Jane Dougherty's Blog, page 55

Another fire

Another fire

Tide rose and rose all night,
the wind among the poplar leaves,
a swell of foam-hiss dark as dust,
and in the dawn the swollen roar
is unabated, wave on wave.

Not fallen leaves of compost brown,
nor sand churned in deep ochre pits,
gouged from some dead planet’s crust,
that choke this restless, turbid air,

but burning chaff and weary twig,
branch and feather, tiny ashy bones,
infernoed by this outrageous sun.

Hot night with owls

Not a piece of prose, but a poem inspired by the dverse prompt line. This is for my youngest fledgling who learned today she has been accepted at the Brussels École Supérieur des ‘Arts de l’Image. Nothing to do with owls, but they insisted.

Hot night with owls

The fragile green has gone again,
sprinkling of rain a hope that died.
The fissures yawn in this tired crust,
crisp and crackled where once flowers grew.

There is nothing I could plant here,
no flower delicate and pale,
in this dry dust where foxes dig,
and overhead the buzzards turn.

Hay still smells sweet at midnight,
yet no peace falls on linnets’ wings,
no fluttering, but soft-voiced owls,
their night-flight spurred with sprung steel claws, `

in moonless heat croon war-cries,
tender as a leopard’s paw.

The hunt

The hunt

Silent cries fill the morning light
and sharp shards of fragmented sound.

There is no progress, no enlightenment,
no peeling back of layers of rottenness,
the pleasure in pain and fear.

Fluttering of wings in the dappled shade
and the screech of jays, clucking blackbirds,
warning notes to those who hear,
before the heavy tread, the crack
of dry branches, the panting breath of dogs.

There is no glory in these executions,
the hollow reports that crack the placid sky,
and we, who would let live,
must keep to the middle of the road,
hands on heads, renounce our humanity,

while the bannered azur and gules,
sable and argent gallop the wild tracks,
hooves and halloos flying.

Random word generator

I’m posting this early because we’re going out for the morning. It’s a beautiful morning, going to be hot and cloudless and the hunting season has opened since 8am. It’s like a war zone here, so we’re going to take the dogs somewhere less fraught for a long walk.

Not yet

The Oracle gave me a cadralor this morning, but I’m posting this short poem instead, a sort of condensation, to use the dreaded ‘s’ word she always shoves at me, although it’s a pretty elliptical allusion.

Not yet

There are buds on the roses still to open
and birds still singing songs to hopeful nests.
The year squirms like a fat worm
among the leaf litter,
and a million hearts still beat
high as summer.

In memoriam a grand old lady

In memoriam a grand old lady

My great-grandmother was just ten weeks short of her hundredth birthday when she died, without any fuss, but with four generations about her bedside, in the council house she’d lived in for half a century. She brought up her own two children and ten orphaned nephews and nieces who she had also brought into the world in another council house a couple of doors down. She had run a pub and hated it, kept a dispensary for sick and injured birds that she loved, was unpaid child minder for family and neighbours.
She was a huge personality, a wonderful, compassionate woman and when she died, even the Protestants lined the street to see her off. There were no gun salutes, no national mourning, no outpourings of grief by millions who never knew her. But she is remembered for the things she did, despite poverty and discrimination, with the most basic of health care and no modern appliances to ease the work burden.
After so many years, her light still burns bright, though she will never be immortalized in history books, and only her grand-daughter, my mother, ever painted her portrait.

Birds fly
into the setting sun
their wings never burn.

Infinitesimal

Infinitesimal

Not much has changed,
a few hours turned on the wheel,
the fallen leaves a little drier,
brown as the crumbling clay
where no green shows.

Sun rose behind grey clouds,
and the wind blew irritably through the trees.
Not much has changed,
but the heat is failing,
chaff blowing and fragments of ancient leaves.

We prune and clear
and pick the ripe fruit,
while a small bird whistles a mournful tune,
and in the attic,
the mice settle like dust.

Piece in Ekphrastic Review

Thanks to the editors at Ekphrastic for finding room for this horse piece. The subject is one I researched for my last novel, so I’m pleased it rang true. You can read all the chosen work here.

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Changes

At first, they had a Mistress of the Animals, those Black Sea peoples, the plains and horse peoples of Asia Minor. They passed on their heritage from mother to daughter and they brought husbands into the maternal home. The Mistresses watched over their charges, offered grain and wine not blood, made whole, nurtured. The Mistress of the Animals was flanked by lionesses. Nurturing huntresses.

Did the horses notice the tipping of the world when the Mistress was replaced by a Master, when the lioness guardians grew wings, talons and cruel beaks? Did they feel a change in the hands that held the reins? The plains were as wide, winters as hard, but the hands, were they as gentle?

The winds that swept those antique plains swept away the tenderness. We reap the whirlwind now; horses bear heavier burdens and cruel bits. They race and jump and dance, carry children in endless circles. They obey, their eyes on the whip, noses sniffing our recycled air. There are no horse dreams in this brave new world.

Poets on the shores of the world’s fringe wrote in the sands of the foaming shallows, in the stars that march across dark hills, of how the world has changed. Utterly. We snatch at the whirling debris, listen for hoofbeats.

When sun has set

For the dverse prompt.

When sun has set

The days have shortened, gone the long
and torrid days, the warbler’s song
is heard again, his tongue unlocked.

Above the dry and dusty trees,
the moon rides full upon the breeze,
a silver ship, a smiling face.

When sun has set, birds ceased to sing,
the tawny owls take to the wing,
and with their call, night can begin.

The fiercest wind

A protest poem for earthweal.

The fiercest wind

The tiny feral cat gave birth
in the warm spring,
her first two kits.
I put out food,
but the kits stayed small,
then there was just one.

I saw it after the deluge
in the track up to the house,
curled,
a dead bird,
a tuft of brown oak leaves.

It trembled,
raised itself on long bones of legs,
stumbled away from the offered food,
mouth open in rage,

and from its empty stomach
rose a deafening roar
against the abject cruelty
of this world.