Jane Dougherty's Blog, page 42

Cloudshapes day 14

For Paul Brookes’ challenge. The photos that inspired this poem are on Paul’s blog here.

Cloud wings and arms

When the sky is laid bare,
stripped of our constraining walls,
garlands of lights and other ephemera,
when nothing protects us from the glare
of eternity, the great beyond,

some see an overarching comfort,
strength in the forming and unforming of air.
Angel, they say, benevolent power.

I see a bird buffeted by storm winds,
soaring on unseen currents,
mastering the billows of the sky,
pinions and hollow bones feather-light,
a tiny majestic thing.

Histories

Inspired by yesterday’s random words.

Painting by Akseli Gallen-Kallela

Histories

They lie beneath the stones
the laws and stories,
lie with the scattered bones
and the compost of flesh
enriched with blood.

The air is rich here and thin,
thin enough to hear the voices
telling tales, the hiss of spear flight,
a swan alighting on the lake.

The earth smells of ancient things,
soap the scent of woodbine and lavender,
the wool of horned sheep.
It tastes of honey and bronze.

Clouds come and go,
taking their shadows with them,
trees grow, hewn like stone,
leaving their history in ring upon ring,
spiralling into the core.

All of this is in a place,
a ring of stones,
a cairn by a river,
beneath the always sun and moon,
in silver light and gold.

Random word generator

Here are the words the machine gave me today. I’ll have a look at them later. Feel free to borrow.

Cloudshapes day 13

For Paul Brookes’ challenge. The photos are on his blog here.

Clouds of the dead

Spirits we used to say,
the breath of life, drifting slowly,
gently, along the journey
beyond the horizon, to find peace,
in a place we had never seen.

We know now what lies over the hill,
the net of roads and ribbons, the busy sea
threaded with shipping, the beach, the heat,
the pines and palms, deserts and forests,
faces shiny with welcome, happy,
unhappy. We don’t look too closely.

Look rather into this ocean sky,
heaving with the faces of the lost,
hands reaching out in supplication,
the waves of grey, rippling
with contained anger, the reproach,
ready to fall on our careless heads.

Cloudshapes day 12

My poem for Paul Brookes’ challenge. You can see the photos here.

Bridge

And if there was a bridge across the sky,
across the water deep below,
beyond the time and tides that drag the sands
of night and day and years that flow,
through life and love until we die,

would we dare walk that high and unknown path,
to step into a world of blue,
of seagull white and grey? Just take my hands;
I’ll leap and dare the aftermath,
if only it can be with you.

Hopes and fears

The Oracle gave me a cadralor this morning.

Hopes and fears

1
Language is pictures,
like rose petals colour of blood,
worshippers bowed to the black doghead,
the inextricable tangle
of bramble and dog rose.

2
Cormorant on the reef
holds out her wings,
a dripping veil of feathers,
singing silently, to hatch
a black chick from a black egg.

3
No day is ever ugly,
clouds that smear the pristine blue
with mud and the green of algae,
glow with inner sunfire,
reflected in still lakewater.

4
The woman who is a mother
dreams of other springs,
when shoots and children
grow tall and healthy,
and the sleek missile falls elsewhere.

5
They are not thousands but millions,
all with a diamond in their hearts,
a common spark—turn them away
and we lose our own. Open arms
carry no weapons, only friendship.

Cloudshapes day 11

For Paul Brookes’ Cloudshapes challenge. You can see the eerie photograph that inspired this poem here.

On this day

This day
remembering the unimaginable
the blood red mud
the acid-picked bones

the sky remembers Titans
the embrace that sparked the world
with touchwood and amadou
the rot that blazed then
and blazes still.

Wish granted

Wish granted

Meadow
dry dust and bone brown
listens
with its mouths and ears
of mouse holes
and cricket holes
round ‘o’s of wonderment
for the stalk-rattle
shaman-drumming
pounding of hooves
tastes
grass stalks lolling
the far-away ocean
tang of rain.

Perhaps, in spring

Perhaps, in spring

Water runs now in the dry stream
singing where was only wind-hiss
in leaves already fallen.

Its bright trickle picks its way
between tufts of gold and green,
bluesky between burnt browns
of sedge and sodden leaf litter.

From fallen leaves tarnished
gold dimming in the mud
new shoots will show

when spring breezes blow
and the long grass at fields’ edge
will bloom bright and red again.

Listen

Listen

The answer lies in that elusive glitter
silver-blue that twists its corded
and chorded plain chant notes
falling like drops of stream water.

If I listen hard I can hear
that pure song answering.
But I will never hear the question.
It blows distant now on other hills.