Monthly Archives: April 2019

Picnic – haibun for dVerse

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We took our lunch outside, and sat under the elder tree. It was in full blossom – the grass was sprinkled with white floret stars, and the scent was heavy on the air. You were missing your sister, newly started at school, and I was trying to create adventures for you.

white stars fill the air

sweet scent of Mother Elder

mother of dreamers

A haibun for Gina at dVerse. Our theme is picnics. I’m trying to keep my prose as tight as possible at the moment.

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Joy is water – poem for NaPoWriMo

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Joy, then, is water –

clear water bubbling like a mountain spring –

water that can’t be carried with you,

freezing changes it, and trapping kills it

Consider the movement of water,

the music of water as it tumbles over rocks,

the coolness of water in the heat and dust,

the way it makes the seed unfurl,

the gift of green.

Joy, then, is water,

drink it deeply,

then move on.

Trusting that there

will be another spring

to drink from.

A meditation on a powerful emotion, for NaPoWriMo. It’s the penultimate day.

So what exactly is a poem? NaPoWriMo 28

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A poem is just words

and spaces.

I write the words, but
the poem grows
in the spaces,

like the wilderness
at the edge of the park,

like the wolf
in the dog

like the weed
pushing up
through tarmac

like the seagull nesting
on an office block cliff.

Day 28 of NaPoWriMo, and we are asked to write a “metapoem” – a poem about poems.

Maybe this is actually a poem about metaphors. It was originally going to end with “the poem grows in the spaces”, but I can’t stop the words, sometimes. http://www.napowrimo.net/day-twenty-eight-5/

Three wishes – NaPoWriMo 27

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Three wishes, and the third’s the charm, as
April fills the woods with green, and
perfumes everything, like some mad woman
in a posh department store. You promised me
three wishes, and I whispered them,
hot breath, up close against your skin.
June’s on us now, and that hot breath has
burn’d me more than you. Three months
since you first made that promise, and the
first wish was granted. And the second?
I don’t know. It’s cooled a little, in the waiting. I
saw a life without you, and I think that
you saw something, too. No charm, then, but
fresh wishes, cooler ones; new dreams.

Day 27 of NaPoWriMo and the prompt today is to take inspiration from one of Shakespeare’s sonnets. I’ve taken a couple of lines from Sonnet 104. I guess this is 14 lines, so you could stretch the definition and call it a sonnet but I haven’t followed any other rules.

Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn’d,

Since first I saw you fresh.

Holding on – NaPoWriMo 26

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“Your custom is important to us. Please hold”.

You didn’t buy milk,

So my coffee is black,

And my hair is still wet,

But I’m holding on.

“Your custom is important to us”.

Next door’s dog is barking

And you didn’t buy milk,

And I’m doodling pictures

Of cages and flowers

And I’m holding on.

“Your custom is important to us”.

That dog is still barkin

And I’m wondering where

You went off to today

With that bag on your back

And you didn’t buy milk

And the kettle’s back on

And I’m holding on.

“Your custom is important to us”.

I wonder if you

Are trying to call

But the phone is engaged

Because I’m holding on

And you never bought milk

But maybe you think

That the milk doesn’t matter?

And that dog is still barking

And my mobile is dead

And I’m drinking black coffee

And I’m holding on.

A poem of repetition for NaPoWriMo. Nearly there.

Where have all the orchards gone? – NaPoWriMo 25

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Spring answers the question
in a pink and white flurry
the orphan tree in suburban garden,
pretty as a fair maid,
a glory of petals
by the farmhouse door,
a wildling in the hedgerow,
and a haze of slack-girdled bees
with their low throbbing hum.
A capful of petals
floats like silk,
and a sackful of flies
like confetti – petal storm –
faintest scent of honey
in the spring air.

All the ghost orchards
are awake now,
oaken pins and gilly flowers,
all the lost trees
are found again,
and the world is
pink and white.

A spring poem for NaPoWriMo Day 25http://www.napowrimo.net/day-twenty-five-5/

We are asked to write a poem that is specific to a season, uses all 5 senses, and includes a rhetorical question. I’ve used the question as a title, and included some references to traditional Devon apple varieties, too .