Discovering Three Pratchetts Not Yet Read

I'm sitting up in bed last thing at night

reading Terry Pratchett – one of my grand-

daughter's books, which I seized on with delight

when I discovered it so near at hand.

I’m visiting for Christmas. It's all right 

that I'm in her space; she’s a good girl, and

is young enough to like the blow-up bed

she gets to use in the front room instead.

Or else she sleeps on a trundle mattress

in the study, but anyway I get 

her room and her bed and – what happiness –

three books of hers by dear Terry Pratchett:

Sir Terry, whose name I shall always bless

for Discworld and its inhabitants – yet

this is tinged with some grief. Though they live on,

their gently humorous author has gone.

They are ‘young adult’ books, a genre I

often choose for its own sake anyway.

I may be regressed, but I don’t know why

I need worry about that. Reading’s play

in my book (ha ha ha!) and I’m not shy

of admitting this. Could there be a day

without a book in it? No, not for me –

glad I’m still here, in bed with Terry P. 

Winding up the month (and year) with a final offering for the Poetic Asides Ottava Rima Challenge.

I'm also sharing this with Poets United's Poetry Pantry #384, the first after our 2017 Christmas break.

Happy New Year, dear readers!

The Roses I Post on Facebook

My hobby is to photograph roses.

I like to find them growing in gardens.

The good God, whom we are told disposes

all things, knows how a heart sometimes hardens,

therefore is using me (one supposes)

to remind others of love and pardons.

Each comes with a message, unique each day –

yet all the same really. 'Be Love,' they say.

When I visit my family down south

in the temperate climes, I thrill to see

gardens full of roses. They spill and froth

and crowd and dance, and almost sing for me.

(Or is it that songs burst from my own mouth

in my joy that so much beauty can be?)

At home I photograph roses for sale

in hot-housed bunches … but still beautiful.

The words I add to these posts are simple

wishes for peace, for love, for happiness,

for a bright day – nothing original.

Yet people cherish them, feel that they bless.

I do go into my heart for them all –

risking banality, seeking sweetness.

Whether they come from within or above,

each message is really the same one: ‘Love!’

And again, an ottava rima for the form challenge at Poetic Asides.

Also shared with The Tuesday Platform for 9 Jan. 2018 at "imaginary garden with real toads".

There's Nothing Now

There’s nothing now that I can do for you,

and how it hurts my heart that this is so.

My sky has darkened from its sunny blue

as I discern that yours is thick with snow.

I always held to what I knew was true –

only to wonder now if I did know.

We were each other’s shelters once; that’s gone.
Like swords: the cutting rain, the piercing sun.

A combined ottava rima / ghazal, for the Poetic Asides ottava rima challenge. (Or rather, a quasi-ghazal – since, among other things not present here, a ghazal should have at least five couplets ... whereas an ottava rima cannot have so many.)

That Sentimental Place, the Past

She dreams of roses. Her father grew them

when she was a child, in all the colours

roses came in then. She remembers him

tending them closely. He would be outdoors

morning and evening, flexing his green thumb

(he hoped) outside his daily working hours,

and longer on weekends. The hues and scents

he revelled in, she treasures … and laments.

Yet another ottava rima for the Poetic Asides form challenge

Also shared with Poets United's Poetry Pantry #387

On Going Within

I speak into a void. He, Hermit, goes

so far into his cave, no-one can see

his lone attempts to heal his current woes.

I don’t know if he’s even hearing me;

he’s possibly so deep he never knows

that messages are sent at all. Will he

restore himself by hiding as in womb –

or does he pull around himself a tomb?

Another ottava rima for the Poetic Asides form challenge

Sharing this (nearly a year later) with Poets United's Poetry Pantry #428

Time Off

for Julie

She’s gardening, before the weather heats

as morning widens into brightest day;

before the dense humidity repeats

its everyday assault. Meanwhile I play

indoors with poetry, creating feats

of formal exercise – the kind I may

do seated: scanning metre, choosing rhymes,

while she indulges in more physical pastimes.

We’re both on holiday, and catching up

with things which called us in the busy year

but were perforce passed over. Now, to stop

does not mean inactivity. The dear

preferred preoccupations fill each cup

with our own versions of post-Christmas cheer. 

