Winter Lovers

This poem was written from scraps of old notes to present to the Rugby Writers group last week. It has only just aquired its title and the whole thing may well get reworked at some point in the future.

Winter Lovers

Black stick men ghost between sleeping trees,
catching threads of breath to net birds,
plucking at them with sharp quick fingers,
resting dead limbs on coppiced stumps,
They are waiting for a cold moon.

With vicious smiles and eyes that shatter
stone still water, they stalk the landscape,
stroking rimey shapes across fallen leaves,
tracing crisp patterns that stop the heart,
with fragile beauty, brittle as sunlight.

Dancing in the north wind they call
to their snow maiden lovers with
songs made of cracks and whistles and
lost echoes that haunt dreams filled with
the settling of silent white wings.

Haiku and other forms

I know, another tedious selection of haiku from a would be poet. Well, yes, I will post a couple in a moment. But first a gentle note on form. Some of the poetry in this blog is of the “free verse” type with no structure, rhyme or metre. That it works at all is in part due to quite a bit of effort on my part. Others follow a more well defined structure that required considerably more.

I know many people who write or read poetry don’t feel the need to try and grapple with such things. Ultimatly, I think this is misguided. Our language works in a particular way, its stresses falling subtly so that in everyday speach we hardly notice them. The various forms in poetry force the writer to think about how language works, where stress, rhythmn and rhyme fall and to use this to their advantage. The strictures of sonnets or rondels and other forms concentrate the mind. Even attempting to follow a metre as simple as iambic pentametre can mean finding words and phrases that work beautifully that you otherwise would never have imagined. The rules (or guidelines) of poetry are there for a reason. Understanding them improves your appreciation of others work as well as imporving your own whether you choose to follow them or not.

As you can see from my posts to date, I am still struggling with my own writing and still learning just what can be acomplished. To that end here are as promised a couple of haiku. A form that is perhaps not at its best in english, but is familiar to many with its 5-7-5 syllable count.

Folklore tells tall tales
that twist and change in the mind
to become deep truths

Cobweb cluttered mind
wondering where the spiders
sticky silk came from.

The Prize

A new poem that was inspired by someone I saw whilst drinking a coffee in a town centre after work.

The Prize

He shuffles unnoticed along the street
taking a straight slow line through abandoned
market stalls the council workers have begun
to fold away with bored efficiency.
A clatter of teens in deconstructed
uniforms skitter around the cold poles
clutching phones, ciggarettes and each other.
His whiskers disguise the eyes of a hawk.
The iron covered drain lies roman straight
across the paving of the emptying
street briefly lit by the orange strobing
of an automated road sweeper.
Shop assistants putting out their rubbish
and pulling down security shutters
don’t see the old man stop and rustle through
his collection of tattered plastic bags.
Producing two sticks, he crouches,
his steady hands deftly inserting them
inbetween the slats of the drain cover.
Once, twice, his fish slips from his grasp,
before finally, gracefully he draws out
the prize of a shining copper penny.

Poems from the Past

It is a very cathartic thing moving house, having to sort through all of your things and decide what to keep and what to throw away. What do you still need and what belonged to a former life? All of those old thoughts and memories stirred up along with the dust.

It was whilst moving that I rediscovered the poem below. It must be almost 10 years old now, and perhaps that shows. My writing style having moved on, there are things about it that I desperatly want to change, I want to fiddle with it and make it better or at least different. My question is, should I? Its an old poem, one that I thought I’d finished. I even read it at an eisteadfodd competition when it was complete. Do you ever go back and re-work old poems? Even ones that have found their way into the public sphere? Can you ever stop wanting to tweek your work when it is “finished”?

Anyway, here is the poem…

Fighting the Fear of Spiders

I saved a spiders life the other day
At least I thought so anyway.

I was clearing out a dusty box,
full of books and smelly socks,
when out she ran from underneath,
all long black legs and gnashing teeth,
eight black eyes gleaming wide,
looking for a place to hide.
I’d never seen a spider quite that size,
I couldn’t quite believe my eyes.
She froze in the middle of the floor,
looking at the gap beneath the door.
I couldn’t let her go through there,
I knew the room beyond was where,
my little brother was.

His brutal idea of fun,
would be to pull her legs off one by one,
or squash her flat beneath a book,
and charge his friends to take a look.
His fright expressed as violent acts,
heartless fun and murderous pacts.
So there we stood in mutual fear,
her in the middle and me over near,
the door to where my little brother was.

I found a jam jar and some card,
and scooped her up, it was quite hard
not to hurt herr hairy legs,
or make her drop her sack of eggs.
Imprisoned in that glass cell,
I could pick her up and wish her well.
My fear of spiders now cotrolled,
we passed through the room that he patrolled
down the stairs, along the hall,
with no sign of anyone at all.
Through the kitchen and to the door,
I don’t know what I’d worried for.

