Jane Dougherty's Blog, page 58

Looking down

Looking down

How many days of heat
can this parched earth endure,
this mirror of the sky,
cracked from side to side?

Desolate, forlorn,
the crackle of dead things
beneath the tread of feet
that dabbled in the dew.

No dancing plumes, the path
is empty, echoes fly,
no bird calls from thin shade,
while restless winds spit sand.

We turn our weary gaze
from heat haze, wrinkled stalks
where stony rivers flow;
there is no Camelot.

Visions: fiction in Ekphrastic Review

I’m pleased to have another short piece of fiction in the Ekphrastic Review.
You can read all of the poems and short stories here.

Visions

The abbess dipped her brush in the crimson and carefully dabbed in an eye. The monster winked at her. She filled in the other eye. Black pupils bored into hers, and she turned away for a moment to clear the vision. She had been gifted with visions since she was a small child and they called her Hildegard. The name had faded, but she had the visions still.

Her fingers itched to continue. Paint us. Give us life. There was more crimson needed for the demon’s tongue. The abbess added three tiny brush strokes. She had been worried that the visions were sinful, but the archbishop had encouraged her to set them down in her books. Not sinful then. But disturbing. Distressing sometimes.

She changed brushes. Ochre. The prince’s breeches. The monster’s head was between the prince’s legs. Why did he have a demon in the place of his manly parts? She sighed. An allegory possibly. Men’s urges. Though the times were reasonably calm, even if the English were still fighting one another. They had no king, hadn’t had one for as long as she could remember. And the Pope was calling for another crusade.

The abbess looked at the red-eyed monster, black, hair like serpents. Evil, but not a Saracen, she decided. They worshiped one god, not like the Heathens. They were simply fighters. It was their land after all. The men fought and the women prayed. It was the same the world over.
She thought for a moment about the Saracen women, praying, cloistered and veiled just as she was. But in their houses, fountains played in colonnaded courtyards, and birds sang in cool shaded gardens. Their husbands and fathers watched the stars and made maps of the heavens. Did their women watch too and wonder with them? She would have done, if she had been able. She hoped her Saracen-sisters did.

She had never known her own sisters. Hildegard had been given into God’s service when she was too young to remember, and her occupations had always been those of God’s handmaiden. She had been observed night and day. Protected from evil.

Green this time. The Serpent with a woman’s face. The Serpent always had a woman’s face. It was God’s will. She paused, the brush poised above the tiny puddle of verdigris, thinking of a clear desert night, a deep black sky alive with stars, a jackal howling.

In a deft movement, the hovering brush dipped instead into the oak gall ink, and the abbess gave the Serpent a neat black beard.

Autumn

For the dverse prompt. The line I chose was (obviously):

Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows.

Autumn

Shake the leaves, dead summer’s ending,
Hands of chestnut-fingered grace,
For spring won’t last, its green unfurlings,
Ever is a lonely place.

Cancel thoughts of endless sunlight,
All yesterdays are shadows now
Our green and tender days are midnight,
Vows, like stalks beneath the plough.

Unsleep

Unsleep

Behind the eyes, the migraine flicker,
grainy film, silent, rapid, disjointed.
Night, eyes wide, the film reels on.

Window-framed, lightning flashes,
silent storm, a whole sky white hot,
starless, eaten by fire.

Dawn drenches without turning off the light.

Tracking

For the dvserse prompt. The painting (as so often) is by Franz Marc.

Tracking

They hunt by smell,
chase by sight,
and their world is a million colours
we cannot see.

Dog sees a scent trail,
a burrow in tall grasses,
a trail of spangles,
tangy symbols,

confetti strewn across space,
fallen stars that come to rest
tangled in these damp foxtails
that hide the thirsty stream.

We follow, watch,
and if we hear an echo
of the ancient wild wisdom,
we try to learn.

Wind and waves

Today, Paul Brookes is posting poetry on the theme of the abolition of slavery. This is one I sent. A reminder that it’s never over till it’s over.

Wind and waves

We say the waves are calm now,
their voices stilled, the echoing voices
from wooden holds,

but restless still,
waves take their toll of human flesh,
slavers have a multitude of faces.

Listen to the wind that blows
into ears deaf to the cries
of other people’s children,

the wind that stirs the veils,
the shadows in the corner,
and brings the sound of chinking coins,

the chinking coins still changing hands,
and the child behind the veil sold,
flesh, hers too.

The waves’ lament lingers
and the wind’s, the unheard voices,
still crying.

Rain and morning

For the dverse prompt.

Rain and morning

Morning pitter-patter
and we listen to the rain
windows wide
looking for green
at the end
of the rainbowed shafts.

Autumn-scent rises
curled uncurling
tight-budded leaf fingers of new growth
and silent deer beneath the trees
red coats still summer-bright
in this clouded air.

Peaceful morning

Peaceful morning

Rain patter
dry leaves wind-sigh
the air veils silver-steel
drifting nets like spidersilk
and the smell of hay
the contented chatter
of magpies

then the sun
white-clouded
air steams with the smell of hay
and among the trees wind-hissing
the flutter of blackbirds
and the contented chatter
of magpies.

The Oracle

I wrote something (everyone’s asleep after lunch), and it’s not a poem. An Oracle story. Fiction blurring into fact.

The Oracle

She stands in the cave mouth, gazing down at the sea, blue, glittering. On the sea is a white-sailed boat. In the boat is a man, black-bearded, with a request. She is a mouth nothing more to the man, who is nothing more than a black beard to her. The cave yawns; the white sail approaches.
He ties up the boat, reaches inside for two white doves. Their wings beat feebly. She never asks for this, but they do it anyway. Nothing for nothing. She would have them let the birds fly, but they only understand death. What price would they have paid if there was no shedding of white-feathered blood?
She sings a wordless song to calm the frightened birds. She can do no more. Between hers, and the world of men is an ocean, a night sky, a towering wall.
The blood flows, and black-beard is satisfied. He asks his question and she replies. It is a riddle. She has a limitless store. He will work it out to his own satisfaction. Only she knows it means nothing.
He leaves, black-bearded, white-sailed, confident. But aren’t they all? She wonders at the lives they lead, black-beard’s mother, his wife, sisters, his daughters. She wonders if he ever dreams of the volcano simmering beneath his confident tread, how his mother, wife, sisters and daughters hold it on a leash. For now.
If he did, he would never ask her to explain the meaning of such a dream. He would have forgotten it before morning, a wisp of cloud mist, a foolish fancy, as irrelevant as the cry of a child in the night.
She smiles to herself, a wry smile. If only he understood that there is nothing more relevant than the cry of a child in the night, the beating wings of things that do not want to die, the strong hand of a loving woman, perhaps the volcano would not have to be unleashed.

Random word generator

Posting this prompt now for anyone who has time to use it. I shall get back to it later, I hope.