She brings me a tomato, tangy-sweet.

I try for poems good enough to eat.

Another ottava rima for the current Poetic Asides challenge.
It came second!

Also sharing with The Tuesday Platform for 2 Jan 2018, at 'imaginary garden with real toads'.

And What If Light?

‘And what if light surrounds us like a song –

or what if we are made of singing light?

You cannot prove these propositions wrong,

no more than I can prove that they are right.

Yet what if we had known it all along –

that light and music meld beyond sound/sight?

What difference might it make to you and I?

Perhaps we’d live more lightly, perhaps fly.’

He whispered these reflections to the air,

sending them out upon a rising breath –

then bent again to tend the garden, where

beneath the plaques folk rested in their death.

A woman came towards him, crying, ‘There

is where I want my dears, in solid earth

where I can come and talk to them and pray.’

Her tread was heavy as she moved away.

Around the grave-beds, grasses, flowers and trees

firm-anchored in the soil, while stretching high

into the air, moved slightly in a breeze

as if they danced – as if they’d almost fly.

Wind in the leaves made soft noise; humming bees

thronged the flowers. The sun rose in the sky.

The insects and the birds moved through the day,

uncaring of what he and she might say.

Another ottava rima for the Poetic Asides form challenge.
Also shared at the latest Tuesday Platform, for 'imaginary garden with real toads'.

Un-Scrooging

It’s Christmas time, and I do not believe

in all that crass, commercial carry-on.

I like to give. Most focus on ‘receive’

this time of year. The feasting, though, is fun.

I did that twice, the first on Christmas Eve;

then Christmas Day we fronted up again.

I must confess, the presents that I got

are great. ‘Bah, humbug!’ doesn’t hit the spot.

I had good conversations. One young man

regaled me with his fishing expertise;

I matched him catch for catch and line for line,

our heads together half the evening. He’s

a schoolboy, still a youth of just sixteen,

while I am far into my seventies, 

and yet we found such happy common ground

each counts the other now as a new friend.

On Christmas Day we dined with son’s old mates

(several I have known since they were small).

The hours of well-spaced courses, fun debates

with smart, like-minded people did not pall –

music, movies, books, fish, cheese, desserts …

we rose reluctantly as evening fell,

and drove home peaceful, happy and replete.

So now, goodwill to all! My life is sweet.


Another ottava rima for the Poetic Asides challenge.

Later: Although it is now far past Christmas (February, in fact) I am sharing this one with Poets United's Poetry Pantry #390

Secretly Super

These copper cuffs that ornament each wrist

are solid copper, not mere coated tin.

I trust that my arthritis may desist

as this good metal swiftly does it in.

And look – they also help me to resist

all evil, crime, wrongdoing, error, sin.

Raising my crossed arms like Wonder Woman

deflecting bullets, I’m an Amazon!

Another for the Ottava Rima challenge at Poetic Asides

Prodigal Friend

I had not looked for him these many years.

It seemed I must resign myself to fate.

Despite a sense of loss, there were no tears,

and certainly no reason to await

a reappearance. No-one reappears –

do they? – after such a lengthy absence,

such an unrelieved and total silence.

Yet here he is, with thanks upon his tongue

for all the truth we shared a decade past –

and suddenly I’m roused, as after long

and peaceful slumber, opening eyes at last ...

awakening to dawn and daylight, song

of early birds crescendoing, and vast

blue skies unfolding to the spreading sun.

Written for the Ottava Rima challenge at Poetic Asides

(12 Aug 2018) I've just removed first and last lines, which were banal and unnecessary, so it's no longer a proper Ottava Rima; maybe I could label it a truncated one.

(Oct. 2018) Also linked to Poets United's Poetry Pantry #423

A Masterpiece Takes Time

My son and grand-daughter

are making gingerbread,

wearing matching aprons.

Crisis: unsalted butter left out

went soft – but they find enough.

When mixed, the dough must go in the fridge

three hours – like short crust, they say.

They tell me the ingredients:

things I can’t eat, but they’ll give me

a tiny piece. After all, it's Christmas. 

The next item mustn’t be added 

until the last is measured.

‘Mix slowly into the wet stuff.’

The beaters whirr and grind.

A knife scrapes a spoon. I hear

deliberations, and laughter.

