Every year the snowdrop comes.
Only one,
beside the tree
that stands close by my window.
By this I know that spring is here.
Along the river, far away,
I’ve seen them grow in swathes and banks.
They stand in crowds,
in shivering ranks beside the waters margins.
I don’t walk there anymore
but I do remember,
when I see the single flower
that stands beneath my window.
© A.Chakir 2023
Todays prompt was to read a poem in a language you are not too familiar with (so that basically you don’t understand it) and then, just from the sound of it write a poem of your own – I did two from French and Portuguese
Alone in the Dark
I contemplate my foolishness baffled by
the contrast of smoke and pure air
the leaves rustle outside my window
a piano is playing next door
I hear a tender tune of meetings in this moment
a song of the night, the earth
the dance of eternal stars,
inexorably close to my heart
The night again! after days of comedy
with no laughter, the sadness, my sickness
can’t be cured by the beautiful flowers.
The universe responds, but I cannot subsist
the days repeat and repeat, shouting encore.
My life is only sadness as I sit here alone in the dark.
Love is urgent
The urgencies of love
made me embark
on rough seas
the urgencies of desperate love
solid, square and cruel
bring my lament to the waves,
crashing around my feet
it’s urgent, it’s all going by too fast
so many kisses I sought in the cornfields
looking for roses and rivers
and open clear days
is my heart so impure
that I can’t find the light?
This love is urgent.
I came to the estuary
and now I am lost in the sea
© A.Chakir 2023
i am here alone my darling,
here without you,
right on the side of a cliff
very high up on a ledge
watching a sunset
with no one to hold my hand
lost in my head
losing my rhythm and reason
not breathing as i should
in two senses
i am very close to the edge
The girl at the checkout counter
gives me a
side-long look.
She seems bemused
by my words.
Did I say too much
or too little?
How much is ever enough?
I always liked solitude,
it’s as vital to me as food.
But five days alone is my limit,
more is too heavy a weight.
One more ounce, and I’m crushed.
I speak out loud to the mirror,
checking I still have a voice.
Sometimes I answer myself.
I sound like a rusty old clock.
I seem to be losing my tick.
I brace myself for the day
I strap on a shell,
a brave carapace,
to keep the dark moments at bay.
I’m an expert at living this way.
But when friends come to stay
and then go away
I feel that my heart
has been opened and filled
and then,
quietly,
clinically,
stripped.
the howl of this desolate place
is the summation of me
out in the snowy wastes
alone, unloved and free
the wind is the music of flutes
leaping over my roof
pure and constant and clear
silent as the inside of a turtles shell
lost on an island, washed by no wave
the question is how to swim back
when you’re cut off, alone and adrift
you might think its lonely,
you could say that it is,
but if it was wouldn’t I speak
not sit here sadly quietly withdrawn
don’t reach your hand inside my armour
i have waited far too long to be touched
nothing’s within todays carapace
you won’t find me there, so try not to look
it was not until i found myself swimming alone
that i realised he was my rock
taken for granted always there
though i had watched the life source dim
with regret and compassion
there is no other rock out there
in the endless sea
now i see why he tried to teach me
to float to dry land, each time i swam off
flailing my arms about
what do I think of Christmas?
let me think
deep
I want to tell the truth
when I was a child
it was carols,cards and Christmas bells
a big family
the ones now mostly dead
tales they told
magic filled my head
and a wish for snow
grown
I made a new family
with children of my own
a hearth and home
the house was full of friends,
music, love, childrens’ voices,
laughter, power cuts
as the village crashed the grid
we didn’t care
the fire and lanterns lit
magic light
and a wish for snow
it stayed that way for years
the table set
the kitchen hot
the windows steamed
my parents came to stay
I see it all on adverts now
happy children
the crowded table
the lovers special gift
the pretty sparking snow
now I sit in a house
with my mother
she is very old
thinking this may be her last
we talk about the past
Christmases before
I wasn’t even born
I keep the winter chill
from my heart
I think it’s sure to snow
I think of those
outside alone
no place to go
remind myself I’m lucky
it could be me
out there in the snow
The smell of roast coffee haunts the street.
I wait to reach it, breath deep
as we pass, my mothers high heels clatter
briskly across the cellar grating as she drags me
by that alluring café where people are talking.
I imagine them all as artists, writers,
just as I want to be. Is coffee the key?
In summer, roses and sun cream,
the smell of a warm tennis ball,
at the pool, fluoride burns in my throat,
hot tarmac, big roller pressing it flat.
The heat of a greenhouse full of tomatoes,
geranium leaves crushed between fingers,
new mown lawns and sprinklers.
Wet dogs, the strong deep smell of horse,
bran mash and hay, wintergreen, autumn, leather,
new baked bread and a simmering curry.
More pungent the scent of a dark, damp wood,
seaweed on the wind by the ocean
that catches my heart and opens my lungs.
No hurry then as the world stands still.
My father smelled of sawdust, tweed,
tobacco, fresh paint and engine oil,
of his indefinable tribal self,
nothing like anyone else.
As a child that smell meant safe,
warm as the smell of a fir tree
bedecked in Christmas lights,
firelight shadows on walls.
I can recall the perfume,
the scent, the pure animal smell,
of everyone I ever loved.
Now give me oranges, rosemary,
bergamot bottled, uncorked,
for comfort alone.
The Dreaming Path 