Jane Dougherty's Blog, page 48

For the birds that keep winter at bay

This poem is a dizain, responding to Paul Brookes’ weekly challenge. You can read the other dizains here.

For the birds that keep winter at bay

October spins a web of sun and shade,
In clouds of golden leaf-fall, roses blown,
That drift against the walls where summer’s laid,
And all its songs and feather-brightness flown.
Of spring musicians, robin sings alone,
Until the restless sky turns glassy cold,
And north wind bites, and silver clouds the gold.
His fire, blazing, draws the thrush, to bring
Wild notes of honey sweetness, clear and bold,
To cheer the winter dark with songs of spring.

Folktober challenge day 17

All of the contributions to today’s ekphrastic challenge are on Paul Brookes’ blog here.

Entre chien et loup

Crepuscule, between the lights,
sun and moon, the crossbeams of gold and silver,
l’heure bleue, when the sky is a blue so intense
it touches the depths of the universe.

In the half-lights of waxing and waning,
who can tell friend from foe, dog from wolf?

And the uncertain light has a voice,
the long, slow, ripening ululation
that prickles the skin and pricks the ears,

when dog blood remembers wolf,
and we, creatures of the light,
listen in awe or fear, to the questions
whose answers we will never know.

Autumn has its bright moments

My poem (I think it’s a cadralor) from the random word Oracle.

Autumn has its bright moments

1
Leaf pauses in its spiral, a breath, a call,
unseen hands toss it higher,
sun touches it with brighter flame.

2
There’s a gleaming in the river,
a pebble, beneath its water-ribbons,
turns mica dapples to catch the light.

3
Ground, not yet cold,
damps the fallen petals of the roses,
dew-dipped just enough to revive the snails.

4
A finger to your white throat,
raises your head to stare into brown eyes,
too deep to read, full of enigmas.

5
So many tragedies, the numbers slip
into meaninglessness, but the squirrel’s panache
will always make me smile.

Random word generator

Here is this week’s selection of random words to reshuffle into a poem, or inspire a poem however it happens.

Folkoctober challenge day 16

Visit Paul Brookes’ blog to read all the contributions and see the images that inspired them.

The bodach is wild water

There is a reason for the twisting of words, diverting their natural path, as we channel river water between concrete banks and call it canal. From wild water following its own destiny it becomes domesticated, placid, bridled with locks and ridden by shipping.
When peasant, the lowliest of the land becomes bogeyman, there is also a reason. And it is the same one.

Call it by its name
the hallowed name
that poured from the earth’s mouth
spoken by the first tongue
call it by its true name.

Still was the night

Another pantoum. Image is by Kerfe.

Still was the night

Still was the night
in the warm south breeze,
and the flickering light
of the stars in the trees.

In the warm south breeze,
came an owl’s fluting call,
of the stars in the trees,
he could catch none at all.

Came an owl’s fluting call,
held their breath birds that heard;
he could catch none at all,
only leaf-shadow stirred

Held their breath birds that heard,
when owl called and fox crept,
only leaf-shadow stirred,
to betray where they slept.

When owl called and fox crept,
shone no flickering light,
to betray where birds slept,
in the still of the night.

Folktober challenge day 15

Another Irish mythological poem for today’s challenge. You can read all the contributions on Paul Brookes’ blog here.

Aengus

Born of a god’s whim
and a woman’s one true desire,
his mind fluttered, a flame vacillating
between love and anger,

a man who would kill on a passion,
renounce his passion for his one love,
defy his king to protect other lovers,
his heart’s desire lost to the man
he thought of as a father.

Blood misted his love,
and magic mingled with his red desires,
a fire in his breast and in his hands.

No wonder his mind wandered,
following his footsteps
in the forests of the dark
and the mists of magic.

Waking

Waking

Beneath this moon, set at rest now,
beyond the hedge where blackbirds wake,
the shadows hid a thousand deaths.

In waxing light, a drift of feathers blows,
and this day growing in ripening light
will be less their brightness,

the bare earth still ache, dust-dry,
and the blue will echo
with their lost voices.

Still night

Still night

warm as toast
and brittle with the drought
I hear the hedgehog
as she trundles past
on her way
to the hedgehog café.
Fox-bark in the wood
again again again
as regular as the last train
on the down line.
Dogs sleep.

Fionn mac Cumhaill remembers Sadhbh

Today’s poem for Paul Brookes’ Folktober challenge is inspired by a painting of The Wild Hunt. There is no Wild Hunt as such in Irish mythology, but there is Fionn mac Cumhaill, bitter and sad in his old age, who waits like King Arthur, to redeem himself, and who still hunts for his lost love, Sadhbh, stolen from him and turned into a deer by an enchanter.

Fionn mac Cumhaill remembers Sadhbh

Some storm skies fill with hunting clouds,
the snarling and baying of men and hounds
through the dark of winter nights,

gods who gallop with faces of war,
cold as corpses, booted, spurred,
spear in hand and death in their throats,

while the poor folk cower beneath the hail
of hoofbeats across the flimsy roof. Death comes
to those who dare look on those wild faces.

Another sky, restless, carries an old king
on the clamour of his warriors, his dogs and horses,
his sad, solemn face raised to peer through the night,

through the eternal forest, watery eyes straining
for a glimpse of his lost love, yearning for those days,
happy perhaps, careless certainly,

before her deer hooves skittered away,
and his life lost its way in bitter blood,
and the darkness of her enchantment.