As promised, a couple of my poems. The first one is prosey although it has rhythm. I work to create rhythm in my poems. I know how many syllables a word needs to keep my foot tapping as I read. I don’t need rhyme, although sometimes its there – accidentally – and sometimes alliteration, which delights me, as in ‘the thunder rumbles’ and ‘A cup of tea to bide the time but no, no power – shower, not without the pump.’ in this poem.
STORM
Headers like sci-fi monsters without legs glide across the yellow ready fields
Young farmhands relishing the power beneath them
the supremacy of pushing through the gears that make the monster move and roar
adjust their air
the base and treble of their sound surround
Boss-cockies diligent for noises in the works
hold their breath for yields they need to give the overdraft a nudge
They watch the darkening sky
Drops of rain as big as splattered insects shock the dusty glass
then more
that turn the dirt to mud and have the farmers straining through their screens
Too early yet for wipers
A cloud like Hiroshima grows and spreads
then drops its load
The headers stop
The farmers who love rain despise it now
Not now
A writhing slash of lightning like a trillion L.E.Ds
scribbles on the graphite sky
its movement like an animated dinosaur in death throes
The dogs are off
They head for home
and push into the house
and shiver
in the smallest darkest corners
Mollie’s in the pantry
front paws inches from a mouse trap set
If it should snap she’ll crap herself
For hours the thunder rumbles like a bilious leviathan
The house lights flicker fade and fail
So quiet now except for Old Man Thunder
The fridge has rattled to a halt
No music or TV
Retrieve the candles
Light them one by one
A lovely light but eerie in the darkening day
A cup of tea to bide the time but no
No power
Shower
Not without the pump
And what about the chops thawed out for tea
The barbecue
At least we’ll eat
It’s hours now by candlelight
inadequate for reading
It used to be like this in olden times
Bring out the cards
What was that game we used to play
Pontoon
The rules
Not sure
A little life left in the laptop
Google it
It’s there of course but now the urge has gone
It’s Saturday
We talk about the weddings in the district
twenty firsts
engagements
still and quiet just like here
until the booze kicks in
With candle each we light our way to bed
The darkness drags along behind us like a train
Intermittent semis rumble in the distance
A power outage doesn’t stop THEM
but the silence in the house
the total blackness
brings on easy sleep
At 3 AM my eyes pop open
Kitchen light is on
The fridge now working hard to make up for lost time
The friendly little pilot lights
and bedside clock have come alive
The storm has buggered off to other farms
to dull and damp their landscape
We’re left alone with spoiled grain
but gratitude
for troubleshooters in white hats and in the black
of night
This next poem was written in 1979. My work of this era was quite abstract, usually born of some sort of pain. Someone famous once said that most great poetry is born of pain.
In many ways these seventies ones wrote themselves. While writing I would be open to the universe – a conduit from the ethereal to the page. When I came across this one recently I was amazed at its content, its metaphor, its complexity. Paragon is a state of excellence but in this poem I have made it a place. It is about the trip each of us has in striving for it – all the pain, harshness and trials along the way. In the end, in this poem, only a few make it to that supreme state.
THE TRAIN TO PARAGON
It is the universal face at every window
that beckons discreetly
Spaces for eyes
and fables in spaces
pinioned posters passing
Faceless-clocked cathedrals sighing
Ageless sparkle-eyed carillonneurs a-ringing incantations’ canons
Lifetime course on natural flight
Icarus in summer peril
screaming prayers to sudden gods
Births of symphonies at oceans’ edges
Ideas weaned from primal thought
Emblems flash in eyes of spaces
mouths of spaces smiling
in the ever-passing windows
of the train to Paragon
Questions to the face that answers brokenly
the ones who beg from close-range cars
hellbent on opposite directions
Efforts large to board the train
the lawless train to Paragon
Confusion when the face sublime glides grimly out of sight
Headlong express
as clamorous as anthills cruelly stamped upon
A foot as large as sacrifice
steps blindly into darkness
Tuesdays
Augusts
April crossings desolate
but flashing reds of vile warnings
Teeth of fathers clamped on hooks that dangle over chasms
Numb hands tied with ropes of leniency
Tongues of youth detecting zones of hungry lechery
There’s slavery in the carriages
and fingers losing grip on walls of sanity
Nipples sucked in hope of fleeting comfort
Attitudes as thin as poverty
Tongues ripped out and dropped in obscene corners
Pity on the rainbowed words that push against the gory doors
Phallic storms in teacups
run amok in aisles of naked exploration
Windows wild with expectation
of the throng without a captain
Journey’s litter bagged and labelled –
One of dreams too brightly coloured
One of thoughts that tarnish virtue
One of caps too densely feathered
One of gain at any cost
There’s weeping from the tail end of endurance
Sorrow’s gales lash those who lean exposed
on outside rails waiting
watching sparks of hope abating with the dawn
Speeding ground gained only by the quest car
Visions with the sleepers flashing
Routed pilgrims losing balance
rushed to Sheol
shed from faith like dead skin from an adder
And there’s whimpering from the middle of endurance
Those with firm feet planted doggedly as sailors
shun the influence of soporific sway
But brittle feathered selfish nests are scattered now
in winds of ready doorways
Blueing hands of infancy are prised from trying eyes
The frozen haste and cries of nightmares thaw
to shrieking animation
toned at length by sighting of the golden destination
No banner rumours welcome
No tree no day
No red geranium grows
A threatening wind blows sand and omens
over searing desolation
Victory’s station shimmers at the skyline
Whispers hang like heavy clouds arrested by the sky
Related eyes in stony faces stare an age at hope’s horizon
fixed as Earth to sun
till dismal doubt snaps cruel fingers
in the face of worn belief
There’s stirring in the carriages
Faintheartedness near gaping doorways
Frenzy’s devils dealing deathblows
tossing victims out and into deprivation’s wasteland
But there’s swelling in the huddled remnants
Lip of radiance kisses foreheads
grazes eyelids blinking into newborn wisdom
Rising throb of blood like drumbeats through the cars
Enormous hand of golden light
rests lightly on the minute train
diminished by the very wilderness of truth
On and smaller
Speck on cosmic canvas
coaxed towards the grand mirage
A siren’s song from Heaven’s bay
Sweet measures on the boundless train to Paragon
If you’ve made it to the end of this epic, well done. Only poetry devotees would have. See what I mean about abstract? I would have been in that state of being a vessel that was being poured into. No drugs!
I don’t know many poets. There’s a blogger I follow who is one, and there is a kindred spiritship in the reading. This person is getting up in years and I wonder about what it will feel like when one day the blogs stop. Well I’m now very much, in my own later years, into living in the present. In this crazy world, I have created my environment of enjoying each day and the surprises each one brings.
Warmly,
Sue