Poetry Bus 20th. December.

Weaver of Grass gave writers the single word prompt "STAR"


Daughter, Five


Her eyes grew wide when stars
blinked against indigo.
"From Earth they seem like globes.
But through telescopes on platforms
built for watchers in the gloom
you'll see five spokes. Like stars in school."
What child's afraid to scheme gavottes for angels,
tally their balance on cosmic pinnacles,
or juggle the moon's Copernicussed polka
if it suits her daydream? No room
for logic here, or lecturing -
she'd drop me in my quacks; wisdom
rarely keeps its feet in Wonderland.
I risked - "Stars like yours were common -
years ago." Half truth? Perhaps.
But it hurts to know when magic fails,
my small stargazer all too soon
must leap for her life's one choice -
let worlds spin as they will, eclipsed in bigotry,
or toil to unpick her Universe
with five frail senses aimed
out across the vastnesses,
true on some tiny star.




Note. Copernicus . 16th century Polish cleric who heretically declared the Universe was not centered on the Earth, risking the wrath of Rome.
"Copernicussed polka"  because no fewer than 64 equations are needed to fully describe the Moon's motion in its complicated orbital dance round the Earth.
Posted on 21st. December, when a total lunar eclipse coincided with the Winter Solstice. Best seen on the west coast of UK at 7.40 am.  Some rather nice pics from BBC Northern Ireland here

Poetry Bus Challenge. November 29th.

From 3 prompts offered this week by Dana Bug, I chose to -
Write about the place you dream of living someday . . . .

In an Ancient Kingdom
Anywhere, as long as there is water.
So here will do. I'd watch the quiet Tweed,
the anglers' expert wrists, the flash of sunlight
from their lines and lures, and peer into
the deep, dark, peaty pools where cautious trout
gobble and gaze and will not take the fly.


Or walk the uphill track to Linhope Spout
deep in the Cheviots. The legends say 
this pool is bottomless.  The river Linn
flumes from an overhanging scarp and flings
its moor drained torrent in. Wet-suited boys
follow the fall. They say the colours change
from clear, through yellow, yellow-green and brown
and brown to deepest black as they plunge down.
Here will suit me. I'll cheer them at their sport,
hurrah their heads as they come bobbing up,
yelling the thrill of being bold, and young.


And maybe best, to take your evening walk
along the low-tide sands at Bamburgh.
The sea is quiet. The breeze has strolled away.
Close to your feet the small waves lap and roll.
Inland to west, the sky turns red and gold.
The sands stretch on and on. The air turns cold.
Folk with their dogs pass by with quiet "Goodnights"
The brighter stars show us their little lights.
This lovely land. This good place to grow old.




  

Magpie Tales#42

Willow's picture calls up memories of mind-games long past!

In cycling "time trials" competitors ride "against the clock", starting at one minute intervals to eliminate "slipstreaming" and pacemaking. In the 1950's  hundreds of these events were organised by local cycling clubs. They were described by the miles to be covered on an "out-and-home" course as "tens", "twentyfives", "fifties." etc. Hard to believe that in those days, on summer evenings or Sunday mornings, competitors rarely encountered much traffic on British roads.

Class Act at an Evening "Tens" 

"This your first shot at this, lad?" Wally sneers,

"Giving up netball for a push-bike, then?"

Wally. Iron-founder. Hard as horse shoes.

Me. Grammar School. Sixteen. In Wally's eyes

I'm toffee-nosed and wet, no match for storemen,

strong-men, welders, checking out their bikes, 

choosing the chainset that will see them fastest. 

Little upstart, me, a time-trial virgin, 

poncy, all pale knees and Latin. Wally

thinks racing's not for the likes of me, and so

his next veiled insult is my "handicap."

More than two minutes! For ten miles! Big girls'

blouses ride off less than that!  He's telling me

I might as well not start. "No one will laugh,"

he says, "if you get lost, fall off, or faint."

