
an early flower, bud-burst,
one or two of the fierce notes
of the thrush’s song;
the light is too dim to see
behind the quiver
of those frost-touched leaves,
rippling in the north wind,
casting no shadows.
January 26, 2023
New Year snow
For the dverse prompt. Rarely have I wrangled a more difficult form.
New Year snow
The green of winter fields has gone,
no gleams, no sun-bright beams
reflected
in muddy puddles, pewter wan,
this new year seems
neglected.
Only ice-breath from this sky
freezes trees below
winter-stark.
Beneath the flakes, I wonder why
the purity of snow’s so
ghastly dark.
18. (seven lines)
The photo is of the stream. I haven’t been over to the pool since the weather has been bad, too cold, dark and quiet.
18.
No stars shine in the cold mirror,
no bright scintillating sky
is reflected in this dark pool.
I hear the stealthy movement
through the sedge and wait,
immobile, breath withheld,
for the wild thing to pass by.
January 25, 2023
Cat walks
Cat walks
Cat walks
where she will
though the night is dark.
I hear a fox bark.
Where she will
is the trackless field,
silent and full of eyes,
though the night is dark.
Warm blood pulses,
the tread of silent paws,
I hear a fox bark.
Cat pays no heed,
the arc of the house hers.
January 24, 2023
The stones in the path
For dverse. I hope this counts as a poem.
The stones in the path
We would watch for the bus going past on the lane, know it would stop outside Mitchell’s barn, run out the back gate up the farm track.
The pavement of stone flags outside the houses was cracked sunken, unused.
The ruts were deep, full of coloured stones, green and blue, not river-smooth, not pebbles, bright and sharp as flints.
We’d run and she’d be there, turning into the track ,with her shopping basket and handbag, wearing her white suit with dark blue spot-and-shadow markings, like the breast feathers of a great solitary bird. An osprey maybe
Her shoes were dark blue, with laces and tiny holes in the leather. Her hair was a white bob, cheeks apple-round with smiling.
I’d get there first, hang onto the shopping bag, peep inside, the deep blue-purple of chocolate bars, and I would smile back,
turn my step to hers, walking, still hanging onto the bag, chattering, though that world is silent now.
That world is silent, but I remember every green stone, every throb of the starlings’ babbling on the telephone wires, every pulse of that warm, haunted heart.
Sun
even in the puddles
those days.
Two things to do on a winter’s day
Two things to do on a winter’s day
1.
Watch the weaving
of the crow birds
patterning the sky
see how a stray beam
of winter sun
entwines the hollow tree
gilding a cathedral.
2.
Listen.
The thrush embroiders winter silence
untangling the brambles
where wren and robin bob
drawing out the drops of mist
snagged on barbs
smoothing rugosities of bark
and unkind words.
January 23, 2023
Cold ice-silver night
A quadrille for dverse.
Cold ice-silver night
In the black-blind of midnight,
silent swoop of owl-flight,
night blinks with star-light.
Well-water still beneath ice-breath,
winter cold fingers of frost-death,
songbirds lament the sun’s half-death,
and I watch the dark river,
the moon a shade, pale sliver,
feel this icescape’s bones shiver.
Dark times
This one was inspired by the random words Merril posted yesterday. It was freezing and dark yesterday; it’s freezing and dark today.
Dark times
No bird-voices ring out,
only the drum beat of the wind,
the fretful voice from the sea
and its uttermost depths.
It wakes the coiled cold
from its hold on root
and tentative rosette,
draws down the hawks and crows,
entices the fox, and explains
the sudden absence of mice in the house.
The world is hungry,
sheep huddle in the barn,
and the rain slices thin slivers of air
that cut like broken glass.
We prowl, voiceless and sleepless,
empty fields, looking for a sign
that these dark times are relenting.
Trimeric
This was the form Paul Brookes chose last week. The structure of the trimeric is simple, three of the four lines of the first stanza repeated in a cascade, heading each successive stanza. Trimeric poems tend to be short and imagist (as in my first poem), but there’s no reason why they can’t be denser (second poem). I enjoyed this form and will probably use it again.
January, early morning
Night is over,
light frozen at grey dawn,
a stopped clock,
its mechanism rusted.
Light frozen at grey dawn
hangs in mist wreaths
over frozen puddles,
a stopped clock
in a silent room, where
ash fills the hearth.
Its mechanism rusted,
this year grinds on,
drenched in fog.
Turn of the year
The world grinds on its hinges
with the rusty creak of rainswept trees,
black and dripping with winter,
and birds sing to ward against the cold.
With the rusty creak of windswept trees,
rain-light ruffles feathers,
ships tossed on stormy seas,
black and dripping with winter.
Horizons close, veiled in water,
endless tracts of grey,
and birds sing to ward against the cold,
to spell spring’s return and
ease the earth’s rumbling course.
January 22, 2023
Cormorants
Cormorants
Cormorants
spearhead black
against grey cloud
wingbeats
the flock pulling
through this frozen ocean
V-piercing freezing fog
black but beating
the flock flies
together.
