dVerse Poets Pub - How would you know...

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

Revolutionary Laughing

September 5, 2024September 5, 2024humanist55

I read a book by
a Serbian revolutionary
sharing his experience
of nonviolent action
to bring down dictators
and even military juntas
his greatest tool – laughter
poking fun utterly defeats them
imagine trumpety-Trump
the big, inflated, orange baby
wouldn’t he just hate it…

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Mish in Poetics invites us to write about laughter and since I have little time before work, and as I am getting into the whole Quadrille thing, I have written something in just 44 words.
As a child, one of our favourite records to come on the radio, because it inexorably activated our audio mirror brain cells and had us giddily joining in – I give you “The Laughing Policeman” by Charles Jolly/Penrose…

Oh, and the book – Blueprint for Revolution, by Srdja Popovic

Spin Cycle

September 4, 2024September 4, 2024humanist55

Separate whites from coloureds
wisdom has it
but my clothes are so old
there’s no possibility of
dye displacement
I am a keeper
I have T-shirts
forty years old
faded a little
but not turned pink
I use conventional wisdom
when washing something new…

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, whimsygizmo in Quadrille invites us to write a Quadrille – a poem in exactly 44 words – a regular feature at the pub and although we may use “spin” in any sense of the word, I immediately thought of a recent poem I wrote on the subject of washing clothes. The last stanza was 46 words long and might have made a standalone poem with just a two-word edit but I decided to practise the art of distillation and go for editing the whole poem down to 44 words to see if it caught the gist of it. I include the original below so you may be the judge of whether it works or is an edit too far…

Colourfast?

Always separate whites from coloureds
in your weekly wash
conventional wisdom has it
as passed down from
mothers to daughters
and even to sons
given the reluctant recognition
there will be a lacuna
between a mother’s ministrations
and another’s

But my clothes
are for the most part
so old and washed
so many times
there’s no possibility
of errant dye displacement
polluting one colour with another
so I sort according
to type – trousers and pants
socks and shirts
one wash destined for
the drying rack
one on coat hangers
hung up to dry

I am a keeper you see
I have T-shirts and
hand me downs
from my late father which I calculate
must be forty years
since newly purchased
on a trip to Australia
did my mother hope
to see some resurrection
in my wearing them?

Those T-shirts have
I grant you
faded a little
the fabric at least
if not the poster extolling Australia
or the intricate dots
of aboriginal art
but they haven’t turned pink
in some laundry accident
I do, after all
use conventional wisdom
when washing something new…

Alone Is the Star I Follow

August 30, 2024August 30, 2024humanist55

“alone is the star I follow. In love & in solitude”
– from February & my love is in another state – by José Olivarez

to live with the one you love
Is to immerse one’s self
in the illusion of not being alone

but alone we truly are
Coming into, leaving &
passing through the life of this world

so when illness, short of death
physical or mental, intrudes
we are shocked by our solitude

reminded we are alone even
in the presence of the other
and all the constructed togetherness

house, history and family
are all props in the play
& all of us but strolling players

not to disrespect the construct
which is our way of fighting entropy
creating meaning amongst disorder

we weave our fabric and let our flags
flutter in the winds of vicissitude
for friends and family to rally round

but in. the end, we are all
fallen soldiers in a battle
that nobody can win

Take the timely reminders
of essential solitude
to wrap your flag more tightly

around you & your loves
and Reaffirm the meanings
you choose to fight for…

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Punam – paeansunplugged in OpenLinkNight offers us the chance to post a poem of our choice. This is one from my writing group after discussing and writing in the shadow of “February & my love is in another state” – by José Olivarez

Stormy Weather

August 27, 2024August 27, 2024humanist55

“Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away

”From “Ozymandias” – Percy Bysshe Shelley

Like the banks
we deemed ourselves
too big to fail
but when the rains came
mudslides and hurricanes
and all of them stronger
and more frequently
we discovered then
there was no-one
to bail us out…

Our leaders
many of them
thought that wealth
concentrated upwards
would rain gently
down upon the
huddled masses
or at least as far as
the middle classes
but the one percent
were so elevated
they couldn’t see
our plight
so far below

They thought
complexities of
climate change
too gnarly to
change course
and set their sights on
settling another planet
spaffing their pointless
bucks to fire off rockets
some of which
increased their wealth
seeding satellites
in an unholy net
across the heavens
to offer others
the dream of making it
to the top
or charged other
aspirants to admire
the blighted but
still beautiful Earth
from brief
sub-orbital sojourns

Will their legacy be
any more than Ozymandias
half buried in a desert
of their own making?

