Jane Dougherty's Blog, page 52

October ekphrastic challenge

Paul Brookes is running an ekphrastic challenge this month and I missed the start. It’s a jolt to realise that September is over and we really are into the autumn. The image below is one of today’s prompts.

I semplici

They had a hundred names for them,
the starving mass that crawled the famine fields
and burned the strongholds of the rich,
the sick and dying, the simple folk,
eaters of human flesh and heretics in thought.

The rich and fat in piety
harried their unarmed armies,
armed with blessings and righteousness
to stamp out the sin of envy,
the fury to survive.

Hanging from the spindle trees,
burning on stinking pyres, their howls of despair
rose in blood and smoke, to their God
they would have poor as themselves.

Obstinate clouds

The Oracle is always spot-on with her message, but I do wonder about the sausage. It’s a clue to something, like the key to translating a dead language.

Obstinate clouds

She says we need the rain,
but the waning moon shepherds the cloud
back into the sea, and the earth bleats
like thirsty kids, trying to lap the sky.

Smooth as eggs, the pebbles rise
to the surface, dust-dry and parched,
sediment of times past when rivers flowed,
and sedge rattled in the wind.

So many storms have broken
on this house, we listen to its timbers
creak in the black wind, blink
in the electric flashing of whitewashed walls.

Spring will carve new courses
through this broken earth,
fill it with water-laughter, and perhaps
the birds will bring their music back.

She gives me blue honey in the dream,
luscious as silvery mackerel.
Even in sleep, we hope in renewal,
that these marks on the skin were not set by death.

Terra cotta

It rained yesterday, on and off all day, about 30cms in the water butts. The winds were supposed to bring at least a week of rain. But the wind has dropped, the sun is back, the stream is still dry, and the forecast for the next two weeks is sun, not a drop more rain.

Terra cotta

The light is heavy or perhaps the sun,
the drifts of leaves, a kestrel’s shrill cry.

Perhaps it is weariness with the waiting,
watching the struggle never resolve,
the stalks still brown and no green returning.

Last night in the half-light, a heron stalked
the thin meadow, long legs negotiating the cracks
of wrinkled earth, shrunk about its parched core.

Another birthday

Birthdays fly thick and fast,
like the golden leaves of the poplar trees,
ephemeral visitors,

to come back again next season,
like the leaves, green and hopeful.

Ghost ship in a storm

This is for Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday prompt. A string of Essences.

Ghost ship in a storm

How deep the ocean night,
when sleep takes wing in flight,

cloud clashes, ships of grey,
light flashes bright as day?

Storm blasts its shipwreck tales,
lost masts and tattered sails,

by lightning, deathly white,
a frightening, eerie sight.

Listen, old timbers creak,
and cold dead voices shriek;

we hear their wretched plight,
but fear keeps shutters tight.

Even Hitler loved dogs

For the dverse prompt. Didn’t come out exactly as I thought it would but, it’s been a long day.

Even Hitler loved dogs

1) Compare and contrast:

the lilies of the field,
the birds of the air,
the wolves in their lair,
treading their set paths with selfless courage,
taking no more than they need,
giving whatever is needed,

with:

the purveyors of peace and love,
preaching war on those who disagree,
trailing endemic poverty in their wake
and holding double standards in their hands.

2) Discuss:

a) the worship of bloodied martyrs
and heroes with bloody hands,
blood-sucking billionaires,
the beautiful and the damned,

b) why our cats have drawn claws
and our roses have no thorns.

You may begin.
You have very little time.

Greenlings

Posted on #TopTweetTuesday.
Photo ©Des_Callaghan My own photos don’t look like anything.

Greenlings

In the night, all hedgehogs are grey
and in the dusky half-light,
and in full blazing sunlight

roof hedgehogs lie, dead
and grey as sponges on a tropic beach,
washed up corpses of the ocean-sky,

silent rootlers that flocked the tiles,
dislodged roof-scrapings, dry-backed,
tender earthy-underbellied,

but moss never dies,
it lies inert, plant heart beating,
waiting for the rain,

to blossom green-spined,
micro-leafed rainforest in the wet grass,
because moss is eternal.

Haibun for the talking baby

For the dverse prompt.

Babies learn so quickly, growing from unformed blob of glup to something that walks, talks and has its own opinions.

So few weeks ago
it was spring and these birds
were still eggs.

Between September visits, our small grandbaby has changed from being dog spectator, watchful and amused, to dog commander, dishing out treats from her plate, and expecting to be obeyed in all things. She follows them about, calling, but of course, they don’t understand their new baby names, and of course, baby gets furious when she has to shout twice, or ten times.

Scattering leaves
with a swirl of red skirts
summer leaves the stage.

By the end of the autumn, who knows how her wings will have grown. Perhaps Bee and Emon will have learned a new language too.

In the porch
dog watches leaves bowling
remembers the sun.

Bee (more commonly known as Bix) stealing the talking baby’s lunch.

Emon (Redmond) and Bee (Bix) early morning June, hence the green.

Deer

Colleen reminded me of the Essence poetry form.

Deer

There were deer on the hill,
fled in fear, never still,

on the hill, till they heard,
not the rill, not a bird,

but the crack of a gun.
Looking back, through the sun,

saw a man, metal bright,
and they ran, feather-light,

in the green, left a glow
where they’d been, so I’d know.

The one on his own at the bar

Last week’s prompt from Paul Brookes was the acrostic form. I’d never written an acrostic poem before so gave it a try. This is what I came up with. I assumed that any subject was acceptable.

The one on his own at the bar

Gabble drips from your loose lips,
Offering opinions no one wants to hear.
Behind your effusions and hearty back-slaps,
Silence, as women roll eyes and sip their drinks.
Hands you try to shake, raise to catch the barman’s attention
Instead, backs turn, hoping you’ll go away.
There is a world of misogyny and arrogance in your
Eyes, that fondle what you will never have.