Jane Dougherty's Blog, page 45
October 31, 2022
Sunset, the darker half begins
For the dverse prompt.
Sunset, the darker half begins
Night of festive fires,
candles, remembrance,
the telling of stories,
drinking of toasts.
On the cusp of the year,
we walk without fear,
soft darkness enfolds us
with lost loved hands.
Only wide-eyed children
start from their dreams,
scared by an owl’s
wild screams.
Bob and wheel
The form for last week’s challenge from Paul Brookes was the bob and wheel. It’s a Medieval French form, a sort of interruption in a long poem, that draws attention to itself by its short lines and particular rhyme scheme that contrasts with the style of the main body of the poem. Since the bob (two syllable first line) and wheel, (the four six-syllable lines that follow), doesn’t mean anything alone, I’ve preceded the bob with a verse of context.
Walker and stalker
Walking where the leaves drift deep and rust-red dry,
in silence broken only by the wild jay’s cry,
where dapples fall in golden coins on dusty earth,
and every breathing thing waits for the rain, rebirth
of sprout and shoot and crawling things, tight buds, the spring,
we wait, hoof raised, paw poised, birds balanced on the wing.
I hear
twigs crack and heavy tread
of boots. Red flash, a deer
on flying hooves has fled
the danger creeping near.
Folktober challenge day 31
Last day of October, last day of the lighter half of the year, beginning of the dark, and end of the Folktober challenge. The image I chose to write to is of a water demon, who I have interpreted as Mélusine, anti-heroine of the early Medieval French tale. You can see the images and read the poems on Paul Brookes’ blog here.
Mélusine
In the deep water, the spirals speak
in the tongue of vengeance,
a daughter’s fury with the father
who broke his word.
Who broke his word to respect
her mother’s secret, for being a man,
his word, given to a woman, had no weight,
her wishes, a feather in the talons of an eagle.
She took her anger to the depths
outside the world of men, of men
who ruled the world in the name
of the dead man hanging in a tree.
She brought them up, her daughters,
in the deep water, taught them
no man is to be trusted, not even a lover,
not even a father, especially not a father.
Such women can only be serpents,
speak with the devil’s forked tongue,
for whoever heard of a woman
demanding respect from her lord?
October 30, 2022
A day
A day
A day of pewter and dull gold,
river running quicksilver and slow green,
banks sloping steeply to grey pebbles.
River runs low, racing over black rocks,
where stilt-leg birds hunt, the air is full
of water music, herons’ hoarse crying,
and river air is drenched in warm leaf-gold.
burst
Random word generator
Very late posting this. There are some very strange word combinations in there. I’ll be looking at it later.
Folktober challenge day 30
Penultimate day of Paul Brookes’ ekphrastic challenge. My poem is inspired by the image of the Morrigan. You can see all the images and the poems they inspired on Paul’s blog here.
Trinities
They are far off those days,
when wisdom came in threes
and trinities were women.
Past, present and future,
raven-haired, crow-winged, red-lipped,
wrapped in fire, war leader and inventor,
she came with three faces,
healing and a spear in her hands,
poems in her mouth,
girl, mother and wise sean bhean
bringer of birth, fertility and death,
spring, summer and winter.
They are far off those days,
when women led their men
to protect the land,
forgotten now and buried
beneath long centuries
of blood and greed.
October 29, 2022
The fox in the ditch
Like last week, the Oracle gave me this poem from the first few words (forgot to try mustache again). A car hit the fox yesterday evening. There are so few cars use this lane it must have been a neighbour, going too fast because the only thing you’re likely to meet is a hare, a pheasant or a fox.
The fox in the ditch
Between light and dark, the blue hour
of dusk, when all dogs are wolves,
and fox is just a shadow,
perhaps a bowing branch.
He ran on silent feet,
dashed proud red into the lane,
lies now in the ditch, where
flies settle on his death mask.
Wind scatters gold poplar coins,
tree-tribute to the dead,
a keening in the thinning branches
where jays cry.
Wind, a ship with westering sails
full, a treasure aboard. Later,
we hear a vixen scream,
the night gives small comfort.
Folktober challenge day 29
Today’s poem was inspired by the image Changeling. You can read all the contributions and see the images on Paul Brookes’ blog here.
Síofra
Her mother called her Síofra, fairy child,
a changeling with blood of the good folk
fierce and wild,
and cried for her lost infant, golden haired,
rosy-cheeked and longed for, stolen
while she slept,
cried for the ghostly child she saw in dreams,
in flowing white, with folk too bright
to look upon,
but tears ran dry and turned to furrows
in her aging face, when the scrap
tugged at her sleeve,
when the dark-haired, wiry changeling scrap,
with leaves and tree bark in her hair
and scabs upon her knees,
tugged and called her mother, smiling climbed
into her lap, to lay a kiss
on that dry cheek.
October 28, 2022
Folktober challenge day 28
My poem was inspired by this image of the Kunekune, a newly discovered Japanese demon. You can read all the contributions and the images that inspired them on Paul Brookes’ blog here.
Kunekune or the fear of paper
In a flat field of green shoots, waving stalks,
a bright unbroken sea, a tremulous shape,
a papery, boneless, limbed shape shivers,
papery and boneless and distant,
elusive as ghost people, paper storks,
mirages and miracles that stalk the dark.
Don’t look, they say, turn away.
That waving is not drowning,
but dancing on someone’s grave.
That fragile, fluttering body,
blind-eyed, death bone-white,
holds death in its fingerless hands.
These days, we fear those waving
to catch our attention, even boneless,
shivering sheets of paper.
October 27, 2022
Canal
I watched the leaves on the dark green water
drifting canal-slow and wondered did they mind
their funeral voyage was so uneventful,
did they not regret the wild tumult of the river-ride?
Old boats, leaf-drifted and rusted,
still tied to the unchanging bank,
unchanging, barely moving water.
Only the leaves drift then blow away.
Plane trees bend in ogives,
enclosing the green autumnal light.
Silent water gathers a quilt of cast-offs
in this unholy stillness.
