Poetry

Verbing

humanist55

Poets driving their partners mad
onomatapaeing in the bathroom
the bedroom every b’ing room
leaving their careful sprinkle of words
in maddening messes on floors
on desks and dining room tables

Don’t get me started on allitering
papering, notebooking
back of fag-packeting
and not just analoguing on paper
penning, pencilling
biroing and brushing
but phone and computering
Google Keeping
Wording and Notebooking
Self-reminding messages
and Whatsapping words
in the wee small hours
from Dictator apps…

Poets burrowing into the web
to prompting and challenges
near and far, chapbooking
and self-publishing
“Editor seeking with a view
to “proper” publishing”
slamming and live meeting
to largely enthusiastic audiences
or those long-suffering partners

Imagist or metaphoring
epic realist or lyricisticly
minimalisting their themes
in seventeen syllables
from social satire to
inner deep-digging from
amorosing to tragedising
politacalling or environmental
consciencing – raising the banners
– poets just can’t –
keep their pen in their pants…

© Andrew Wilson 2026

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Björn Rudberg (brudberg) in Meeting the Bar: Critique and Craft, invites us to celebrate  the concept of verbification – “nouns and adjectives that are just waiting to take action. Not only that, as verbs they may work even better as metaphors.”

As requested, there are a few words here that the spellchecker frantically red-lined…

Wonder

humanist55

I wrote this poem for the monthly meeting of the Keighley Library Poetry Group. As their name suggests, they are a Real World group of poets and most of them have little or no online prescence. The theme this month was Wonder, which was also the theme for National Poetry Day. The first three lines of stanza 2 became part of my poem Occasions to Tear Up – which I posted earlier, here… I would say that Joni Mitchell’s Shine was definitely an influence on this, and other poems of mine…

I wonder at the world
at the state we have gotten into
wonder polluters and their enabling
politicians can live with themselves
wonder what their grandchildren
will make of their legacy

Wonder at the wonder
in a newborn’s eyes
at the questioning of the future
in the eyes of the soon to depart
whether a lifetime of belief
or disbelief will soon be vindicated

Wonder at young love and at
those who make it through decades
or find love in their seventies
fresh wonder blossoming
wondering how one love is sufficient for some
and others can never garner enough

Wonder at the fishermen who risk their lives
to put food on our tables
and at the machines that cut trees
with less risk to the lumberjack
the miners ever endangered
in the deeps underground

Wonder at the artist who sees
the world differently and the poet
who finds new word orders
to describe the world order
from lyrical nature
to twisted destruction

Wonder at the gardeners
who plant with faith that each new
Spring will be kind to their crop
and the Truffle pigs who do not
fear the forest fire but live to sniff out
treasure beneath the next tree

Wonder if we will develop the tools
to see an asteroid coming in time
to cling to our loved ones
wonder whether life started
in the hell of deep-sea gas vents
before working its way up to the light

Wonder if there are others out there
swinging round other stars too far
to ever have the chance of meeting us
wonder if the speed of light is the limit
or wormholes can send us across the galaxy
like cash in Pneumatic Tube Transports

Wonder if global warming
will fry the world or counterintuitively
tip us into the next ice age
wonder whether to stock up on
woolly jerseys and snowshoes
or buy shares in sunscreen

Will I die in my sleep
at a ripe old age
in possession of all my marbles
or be crushed on a Bradford road
by a road raging, queue jumping
petrolhead – I wonder…

Wonder how Joni Mitchell
knew when enough was enough
when she wrote Shine…

© Andrew Wilson, 2026

Mars-bound…

humanist55

He thinks the complexities
of climate change
too gnarly to
change course

he’s set his sights
on settling another planet
spaffing mega bucks
to fire off rockets

some of which increased
his wealth – seeding satellites
in an unholy net across
the heavens

a net, he says, to give others
the power to learn
– the dream of making
it to the top like him

the power to aim weapons
but his finger is always
the one on the kill switch
if your aims don’t match his…

the power to fly uber-rich
to admire the blighted
but still beautiful Earth from
brief sub-orbital sojourns

he thinks himself above
the hoi polloi
spends his millions
to bend their votes

will his legacy be any more
than Ozymandias
half buried in the
desert sands of Mars?

