He plays a paradiddle on the drumswhile his lover sleeps. The room is dim, no heat at the ending of the day,although the weather has stayed dry. She really wanted to go for a walk,but he focused on his drumsticks, work took precedence, with a new world tour.She turned her back on him, a tear […]
Tag: Meeting the Bar
Why?
Why do honeysuckle blooms spill their fragrance in the night? When morning sun creeps between slats in shutters, whyare dust motes ignited like fireworks? And later, the lens of day’s diminishing light freezes in the finalblaze of sunset, capturing a heron’s trailing gangly legs. Why does spring arrive in starts and stops like a dripping […]
Stolen by the Breeze
On stone pillows, the dead sleep soundly.but the cicada’s seventeen sad syllablesare immediately stolen by the breeze. In the morning quiet of the cemetery,the haiku master writes a eulogy, whileon stone pillows, the dead sleep soundly. Lost in his task, he dips his brushin a pot of black ink, and he hears nothingbut the cicada’s […]
First Kiss
First kissFirst touchFirst stepsAnd all the bees dancing From one of the poem postcardsSarah Connor sent me Night fell fastLights glowed in windowsChimney smoke driftedCondensation in the kitchenScent of homemade lasagneA walk in stars and sea mistLost in conversationMusic and memoriesOpen fire’s hissFirst kiss Misty halo aroundAn October full moonOnly light on the empty streetSand […]
Alphabetically speaking
(Because the alphabet is the brickwork of language)Cave walls had ancient words scratched on themDestined to become poetry. Echoes of lost tongues lurk inFossils long predating homo sapiens,Gorgeous, mysterious and soul touching. Humans staked a claim on poetry —In error I hasten to add —Just as birds wrote theirs in the sky. Kingdoms come and […]
Ode to November Rain
A respite from early snow, it pours from bruised clouds and makes the fields sodden.Drumming against my windows,I hear it in the garden,washing away words that robins have trodden. It gushes in the gutters,punishes the water butt ‘til it overflows. I listen as it muttersrhymes I never wrote—a refreshing respite from the silent snow. Kim M. […]
All Souls
I hear them through the chilling autumn mist,the muffled footsteps of returning souls;their heralds are the jackdaws and the crows. Before the sodden churchyard has been kissedby daylight skipping in between headstones,I hear them through the chilling autumn mist,the muffled footsteps of returning souls. The scarlet red of poppies will persist,although the blooms of summer […]
Invasion
Among the roots of dying and dead trees,they creep, no fun these parasitic mutantsall feasting on decay. No friends are these;Armillaria are spored pollutants,the bogeymen of stumps, and oh, so potent.With eerie shapes and honey fungus breath,they’re saprophytes of dieback, rot and death,as white as ghosts, they haunt both branch and bark,and trunk and roots […]
Ilse
As much as dill and pickled cucumbers,it’s the cherries that I remember most,growing on two trees outside my window,dark red, fragrant and so sweet. I remember, too, the blossoms every spring.As well as dill and pickled cucumbersin huge jars lined up in the cellar,you preserved cherries in alcohol for winter. From the fresh cherries that […]
A Gathering of Wise Women
Misunderstood throughout historywe were tortured, drowned, burntand now, amid the intensityof climate change, plague and war,we have seen humankind at its worst. Forget the shamans,Mentors and Chirons,all male, muscle-bound,bristling with testosterone. You need us wise women,us Earth mothers who listento sky, air and soil beneath our feet,the quickening of the seasons’ beat.We understand the textures […]