dVerse Poets Pub - How would you know...

Hell’s Bells…

October 23, 2024October 23, 2024humanist55

Hell’s bells and buckets of bloody blood!
My mother used to say
and after Australia
she said it every day

It used to be
just Hell’s bells and buckets of blood
but bloody was a word oft heard
in the land of Oz you see

Hell’s bells—an apt description
for news now from everywhere
it would have given her conniptions
were she still here

Hell, I’d even use the cuss she bequeathed me
except I don’t accept religious geography
and know that Hell is here on Earth
and not some seven circled place beneath

Hell’s bells – the cuss abbreviated
hardly reflects the place we’ve come to
climate change, genocidal wars
from decency and democracy we’ve deviated

Hell’s bells and buckets of blood
for greater impact
our world is in the toilet
and that’s a fact

So still I hear my mother’s voice
raised in exasperation
uttering her curse of choice
Hell’s bells and buckets of bloody blood!

© Andrew Wilson, 2024

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, dorahak in Poetics inspires us with a very fulsome prompt, to write using repetition as a poetic tool…

Autumn Colours – not just for show…

October 22, 2024October 22, 2024humanist55

Is there anyone who does not love the display of Autumn colours that nature puts on each year if you live in the latitudes where deciduous trees flourish? A love that is, tempered by the knowledge of the meaning which this colourful transformation signals – the end of Summer and the advent of Winter – only young children are blissfully unaware of the message and thoughtlessly kick their way through the ever-deepening piles of fallen leaves.
The change begins on the edge of some leaves on a certain side of some trees and gradually creeps across the entire tree, to be joined at differing rates and with subtly different palettes by other species until whole stands of woodland are ablaze save for the odd patch of evergreens. But this extravagant show, which has us humans travelling to see its most spectacular examples, is not some random quirk of nature, but a necessary part of the plant’s process – one without which the trees would not survive the coming cold of Winter. The green, chlorophyll-filled engine of energy conversion which is a leaf, exchanging liquid food from the tree and using sunlight to power the tree, now switches its production to producing a kind of anti-freeze which the tree reabsorbs into its twigs, branches and trunk to protect itself against frost damage. Once each leaf has done its job, sucked dry by its parent, it shrivels and falls to the ground where it will rot down and feed the tree through its roots and complete the cycle of its life but the byproduct of its transformation in Autumn is a breathtaking, spectacular, partial rainbow from yellow to rich reds…

Autumn colours show

as leaves transform their sap to

save the tree from frost

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Frank J. Tassone in Haibun Monday invites us to celebrate Autumn colours and the passage of the seasons…

Le Pho

October 15, 2024October 15, 2024humanist55

I see an artist on the cusp of a wave risen up as the artistic traditions of East and West meet headlong in the art of a young Vietnamese artist in the early part of the 20th Century. Painted on silk, an Oriental tradition if ever there was one, that composition of the “Jeune fille” (titled in the language of the French imperialists) displays a synthesis of two quite different traditions of representation, colouration and style. The young woman is represented as almost but not quite making it into three dimensions, the thinnest of outlines on the left-hand side of her face and the strong framing of her hair to the right, work to flatten her face almost in the manner of an icon from the much earlier period of Western art even though the shading of her cheeks lean towards a western three-dimensionality. The table too betrays an Eastern style of perspective, or rather lack of it – showing a near-round disk as if we are looking down on it instead of across it to the girl who leans upon its far side insouciantly smoking a cigarette in a long holder which places the picture squarely in the mid 20’s. The objects on the table are all thus displayed at equal size – a printed book of Chinese pictograms, a traditional ink block and rubbing dish and some artfully displayed blooms in a shallow bowl. The colours are stronger than in traditional Eastern art and yet the face of the young woman evokes both Chinese art and Western paintings of the period with a very direct and frank intimacy – only emphasised by the white cat casually enfolded in the crook of her arm its tail perhaps trapped beneath that arm. This portrait is of a modern young woman, who is at ease with the artist but is somehow caught on the cusp of change both for her and the artist…

a new age beckons
pulling the young artist out
of Eastern art traditions

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Melissa Lemay in Poetics invites us to be inspired by the work of LePho – an early 20th-century Vietnamese artist and to write Ekphrastically to a theme from the following, women, flowers, landscapes or family. I have chosen to write a Haibun for this prompt.