"Get lost yourself," I think. So I don't say

I've trained long for this "ten," and half asleep

can clock his fucking course in twenty-five.

Which is what I did. My time screwed Wally.

I won the handicap event, in fact

lopped eighteen seconds off the previous best,

hauled home their crappy little cup. Stowed it.

Never looked at it again. And Wally?

Wally never spoke to me again, because

we both well knew I should have told him.

What we both learned of class, insults and lies

that night has stayed with me, remembered

from time to time with glee and hot-faced shame.

Microfiction Monday. November 8th.

Stony River's picture prompt is this charming study of childhood.

Haiku

Kicking through autumn's
fallen gold, my child sees where
a silver coin peeps

Poetry Bus. November 8th.

Prolonged Immersion

Rebuke, or pity? Spurning all life-skill guides,

oblivious to shellfish jaws and stings that leave

sure swimmers keeling, she dived young, keen to prise,

eviscerate and string the seeds.

                                                  The first heave

mesmerised.  The seven sea-tentacles unfurled,

artful to drag her down. The laden wrecks

rebuffed her questing hands.

                                             The glass-green swirl

yawed, paused and shifted her past hope of land.

Meshed with slow swells she grins and glides,

adrift on moon-drugged tides, which at their flood

roll, roll her  shorewards, till brine cold rhythms guide

this prisoner from deeps misunderstood.

In the sea's time, formless remains are hurled

naked, flesh gorged by seabirds, spent, unpearled.

Thanks to Jessica Maybury for this week's prompt. 

Jessica seeks poems relating to the sea, swimming etc.

Magpie Tales#38

Willow offers writers another picture prompt this week, and invites more than one response if writers so wish.  Magpie writers' responses can be found HERE.

Two Poems

Memorials

Something in these slabs does not quite answer.

‘Beloved Husbands’ and ‘Beloved Wives’

chiselled in stone, overlooked by angel wings,

seek to commemorate lives shared, with bliss

the elexir of all their days.  This is

not what ephemeral records show –

their silences, rejections and the blows,

the loving husband’s dalliance, cards or drink,

the wife neglected, beaten if she thinks

to gainsay the Master of the House. Ask how

can such belovedness be buried here

interred alongside poverty, despair,

the loneliness that the ill-married share,

save that to the dead we must defer? These

grounds are no Elysian fields, rather

testaments to conflicts, tears and wounds,

till Death at last sets the survivor free,

but, visiting again in time unites -

the victor and the vanquished once more One.

Hired hands cut their pretences into stone.

After Six Days

Now lies her little casket in the ground,

six handswidths small, a hand for each brief day.

Six days their daughter’s gaze outshone their dawn.

Now is her mother’s life too short to mourn

her passing? Shall six days be her reward,

the Seventh to be given to her Lord?

Was it for this her mother lent her life

whose love will not now watch her flesh grow tall,

play with her puppy, knit a dolly’s shawl,

kiss ribboned letters, give her heart in thrall?

She learned the comfort of her mother’s breast.

She learned her fist could clutch her father’s thumb.

How could she know she gave more than she took?

How could she know they’d hardly bear to look

now on her pale, still face? Their tears nail down

the casket lid. Their grief might crack her stone.

Her life is ended here. Here two deaths start.

What else is there left now to break their hearts?

Poetry Bus. 25th October.

The License to Apply for a Ticket on the Bus this week is HERE, inspired by Argent, who asks for poems relating to MEETINGS.


Revenant


At parting, saying -
"Let us agree we both prefer
'Goodbye' to tears.  Learn to accept
and not condemn. The past
never was the future's stage."
A carriage window sliced this valediction.

Work, infidelities and towns
slipped by to undiscovered ends,
while the unquiet ghost for half a lifetime
turned triumph - yes, even that - to puffs of smoke -
(Mists laid on English shires at twilight,
fingers on a candid lip in sleep . . . )

Then in some undistinguished capital,
Buda?  Trieste? - in just that sort
of backwater cafe where conversations
hatched against despair
stutter towards another rented pillow,
the smoky lights revealed -
skin no longer absolutely young,
the smile that lay in wait -
a dress that could not - surely -  be the same?

