Beep

The whole world beeps at me
like an old video game,
pings at me
as if it’s cooked and ready,
alerts me all the time

I’m audio caged
by bips and bings,
ting-a-lings,

boom-busting my heart

I shall arise and go,
I tell myself,
and dip deep into soft swishing sounds,
singing, bubblings,
lappings, lappings, lappings,
wash myself clean there.

 

I’m back from a little internet break, and this is the first thing I’ve written for about a month. Bjorn at dVerse asks us to write an onomatopoeic poem, and this is what he got. 

I haven’t seen spring, but… – for dVerse

Spring’s a kid
in a bright green hoodie,
yellow spray paint, and purple,
pink and green and white –
tagging everything in sight,
blasting birdsong at top volume,
running, laughing,
scattering shoots and leaves
and petals, dancing
through the rain.

Over at dVerse, Jilly asks us to write a poem about something invisible but real – love, maybe, or a child’s imagination, or springtime…

Ginkgo – haibun for dVerse

Whenever I see a Ginkgo tree, I think of Hiroshima. Six trees were growing near the epicentre of the blast, and all survived, and continued to grow, apparently undamaged. One grows in the graveyard in our local small town. The branches spread over a path that cuts from the main road to the town square. That path has been there for hundreds of years – I imagine the town has grown around it. It seems fitting that the Temple Tree has been planted so close to a church. I don’t know how long the Ginkgo has been there, but in the spring the leaves are like small green fans, and in the autumn they glow bright yellow. I can rarely resist picking up one of the fallen leaves, so unlike any other.

This is the most ancient tree of all, and yet it is reborn every spring. It’s a symbol of hope, and of the resilience of nature, thrusting down roots, pushing out leaves, changing with the seasons.

gold leaves in autumn-
winter branches bleak and bare –
green leaves in springtime

 

It’s haibun night at dVerse, and Frank is hosting. It’s also Hiroshima Day, and Frank asks us to remember the horror of the bombing there in our haibun. I’ve chosen to talk about the Ginkgo, a symbol of hope. You can read more about the Ginkgo here: https://kwanten.home.xs4all.nl/index.htm

That time between summer and autumn

The blackberries have ripened while my back was turned –
like a child growing in fits and starts, suddenly
taller than the lamp in the corner – bursting out of his clothes –
and the apples are swelling. There’s a tree that I pass by each day
that’s suddenly covered in fruit.

The world’s waking up from its summertime dreaming;
it rolls up its sleeves and gets on with the business of harvest:
there’s quinces to ripen and pears tightly clenched on the tree
and the apples are swelling. The trees that have hidden all summer
are suddenly covered in fruit.

The sun soaked through to my bones, and the bones of the land.
Now we have rain – that began as a miracle, and stayed on…and on –
dimming the lights and soothing the fever, scolding us gently
for being so foolish, as if we are children who sneaked to the fair,
and gorged ourselves crazy on neon and spinning and swooping, but now
the apples are swelling and the trees that have thirsted all summer
are suddenly covered in fruit.

Did I mention the berries are ripening?

 

For Bjorn at dVerse, who asks us to broaden out our punctuation choices. I’ve done my best. I’m probably an over-user of ellipses…but I do love them so…but I couldn’t find room for an exclamation mark! Oh well…

 

I dreamed I was sorry

I dreamed I wrote a poem that made you cry
I dreamed I wrote a poem that burnt the page
I dreamed I wrote a poem that flew away
I dreamed I wrote a poem that smelled of chocolate
I dreamed I wrote a poem in a field of poppies
I dreamed I wrote a poem about a dream

I never wrote a poem that made you cry
I’m sorry I wrote a poem that made you cry
We were all there when I wrote a poem that made you cry
I was ill when I wrote a poem that made you cry
I forgot to stop when I wrote a poem that made you cry
I was on the train when I wrote a poem that made you cry

We were all there when the dog made you cry
We were all there when I dropped the plate and made you cry
We were all there when I ran away and made you cry
We were all there when the fireworks made you cry
We were all there when your mother made you cry
We were all there when the postcard made you cry

I dreamed that I was sorry that I made you cry.

 

This was my response to an interesting little prompt from Miz Quickly. 

It’s a long prompt, so you can pop over there and read it for yourself, and then give it a go if you fancy. I’m never quite sure about these very structured “list”-y poems, but I thought I’d give it a go. Having written it, I’m still not sure about it. I might come back and fiddle around with it at some point.