Curved Air

October 9, 2024October 10, 2024humanist55

https://open.spotify.com/album/7hfA825fDvgS0W95LV5kDy?si=6_nYV-_SS1GBEyWfHkcQxA

My taste in music is eclectic
but there is some music which
locates my roots as such
with fusion rock & classical electric
screaming guitar solos
and no small touch
of sexy female vocals
singing of “Back Street Luv”
to 60’s Pop it was emetic
Prog Rock group Curved Air
their singer fresh from being in “Hair”
pulls me back to teenage years
and this, though compilations
may be infra dig,this is the sound
and album cover that I love
not least because I’ve flown
in just such an one and
might have seen in heavens above
A Rainbow in Curved Air
from which this band
derived their name.

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Mish in Poetics invites us to pick a favourite album cover and write an Ekphrastic poem…

This album by Curved Air was released during a twenty-year quiet period for the band and I love it because it is a great compilation that has blasted from my car speakers on many a drive but also because, in the 1970’s, I flew in a De Haviland Tiger Moth biplane as featured on the album cover – what’s not to like. If you are unlucky enough not to know the meaning of Prog Rock – you could do worse than jump into this album – volume as high as your speakers can immerse you…

Autumn

September 25, 2024September 25, 2024humanist55

days of Autumn now
remind us of our own days
of Autumn coming

towards year’s closing
fruit and other harvest swells
before Winter’s knell

we too can fill stores
with our hard-won knowledge and
bless those left behind

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Punam – paeansunplugged in Poetics, Uncategorized, invites us to write about Autumn at least once this year…

Vampire ll

September 17, 2024September 17, 2024humanist55

A Quadrille…

Vampires have to be
permitted entry
one night
laid low by other losses
I let you lie with me
bleed me dry
almost
though not enough
to feed your need
you never turned me
sought out fresh blood
but you marked me
for life…

This week over at dVerse Poets Pub, dorahak in Quadrille invites us to write a poem on the undead – Vampires…

‘Give us a 44-word poem including the word “vampire” (or a derivative thereof, such as “vamp”)’

I was awakened by another’s insomnia and then couldn’t return to sleep myself so ar 4am this poem sidled into being, but confused by the hour, I wrote 144 words instead of 44 – but I guess they needed to come out and so, having posted it in error, I was challenged by Dora, our host, to distill it down to 44 – it still works I think, but if you want to read the original – hit the Home button to find it below this post…

Vampire

September 17, 2024September 17, 2024humanist55

Like a vampire
you had to be let in
I knew what you were
kept you at bay
but one night
laid low by other losses
I let you across the threshold
to lie with me
you bled me dry – almost
not all at once but daily
feeding but not enough
to feed your need
an amour fou
that even though I knew it
I could not break the spell
and when I was close to death
you moved on to fresh blood
though you hovered
on the periphery
for the odd feed
you never turned me
and yet though you are
far enough away now and I
am recovered
perfuse again
and have walled you off
in my mind
you have left your mark
for all time
as all lovers do
if lover you were
and I will never be
as I once was
innocent of all…

This week over at dVerse Poets Pub, dorahak in Quadrille invites us to write a poem on the undead – Vampires…

‘Give us a 44-word poem including the word “vampire” (or a derivative thereof, such as “vamp”)’

Fifty Years in Fifty Minutes

September 13, 2024September 13, 2024humanist55

Do we wear watches
or surround ourselves with clocks
to rein in our unruly
perception of time passing
“Oh heavens! Just look at the time!”
we say to an old friend
with whom we have been
immersed for fifty years in fifty minutes.

Even battery operated quartz clocks
can produce a metronomic beat
if we listen hard enough
but a pendulum grand father
case clock cannot be beaten –
ticking and tocking
the heartbeat of a house.

On TV The Repair Shop
at its allotted hour
restores treasured items
and the clock maker
is much in demand for –
mantel clocks with chiming mechanisms
corner the market for memories
of loved ones lost since childhood
when they made the soundtrack
of visits to grandparents
uncles and aunts.

Offices with Bauhaus severe wall clocks
Place them where drones can regulate their work
but if the heart isn’t in it
then they offer clock-watchers little solace
because a watched clock stretches time
with the incremental twitch of its hands

Once, clocks marked retirement
condemning the wearer
to pointless hours
with no consolation for being
wrapped in a gold case –
markers of growing up –
making the grade –
tokens of affection…

The utility of timepieces
nearly died with the ubiquity
of mobile phones with which
even children have
a constant time coach
an alarm clock, an egg timer
and a sports stopwatch
tickless and tockless in their pocket
time always on top –
at least they don’t show
the sands of time running out
though doubtless
there is an app for that.