I expect to enjoy my taste when I get it.

At 'imaginary garden with real toads' Gillena invited us to write on the theme 'SLOWLY' in only 100 words. And then, fortuitously, this gingerbread-making began.  And here is a sample of the finished product, later:

‘May the Road Rise to Meet You,’ I Said, and She Said:

What does that mean? I feel like 
I just climbed a mountain.

What you want from me?

I don’t wanna climb anymore …

can’t I just walk downhill please,

to the next flower maybe?

May the road be winding and wonderful! 
(Feels like a tightrope at the moment.

Talk about straight and narrow.)

Found poem: found in a comment on one of my facebook posts. I couldn't resist shaping it into the poem I thought it wanted to be.

Later: Linking to The Tuesday Platform for 20 Feb. 2018 at "imaginary garden with real toads".

Random

Letting the pen flow

any old where across the mind

(you thought I’d say ‘page’, but

no, it’s the mind that the pen

– my pen – traverses at

random) I find myself

in glades of light, filtering

through tall, leafy trees –

in this country, we don’t

do deciduous, and anyway,

now is summer, and we feast

on and in the sunlit green.

Or I find myself (at

the tip of my flowing pen)

in deep, dark caves, which

nevertheless spell ‘home’, being

womb-like. Or else I wander

to a phone-call from a brother,

wishing me Happy Solstice.

(Will you fly? he asks.) 
I like the randomness of things,

of scribbling, though we pretend

there is order and reason. Ha!

My pen knows better. And my mind.

Written in response to a prompt from Karin Gustafson at 'imaginary garden with real toads', Writing Exercise (For Days of Little Time/ No Muse) in which we are asked to think of a letter, then a word, and go-go-go. 

Early and Late

Initially, passion shocked 

my mouth open,

made my toes 

curl tight, uncurl….

Finally, your touch

in its lack

chills my skin,
slows my blood.

A belated attempt to respond to the recent prompt, Micro Poetry ~ Fire and Ice, at 'imaginary garden with real toads'. 
Also written for THE POETRY OF THREE, Three Words Per Line on facebook. 
And linked to The Tuesday Platform for 30 Jan. 2018 at "imaginary garden with real toads".

January Moments

In my dark garden
wind chimes clang faintly, I breathe
the smell of the sea.

Steamy nights

on this tree-thick hill;
my grey cat 
sits silent 

on the top step, keeping guard

while we toss in heat.

Like my cats

the plants are very still
this hot morning.

The heat revs up
as the morning brightens.
What time today
will humid rains kick in?
Summer at full throttle.

Downpour.

At last a bud
on the rosebush.

Quiet –

the rain pauses
waiting.

Trying to come up with a poem for the new year, and uninspired, I looked through several years of micropoetry written in January, selected one from each year (with a bit of tweaking to some, on seeing them anew) and found that they could be read as a sequence. 

Doors

To visit Melbourne

re-opens a door

on a life,

on a man –

your father, son.

Well, it would.

When I visit

I always stay

with you, dear,

and I remember….

He’s dead now.

It’s 23 years

since he went.

How on earth

can that be?

As for you,

suddenly you’re 50!

The blonde curls

of the boy

no longer exist.

The old doors

to the past

open and close.

We’re still here.
New doors open.

Linked to Weekend Mini Challenge: Doors at 'imaginary garden with real toads' and to The Poetry of Three on facebook.

Change and Light

As spirit animal, the dragonfly is connected to the symbolism of change and light. – Elena Harris: Dragonfly Spirit Animal and Totem

When she came to see him in the hospital 

when we knew he was dying, she said,

'On my way here I received a message.

I am to tell you to arrange with Rosemary

a sign, so that after you move

to a different dimension, whenever

you are with her, she will know. It might, 

for instance, be a butterfly.'

After she left, we talked and decided

butterflies are too common. I could easily

explain them away as not really

signifying. I had to be surer, so

we chose instead the dragonfly – 

seen in these parts, yes, but so rarely    

as to be significant. And it has been so – at first

those moments when I missed him most acutely.

Dragonflies would burst from a bush

right into my face, or land on the door of my car

just as I was about to open it, or skim across

a rocky pool ... always in immediate

response to my thought. Sometimes I would even

open a magazine straight to a picture.

