A run in the dark
A run in the dark Headlong down a narrow entry between two high brick walls. Claustrophobic. Black, only a faint strip of light above. Runaway feet reverberating. Eeeeaaawww! Something leaps beneath me. Shy away, thud into one wall, rebound onto the other, end in a heap. Oh, just a cat… and I’ve given Paul the […]
April 2017 Challenge
April 1st, April Fools Day Here’s a poem by Billy Collins: http://www.poetryarchive.org/poem/night-club In the first line he uses the word ‘fool’, but this isn’t the subject of his poem. This month’s challenge is to do the same with a poem of your own. Well, you don’t have to use the word ‘fool’ in the first […]
Passage
She, is Sirius under cloud riding to the field of rushes in a birch canoe. From time to time she dips in a finger and shivers with cold water shock. Her breath sweeps in a gust past winter rosehip lips that mouth fossil kisses. Her blue eyes are pocked with dreams of kites, turnstones and […]
Secret sorrow
Secret sorrow So tender, still, after all this time. Just when you think it’s buried deep enough to be beyond grave robbers’ reach, someone puts a probing finger right on it. And the pain shoots again.
Redolent
This is not in response to the brilliant April prompt which I will endeavour to have a go at, but is an attempt at a mirror poem, prompted by the great conversation at Monday’s meeting. (i wasn’t sure where to post it) Redolent We are more present when we go revealed now in the same […]
Potholing
okay – perhaps doesn’t quite fit the prompt although it started off simple + I have played around with that mirror idea thingy we were talking about on Monday night at the stanza which is a lot of fun and I haven’t done 40 odd drafts and it hasn’t taken me 5 years – although […]
Revelation
Revelation Nothing to be seen but morning mist, disembodied bell tolling somewhere. Then chug of engines, wash of bow wave. The ferry materialises, gliding across the lake. Engines into reverse, churning, edging towards the jetty. We walk the gangplank, lean together on the rail. Cast off, under way, the shoreline evaporates. Absorbed into mist, both […]
April 2015 prompt
Maitreyabandhu is a master of simple language and conversational tone. It would be easy to think that not much happens in his poems but, for me, every significant aspect of life happens. This month’s challenge is to write a poem where simplicity is the key. For inspiration, here’s Maitreyabandhu’s The Man: The Man The man was […]
A tornado
This poem was inspired by a modern performance of the Rite of Spring at the Lowry. A tornado stole you from the grasping sky, unleashed an unkindness of ravens, a pack of coyotes, a tribe of monkeys from deep in the earth’s navel: tricksters to lurk on the fringes, steal food from the gods, angle […]
Drink To Me
Boys and girls come out to play suffused with fruity Chardonnay. Miniskirted girls fall down, spew up their innards, paint the town while boys throw punches, hit the floor, drink ten pints and wretch for more. They’re probably too drunk to hear time’s winged chariot hurrying near.