Jane Dougherty's Blog, page 62

Ash

Ash

The dust on the wall
is the ash of forests,
and once this meadow was sea,
spilling over with flower splashes.

Listen to the hot wind,
the tread that breaks heads,
dead clover, brown as nuts,
where purple flowed and yellow flowered.

No life beneath this fierce orb,
only laughter from pools blue-bright,
as if the world turns right,
and the fire is for another time.

Random word generated poetry

100 words to inspire a poem for Sunday. My poem follows.

Apple secrets

Deer flit,
shadows amid the shade,
about the glade, sun-warm,
about the pool, cool-deep,

that spills spangles
like leaves
beneath an apple tree,
age-bent, lichen-hoary,

above the sun-glint,
above the water,
and an apple falls,
green-red,

and a fish rises
to taste, to eat,
mouthing secrets,
while I watch

and wonder,
what wisdom
has been learnt this day,
by fish, by me,

as the apple sinks
with its secrets,
and the deer slip
silent away.

The wind and the rain

I loaded more words, saw ‘wind and rain’ and the rest followed. Thank you, Oracle.
Photo ©Cosmo 1978

The wind and the rain

The wind and the rain
murmur a refrain
to the song of the earth,
that death will follow birth,
as a tree fledges leaves,
so every mother grieves
for the loss of a dream,
the drying of a stream,
when the year turns to the dark,
the song will lose its lark.

Yet, listen, says the crow,
you can hear the next spring grow
in the cradle of the mother,
ours, there is no other,
where she breathes green shoots will follow,
every summer have its swallow,
from each egg, unfolding petal,
every creature show its metal,
with the turning of the sun,
until this world is done.

Times I remember

I don’t know why the Oracle gave me this from just the first page of words. It’s sad, and I think I’ll come back later to see if she has cheered up a bit.

Times I remember

I remember, I recall,
a soft and gentle time,
when we walked beneath a limpid sky,
and nights were lit
by moon and stars.

I remember when the clouds where white,
and pink at end and break of day,
the stream ran loud between the trees,
and I could speak to stones
and understand the blackbird’s tongue.

Sleep was still a painted pageant,
loud as any stream,
bright as blackbirds singing in the hedge,
before the storm ate up the sky,
before you came, before you left.

Then all the birds fell silent,
stones rattled in the stream,
dreams fluttered into dusk
like frightened autumn leaves,
and the coloured pageants died.

Flash fiction in Ekphrastic Review

It’s been a long time since I participated in an Ekphrastic challenge, and the Baer painting isn’t one that immediately appeals to me. On closer inspection though, it became almost hypnotic, and an interpretation grew that became a story. Thank you to Alarie Tennile for selecting my piece.

You can read it here.

Pause

Pause

In the woods a deer barks
dog answers back and forth
a game or understanding?

In the woods the patter
of gentle rain on weary leaves
brief shower

just enough
to wipe away the dust
the tears
before the heat returns.

Northlands longing

The dverse prompt is the loop poem. This is a variant.

[image error]

Northlands longing

There was a place
of grace and green and dappled light,
of night, starred and stippled,
rippled through
with dewy dawns.

There was a place,
lace-winged and fringed with cloud,
loud with bees,
trees that whisper low,
so low their story’s seldom heard.

And if I could,
I would go back;
the track is there, I think I see.
Free is the wind upon Slemish;
I wish I had a swallow’s wings.

Fox

Fox

I saw a fox today,
in the heat of the afternoon,
run, red as autumn,

along the stream,
against the only green
in this parched summer.

Sinking

Sinking

Days like this,
thick as honey, treacle,
the amber sap of wounded trees

that smell hay in the vague shadows
and cinder,
burning wood on the wind,

gritty and grey at dusk,
(underfoot brittle with broken snailshells,
husks of dead flowers)

slow-slip into night,
that restless sea
of unfinished business.

Dolphins

For @TopTweetTuesday, I posted a poem from my first small collection, Thicker than water. Something about the mood, the aching seems to fit today, so I’m posting it here too.