I was not lost

Looking back, I was never there –
not in that room, that bed,
that body.
I was not lost.
I was too heavy – I was sunk
down in the dark, where the light
runs slow.
Blue shafts of sunlight
filtering down – my eyelids
barely touched –
my skin too heavy,
all my bones, too heavy.
I was not lost,
just deep, sleeping my dark sleep,
dreaming my dark dreams.

For Merril at dVerse, who gives us a list of podcast titles, and asks us to incorporate two of them into a poem. Here’s the list:

Articles of Interest: American Ivy

I Was Never There

Legacy of Speed

Not Lost

Pivot

Reveal: After Ayotzinapa

Rumble Strip

Serial

This American Life

Ghost in the Burbs

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Lights

There’s something brave about them,
flapping in the wind, but holding on –
reflections gleaming on wet tarmac –
the double dark of street and sky.

Gallant, I think. Old fashioned words
for something bold and charming –
even though I know the man
who hung them there, and he’s

not dashing. Not a man to bow
and ask you if your card is full.
Just one quadrille?

But something in him craves
these twinkling lights, so small,
so delicate. So brave. They keep faith
through all the darkest nights. They shine.

I’m hosting at dVerse tonight. The lights are on! Check us out.

My winter

My love is winter –
oh, the paleness of his skin,
and his eyes like January.

My love is winter.
He has built a home for me,
of storms and hail,
the winter things.

My love is winter –
he has carved
roses from snow,
lilies from ice –
a garden made
of hints and glints
of light.

My love is winter.
He has set me dreaming,
his hands so cold they burn,

my heart a lantern
trapped under ice.

A bit of wintry romance and whimsy for Lill at dVerse. She’s given us some song titles to choose from and incorporate into our poems. Can you spot them?

My Love Is Winter (The Smashing Pumpkins Oceania)
Roses from Snow (Emmylou Harris)
Trapped Under Ice (Metallica)
Winter Things (Ariana Grande)

I could have called this ” A Winter’s Tale”, I guess.

No mail – no post –

No words.
No rhymes, no poeming tonight,
just this blank space,
this white page,
stretching endlessly –

no trail of letters, staggering home,
no tears. No whispering
at the back, no shouting out,
no speeches.

Find me a space here,
tucked into the silence.

For dVerse, where we are saying “no” in No-vember.

Hunters. Moon.

Orion strides across the sky,
chasing a golden moon. His children
are out hunting – owl holds still,
listening: the world a syncope of heartbeats;
fox slinks smoothly through a pewter world
overlaid with multi-coloured stinks
and weasel dreams of nut-plump fieldmice –
all the world is glimmering and rustling,
feasting before the winter starves us all.

We’re writing moon poems at dVerse tonight. I’m hosting. Come and have a look.

What is good?

I went out one day to look for Good,
found a red vixen, killing
to feed her cub, a magpie
mourning a dead fledgeling; the sky
heavy with rainclouds, spilling
life on the parched ground where I stood.

A sestain again – I’m trying to make this form and rhyme scheme an instinctive way of thinking. This is a second one for dVerse, where our theme is Good and Evil.

Grey

Everything changes: the Good Queen
becomes the Wicked Witch. The grey wolf
gobbles up the moon, the moon
destroys the wolf. Take one step sideways
and the monster is a frightened child.
We, who are dazzled by the sun,
are scared of shadows. We forgive
ourselves, condemn ourselves,
spiralling round the truth, walking
the labyrinth, flickering between
light and dark. Nothing is distinct –
stars sparkle in the night, and clouds
cast shadows on the corn field.

For dVerse

When she cooks

Alone in her saffron coloured kitchen
she mixes up sugary dreams for us all:
ginger-bread horses with lemony manes,
cinnamon soldiers with peppermint canes.
and the sweet sticky scents roll out, down the hall,
and we smile at the smell of her witching.

A spicy poem for dVerse tonight, where Merril is hosting. I’m having fun with this sestain form at the moment.

Doves

This is something like redemption – this bright
shattering and shimmering. Each bird
is something like an angel, and together
they are light carved into feather,
light made into storm, or wind-caught wave. Light stirred,
made into something solid. Living light.

An ekphrastic poem inspired by this wonderful image by Lee Madgwick. I’m hosting at dVerse tonight, and there are more images and links to poems to inspire you there.

Running off the earth

into the air – not even realising
I was unheld.

How foolish I looked,
legs pumping, trying to run
on nothing.

What could I do?
I spread my wings,
I dreamed myself flying.

I flew into freedom.

My poem for my dVerse prompt tonight – the 4 elements.