Then, at a Sunday market in a strange town,

I found an antique mourning brooch.

It is crafted from woven hair, in the shape

of a dragonfly with all four wings outspread.

I took it to mean he is always with me, 

or can be any time I choose to bring him present.

I wear it seldom now. My need is less. Assured

that he is close, I can live without reminders. (Only

sometimes, still, if I have a moment of sadness,

a living dragonfly appears from nowhere, and I know.)

Written in response to Bits of Inspiration ~ Dragonfly at 'imaginary garden with real toads'.

With Great Anticipation

I will come and join you

at the end of the week

and then we’ll catch up

and I’ll find out

what’s been going on with you

since our last encounter –

and that will be good, but

even more I want to know

what will happen next,

your future, how you will

navigate your crises

at work and home, and whether

you ever will meet that great love

we're all waiting for,

to whom you have come so close 

it seemed, once or twice,
only to discover

that Whoever decides these things 
had other plans,

such as death, betrayal ...

which of course

keeps you on our screens

week after week

as we agonise with you

and watch you grow,

both longing for and dreading

the final dénouement.

Women's Craft Circle

They are making ‘soft blossoms’

from pieces of fabric

that used to be clothes –

hot pink, shiny blue, 

variegated browns,

pale green, warm orange –

cutting them in circles

traced around cups,

then threading cotton 

on fine needles, running it

in and out around the edge

and drawing it tight.

As they work, they talk

about growing trees,

keeping chickens,

and whether they like

being addressed collectively

as 'you guys’ (not ‘you women’).

They are making soft blossoms

to decorate the rims of buttons,

attach to hair clips, 

dot around belts,

edge the pockets of shorts,

adorn the frills of skirts.

Brooke is smiling wide,

demonstrating ways 

to make them tiny like daisies 

or full and bulbous; how to leave 

enough thread at start and end

to knot them off, complete.

The tip of Kymmie's tongue 

is held between her lips.

(I do that too

in concentration.)

Bronny is showing us

photos of her drawings.

Suzie is holding up

her first circlet of flowers.

She thinks it's clumsy (it's not). 

Everyone notices, also, and craves

her necklace of iridescent blue

glass that she treated and fired.

Me, I’m making a poem

of what I see, which is:

intent or laughing,

open or focused,

all of their faces 

are soft blossoms.

Shared with Poets United's Poetry Pantry #385

Petals and Thorns

They burn, oh!

my petals burn

light has elapsed 

only these briars

glow eerily now

the setting sun

reddens the thorns,

their pointed tips

in the garden –

a garden enclosed

in dying light –

my petals flame.

Written for Micro Poetry ~ Binding with Briars at 'imaginary garden with real toads', and for facebook's The Poetry of Three. (Inspired – loosely – by Blake's 'The Garden of Love'.)

Published in HAVE YOUR CHILL, July 2018.

Full Moon, Dark Moon

The Full Moon

huge and golden

seemed to bounce

to our rhythm

as we rode

that tiny motorbike, 

hired from strangers,

fast and eager

alongside the paddies –

to make love

our first time,

in dreamy Bali.

Many months later,

back in Melbourne,

I heard you

that last time –

riding away forever,

further and further,

your own bike

large and purring

across the night,

while I lay 

awake, listening long,

at Dark Moon.

Written for Poets United's Midweek Motif ~ Dark Moon, New Moon

Also written for the facebook group THE POETRY OF THREE, Three Words Per Line

My Favourite Metaphor for You

(courtesy of 'The Little Prince')

I didn't keep

the fox poster

that spoke of

you / our love /

your death, in

a secret language

made of images.

I had written

the fox poem.

I thought that

pain enough – more

would be wallowing  –

but now seek

other fox pictures.

Their different landscapes

are immaterial. For

it's the fox

I crave, vivid

against any backdrop,

coming towards me

shy yet purposeful....

Bit by bit

I tamed you

with my words,

with my love;

but could, finally, 

not save you

from the hunters.

Written for The Poetry of Three facebook group.

Joining This Site

(Poetry of Three)

'You do know

this is not

a dating site?'

How I laughed!

Yes. Anyway, I'm 

not looking, thanks.

All the same,

a sweet fantasy:

partnering through poetry.

