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.