Life After Death

For Daevid 

I've been reading a vampire book.

I like to pretend

the dead can stay in this world

in their physical forms.

Even if they only emerge at night,

isn't that when we most want them,

in those long, lonely hours?

But I know it's not like that.

Life after death

is a song you wrote,

a piece of music recorded.

Or it's a poem.

Life after death

is the life you lived,

the moments that stay

in other memories. Ours.

It's your voice we hear

so clearly, we look around

and see no-one — yet still

it lingers in the air.

It's your shape in a crowd,

your gesture

made by a stranger,

the set of your head.

And sometimes

it's a dream

so real that we wake

as from a conversation.

It's a message

entering the mind

in your very words,

your intonation.

It's this tree, that star,

the endless ocean,

the wind across the mountain,

the earth we dig.

And it's the surge of love

that shakes us all over,

warms us, enfold us,
brings us to tears … grateful tears.


Lining to Poets United's Poetry Pantry #244.

Reductions

Experimenting for dVerse Meeting the Bar.  A great method of revision! I wasn't happy with the originals. I'm better pleased with the new versions.

Grass

Always, for me,

the smell:

new-mown

after rain.

The window,

drops running down.

A few inches visible
the other side of the path.

  Original (July 2011):

  ‘Grass,’ he says. 

  ‘What does that word 

  make you see?’ 

  Always, for me,

  it’s the smell:

  new-mown grass

  after rain.

  What I see

  is the window,

  rain running down

  and just a few inches

  of visible grass
  on the other side of the path.

 ******

 Unmasked

 Helen demands,

 ‘What beasts

 inhabit my garden?’

 A marmalade cat

 sunning its upturned belly

 shifts its rump,

 flips onto paws.

 It stands, a tiger

 with orange stripes;

 flexes painted claws

 deep red with sparkles.

 An amethyst hangs

 centre forehead.

 It lashes its tail and snarls.

 A flash of sequins.

 Cubs shelter

 behind its flanks —

 a female ready to hunt;

 a drowsy male.

Helen, domestic and wild,

fierce to guard her children,

dances and flashes her belly.

   Original (May 2005):

Helen demands to be told

what fabulous beasts

inhabit my garden,

what masquerading friends

adopt fantastic disguises

to surprise me so.

I do not garden well or often.

Anything might appear

among the luxuriant weeds

and the long grass of the lawn.

I spot a marmalade cat

sunning its upturned belly —

nothing strange about that

(although it isn’t mine).

A sinuous wriggler,

it shifts its rump

and flips onto its paws.

Oh! when it stands, I see

it’s a tiger with orange stripes.

It flexes painted claws.

They are deep red with sparkles.

An amethyst hangs

in the centre of its forehead.

It lashes its tail and snarls;

I catch a flash of sequins.

Two cubs are sheltering

behind its flanks —

a purposeful female

ready to hunt,

and a younger, drowsy male.

Well, Helen, which of my friends

is both domestic and wild?

What magickal sexpot

dances and flashes her belly,

or passionate matriarch

is fierce to guard her child?

Oh, and while you’re there in my garden,

I hope you might plant some veggies

and give me a hand with the weeds!

                              (After seeing the original of this poem, my friend Helen informed me that  she had a ginger cat, and that one of her spirit familiars was a tawny tiger, neither of which I knew at the time!)

The Colour of the Ocean

He tells me the sea is green:

the stormy ocean.

He would know,

old Navy man. But I say,   

'From the shore

or from a boat near shore

the ocean is blue,

deep blue and sparkling.

Sometimes it's greeny-blue

or on a dull day, grey.'

I live on the rim

of the oldest continent.

I have heard the stories

of the first people.

I have watched the whales

travel south

have seen the turtles

and dolphins play.

Up north we skirted whirlpools.

The tides were 30 feet high.

The ocean booms at night,

and blooms with light all day.


Submitted for Poets United's Poetry Pantry #242

Outing

(Brunswick Heads)

My friends took me picnicking
with wine and prawns.

I got lots of photos

of fishing boats.

In a shop, I asked:

‘I suppose this doll

isn’t for sale,

but the entertainment

of young children?’

‘Take, it!’ the woman said.

‘How kind,’ said my friend.

I told her, ‘She sees

that I am a child.’

After doing a 55-word piece for the toads, I wanted to try another. This one is for dVerse Open Link Night: Celebrating Poetry. (Following Brian's kind suggestions, I've revised it in the next post.)

Boldly Going

Yesterday the news

that Leonard Nimoy had died,

and we all felt we'd lost

an old friend.

(But then, we didn't really

believe it either. Mr Spock

will inhabit our universe

forever.)

Today's facebook reminder:

It's 32 years since the final 

episode of M.A.S.H.

with stones on a hillside
saying that huge GOODBYE.

Submitted for real toads' Flash 55 1 March 2015  (55 words including title) and for Poets United's Poetry Pantry #241