Jane Dougherty's Blog, page 29

Mme Cluny

For the dverse prosery prompt. 144 words.

Mme Cluny

I had always admired the garden, the way it held the old house in a gentle embrace, the sentinel trees, and the way the borders grew up from small-flowered creepers, through lilies, irises, hollyhocks, alliums to the climbers, woodbine, jasmine and clematis. Pergolas of wisteria and roses made a second rampart and the sky-blue paintwork of door and windows against the orange brick called back to the joyous flower pageant.
She was always outside, from first to last frosts. Always adding new plants, splitting and replanting. Like a painting, or a tapestry. I asked her once how she kept the plan in her head.
‘Everything I do is stitched,’ she said, ‘with its colour, the thread holding the pattern together. There’s no mystery really. The plants all know their places.’
As did the rabbits, the birds and lizards, the small dogs. Even the unicorn.

Credo

A not very cheerful poem inspired by yesterday’s random words.

Credo

I believe in the monumental stone,
the hill ringed and whorled, the cascade,
the river serene at sunset.

I believe in the night that closes dark
and bright, the owls calling,
and the rustle of unseen leaves.

I believe in the sins of ignorance and brutality,
that create the industry of death, the begging
for mercy of an omnipotent being.

I believe in punishing the profiteers of poverty,
the ugly of spirit, in turning the world inside out
to find what was lost in the lining,

because there is no better place, no Plan B,
no trickle-down, no rising to the top, only this
committee of suits and jets and perfect dentition,
that turn the other cheek, so their furtive eyes
can look the other way.

Rionnard (rinnard)

This was last week’s poetry form chosen by Paul Brookes. You can read the contributions here.

I almost didn’t attempt this one, a complicated Irish form with rules I didn’t understand at first reading. I let it simmer overnight and woke with a first line and an idea of the first stanza. When I wrote it down, it turned out not to work, but I thought I could see how to fix it.

First, I wrote down what I knew about the form in simple terms: quatrains, lines of six syllables, rhyme scheme abcb, end rhymes bi-syllable words, consonance in lots of places, alliteration in every line, and it ends with a dunedh (opening line or word ends the poem).

Constructing the poem was like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. I started at the end, picked a two-syllable word that could both open and close the poem, then wrote a six-syllable first line. Second line needed a two-syllable end word that would rhyme with the fourth line, so I chose two words, filled in the second line with alliteration, wrote the fourth line with its rhyme, consonance and alliteration, and finally filled in the third line.

The third stanza had to end on the opening word, so that was the end-rhyme sorted out. Alliteration and consonance are easy to play with so it ended up not being the monster I had anticipated. I derived a lot of satisfaction from working at the puzzle, and I’m glad I took the time.

When will winter

Water, wild wind again,
gun-grey this cold dawning,
such a damp, dull refrain,
no frost, mournful morning.

Pure snow should be falling,
thick the fast flakes flying,
cover with cold fingers,
fields of green grass dying.

Fill, ice ferns, the meadow,
summer’s snow-white daughter,
teeming spring’s sharp shadow,
whose breath stills well water.

Spring a-coming

Flowing fast the stream now,
drowning dead leaves, swelling
buds. Bird tongues sip sweetly,
their spring stories telling.

Beneath brown leaves billowed,
piled pillows, so lightly
tossed, brisk wind-turned, burgeon
spring spears, budded tightly.

In the hedge, blackbirds furze-
fuss, fierce wind still blowing,
but briar-bound hare sits,
sniffing spring air flowing.

A dream of a green place now dark

The final very vivid sequence of a a dream, a spreading green plant that nobody wanted, but the bank gave a loan to turn it into something a night thing, dark, unreal. I knew, in the dream, it was an analogy for a change in values.

A dream of a green place now dark

Green spangled with raindrops,
sunlight and dappled shade beneath
fiori de vetro spreads entreatingly,
so delicate, who would dare touch?

Time shifts, darkness falls,
and there are no roots to this lignite,
a night of velvet leaves, silver-rimed,
mussel-black lapped by cold waters,

the ebb and flow of nightlife,
those who walk unseeing among shadows.
Where have they gone the days,
the light, when the green was enough?

Random word generator

Here are 100 words to play with.

13. (seven lines)

13.

Another day
gone too quickly
too full of movement and moment
the anguish of forgetting

leaves me drained
when I should be full
where did all that joy run?

12. (seven lines)

12.

The woods are silent
only the stream runs
mud sucks bramble snags
earth’s entrails exposed by hooves

white roots like bleached bones
holes where leaves layered quietly
rotting. Unquiet air shivers.

Oracle 1. 2. and 3.

Today, I stuck with the words the Oracle gave me, more or less in the order they appeared. The first poem was strange, and I know what I think it means, and it’s not something I’d be comfortable putting my name to. So I asked for another, also strange, and the third one is so sad I gave up. She’s in one of those moods today.

Oracle 1

Those are not women,
this not their honey-garden.
Their screams rise like bubbles
into the elusive pink
of an unattainable sky.

Sleep, she says, and dream,
rolling back the mistaken paths,
find the origin, unadorned,
not an idol to worship,
no entrapment, but the true light of day.

Listen to the singing,
the songs that have always been,
immutable as the bed of the sky,
the silent stars,
the stuff of our making.

Oracle 2

Sun like wind roars red
we have one skin
yours is black
a man-smell
I watch it rust
in the frantic blowing.

Could it be
we are only dreaming
of this cool forest
its dark gentle depths?

Oracle 3

Who put out the lie
that spring was coming fast
and I would be with you?

From this rock
all I can see is water
neither you nor diamonds
and the men taking you away.

11. (seven lines)

11.

After rain the sun
and drops bead the wire
flash like diamonds
blue red amber

only my eyes
see the prismic magic
only I am here to marvel.

Outside

Outside

Black pheasant treads greening furrows
a raven gliding low

hung clouds squeezing rain
from porous sponge-boulders

and egrets step timidly
four lost children

a thrush sings
unseen among wet trees

where black earth
white-rooted oak leaf sepulchre

churned and stirred
by hungry pigs

stretches reaches deep
and imperturbable
as those bright jays.