I carried her safely into the garden,
put her down and begged her pardon
for transporting her in such a way,
she must be having a very bad day.
There’ll be more food for her out here
I thought,ar a cloud of midges drifted near,
a place to spin a web across a gap,
the perfect palce to lay a trap
for unsuspecting flies and moths,
that would festoon her silk like old dish cloths.
I turned my back and walked away,
my good deed done for the day.
But as I closed the door,
I think I heard, I thought I saw,
the flutter of a blackbirds wings…

I saved a spiders life the other day,
At least I thought so anyway.

Mother Night

A short poem about tonight…

Mother Night

The hollow bones of birds
whistle to the dead
on the edge of frosted fields
where grass gives way to reeds,
Brittle stems bleached by the dark
are held together by frayed silks.
The rivers move liked treacle
and collect in glassy pools.
The heron stillness of winter light
fades into myth.
A gull mourns.
A curlew weeps.
A crow caws.
The willows are speaking to the wind
greaving the loss of yellowed leaves
dropped as the days grew shorter
cut up and fed to wolves
thin slivers of time
and light
and warmth
are thrown to snapping jaws.
Soon they will be running,
chasing old fat men
on deer pulled sleds.

Springtime Wooing

A poem about owls….

Springtime Wooing

The owls are calling in the rain tonight,
Air hessitantly blown over feathered bottletops,
To assert a claim to airspace,
To serenade their lovers with echoes,
Hung amongst the dripping trees.
The moon is cut in half,
The hare with no back legs,
Settles early beneath the blackthorn hedge.

Jack and the Beanstalk

This is an old poem from January 2009, before I started worrying about things like correct metre. But its fun in its own way. I always wonder what happens after ‘happily ever after’…

Jack and the Beanstalk

Jack and the beanstalk ends happily.
Jack gets the treasure.
The giant is dead.
The beanstalk has fallen.
The End?
It scattered ripe beans as it fell.
And greed changes a man.
Murder gets easier each time,
with gold to protect.
A castle in the sky would be safer
than an old farm.
And why waste the bodies?
Long-pig tastes good apparently.
Mother can make a stew out of anything.
including trespassers.

Into the Quiet

An autumn poem from last year…

Into the Quiet

Leaves cover the litter lying beside

the road, damped down by early morning mist.

Networks of white fibre fruit through the layered

strata, picked over by unseen insects.

The bare black bones of sleeping trees

sway and clatter in the breeze of passing traffic.

Lines of commuters intent on crawling

to work, blinkered by frost tinted moisture,

miss the mellow light diffused by droplets,

miss the moment a golden leaf lets go.

I sit in the slug trail of slowed cars

wishing to be out, leaving foot shaped holes

in bejeweled grass, wishing to step out of

swipe-in clock-out time and into the quiet.

Sunday Service

A couple of weeks ago, I was thinking about what sundays used to be like when I was young and the first line of this poem jumped into my head.

Sunday Service

Sundays always used to smell of gravy.
The lunchtime roast tucked into the oven
ready for when we returned from church.

My brother and I were tucked, in our turn
into pressed trousers and woollen tank tops.
And itching at our scratching shirts, we were

taken to an extra morning of school
where morals and the love of God were taught
by fierce eyebrows and frightening matrons.

The brick building smelt of sand and dust and
woodpolish, brought to life by shuffling feet.
Greetings and gossip were exchanged before

entering a hall decorated with
a utilitarian pine wood cross
floating infront of a velvet curtian.

Hymn books lined the discomfort
of cold wooden pews that deadened the mind.
The organ wheezed octaganarian notes

to the monotone drone of ernest singing
from the conservative congregation.
We played with toy cars on the dusty floor

shushed and held still for prayers, we popped out
curious eyes around tight pressed palms
to see the quiet habit of devotion.

The inclusive contradictions of scripture
were explained in readings and tired sermons
that everyone would thank the preacher for

with a limp handshake and a weak smile.
We filed out and home to a lunchtime roast
and afternoons that stretched on forever and ended
too soon.

Until the Weather Breaks

A summer poem from July two years ago today. So far, all of these poems have been ones I wrote some time ago. There are new ones coming soon, they just don’t  quite  work yet. Anyway enjoy. (Caution: rhymes present!)

 

Until The Weather Breaks

The sun feels desert hot in humid air
that presses in and holds its breath. A stillness
condenses clouds just felt by pricking hairs
and black potential rolls across the hills.
Lightening heightens the senses. A flash.
A crack. The roots of the Thunder tree shake.
Wind driven wet chords, barbed with droplets, lash
out at landscapes, until the weather breaks.
Green shouts with joy, as grumbling clouds retreat,
and mourns the damp with the returning heat.