Six months of darkness –
six months of light –
six months on the starless riverbank,
six months of throbbing music,
hip pressed to hip. Six months of black coffee,
too much vodka, and the smoky flavour
of his tongue in your mouth;
Six months in a green garden.
Six months of power, queening it
Over all those fluttering, frail souls.
Six months of daughtering.
Eat the seeds, Persephone. Eat the seeds.
I’m hosting at dVerse tonight and we are looking at the Persephone myth. Check it out!
August begins and ends with a public holiday. It’s a month of dreams and disappointments.
August smells of hot fat and seaweed. It tastes of vanilla, woodsmoke and cheese sandwiches. August drips ice-cream, sits in traffic jams, laughs loudly. August plays the neon muzak in the amusement arcade, clamours like gulls, patters rain on the caravan roof. August is a pint of cider, a can of lager, a glass of pink fizz. August is Pac-a-macs and crushed crisps and village fetes and bunting and sandcastles and sun-hats and fleecies and the first blackberry and a sudden, mad dash into the sea.
grains of sand
waves roll endlessly
harvest gathered
The solstices suit me. I’m not balanced enough for the equinoxes – I’m drawn to long days, evenings stretching out like shadows, the scent of roses, pipistrelles flittering overhead, the rooks chattering comfortably. I love the winter solstice, too, – the early darkness, the nights of frosts and stars, the nights when the moon hurtles through cloudscapes, the call of owls.
I like coming at sunrise from the wrong direction.
I like staking a claim on night.
On this solstice day, the everything is bursting with life. June has brought roses and honeysuckle, the trees are leaf-heavy, the fields are re-growing after their first mowing, the hedgerows are frothing with elderflowers and Queen Anne’s lace, with dog roses and wild campion. It’s our moment to dance at the top of the year.
shadows stretch I am a goddess flower-crowned.
A solstice haibun for Frank at dVerse.
I am
blotter smudger scrawler
you are
the reader of instructions
the careful butterer of toast
you
measure twice cut once
I
spill the milk I lose my keys I fumble
yet, somehow,
in this clash
we found a way
to build a home
A quadrille for dVerse – the word is “smudge”. Thank you, Mish.
We are waiting for the rooks to rise
the way they rise each evening
the way they rise as the light falls
the way they rise as one
rolling bowling calling squalling roiling boiling swirling whirling
mass of birds
wings spread like hands
against the darkening sky
circling once
twice
then settling again
black leaves
black fruit
black birds
carved out of nothingness
and I wonder what stories
they tell themselves
about how it is
to be a rook.
For Lill at dVerse OLN.
I was always…….teetering
drawn to the edge…
where safety ends
and danger…….. starts
I liked………I feared
the air under my hands
waves……..crashing
the swooping gulls
the dip slip flip……..of my belly
I was caught……..by my own gaze
I swayed………..stayed safe
through luck……not care
until you reached……..for me
your arms…….my rope
my safety…….your love
dVerse has a guest host tonight. A poem about risk, for Tricia Sankey.
I’ve peeled so many apples now
my hands know the firm roundness of them,
the movement of the blade around them —
a sharp satellite, trailing yellow juice.
I cut from stem to calyx, downwards:
the knife runs cleanly through.
There is a wholesomeness to apples:
the white flesh crisp, fine-grained,
the sweet, sharp scent. The skin.
I’m echoing older, defter hands –
All Hallows spiral; petals sliced
from fine white apple-flesh,
fanned out and sugared,
blanketed in dough or pastry,
motherhood enfleshed, enmeshed;
the shimmering crescents splayed
beside a piece of cheese. I know
you cut along those lines
of longitude, stem down to calyx,
but sometimes, secretly, the witch in me
slices across the apple’s midriff,
just to view the secret star
all apples hold inside them.
Just to remind myself it’s there.
A fruity little number for Kim at dVerse
Curiosity
says eat me drink me
takes the narrowest path
slips between the trees
curiosity turns back
the white linen sheet
hot wax drips
cinnamon-scented skin sleeping god
curiosity fumbles frantic
slick key screaming lock
pulls back the curtain
lets in the light
a curiosity quadrille for dVerse. Thank you, Whimsygizmo. Lovely prompt.
My body is talking again. My lungs
are whispering secrets. My heart
says “what? what? what?”
but my lungs have each other.
They keep on whispering.
My feet want to tell the story
of the day. They are always working,
they grumble. My thighs
just roll their eyes. They know.
My stomach is quiet,
he’s listening. Sometimes he
grumbles like a toddler,
sometimes he snores
like an old man, but tonight
he’s quiet. All the long,
slithery length of guts
is neatly packed away, sleeping
like a drawer of underwear,
and my lungs keep whispering.
My bones know something,
they feel it, but they don’t say
anything, they can’t quite name it.
They keep straight backs,
stiff upper lips. They keep
their gaze ahead, but my lungs,
ah, my lungs keep whispering
their secrets.
I’m yearning to sit
in a golden square
in the late afternoon light,
in that warm silence
that comes out of love
and needs no words.
I’m longing for a sip
of yellow wine, cold,
with condensation forming
on the curving glass.