"No logic, dearest, please,
or laying blame.  I answered only
the motiveless appeal of happiness . . "
(Quoting another poet! At such a meeting!
I should have . . . )
Ah, but her fingers, placed
with such complicity, such care,
placed where the bloodstroke like a habit burns,
sought my acceptance of her affirmation.

My actress on her stage,
ageless and English,
her tear precluding tears.

Magpie Tales#37

Thanks once more to Willow for a prompt to reflect upon.

Last Night

This is where they lead, the wordless bargains

struck for this brief respite from despair.

Muttered endearments, dear to neither, fall

between these bought, uncaring lips and mine

onto these rented pillows. But ever,

with the act that’s no more than acting done

and the bedside clock sheds desolation

drop by drop, another’s breath is heard

in the sleepless dark. Yes, all unbidden

another whispers of an older passion

never mirrored in its simulacrum,

however red the mouth, however sweet

the practised kisses, however loving

seem the unloving arms. Then these tossed sheets
cannot spread wide enough to dry my tears.

Poetry Bus. 18th October.

NanU encourages us to leave our writing room to pen this week's poem.

Springs Eternal


Alone in the gap between two stools
where lovers fall - (the fools!), in the space
between devotion's rock and the hard place
of your disdain; between Old Devil
yearning and Love's deep-sea blues,
I'm learning patience. In time my lines will spark
poems from the stony chambers of your heart.

Magpie Tales#33

This week, Willow's picture prompt has a unique fragrance, in Etheree(*) form

HOTEL

Your

perfume 

drew me on

down corridors,

past half-open doors,

to yours, and your one line -

"Just for a week, dear, no more."

- a nightdress, warm with your fragrance.

Who would have thought then that seven days

would last forever, but the scent not fade?

(*) Ten lines. One syllable in the first, then one more in each succeeding line. 

Poetry Bus Challenge. September 20th.

The challenge this week is to write a poem suitable for a non-denominational wedding.

Avowal

I marry you with this ring of white gold

I marry you with every circling star.

I marry you with crowns of laurel leaves.

I marry you each day for all you are.

I will walk with you the labyrinth of days.

The days before you came will be forgot.

There’ll be no roads to separate our ways.

There’ll be no joy for me where you are not.

And at the end, as some day end must be

And we, our leaves and stars and rings grown old

I still will bless you for the road I take

this day. I wed you, Love, with love, with gold. 

The Poetry Bus. September 13th.

The prompt, from  MARION, is to write a poem based on a colour.
Well, there's millions to choose from on a hi-res PC screen.

To a Woman at her Mirror

Say Titian with his powders, pestel, oils,
had honed his palette down and limited
his choices to the plays of antlered flame
on burnished amulets and copperware?

Or Newton with his prism and silent face

had forsworn prima vera, summer skies, 

the sapphire's mineral gaze, and had confined

his rainbow to the glints that evening sun 

wakens from snow-capped peaks, that candlelight

spills on the contours of a violin?

Or, ask what might their canvasses have been 

if Turner and Van Gogh had chanced to see
New England beech and maple in the Fall?
A subtler jar of sunflowers perhaps?
Bolder brushstrokes where sea and sunset meet?

Well may theses daubers and dabblers spare
no effort, but their efforts don't compare
to the gold cascade when she combs out her hair.

SHRIEK

That Thing passed through my window

as if no glass were there,

my window just like air. And now

the Thing is out there, waiting –

Child, we say ‘by’ not ‘through’.

a window. What thing?

I seemed to hear it shriek -

and look at its gloomy cowl.

I cannot see which way it faces -

the stars, or scowling in at me.
Oh, don’t remove your cowl,

you Thing, so still and silent.

I will be good if you don’t lift your cowl.

You Silly! Are you fevered?