There is now no excuse
not to know the time
broadcast by the network
linked to an atomic clock somewhere
but still a clock cannot control
the flexibility of time in mind
our stretching it out
in the instant of a crash
our inability to slow it
in the minutes before parting
the long minutes as medics
attempt resuscitation
before a doctor finally calls time.

Time is not always our friend
yet we carry a constant measure of it
in our pockets or strapped to our wrists
for fear of missing out…

Posted for dVerse Poets Pub Open Link Night where you can post one poem of your choice – Björn Rudberg (brudberg) is managing the pub for this after returning from his epic hike from the northernmost tip of Sweden to the end of the mountains in the south (1346 km in 53 days)!
This is another poem which is the fruit of my writing group where we were writing “in the shadow of” The Watch by Danusha Laméris

…

Down to the Sea Again…

September 11, 2024September 11, 2024humanist55

People ask if I miss Ireland
but I can travel there anytime
in my mind’s eye
standing on the rocky ledges
three hundred and fifty million years old
as gentle swells roll in from the West
smoothly curved as a reclining breast
no more than eighteen inches high
rising to just below my feet
it looks gentle but one
slightly higher wave
spilling onto the ledge
would take the feet from under me
pluck me into the water
the high tide daring me
to stand so close to the edge
I guess six tons of water
moves within six feet of me
six feet deep and a few million years
of fossil coral reef beneath me
slowly etching back into the world
with every passing swell

I set up my rod and cast
whose first retrieve
snags a bunch of seaweed
with a Pipe Fish
– a straightened cousin
of the Seahorse curling its
tail to cling amongst the fronds
the pollock are running
and I cast my heavy silver Toby again
splashing into the glassy Atlantic water
so clear I can see the bottom
slowly retrieve, pausing, simulating
the rise and fall of a weary baitfish
my lure is about to break the surface
when the Pollock strikes
turning in a thrilling
savage flash of silver
right before me.

I walk my haul back along the ledges
past the place I met the otter
– playing hide and seek
with matching curiosity
for a full twenty minutes
after he slipped into the water
and dived only to resurface
elsewhere to spy on me repeatedly
– until I turned the tables
to crouch out of sight of him
making him the seeker…

Past the lime kiln
dug into the low boulder-clay cliff
now half exposed revealing its
bottle shape – lined with
fire-proof granite boulders
gleaned from its digging out
when was it built and how many
houses did its quicklime mortar
build in turn – perhaps ours…

I file these memories
of sparkling swells
in the most special room
of my Memory Palace
to be visited on dull days
far from the sea
or maybe set down in verse…

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, lillian in Poetics asks us to write to a line from the Mitch Miller song “By the Beautiful Sea“

Tableau of the Fallen

September 6, 2024September 6, 2024humanist55

From my writing seat
the window frames the
tableau of yellow leaves
the wisteria
has met with Autumn
too early this year

Did I not water
one crucial day when
wind plucked the water
as surely as sun
drying out the leaves
killing them too soon

Today that same wind
plucks them from the vine
to lie in yellow
drifts upon the ground
the devastation
plucks at my heart too

Do those leaves accuse
me for lack of care
plants grown in a pot
need more vigilance
did I then fail them
like Gaza’s children

Plucked from life too soon
all because Zion
“is mowing the grass”
arms makers making
money from the war
leaders not leading

Have we the people
seeing the tableau
of all the fallen
done enough for those
unlucky to be born
trapped in a pot

They did not choose to
be born in a land
others had decided
they could not share with
had to have it all
to be safe from death

Children of Gaza
lie countless as my
wisteria leaves
accusing me of
not raising my voice
sufficiently yet…

https://how-would-you-know.com/2024/03/six-questions-from-pablo-neruda.html

https://how-would-you-know.com/2024/08/breaking-news-and-hearts.html

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Laura Bloomsbury in Meeting the Bar: Critique and Craft, marks the birthday of American poet Sam Hamill (1943-2018) of whom she says “Hamill’s poetry is absent on rhyme and heavy on unadulterated lyricism. He talks his poetry to the page as here in “After Morning Rain” which switches between his personal loci and wider, world issues […] Hamill was a poet both in the world and of the world, being the leading light for ‘Poets Against the War’ and still his poetry does not stray far from what he sees, feels and knows directly”.

Laura also asks us to write in the poetry form ‘The Tableau’ created by Emily Romano in 2008:

Poetry Style:

1 or more verses
6 lines per verse
5 beats/syllables per line

Poetry Rules:

no rhyme scheme
title should contain the word ‘tableau’
poem should aim to be pictorial