Tag: Tuesday Poetics

Joy of Words

I find joy in words,in their different combinations:the way they flock like birdsor break off into sentences;their meanings and suggestions,their gathering in poems, songs,and stories of reality or fiction. I find joy in peace and quiet,time alone to read and write,let imagination and words run riot,to play with rhythms and rhymes,travel in space and time,revisit […]

Strangely Muffled

Strangely muffledby winter weather,the world is quieted:trees loom behind thick fog;there are no footstepsand footprints disappearbeneath frost and snow –  mind how you go! Strangely muffledby mountains of dust,as if a desert was emptiedover the planet,only the top branchesof dead trees can be seen;animals and humans wade through detritus. Strangely muffledby heat and thick smoke,the […]

Lady with a Parrot

Her life is mirrored in the bird:grey with a touch of crimsonin the parrot’s crest and feather tips,and her unsmiling lips. Red’s lucky for some,but she is a captive,tamed and longing to flybeyond blue curtains to sky and leaves, green as the bowl,from which she sips her tea,and green as her envyof the parrot’s wings. […]

Self Portrait with Clouds

I’d heard the voice but never seen its owner,loved the songs but never seen her face,but then I found her self-portrait on a coverwith the words; inside the music and her voice. It was the first time I’d ever seen a portraitor even a painting on a record sleeve;now there was a blonde woman’s blue-eyed […]

Pumpkin Inn

By a pumpkin field there’s an ancient inn,where the wind blows cold and pumpkins grin, and locals are distracted from their ale and rumto stare whenever strangers come. Those who choose to stay for the nightwill wish they hadn’t, with hindsight. Wrapped in sweaty nightclothes’ trammel,one ear listening for the keyhole’s rattle, the naïve and gullible groan and sighat the chilling look in a landlord’s […]

Falling into Autumn

There comes a day, betweenspring’s last blackbird concertand the first swift to fly south,when nature takes a breath. Leaves are already yellow,counting days that empty with their falling,their dusty weariness starts to show;tattered, brittle, they know they must go. On a blustery breeze, fragments of sunset fire to trees with a resplendent blushand a sudden […]

Awaiting the End of a Day

I wrap myself in darknessto escape the blindinglight of every day:the cup of early morning tea,the cheerful radio host,and birdsong in the garden,when all I craveis the quiet of the grave. I wait for the end of a daywhen there is no moon,only frosted starsin an otherwise black night,and the quiet flight of batscoming home […]

Catching the Heart off Guard

There was a time whenI knew nothing about life on thecoast: how the shore is buffeted by wind;waves spray salty brine above dunes; andseals follow you, riding thewaves glittering in morning light. Now I know the sound of gulls, they arethe music of the sea, laughing at humans workingon boats.  Gulls know the beauty of […]

Storm on the Horizon

“My love expands for six dark monthswhile yours retractsto rally againas mine melts away for half a year” from ‘Polar Heart’ by Simon Barraclough Salt marshes fade awaybeneath late August skiestinged with ever more greyand a violet obsession. My love expands for six dark monthswhile yours retracts. Wielding an axe of thunder,a storm skids hooves on dustof a […]