Forget the alphabet of facts.
Savour sensual sound,
roll it round and round,
feel it on your tongue,
let it be your guide.
Use the harshness of the axe,
use the gentle kiss,
whisper, sigh and shout.
Cast ideas out,
dream and quest,
forget yourself,
follow words where they lead,
open wide your mind
and let the image in.
Turn beauty upside down.
Make the ugly beautiful.
Make beauty out of darkness.
When summer comes, rejoice,
jump up and down and sing.
In savage waves be sure to drown,
lose your breath and meaning,
experience every feeling.
Ask what life’s about,
seek the truth,
accept no less,
make an honest, brief beginning.
Na/GloPoWriMo
The Bards Legacy
By the river the blossoms are falling,
Disarrayed by unseasonably storms,
And worn weathered gravestones outside the church
Are granite grey, cold, threatening forms
Sheltering ash of anonymous dead.
Under stained glass windows inside the church
The genius poet lays his sweet head.
Rosemary’s remembrance overcomes age.
Words unforgotten repeat his own tale.
Across the long years his thoughts pace the stage.
Ill fated fortunes are storms we must sail
and love can win through to make good amends.
Love overcomes all that savage time ends.
Seaside
On the footpath by the sea
the tourists come and go.
the summer flowers gleam,
salt breezes softly blow.
On the footpath by the sea
the children run and play.
Pirate games and treasure maps
sweep their hours away.
On the footpath by the sea
tadpoles swim in drying streams,
the dogs lap all the puddles up
while walkers eat ice-creams.
On the footpath by the sea
here come the volunteers
to clear away the plastic
and gather mermaids tears.
Miraculous Mare
On a burning hot day
in the shade of an oak
a chestnut mare laying down,
chewing on buttercups, clover.
Young filly,
Arabian head,
with a star on her brow.
Essence of unicorn.
Blue sky, white clouds.
red horse,
vibrant green grass
nourished by summer showers.
Her skin quivers,
shaking off flies,
but it’s me who disturbs her
not they.
She raises her head,
poised to stand and depart.
I hold my breath and her gaze.
This magical moment can’t last.
Freedom
I was a painter.
I still am I suppose.
It’s the way I look at the world.
Light, form, colour and line
and all the spaces between.
But how do you paint
The scent of a rose?
Or the touch of your hand on my skin?
They both have some essence of pink, dusk, white?
For this I would rather have words
and the freedom to speak my own heart.
Leaving NY
I slept nine hours last night, she says,
I dreamed of you.
I asked if that was why she slept so long.
Only joking.
She laughs and say for sure it was.
Warm weather here.
Cold there.
Spring, how lovely.
Flowers and butterflies.
Yes.
I smile.
She always thinks of something pretty.
The taxi driver had a Brooklyn accent.
Like all the films, I think,
and remember Sophie’s Choice
Timbered houses, gables.
Tragic story.
Quick slices of happiness.
Madness.
Thinking of that I miss her next two sentences.
I come back to her.
Heavy luggage.
Last night was full of sirens and voices.
The Broadway shows cost a lot.
Traffic.
We’re leaving here soon, she says,
and I can’t wait to see you.
Everything is going to be so good.
Every word she says, is interspersed,
with saying how she loves me
and how she’s longing to be near me.
Carrying my father home
Far heavier than I expected
and the size of an old sweet jar,
opaque plastic, black lidded.
Thank heaven it wasn’t transparent.
I could not have gone on like that.
I carried my father’s ashes
through the streets,
past the church and the chapel,
past the pizza parlour and meaty kebab shops,
under summer trees and fuming traffic,
everything poignantly normal.
We didn’t walk often together.
My father preferred his home.
I was sweating from heat and emotion.
Such a hot afternoon it was.
Making Tea
Making tea is not the easy task it may seem.
To make it alone is simple,
it’s a matter of getting up steam
and not stewing the brew
but keeping it fresh and delightful.
I keep a few blends by to heal me
and stave off the winter colds
(or so we are told)
but orange pekoe is best,
or simple assam, bright and dark,
they outstrip the rest.
I have loved them for years
since I was just a young spark.
Lapsang souchong may be more hip,
it’s aroma may be more inspiring
but i gave up after one sip.
We all have our preference
and that’s where the problem comes in
Must every choice be political
or a statement of ethical pride?
