Jane Dougherty's Blog, page 50

Folktober challenge day 9

Paul is having technical problems today so he hasn’t been able to post today’s clutch of poems. I’ll post mine now and add the link later.

Heroes

They all look like you, Cuchulainn,
heroes all have the same handsome face,
your breadth and brawn,
the same thickness of skull, lightness of heart.

All are born sword in hand, each one
draws his first blood before he speaks his first words,
then speaks only to defy and demand his due.

They have memories rich in every slight
over nine generations of forefathers,
but they cannot remember their children’s names,
their number, nor their mother’s faces.

The have tactics not principles,
their hands are for murder not love.

They fight for an insult, a misheard word,
an unlucky omen, a woman’s bright eyes,
a seer’s garbled prophecy. Their honour
more important than a child’s tears.

Never a one fights for a cause,
because it is just, because it is lost,
because he can do no less.

Perhaps that is why, Cuchulainn,
you will always be more credible
than any big screen super hero.

Random poetry generator

Here is the word selection the Other Oracle sent today. My poem is below.

Woken by the men of violence

This morning rose armed and fierce,
scattering mist and birdsong.

This morning’s sun shone pale
through jagged birdflight of alarm,
golden leaves blown in snowflake drifts
by a gentle breeze.

This morning’s quiet filled
with the baying of dogs,
collecting bloody trophies,
and the crack of lead,
searing bone, flesh and feather.

This morning, beauty was sacrificed
once again on the altar of the heartless,
the crass and the cruel,

and I wish away the golden light,
wish for rain’s steel-pointed javelins,
and a veil of righteous anger.

Grief far away, close as the heart

For Cresslough, County Donegal.

Grief far away, close as the heart

Land of my fathers and my mothers,
I think of you always, when the ocean,
rising, breaks its dark waves,
and cold winter creeps into the valley folds.
A light, a candle hold, against the night.

Folktober challenge day 8

For today’s challenge, I chose to write a poem about the Bean sí. You can read all of the poetry and see the inspirational images on Paul Brookes’ blog here.

A wish for peace

I would say, be still, Mother,
they have no power over you,
the dour-faced, black-clad men,
nor does he call you, their dead god,
a withered fruit hanging in a winter tree.

I would say, listen, Mother,
to the soft-voiced owl on the roof beam,
the silent seals waiting among the waves
at the imbrication of the worlds,
this, that, animal, human,
the same round blue enfolding us all.

I would tell you, take back your youth, Mother,
the golden days, the young hound and the horse,
race with them across the green.

And I would take the Bean sí by the hand,
wipe away her tears and tell her, Mother,
the owl calls you too,
take the feathered path home,
and leave your sorrow by this door.

A resumé

The Oracle gave me cadralor after cadralor with her words this morning. This is a condensation of all of them.

A resumé

Mists, torpedo-fish, the slow drip
of honey and the dropping of rose petals,
fox barking around the leaky house
and the hoarse cry of herons.

A drunken ship rocks on pavement seas
through purple dusk and the glitter
of fallen stars, you call, I answer as
dreams fade, desire blazes again. Restless.

I see these things through the window,
or hear them in the echo of a distant voice,
a word-painter, showing the world as it is.

Tired trees

Tired trees

The touch of the sun,
yellow as the pendulous leaves
of the box elder.

Boughs bent, not sagging,
it bows gracefully
beneath the weight

of too much, too long,
to give its child-leaves
less far to fall.

Folktober challenge

For today’s poem, I used all three images. You can see them and read all the contributions here.

Bestiary

where the curious, grotesque, bizarre,
horrifying and tremendous squirm, and
none held the ancient eye more so
than the objects of desire.

What darkness we lived in then,
illuminated only by the sinuous serpent-light
in the margins of gospels,
full of weasel words, wolf-famine words,
and the fiery sword of sin-reckoning.

What darkness we live in now,
spotlit by celebrity glitter, the dazzle of power,
glimro of corruption, and the falsities that drop
from pulped and white-toothed mouths.

Then, now, the darkness seethes,
the abyss yawns, and all our yesterdays
drop one by one into the jaws of the beast,
never seen, that curls, waiting,
in the heart of humanity.

Autumn arrives

For the dverse prompt.

Painting by Paul Klee.

Autumn arrives

Raging, the clouds, over the west,
Rapier fine, the first steely drops,
Rain falls, filling deep, dry ditches,
Radiant summer washed away.

Storm rolls kettledrums overhead,
Stopping my ears, it cracks and cries,
Stork voices boom, homeward bound,
Stolidly rowing unchained seas.

Yet calmer days follow from
Yesterday’s storm, aswirl with leaves,
Yellow and orange, russet red,
Yes, autumn’s here in party gown.

National badger day

So what more suitable than three badger’s hexastitch poems. Thank you, Paul Brookes for posting them on his blog.

Three (national) badgers

Badger
passes night time,
the track through sunflowers
ripe enough for pigeons,
badger prefers
corn cobs.

Nothing
in the dusk light
touches our garish world—
grey badger, brown fox slip
through the bars of
our cage.

I see
you, grey shadow,
along the hedge trotting,
your drunken sailor gait,
stub-tail swinging,
night lamb.

National Poetry Day

This year the theme is the environment. Paul Brookes is featuring environment-based poetry on his blog today. You can read the contributions here.

I’ve written so many poems on this theme, I wouldn’t know where to start to find the one I consider the best. So I churned out another one. Not necessarily good, but it’s spontaneous, and I hope some of the anger I feel comes across.

Once upon a time

There were cows in this field once
and hedges all around, where hares sat
in springtime, looking for trouble,
and blackbirds and nightingales sang.

They took the hedges out, root and branch,
and burned all trace, the hares, sporting trophies,
and cows that pied-patterned green meadows,
they interned in sheds, to beat hooves on concrete,
to never suckle their stolen calves.

Grain sprouts now in tidy, weed-free rows,
to feed the cattle stocked like white goods
in their warehouse hell.

Show me the progress, the enlightenment,
the humanity, because I admit,
I see only evil and shame.