Jane Dougherty's Blog, page 46

Folktober challenge day 27

This is my poem for October 27, a special day. You can read all of the contributions on Paul Brookes’ blog here.

Sirin and Alkonost

From beneath the first rocks uprooted,
the first source sprang in ribbons
of water-feathers, sparkling with song
and the soft melodies of comfort.

Water and wind, feathered fish-birds,
flying on billowed rivers, sisters, mothers,
wingtip to wingtip, owl and swallow,
swoop, sweep in their silent dances,

on their tongues, high, excited chatter
and the crooning flute music of remembrance,
they weave a life story, embracing birth,
death and all that lies between.

Folktober challenge day 26

This poem was inspired by all three images you can see on Paul Brookes’ blog.

Where did the monsters come from?

We think of them, the ancient people,
huddled round the salvatory fire,
fear sitting on their shoulders,
bowed against the wind’s assault,
the wild voices in the dark.

We imagine them cringing in dire fear
of the dead, the wolf-monster,
the Behemoths in the deep water,
all the writhing deformed things
scribbled in the margins of psalters and gospels.

We imagine they were like us,
their imaginations peopled by guilt
and shame, sin and damnation.

Yet before the bestiaries,
dreamed up by fevered monks,
in terror for their immortal souls,

only owls winged the dark nights,
their gentle voices calling,
to guide home the dead,

and in the troughs of wild waves,
only seals played, singing songs of comfort
to despairing mariners.

Dreamer

For the dverse prompt.

Dreamer

Sleeping, rumple-haired,
pyjamaed, thumb in mouth,
she dreams in gaudy brilliance
and the jingle-jangle of baubles,
bangles and beads, the bars
of her cot, the columned trunks
of a jungle, tree-tangle
where cat-faces peer
striped and green-eyed,
velvet-pelted and padded,
soft as her own
dreaming breath.

Folktober challenge day 25

This is my poem. I’ll add the link to Paul’s post with the other contributions as soon as it’s up. And here it is.

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Salmon wisdom

Once, when the world was bright and new,
nine hazels grew, a grove about a glade,
where a bubbling source a deep pool made,
and in the pool a salmon turned,

and every knowledge ever learned dropped
in his mouth, the north and south
of wisdom. A silver fish in water dark,
bringer of light to deep and silent night.

A salmon fish, a grove of nine tall hazel trees
with fine fat fruit that shaded water, still and dark
and deep, and full of all the world should keep
and not let sleep, was at the core of life and lore.

Those days are past, of flowered plains where horses
with sea-flowing manes, ran wild and free.
How could they last, when wisdom has no place,
and salmon-words weigh less than any pretty face?

Almost lost cat

Almost lost cat

Stars blow in the wild south wind,
I search the night for the cat,

finding only hedgehog and toad,
and the barking of farm dogs,

through leaf rain and a dark window,
she leaps, sleek and black as sin.

Sijo

Paul Brookes’ suggested poetry form last week was the sijo, a three-line poem os 14-16 syllables per line, with a shift in meaning or a twist in the third line. Because the lines are long, the poem can be written in six lines. You can read all the sijo poems on Paul’s blog here.

Autumn hunting

I wish the wind would blow away
the sounds of a hundred deaths

of gunshot echoing across meadow
woods and through thinning trees

the skies bird-flutter—
if only feather-hail was mortal as lead.

La chasse de l’automne

Que le vent emporte ce vacarme,
sourd et sournois, que la paix

revient dans ces bois, où des plumes volètent
comme des feuilles mortes,

couleur de sang et de l’argent,
mais parfois comme des pièces d’or.

Folktober challenge day 24

My poem today, based on the the image of the Boitata, a Brazilian fire serpent, is a companion to day 21’s poem about another Brazilian protector spirit, the Curupira. You can read all of the poems on Paul Brookes’ blog here.

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Forest spirits

Through the dark trees
Firehead runs
rings with ropes of retribution
binding the hunters of flesh
in meanders of madness.

Through the dark of river water,
fire serpentines,
each glowing scale scalding with sin,
a finger crooked, beckoning
into the pits of Hell.

Beneath the dark stars,
fire weaves
hypnotic dances in the air, sucking
the lighters of fires into an inferno,
of their own making.

Beneath the stars, between the trees
and in the dark of river water
Firehead and fire snake, forces of the primal earth
run and wind, binding the forest
tight with love.

Folktober challenge day 23

This is my poem for Paul Brookes’ challenge. I’ll add the link to his post when it’s up. It’s here.

Enbarr

There was beauty then unsullied,
when you trod sea foam,
leaping lightly the troughs of waves,

mane flowing with seabirds’ wings,
racing between islands, green, blue,
bearing lovers from haven to heaven and back,

and if there was unhappiness,
it was none of your doing.

Beauty then you were,
and I wish the world was galloped
by white horses again.

Random word generator

Here are the words I was given today, a strange day, beautiful afternoon following a wacky sort of a morning and a glorious yesterday full of babies. They gave me a cadralor.

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Moods and the changing weather

1
There are snakes in the jar with scissor fangs,
an afternoon of storm threat. The north wind
is pelting drought-stricken fields with hail,
and everywhere, those with eyes in their navels
are shouting, we won.

2
In the misty field, horse shapes move, grazing
bare paddocks, the fence demarcating the limits
for creatures born to gallop wide open spaces,
and the reassuring donkeys murmur comfort,
at least there will be no snow.

3
I heard her whisper to the man beside her,
that colour makes her look like a corpse,
and I almost turned and grinned, with my teeth
stained from eating all the wrong things
to say, I’ve seen the list. You’re next.

4
When they were going out, she used to cook
to impress him, put all of her passion
into creating meals he would love.
Now they’re married, she cooks with despair,
knowing he only comes home to eat.

5
Here, on a day of too warm and raining gold
of mimosa leaves, a baby struggles to pull
a zebra, where no zebra has ever gone before,
a small beacon of wonderment and sanity,
beneath a sky still full of mystery.

Folktober challenge day 22

Another wicked female poem for Paul Brookes’ challenge. You can read all the poem and see the images that inspired them on Paul’s blog.

Dark nights

Such wild nights in the days
when woman was the root of all evil,
a vessel overflowing with sin.

She would come in the night, the succubus,
a lascivious spirit but oh so real,
to seduce an innocent sleeper.
Feeding on his maleness,

she would steal his seed, the demon,
reduce him to a weeping penitent,
enfolded in the merciful arms of the Church,
to receive comfort and release from his torment.

Meanwhile, in the next room,
what of the incubus at work, seducing a woman,
a girl, holding her trapped in her sleeping bed
and filling her with devil seed and a witch baby?

There would be no pity for the seduced this time,
nor the offspring, because the incubus
was a euphemism for her brother, uncle, neighbour,
and the woman is always to blame.

They were wild nights then
in those far off, dark days,
and they are wild, dark nights still,
because the woman is forever
and ever to blame.