What pleasure does that enhance?
My cupboard has a full range
in case a friend should come round
and inspect my tea making stance
and state their own, to impress.
There’s also the sweetening question;
none, sugar or honey.
Such noble-hearted obsessions
backed with the full force of money
request what I cannot afford.
Be assured, I would if i could.
It was quite a relief
when my latest guest came
and asked for a cup of hot water.
I think she won the great game.
My Late Start on National/Global Poetry Month
I didn’t get my usual notification and overlooked the start. I WILL be catching up. What follows explains what its all about and gives the Day 1 prompt
Na/GloPoWriMo is an annual challenge in which participants write a poem a day during the month of April. What do you need to do to participate? Just write a poem each day! If you fall behind, try to catch up, but don’t be too hard on yourself – the idea here is to expand your writing practice and engage with new ideas, not to stress yourself out. All too many poets, regardless of their level of experience, get blocked in their writing because they start editing even before they have written anything at all. Let’s leave the editing, criticizing, and stressing out for May and beyond! This month, the idea is just to get something on the page.
If you’ll be posting your efforts to a blog or other website, you can provide us with the link using our “Submit Your Site” form, and it will show up on our “Participants’ Sites” page. But if you’re not going to be posting your work, no worries! It’s not a requirement at all – again, all we’re really trying to do is encourage people to write.
To help with that, we’ll be providing some daily inspiration. Each day, we’ll be featuring a participant, providing you with an optional prompt, and giving you an extra poetry resource. This year, those resources will take the form of poetry-related videos.
And now, without further ado – let’s get to it!
Our first featured participant is Miss Ella’s House of Sleep, whose poem “Annie Edson Taylor’s Birthday Plunge,” used our early-bird prompt to explore a fascinating and little-known historical figure.
Our resource for the day is a short film of January Gill O’Neil reading (and acting out!) her poem “How to Make a Crab Cake.”
For our first (optional) prompt, let’s take our cue from O’Neil’s poem, and write poems that provide the reader with instructions on how to do something. It can be a sort of recipe, like O’Neil’s poem. Or you could try to play on the notorious unreliability of instructional manuals (if you’ve ever tried to put IKEA furniture together, you know what I mean). You could even write a dis-instruction poem, that tells the reader how not to do something.
The Fairy Investigation Society ~ Urgent Memo
We recently heard of sightings
in a nearby Nottingham wood.
(As far as we ascertain
there is no link to Robin Hood
and no clear reference to Folk Lore
though we will investigate more).
A family out on a picnic,
wandered deep into the forest
to a pleasant clearing
beside a flooded stream,
where they came upon a scene
reminiscent of Arden
and Shakespeare’s Midsummer Dream.
This is what they found;
upon a grassy mound
small figures in pointed hats,
entirely dressed in green,
were prancing hand in hand,
spinning around in a circle,
their feet just above the ground.
Their faces were not clearly seen.
There is no report of wings.
The light was reported as hazy,
and the turf described as soft.
A small king stood at the centre
holding a lamp aloft.
The family stood in shock,
rooted to the spot,
and watched him as he sauntered
to a sturdy leaf of dock
where he sat in dignified leisure
and, possibly over-heated,
fanned himself quite a lot
with an unidentified leaf.
To be brief;
A gentleman of the party
moved for a closer look
but failed to stifle a cough.
(The local pollen count was high.
I don’t claim fairy dust).
The small creatures all ran off
at incredible speed.
The family looked about for a time,
searching the nearby weeds
which had sprung up all around
but no sign of the small folk was found.
Our colleague, Marjorie Johnson,
having studied the correspondence,
found one further eyes witness
who claimed to have seen the same elves
about a decade before.
There is more.
This witness on many occasions
saw leaves and varied twigs,
laid out in a curious fashion,
beneath an ancient Ash.
Marjorie made the decision
to visit the site herself
(as she frequently does).
She left in the middle of May.
She has not returned to date.
We informed the local police
who conducted a thorough search,
finding her camera and glove.
Please advise. Don’t delay.
We must avert a scandal.
We need a Press Release.
Please note:
We found a long lost manuscript
from the early Tudor era
stating that, in this forest,
frequently over the years
as the month of June drew nearer,
people had disappeared.
We cannot continue to hope.
The Dreaming Path 