How utterly romantic,

if somewhat old-fashioned.

But after all –

there is that

obligatory number three.

No, better not.

Just think of

those messy, eternal 

triangles we'd generate.

'Poetry of Three' in which each line must have three words (no other restrictions) is a facebook group I just joined. They asked several leading questions including this one before accepting my application – and fair enough too, but this one did amuse me.

When I Came Here (Shadorma)

When I came

to this place of trees

their welcome

embraced me

and when I lay in your arms
enfolded us both.

Written for 'imaginary garden with real toads': Fussy Little Forms: Shadorma.

Return Journey?

"How was it, coming back

after hard adventures, 

to normal?"

                     I've never 

known normal. My path leads 

ever on; a wild track.

Games Cat

is chasing for toy,

dangling for toys.

Playmate must be me!

Solution one: there’s 

miaow. A try. Maybe even

(soon) me-against rubs.

Door. To - it - from: circles.

Chair (my): around she prowls.

Myself, I won’t risk the Her.

(Health / ill conflict ... as

food would relieve it too.)

I think she’s me-like.

She thinks me her-like.

Outside’s wet. It is.
Bored is She.

Although people enjoyed my recent poem Cat Games (because many people love cats) I myself soon came to the conclusion it was banal and boring. Under the influence of Carmen Giménez Smith's chapter, 'An Exercise in Derangement' in the book WINGBEATS II, I wrote it out backwards (incorporating two photo captions from that earlier post) and needed very few further changes to arrive at what I hope is a more dynamic poem.

In the House of Love

In the house of love 
I am but a decoration. 
I hang on the wall, 
ignored for the most part. 

When anyone does notice, 
they smile. I am pretty. 
But I count for nothing. 

I would like to be a book, 
that people would open and read, 
exchange thoughts with. 

I would like to be a spoon, 
to be dipped into food and brought back 
full of nourishment and sweet tastes. 

But I am a mere decoration, 
useless, unnecessary, 
with nothing important to do. 

Occasionally someone dusts me off. 
No-one ever applies polish. 
No-one ever takes a photo. 

They moved the mirror opposite; 
now I am even forgetting what I look like. 
I cannot see myself. I cannot hear myself. 
Perhaps I will cease to exist.


This is a fictional character, NOT autobiographical! Written in response to a prompt in a writing group, which consisted of the first two lines of this poem. They are from a piece of writing by Kyminy Cricket.

Linked to Poets United's Poetry Pantry #376

I Sing

I sing softly and sadly

I sing sadly and softly

I sing in the middle of your delight

and at the edge of your last anguish

I sing as if the day would never end

I sing slowly at midnight and quickly at dawn

I sing to the wind and the stars and the dark

I sing to the treetops and to their trunks

I sing to small frogs in the rainwater pipe

also to the bees that visit my clover

I sing in the cities, among their towers

I sing in rainforests and alongside rivers

I sing with the sea and with thunder

with jagged rocks and rising mountains

I sing in the language of a cat

and in the colours of a butterfly

in the pouring rain I sing

in the burning sun I sing

I will never stop singing

The Ground from Under

You are falling roses,

you are patches of darkness,

you are words unspoken.

Into the gashes between

your forms and seemings 

I plummet. Cliff walls are stone.

How can now an arrival

happen, let alone pertain?

Black and bloody, drifting,

I consign me to endless.

Slightly Broken

Slightly broken by being 

so deeply misunderstood

(divine light fractured

lying spilled on the roadway)

I crawl off into invisible.

Mixing with grass and scrub

and thick leaf-litter, lacy fragments,

torn off, remain briefly. Soon 

the weather will turn them into

part of the earth and the air.

Resting alone tempts the wounded

into further silence. Today

you become far away, you become 

the nothing you would make

of me. And I am merely gone.

Pretty Pierette

Some people hate clowns,

think them murderous 

with wide, round, staring eyes 

and crazy grins.

I, myself, despised

the lumbering, stupid

circus clowns of my childhood.

Then I found these others.

Now I am in love

with the clowns from the Carnival,

their patterned costumes,

their shapely masks.

Here at my left hand, overlooking 

the desk whereon I make poems,

there sits the loveliest of all –

a gift from a knowing friend.

