I ... entered the poem of life, whose purpose is ... simply to witness the beauties of the world, to discover the many forms that love can take. (Barabara Blackman in 'Glass After Glass')

These poems are works in progress and may be updated without notice. Nevertheless copyright applies to all writings here and all photos (which are either my own or used with permission). Thank you for your comments. I read and appreciate them all, and reply here to specific points that seem to need it — or as I have the leisure. Otherwise I reciprocate by reading and commenting on your blog posts as much as possible.

21 March 2015

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.

7 March 2015

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!)

6 March 2015

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


1 March 2015

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