I heard him arrive with a hammer.
It wasn’t the sound that a woodpecker makes.
It wasn’t a bang on the door,
or a well-ordered pattern of beats.
It was a hammer,
hurled through the air at my head.
All the cups on the table were smashed.
I knew it was risky to move.
I dreamed myself up in the blue
and saw myself as a seagulls wing
soaring above it all.
Seagulls remind me of ballet.
Ballerinas have silk pointed slippers.
Thinking of them, my head starts to swim.
I awake to the jaws of a shark.
The table is overturned.
It’s time to exit the dark.
Napowrimo
The Rain it Raineth Every Day (a haibun)
Shakespeare’s county is April wet. The trees stand, drawn in dark brown lines, shrouded in a soft grey mist. Fine rain falls in constant drizzle every day. Acting as a tourist guide to visiting friends I lead them from Tudor tea shop to Tudor pub, huddled up against the cold. The smell of beer soaked into old wood greets us at The Garrick door. We can shelter here and wait for the time when the play is about to start.
Now as friends we gather here.
The play’s the thing and
the rain it raineth ev’ry day.
On a plinth, Shakespeare sits, in thought, high above it all. I was taken there often as a child. The sun shone then, every day it seemed. I squinted up at him and shielded my eyes against the sun as he sat quiet, dark against the light, somewhat of a mystery. But the light changes hour by hour, and the weather season by season. He is a man of this town and the surrounding fields and his birthplace and his grave are here.
Sundays were a pilgrimage
with a hey and a ho!
When I was a little tiny child.
The wind and the rain has always been plenty.
Present mirth, hath present laughter:
What’s to come, is still unsure.
~~~~~~
(the last two lines are by Shakespeare – I thought I should allow him to add the last few words and the title)
The Last of England ~ 1855
We stand in the gallery
in front of a frame,
my Australian friend and I,
on a day that’s shivering cold,
misty and grey.
The room is warm and welcoming.
Two people wrapped in blankets
sit on the stern of a ship
gazing out at us, from a painting,
gazing back at the land they are leaving behind.
They are emigrants, I say, seeing the title.
Yes, she says, they are going away.
They look so sad, don’t they?
Don’t they look miserable?
They do look very sad, I reply,
but they began an adventure that day.
Over cups of tea and coffee,
as days grow shorter
the phrase repeats and repeats,
we can do that next time.
We’ll come back.
Next time. Next time.
Next time? I ask.
Yes, next time.
Next time this
and next time that,
but we are none so young
as we used to be.
Certainty is an illusion of youth.
The future is only a time beyond now.
The future is always uncertain.
We hope.
Next time,
we hope.
Butterflies Wings (Afternoon with Macbeth)
Time passes,
time drags,
time repeats,
time snags,
Time ticks by.
There he lays.
The room is dark.
The room is cold.
Childrens’ voices pierce the veil.
Here is the killing of a King.
Lady Macbeth reaches out.
No-one grasps her bloodied hand.
Time rolls round
and time rolls round.
The end is set
by moments marked on a digital clock.
Death marks the walls with fast drawn chalk.
This is the circle ambition brings.
Generations repeat the sin.
In the street outside,
with early signs of April rain,
the swan bends down and folds its wings.
In the cafe down the road,
by the window where light falls
on polished wood, the books are glued,
their pages shut, their words unknown.
An old man shuffles by alone.
On every table in the room,
the yellow rose is in full bloom.
Shakespeare’s lips are butterflies wings.
Four friends meet and seal a bond.
They all know the plays the thing.
Night Lines
i don’t
like
the sound
i hear
in my
neck
swishing and pulsing
veins
it seems far too loud
i am sure
my heart
beat
is
speeding
each time i turn over it’s worse
this is the sleepless song of the night
at dawn
sweating
the slow
drift begins
into sleep
suspended between in a dream
wet
wet from the snow melt
out on the moors
the track
deep
in mud
the grass is a
s l i d e
we struggle
up
to
the
top
of
the
hill
the wide-open expanse of the world falls beneath
we all stand together
filling our lungs
catch
ing
our
breath
The Saddest Lines
Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Escribir, por ejemplo: ” La noche está estrellada,
y tiritan, azules, los astros, a lo lejos”.
El viento de la noche gira en el cielo y canta.
Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Yo la quise, y a veces ella también me quiso.
Tonight I can write the saddest of lines.
But these words above never were mine.
I encountered death as an infant.
I created myself as someone I’m not.
I wasted my gifts and took the wrong turnings.
All that I loved most faded away.
Sometimes it’s hard to put food on the table.
Each day is a struggle. I think I might break.
Are these tired words sad enough for you yet?
Let’s step up the horror, in case we forget.
Seven million people died of cancer last year.
Five thousand people sleep rough every night.
One hundred elephants are slaughtered each day
They hack out their jaws to trade in the ivory.
The ocean’s polluted and forests are dying.
The politicians are lying.
No one takes action.
Everyone’s looking for things they can’t have.
Don’t speak to me of her love you once had
or play with the thought of her infinite eyes
and the way that you lost her love and ask why.
Pablo Neruda I hear you complaining.
Pablo Neruda silence your cries.
Each moment of love is a gift. Don’t expect it.
There’s perspective above,
in those trembling blue stars.
~~~~~~~~~~~
The quote in Spanish is from “Poema 20” and is part of “Veinte poemas de amor y una cancion desesperada” (twenty love poems and a desperate song) from Pablo Neruda that was published in Santiago de Chile in 1924.
Happiness in Easter Park
In the park,
by the lake,
loud geese clamor
to be fed.
Little girl
in new red shoes,
polished
to a gleaming shine,
gazes at her face reflected
in the mirror of her toes.
Sitting on a wooden bench
she swings her feet
in quiet pleasure
and spreads her fingers
wide apart.
The sticky chocolate
melted fast.
The swans
spread out
their wide,
white wings,
lifting up
in springs
rare flight.
On a branch
the blackbird sings.
Everything is full of light.
Digital Dreams
In my digital dreams
of brutalised beauty
the last look loners
never look back
nostalgia is nothing
but an onslaught of senses
enigmatic eels fill up my screen
the rosie romantics
have lost their ideals
the violets are vanquished
by unseasonable change
i quietly quit
without yielding my self
to fanciful fractals ~
isn’t life strange
It’s that time again! Poetry Month
Poetry Month Commitment
I have just signed up for National Poetry Writing Month – NaPoWriMo 2017
It begins on April 1st
My poems will then also be on https://napowrimodreamingpath.wordpress.com/2017-2/
If you too would like to participate and write a poem every day in April go to http://www.napowrimo.net/participants-sites/
They also have good daily prompts
The Dreaming Path 