Her white porcelain hands and face,

her elaborately painted eyes,

her bows and bells and glitter

show me she is beautiful but sad.

I know sad. Those frozen tears

on her blank, helpless face

remind me. They are for love lost:

remembering a different beauty.

Written for Poems of Garden Gnomes. The prompt: to write about whatever is just out of reach of one's left hand.

Also linking to Poets United's Poetry Pantry #389

Cat Games

She is bored.

It's wet outside.

Like me, she thinks

to relieve it with food,

but I don't inflict on her

the ill-health I risk for myself.

She prowls around my chair,

circles from it to the door,

rubs against me; soon

may even try a miaow.

There's one solution: 
I must be playmate.

Toys for dangling

Toy for chasing

Exercise: 55 words (excluding title)

Also linking to Monday Writes #125 and to Midweek Motif – Animals at Poets United

A Conversation with My Late Husband

He tells me, "You need 

male energy around you. It's OK

if you have new relationships. Later, 

we'll be together forever. 

But for now ..."

"Listen," I say, "I like 

being with me now. (And 

with you, still so present in spirit.)

For the rest, my little cat

is my new love, my sweet, my treasure."

Exercise: 55 words (excluding title)

Promises

I signed, 'Love forever'. He replied:

'Forever is a long time to love. How about, 

Love – as long as you're still

the person you are today.'

(It was a promise, not a question.)

He died soon after. 

Decades later, 

love appears to be forever ...

after all, he is still 
the person he was that day.

Exercise: 55 words (excluding title)

Re-reading Martin Pippin*

I have been rambling for days

in an apple orchard and a daisy field, 

in the fine company of Martin Pippin

(introduced to me by Eleanor Farjeon).

I was a lonely girl, unlike those

who stopped their play to hear these tales –

yet my childhood too, I recollect,

had its daisy chains, its golden apples. 

* "Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard" and "Martin Pippin in the Daisy Field" by Eleanor Farjeon: classics still available in print and as ebooks.

Written for a 55-word prompt.

Autumn on the Tweed

As I drive alongside the river

under a sunny sky,

the air seems blue and golden

up and down my way – 

my way along the river

now, and spreading forever.

Always it seems forever,

unbroken days of perfect weather,

Tweed River sparkling lazily –

untroubled, expansive,

mimicking Spring or even Summer. But

no, it's Autumn; that rich, warm season.

Autumn was always my favourite time

under Heaven, as the earth rolls around

to repeat its cycles over and over

until time spins to a standstill and stops.

Must we think of that while the sun is shining?

Never! Let's rest in the heartbeat of Autumn.

Note: This Tweed River is in Australia, not Scotland!

A triple acrostic, written for Form Friday – Acrostic (with Autumn theme) at Poems of Garden Gnomes. It is a hot Spring in Australia just now, but I love to celebrate Autumn in this sub-tropical part of the country. Not many coloured leaves; just glorious weather.

My Boat Song

Once was a boat that was called after me,

named as the Mary Rose,

tiny but strong to fish in the sea.

How the wind blows, who knows?

Once I was small, lived on an isle;

Dad called me Mary Rose –

his special name, making me smile.

Who knows what stays, what goes?

When I grew up, then I could see

feet made of clay, not gold.

Gone was my god, gone from that day –
old stories long grown cold.

Jack was my new step-father who

never usurped that name,

yet built a boat, showing me true

new ways that love became.

Once was a boat that was called after me,

named as the Mary Rose,
tiny but strong to fish in the sea.

How the wind blows, who knows?


And no, you are NOT allowed to call me Mary Rose! Seriously. The only other person who did was my favourite uncle, Tommy, who died in his nineties a few years back and who doesn't belong in this poem. It's a special name, not for general use, not even by best friends, lovers or husbands.

(I don't have a photo of the Mary Rose but she was something like this, with a pointier bow. This is from the Antique Boat Centre. As the image is marked as available to be saved, I am assuming Public Domain.)

At 'imaginary garden with real toads' Kim's weekend mini challenge is Boats, and she quotes many people's favourite boat song – certainly mine – The Skye Boat Song. Check out the link to find more boat poems.

I grew up on an island, often 'messing about in boats', and was later married for 27 years to a professional fisherman, so had many possibilities to write about ... but perhaps we all have one boat that is more special than others.