And what of us
the little people
are we to throw up
our hands in helplessness
and blame it on
those above us
for failing to
curb or even
feeding our appetites
for cars, fresh fruit
flown out of season
and batteries for our
mobiles – phones and cars

We may not leave
individual
broken statues
as our testaments
yet we are not islands
but part of the main…

Tonight, I am guest editing the prompt at dVerse Poets Pub for the Tueday Poetics spot. I have suggested an activist poem on any subject that gets your goat and as an optional challenge, poets can choose to begin with a Glose or quote, from another poem as I have done here…

Shelved

August 23, 2024August 23, 2024humanist55

I sit beside
a bookcase
laden with my life

The Charm of Birds
is the only gift from
my grandfather

I early read my
father’s G.B.S. complete
plays and prefaces

The camel teapot
contains half
my sister’s ashes

The group of geese is
my memento mori
to my mother

Books of hobbies
work and music
fill my shelves and brain…

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, merrildsmith in Meeting the Bar: Critique and Craft challenges us to write to the Triversen form.

*Three-line stanzas (Tercets). Each tercet is a sentence.
The tercets are grammatical, and they are broken by breaths,
the accents and rhythms of normal speech—two to four beats per line.
*Unrhymed
The ideal length is 18 lines or 6 stanzas, but even Williams did not always follow that rule.
Ideally, each line is two to four beats, or stressed syllable (not total syllables). Williams disliked iambic pentameter, but others have written Triversen poems with more beats.
Here are some additional points that are often mentioned.
*Alliteration—it contributes to the stress syllables
*Imagist

As Ain commented on my last poem, I seem to be going through a phase of poetry memoir…

A Lifetime Love

August 21, 2024August 22, 2024humanist55

My father loved to cook a little but
gender roles made him the breadwinner
and not the bread baker.
My mother was a pre-feminist gal
refusing to teach her son to cook
unlike his sisters with someday
husbands and families to feed
I watched secretly –
absorbed the gist anyway.

On going to university
and facing the inevitability
of student self-sufficiency
they gave me a carbon steel Sabatier
a knife that sharpens beautifully
but must be cleaned immediately
else it soon goes rusty
I have worn it down every day of fifty-one years
– two food businesses and cooking daily
– now so thin it pares perfectly.

They also gave two books of recipes
The Paupers Cookbook and Catherine Whitehorn’s
classic Cooking in a Bedsit
sectioned One Ring, Two Rings and slimly
a Cooker for the very lucky…
I read and dutifully cooked a few
but though a lifelong love was born
yet who with a world of food to explore
would base their style on paucity

I added a book on Chinese cookery
whole, diced, steamed and stir fried
bought a wok and never looked back
spiced it up with the Penguin Indian cookery
And last but by no means least
found Mediterranean Food by Elizabeth David

Seduced by the sensual celebratory
rather than precisely noted quantities
Elizabeth David liberated me
as well as, I later learned
the married man she ran off with
travelling Europe and living on a boat
My mother would not have approved

To these three parents chosen
Chinese, Indian and Mediterranean
I must mention the American professor
of studies West African
she taught my roomie and I
Palaver Sauce and Jollof Rice
suffered our inept experiments with nicety
so when I moved near Brixton Market
I fell into a world of ingredients
from bitter, Cypriot, taste-acquired
lemon and coriander brined olives.
to stinky, dried, West African fish in baskets
– I never came up for air

My culinary philosophy –
read recipes with a pinch of salt
absorb, ferment, reuse, infuse
resist encouragement to cull your larder
treat every meal as an adventure
feed strangers, friends and family
and you will never lose.

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, sanaarizvi in Poetics invites us to explore the senses in Food Poetry.
I should add, to contextualise the above poem, that my Mother’s maiden name was Cook and my partner’s Mother’s maiden name was Larder – go figure…