© Andrew Wilson, 2026

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, lillian is hosting Live, OpenLinkNight, when we can post a poem of our choice – I wrote this for Akua Lezli hope’s Mini Speculative Poetry Book challenge…

Angela – Portrait of a Lady…

humanist55
Juan Luna, Portrait of a Lady

I lie here languid as a lily of the field
in the reverie of an artist’s model
I may look demure
what with my rosary between my hands
as requested by his nibs
but he also tipped my negligée strap
from my right shoulder
baring the nip
“The perfect mix of
seductive and saintly”
according to him
I am really just here for the money
and if there are extras
once he has had enough of painting
I get a little more…
I know I’m his favourite model
‘cos he always asks for me and gets cross
so they tell me
if I’m otherwise engaged
of course, he’s married
which is a relief really
I hate it when they get all enamoured
and desperate and I
have to explain
– it’s the single life for me, ducks…
The only thing’s strange
about modelling for
artists, is how they stare at you
so intensely – and yet it’s like they’re
not really seeing you…

© Andrew Wilson, 2026

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Melissa Lemay in Poetics, invites us to a haunting selection of ekphrastic prompts, with a stipulation of 31 lines or less as the only limitation…

Juan Luna was a famous Filipino painter, who shot and killed his wife and mother-in-law and severely injured his brother-in-law. He was later acquitted as the crimes were considered to be “a crime of passion.”

While many believed the painting to depict his late wife, Paz, art historians assert that the physical features are that of Angela Duche, who was a favorite model of Luna’s.

According to legend, owners of the painting suffered misfortunes such as illness, bankruptcy, car crashes, and other tragedies. It is believed that at a showing of the artwork in the Metropolitan Museum of Manila in 1987, a spotlight bulb directly over the painting mysteriously exploded. The painting is currently housed at the National Museum of the Philippines.

Occasions to Tear Up…

humanist55

Never having had a baby of my own
I always check out strollers
hoping to catch the newly delivered
out of the womb and into the world
– that wide-eyed look of wonder of “Where on Earth am I now…”

The moment I looked into them
I was lost or maybe found
drowned in those blue eyes
or maybe saved
– thrown a life-ring on a long lifeline

I watch “Here” a movie that explores
the inhabitants of a place then house
from prehistory to the present
with familial moments of life’s joys
and tragedy such as dementia

Forty-seven children and teachers
board my train and one sits next to me
I ask what she will remember from
visiting Saltaire – not the Hockney Gallery
but playing in Roberts Park

With age I move from making memories
to reviewing them and observing in others
the actions and dramas that make a life
and lose count of the number of times
each day that I find occasions to tear up…

© Andrew Wilson, 2026

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Laura Bloomsbury in Meeting the Bar: Critique and Craft invites us to write an Imagist Cadralor poem in five stanzas.

  • 5 numbered stanzas
  • choose 3-10 lines per stanza (but keep same chosen stanza length throughout)
  • each stanza stands alone as an imagist poem (just the obliquest of connections)
  • 5th stanza pulls the 4 unrelated stanzas together into a poem of love, of yearning
  • rhymes and syllabic meter are NOT wanted

The Cadralor is a hybridised name from the 2 inventors, Lori Howe and Christopher Cadra

Pilgrim’s Progression…

humanist55

Pilgrim has a difficult birth
 but his brain is too young
for it to leave scars
his mother’s body is not so lucky
pilgrim will be her last baby

pilgrim has a special place
in his mother’s heart
 And she weeps when kids at school
call him not special, but runt
and she hugs him tighter

Pilgrim walks his own path
with few companions in real life
but books and films fill his imagination
with places, heroes, villains vanquished
and true love found, he is not lonely

Pilgrim breezes through college
blossoming in the fresh soil
where no one knows his story
finds friends, and adventurers of the mind
though love as yet eludes him

Pilgrim charts a course for his future
he is not afraid to take the lonely road
in search of knowledge of the world
what he discovers, under northern skies
will change the world for everyone

Pilgrim’s reports are not welcomed
by everyone but he has seen the truth
and slurs and spurs of fortuneers
hold no power over Pilgrim
who pushes  truth to power regardless

Pilgrim finds love amongst his supporters
a heart attuned to his values
body set to walk beside him
Pilgrim sees how life has led him
to this place, his love – in and out of the world

Pilgrim led the way
thousands followed in his footsteps…

© Andrew Wilson, 2026

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Björn Rudberg (brudberg) in Poetics, invites us to write a poem on the theme of pilgrimage…

Five Directions of Escape…

humanist55

Silsden
in Cobbydale you will always
be an incomer to
those who lived here
always

Always
Northern Lights beckon – mystical
Earth’s shield made visible
– too cold and dark
perhaps

Perhaps
the sunny South could warm our bones
but heat is hard to bear
when, old, you seek
travel

Travel
East to Holland’s green and wet heart
go on – circle the Earth
return home from
the West

The West
land of Tír na nÓg where we
may live eternally
beyond our lives’
sunset…

