Theme Thursday 10th.March 2011

Megan at Theme Thursday offers "Space" as the prompt this week.


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.




(I have posted this poem for The Poetry Bus on a previous occasion)

Magpie Tales#54

In the week when a 6.3 Richter Scale earthquake struck South Island, New Zealand, Willow offers poets and writers this picture prompt. 

 Random

You ever see a big man really cry?

Even a man you’d think had seen it all?

Big Benny, captain of a Rescue Squad

that shifted slabs of brickwork, dug toward

the tap-tap-taps, the cries for help, the child.

What did they find, crushed in the bloody tomb

the shaking earth had fashioned? Benny said

“We were too late. Maybe five she’d be. Or six.

Her Ma had tried to shield her. She’d gone, too.”

He looked up, helpless, held out helpless hands.

“Their whole house had come down. The ceiling joists

had pinned them. Smashed them. But next door – next door

hardly a tile shook loose. Her puzzle neither.”

“Puzzle, Benny?”

                            “They’d made the kid’s jig-saw.

One with big lunky pieces for young kids.

She’d laid it on the floor, finished, all but for

the last piece she still held in her wee hand,

her wee mouth shaping ‘There’ – how,

I ask you, how could the house come down

and not shake out one piece, not one, yet kill.”

His hard-hat laid aside, his head laid down

onto his arms. His shoulders shook. Someone

said “He’s got kids too. Get the lad some tea.”

Outside. a thin rain falls damping the dust.

Folk jabber on cellphones, their day in chaos,

or sit, stare, ask how can they help, mothers,

old men, firecrews, paramedics, schoolboys,

those running they know not where to flee their fear,

even the petty thieves, pushers and crooks

today in these torn streets are worth his tears 

Poetry Bus 21st February

120 Socks is driving the Bus this week and offers the single word "AMBER" for the prompt.

Pillage, 1941

Russia’s forebodings come too late.

Or invasion comes too soon?



Under a baleful moon


thugs in grey uniform come

to Petersburg, to Russia’s Amber Room.


No need to be discreet. No need

to whisper. No need for look-outs.

They have raped all Europe.

Consummate in all Destructive Arts,


they shall be victors. And
 victors

get the spoils.
These treasures are German now. 



No marble, no carved wood or silverwork.

Each wall seems spun from sunsets' glow,

this gold-brown chamber laced with gems –

testament to skill, pride, craftsmanship.

But men weaned on drivel cannot comprehend

such splendour. So every panel and divan


each casket, chandelier, mirror – every trace

is dumped into boxes and is hauled away.



There is no backward glance, and no-one lingers,

and more, yet more cold blood drips from their fingers.

The story of Germany’s appropriation of Catherine the Great’s Amber Room during Operation Barbarossa can be read HERE and HERE.

. 

Magpie Tales. First Birthday.

The 52nd picture-prompt from Willow -

All Houses

keep their dear alloted ghosts. Sometimes

a vagueness caught out of

the corner of your eye. Or,

hearing a stair-tread creak, you

listen for someone who will not be there.

Evenings bring them out. They

ease doors open, slowly.

No. It could not be. Don’t look. Don't dare.

Mornings are safer.  Morning ghosts

are bats or birds shut in. These are real,

rattling through hallways bare of all but fear,

You’re safe from daylight ghosts, yet . . .

wings brush your arm the way she – till through

eaves or open window they get free.

Sometimes, glancing up, you’re sure

to turn some play of light through trees into -

white dress striped green and golden – throw

open, throw wide the door. It must be, now must be -

Only the expected garden, silent,

desolate, a ghost your company.

Magpie#48

Willow's picture prompt this week encourages musical responses.

A Piano Lesson on “La Fille aux Cheveux de Lin”

(Prelude. Claude Debussy, 1910)

G flat or E flat minor?  Should we care?

She’s trapped in five-barred prisons of black dots.

Our task? To set her free.  Forget “Rigeur”

Play her as Debussy must have seen her.

Or play like Renoir, had he but painted songs

of Provence swathed in purples, gold and blue,

drowsing in the long, long summer’s ground-bass 

where field and Alp and this short Prelude

greet her, twelve tones deep in lavender.

Play that first note to tell her that you’re there!

Pause till she lifts the latch, opens the door,

steps out in her little shoes - such dainty shoes!

Let her pace these down-and-up arpeggios, wearing -

straw hat, long skirts - white muslin stitched with blue

over ruched pantaloons, her bodice trim,

a lacy shawl, and ribbons, ribbons, ribbons

on her breast and hat and hair, a wicker trug

for rose-hips by her way. She turns, squints in the sun

whose beams fall stepwise to the garden gate,

pointing the path to where her sweetheart waits.

Think of her fingers busy with wild flowers

to help you through those four-part fugal bars, then

let the next rising measures sound as though

she’s pondering. Should she dare to jump the stream?

(Petite cherie! Look to the stepping-stones!)

Now make Degas look over Renoir’s shoulder,

as the forte triplets, presaging grande jete

send her hat skimming. She leaps  - unladylike,

but no Maman to scold – lands safe,

picks up her hat, laughs at her fun . . . So why

these gloomy chords like clouds (with pedal) laid

between her sixteen summers and the sun?

No matter!  Here’s where she sings the first motif,

(coaxed dolce from the treble - lift the mood . . . )

Someone close by is calling out her name.

She does not need to ask “Who’s there?”

as the last spread chord drifts slowly, like

a sweetheart’s fingers through her flaxen hair.


Note.  This poem written at an earlier date, i.e. not specifically a response to the prompt.

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.