Jane Dougherty's Blog, page 64

Spoiled fruit

For dverse, the line of poetry to use in the piece of prose (144 words) is from Michael Donaghy’s ‘Liverpool’

“she’d had it sliced away leaving a scar”

Spoiled fruit

The cherry tree grew in the middle of the tiny kind of garden that makes proper trees look like caged bears. Her mother planted it for the blossom and let it grow tall and broad for the fruit. When she was a child she had climbed into the lower branches to pick the under-ripe fruit, and later, when she inherited the house, learned to love the flocks of blackbird that ate the cherries as soon as they ripened.
Her neighbour complained that the branches overhung his lawn, the fruit dropped, the birds made a mess. When she closed her ears, he took a chainsaw to the main branch, tearing a hole in her childhood memories, the only children she’d had. It sliced away leaving a scar that wept amber tears until winter sealed the wound tight shut. The wound in her heart never healed.

Sunrise

A poem for Paul Brookes heatwave inspired collection. Send them in!

The yellow stuff in the photo isn’t wheat, it’s what the long grass behind the house has become. The wilted sapling is a poplar.

Sunrise

Early morning.
Cool beneath the shade trees,
and the birds still sing.
A squirrel leaps from branch to branch,
tree to tree.

But the sun has risen in fury,
burning orb,
eating the blue, spitting out flames.

No thunderbolts fall
among the limp oak leaves
only the shrivelling eye of the sun.

Soon there will be silence
except for the hiss and patter of sprinklers,
sucking the life of the stream, the river.

He will be dead soon,
the old man who robs the tree roots,
his tomatoes, leeks, his sheep eaten.

And the oaks bow, shrink,
their dry leaves whispering,
we too will follow. Soon.

Something better is coming, perhaps

Cadralor inspired by yesterday’s Mechanical Oracle word suggestions.

Something better is coming, perhaps

1.
The letter stays unwritten,
the bell tolls in the rain,
and faces turn away, thin lips tightened,
keeping their words of kindness
for themselves.

2.
The river has burst its banks,
the bridge unpassable.
Caught between here and high waters,
I wade into the leaf-swirl,
become a broken branch.

3.
Summer oranges
in the sieved sunlight,
the smell of bread and coffee,
such wealth in this room
that has only ever known poverty.

4.
The scales are level but only here,
on this cusp of time and place.
Beyond, greedy hands are building the pyre.
So much ash in the balance,
and I have nothing left to counter it all.

5.
Night trees roll in a wave of ink,
the fierce day is over,
its heat drenched in the cool swell,
and joy in the shadows runs wild,
dark and sweet as purple wine.

Luciole

Luciole

Glow worm shines,
a miniscule moon on the bedroom floor,
shining in the dark of its lonely universe.

I don’t wonder how it got into my dark,
shuttered from the sun and moon,
bringing its moonlight,

but I watch its moonlight fade,
as the insect fades, this heat too hot,
too little rain, the grass too dry,

and it is one sadness too much.

I take it in my hand.
There is lavender beneath the window,
a better place for anything wild,

but a night breeze plucks the faded moon.
It makes no resistance, the luciole,
falls into the night,

dust-dry,
its star is fallen,
its time done.

Of mice and fish

We still have mice. As far as the cats are concerned, it’s a non-issue. Trixie is more interested in sardines. At 11 this morning, I started preparing them (the sardines) for lunch, keeping one eye on Trixie sitting on the sink next to me, the other on Bix and Redmond, hovering behind, waiting for a moment’s inattention.
Suddenly, Bix leapt away, around the table, skidding on the carpet, Redmond following. Trixie sat and watched while Bix crashed around in the veranda, overturning the furniture. He was bouncing about, trying to get behind a big wooden chest. I had a look. Mouse. The mouse made a dash for it, Bix on her tail, another chair knocked over. When Redmond saw what the fuss was about, he gave the canine equivalent of an eye roll and went back to watch the sardines.
That was 11am. It’s now 5.30pm. Redmond is asleep in his bed, Trixie is asleep outside in the porch, and Bix is still standing in the kitchen, staring at the place behind the potato crate where the mouse appeared. We still have mice, but at least now we have a mouser.

Heat cracks
brittle as bones
in a dry river bed
sky bright as mirror scales glitters
blinding.

Random word generator

Here is a selection of words from the Mechanical Oracle. It’s too hot to do anything but sit in the dark, so I shall be getting to work on this right away.

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A better place

The Oracle has her work cut out for her, to create a little optimism.

A better place

1.
Who are these people who want?
To be, to have something different?
Refugees from themselves, ship-searching,
looking for an ocean of their own creation.

2.
There is bitterness in this dawn
that drips with cold mist,
the kind that rots and rusts
even the brightest things.

3.
They tell me there’s an entity
up there in the sky or down in the cool earth,
a mother watching, guiding.
I think I feel her presence, a mother screaming.

4.
Perhaps the sun rises for this,
to end these mad dreams,
to dry up the mists that hide what’s really there,
the fallen trees, the orange decomposition of leaves cars.

5.
Only when the storm dies
do we hear the sea whisper, of blue and better times,
a place where the only pounding is the surf,
and spring is soft rain and apple blossom.

River run dry

River run dry

I wanted to hear the river of words
that tell the story of the picture
painted in the bright place behind my eyes.

But there in a dead bird
beneath the trees,
dead of the sun,

dead of the dearth, the shrivelling
of the climate we squeeze
and twist in our greedy hands.

There will be no more songs
poured from that throat,
and the painting is flawed.

The river runs somewhere for some,
but its voice is lost to my ears,
like the bird’s singing is lost to my heart.

Sun flowers and fire

The Gironde is still burning, pine forests full of wildlife destroyed. But according to the news reports, there have been no victims.

We walked around the place today across the stream. Sunflowers fill the small field behind the poplars and the alders.

Turning east into the sun, climbing into the gentle hills, more sunflowers spread north and north and north.

We turn back, still early morning , but already too hot, walk west, thinking of the wild fires raging, and the massacre in the inferno of tinderbox pine forests.

The sun was once
a mother and father
we watched it rise and set
in awe wonder and fear.
Now all that is left is fear.

When all the world

For the dverse prompt, an eleventh power poem.

When all the world

When all the world is bathed in neon-harsh light,
And no one sees the dance of moon and star shine,
When waves of noise and laughter fill the deep night,
I’ll turn to memories of what was once mine,
Of how the wolves of winter cold would pinch-bite,
Summer bee-buzzed blue in clouds of scented pine,
My springs were scudding clouds, tasting of sea spray.
Nothing can take those memories away.
I’ll fill my house with gulls, white-crested sea swell,
Tree-sway and singing birds, and there I will dwell,
Drawing strength from my ghosts, water from the well.