© Andrew Wilson, 2026

Over at dVerse Poets Pub,  Laura Bloomsbury in Meeting the Bar: Critique and Craft, invites us to write about leaving home…

  • 25 lines
  • 5 stanzas –
    • 1st stanza is your home (real or imaginary)
    • next 4 stanzas – each compass point away from your home
  • 5 lines per stanza – quintain
    • syllabic structure, optional rhyme (Crown Cinquain)*
    • OR
    • unrhymed and unstructured (Pentastitch)
  • the title should begin or include: “Five …………”

The Crown Cinquain is a new one on me…

Farewell Dolly Parton

humanist55

I heard the news today
that U.S. flags fly at half-mast
for Dolly Parton passed away
and I admit that in the past
I found her songs embarrassed me
D-I-V-O-R-C-E and Jolene
– Coat of Many Colours seemed
mawkish to my younger self
Country Music as a whole I deemed
outside my broad musical taste
but life rubbed off my sharp edges
and the spangled Queen of Country
serious, caring voice came to articulate
the various emotions whether
experienced or vicarious that make us
human, empathetic, emotional creatures
Dolly, for me, joined Dickens and Steinbeck
Vonnegut, Irving and Heller
Woody and Johnny
Billie, Bessie and Patsy
in weaving strands of social history
binding them with music from folk,
blues and bluegrass, Appalachian,
rock and pop – winning me over
whole-heartedly
– collaborators like Linda and Emmylou
blended their voices with Dolly’s
in sweetest harmony
so today I can but weep that the fate
that comes to all of us eventually
has placed another star
in the firmament…

© Andrew Wilson, 2026

I wrote this on Wednesday when the sad news of Dolly Patron’s death was announced but I am sharing it with dVerse Poets Pub Open Link Night hosted by  Grace. Apart from anything else, it is a tale of how one grows and matures and reaches different understandings…

Firefight

humanist55

He’s a bitter, fascinated
dangerous, pyro-twisted
firestarter

exulting, burning, destroying
racing and dancing and jumping
mad firebug

nightmare task to then put it out
stoking professionals’ self-doubt
the fireman

fighting fires of stupidity
or perhaps mad idiocy
faces firelit

their only thought to douse the flame
and afterwards assign the blame
post firefight…

Over at dVerse Poets Pub,  Laura Bloomsbury in Meeting the Bar: Critique and Craft, invites us to write a poem incorporating compound words, in a
form invented by Margaret R. Smith (source here):-

poem’s title includes the stem word

15 lines

5 stanzas

3 lines per stanza

rhyme scheme a,a,b

meter 8/8/3

last line of each stanza includes a compound word using the same stem
e.g. footsore, footstool, footage; OR underfoot; pussyfoot etc

I should say that Barbara and I have been bingeing “Fire Country”…

For the Love of Clouds…

humanist55

Cumulus clouds towering like mountains, boiling and roiling up above the plains, cauliflower crisp at the growing tops, losing definition and melting into wispy cotton-candy fluff as the cloud moves on -Cumulus Mammatus drooping multiple, witchy breasts that offer no succour beyond pouring rain from the grey underside of who knows how big a storm – photographs of motherships ominous over Texas – clouds I will never likely see in person, but regard in awe at nature’s power – mixing warm-moist air from the Gulf, hot-dry South-western and Mexican, with cool-dry Canadian in an unholy cocktail that drops twisters on the panhandle and whisks away more than Dorothy and Toto in Kansas… On a calmer day, coruscating cirrus mackerel-sky not to be confused with expanding contrails crisscrossing the blue, and definitely not the chemtrail nightmares of conspiracy theorists, make a halo around the sun on high, or the moon at night, whilst grey-day lowering stratus brings dampening drizzle followed by heavier rain as a front closes in – clouds caught on mountain tops or melting as mist in valleys when the sun comes up – clouds layered in all their glorious types from the ground up to the realm of the noctilucent and sprites seen only from space – a mystery not yet explained by Atmospheric Physics – and all possessed of an ever changing beauty that cloaks and swirls around our blue planet…

© Andrew Wilson, 2026

I missed the deadline for Mr Linky over at dVerse Poets Pub, where Lisa or Li in Poetics, invited us to write about Weather, something that Global Warming consequences have forced everybody around the world, to pay attention to ( and not just we weather obsessed Brits!). Li also gave a shout out to some previous posts on weather, including mine as guest editor in 2024.

Stuart McPherson wrote a prompt about weather in 2012.
Victoria C. Slotto wrote about it in 2015.
Andrew Wilson wrote about it in 2024.

I am posting it for Open Link Night #413 with Live Edition.