Dark – for earthweal

Firstly, it’s not that wild,
unless wild means still and quiet –
perhaps it does. Perhaps
it means becoming water
held with care. Something like water.
Or silence, and sleep, turning away
from everything, shutting out the world.

Perhaps it means dark shapes
that form and fall away – almost visible,
or soft sounds almost heard.

Lying, suspended, somewhere
between light and dark,
between air and water
between sound and silence –

thoughtless, because thoughts
are far too formed for this
contorted space.

Brendan at earthweal asks us to think about the wild dark, the place where inspiration lies.

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Bookshelf poem

Walk west –

exploring green lanes –

walk west again –

hidden beaches

secret water

the wild remedy

the places in between.

 

A poem I found on my bookshelves, for Bjorn at dVerse. 

Let’s give it some flesh:

 

Then, we could walk west,

exploring green lanes,

lingering. Leaning on gates. 

We will walk west again –

we’ll find hidden beaches

plunge into secret water.

This is the wild remedy

for all hurts, these are

the places in between.

 

Wild – for dVerse

I have known the wild.

There is a fierce joy there –
the desert air burns brightly.

I have been afraid.

I have dared.

How would it be, to live your life in sensible shoes,
in clothes that are neatly ironed? To wear a pale pink lipstick,
to spread it cleanly every morning? How would it be,
to build a cage out of cleaning, and polishing, and setting the table?
How would it be to wince at mud, and to watch the world
through a pane of glass? How would that be?

The wild calls.

There are forests and mountains,
nightclubs and music,
and the risk of rain.

There is the ocean, calling, constantly calling,
and the river that will take you there
starts here, at this bank.

Take off your shoes.

This is for Jilly at dVerse, who asks us to write about the Wild. And why not? 

The wild

I have seen flowers come in stony places,
Their fine roots crumbling concrete;
I have seen gulls nesting on sky scraping cliffs
And watched grass quietly creeping out over the lane.
I have held the gaze of a fox on a garden wall,
Heard a blackbird calling from a broken gutter,
Seen a tree growing from a long cold chimney
And ivy reaching blindly through a paneless window.

Who are we kidding? With our taming mesh of roads
And bridges, our glyphosates, our planned piazzas?
One day, this will fall,
In an orgy of vegetation – and daisies will sprout
Between our sanded floor boards, and bindweed
Climb helter skelter up the lamp posts,
And deer will browse among the rusted frames
Of our bark chipped playgrounds.

The wild is always there,
Waiting to return.

 

It’s open link night at dVerse, and Grace is in charge. This is one of the first poems I ever blogged, in April 2016 – for NaPoWriMo. The prompt was “a borrowed first line” and I chose one from John Masefield. In fact the whole poem is only 4 lines long, so it’s one I can remember…

I have seen flowers come in stony places
And kind things done by men with ugly faces
And the gold cup won by the worst horse at the races,
So I trust too.