It was you who shrieked. You had

a silly dream. And what’s this cowl?

Let me feel your brow . .

Don’t . . don’t let it touch me! Don’t

let the Thing come in.

Enough .Go back to  sleep. Why do you stare

so at the window? There’s nothing there.

Only the trees and stars.  It stood

by my bed where you are. It’s awful hand 

appeared from under its white cloak.

Its fingers were all bone. They pointed,

pointed their bones at me. And then it shrieked.

Bone fingers! Tut! What nonsense!

Now, lie down again. You are quite

shaking.  I wish I had curtains

so it could not see.  Do you think

Things like that can pass through curtains?

Really, Child! Goodnight!

Oh please, please - don’t put out the light!

Please, don’t put out the light.

VISITOR

The barn-owl's wing is shaped for silence.

Her quarry will not know.

Out of the heedless night

His Fate drops slow.

What startled me awake?

A branch on the window pane?

A quaking dream? The sudden chill

of winter coming on?

None of these. There at my casement sill,

a tawny shape. The latch!  Her wing brushed past.

"At last!  I know your little room

under your lovely eaves.

Unclasp my feathers, slip

into something warm like skin,

and shake your pillows straight."
Her talons rasped like silk.

Her bite was soft as rain

while stars drew their silent circles, and

night passed on silent wings.

A September sun comes low

above the frosted garden. Beyond

the open window, fields stretch to the line

of hills. Beyond the hills, the wingless sky.

Sun, garden, frosting fields, hills, sky . . .

none of these matter now.

The barn-owl's wing is shaped for silence.

Her victim will not know.

Dreams, Endings and Disasters

Doc Williams, (nicknamed “Steamboat”) – he could teach.

But how to concentrate on ‘Faustus’, when

through the glass double-doors, beyond our reach

sat Hazel from the Girls’ End, playing Bach.

Remember Hazel? Heavenhazeled eyes,

hair like Golden Syrup, her sure touch

wasted, WASTED! on some baroque dirge

while twenty love-lorns, eager to explore the surg-

ing Terra Incognita of her bust,

hazeled, half-crazed with half-formed Sixth Form lust,

tried to read ‘Faustus.’?  “Westwood!”  “Me sir? Well -

‘Bell, Book and Candle. Candle, Book and Bell,

forward and backward goes Hazel . .’ “Oh hell,

Steamb . . Sorry! Mean ‘Sir’, Sir.” Come, Lustrous! Make

tracks for this fumbling schoolboy’s fiercest ache.

My mouth read ‘Faustus’, but my mind went blank,

apart from Hazel, giving me a - “Thank

You, Westwood. With luck you’ll get an E.”

Hazel completes her Prelude. Book One, in C,

rises, loosens her blouse top button – WOW -

takes a waist-deep, exaggerated bow,

sticks out her tongue – this behind Steamboat’s back.

But we read you, Hazel!  Your brassiere is black.

She stows her music, jams her beret on,

closes the lid, waves, turns - and  then is gone.

Leavers’ service in the paneled Hall.

Fox-trotting Hazel at the Leavers’ Ball,

her dancer’s cheek this close . . . her shoulders bare,

her long, smooth long smooth longsmooth polished hair . . .

“Your playing. Really good!” Callow, I croaked.

“My Bach’s worse than my Bitehoven,” she joked,

and kissed my on my rugby-crooked nose.

“Westy – you’ll be O.K.”  Well . . . I suppose.

And that was that. Goodbye School, Hello Life.

Uni. Job. Twins. Car. Satisfactory wife.

But . . hearing Bach, whose fingers stroked the keys

playing back Faustus, Steamboat, School, to tease . . ?

Years on, I heard she’d had a child.  One day

she slashed her wrists when Steamboat walked away.

Full Circle

It is as you said. The beacon

from the promontory beyond the wetlands

visits your little room and wakes

a shadow dance along the mantle.

A cut flower artless in a jar.  The clock.

A bowl of nectarines.  A snap-shot - you and I

ringed in some distant calendar.

And I,  and you, love, now in this veering light

have come to terms at last,

each by each forgiven and reprieved.

I cannot say how long the pact will keep.

for now trust only that our mood

has turned full circle -  or perhaps

we see where lifetimes of wan hopes 

have run aground.  I will not ask.

I will dim the lamp and watch

your beauty wrap itself in sleep,

beyond the urge of flesh or gravity,

free from your questing fevers.

The forgotten yet familiar makes us weep -

that blemish in the cusp where neck meets shoulder,

eyelids I somehow never quite believed,

the fragment of my name, the way you stir

and turn and like the beam that sweeps the sea,

beckon and pardon us, and guide us home.

An Answer For “No.”

“Milkmaid – lie with me.” 

                                    “Ploughman - dream on!”

“ Bailiff, I saw rude things this morn,

the milkmaid suckling a cow’s teat.

Sure as I’m born, white milk trickled.”

“Milk that stank of  . . ?” 

                                    “Witchcraft?”

“Witchcraft. Thank you, Ploughman.”

“My sweet bewitcher - lie with me.”

“Not you as well!”

                              “My rosebud, peach. . .”

“Hands off now!” 

                               “Suckler . . . I fear

your vileness was observed! Promise

to lie with me or magistrates shall hear

how you sent the ploughman for his frisson

to the horse’s wobbling rump as they turned the sod,

how, calling curses on our living God

you’d strip your girdle off, and give yourself

to joy with goats and donkeys!”

“Sir . . . you do jest! Begone! Such twaddle!

I’m to my milking.”

                                 “Maid, this is not ended!”        

“Well, Master Bailiff . . have you told the town

how Satan’s handmaid rips the hearts from frogs

and compacts these with feathers, which,

fed to young boys would make them daemons?”

“Nods and winks, Lord Justice, nods and winks!

The town smells woodsmoke.”

“Then have the turnkey fetch her. Ensure dry logs.”

“Madam, charges are laid that rest with me.

These can be set aside, and made as nought.

I have that power. Do you but lie with me.

I’d dress you in fine silks and tulle.  You’d live

in Great Hall, take tea with ladies, yours . . .”

“My Lord, what’s that they cry outside?  It sounds

like ‘burn’”

                  “Aye!  Burn the witch. But why,

when to be my wife would save you?”

                                             “Sir, my honour

is with God to give away. Who’ll speak for me?”

“Blameless you’ve no need of defence. Guilty?

No defence could earn your life. Your hope’s in silence.”

“Burn the Witch! Burn the Witch! Burn the Milkmaid Witch!”

“Shut the doors against that yelling. Jurors –

this harlot maid has whored herself with Satan.

One day a black cat’s her Familiar,

next day a raven. Her ilk search hedgerows

for hemlock, monkshood, belladonna. These

they makes ointments of . . whose spelling

lets them ride the air you breathe!”

                                     “Burn! Turn her on the spit!”

“The turnkey swears how in prison

she charmed the sparrows to take crumbs

from her lap, lips, fingers, while from the tip

of all three breasts – poured Satan’s milk!”

“In Christ’s name - burn the Witch!”

“Turnkey, what help? I do so fear the stake.”

“I’ve  nightshade leaves, which, swallowed,

turn torment to dreams and fading breath

before the fetters. You’d see no glowing torch,

nor watch your flesh ravel up like knitting.

Pay me in pleasure, against your dungeon wall.

You shake your head. Hag! Is your maiden hole

worth more than easy death? God damn your soul.”

“Burn the Witch! Save us from Satan’s yoke! Burn her!”

“See her writhe and shriek as they drag her out.

 It’s said if she screams when on the pyre, her soul

 goes with the flames into the fiery Pit.

 Silent, she’ll rise with the rising smoke

 to meet our Maker.  Few that well have died . .”

“Ploughman – the tavern! God alone is satisfied.”



(This poem written with the plight of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani
in Iran in mind)