trapped in
someone else’s dream again
backed into harness,
thrown the reins to them
taken the bit
willingly
stupid, she
try to do right
looks a lot like
acquiescence
from behind
the bridle
nice
don’t win fights
easy
to ride
the least-resistant
road
galloping by
questions
of true desire
skytumble
and the breeze
tosses me
around
batters my
spiked edges
smooths
the turmoil
of the soul
I watch the
lines of cloud
chased to the corners
of blue
funnelled towards
a far edge, reaching
white, high and fleeting
and below
and beyond
waves rise
out at sea
alarmingly like
the dream
I had
last night
of a tsunami
greygreen
they’ll reach my windows
engulf the house
tight-sealed but
ominous
a trickle
down the wall
all-engulfing
enthrals
colours in a
tropical storm
aquamarine
slides sideways
more like
quiet horror
than fright
Photo: Claire Doble
A wreck of gold and crimson
over the horizon
an island out to sea
not far
frothed in waves and it’s
windy out there
back home the damp seeps
into everything
carpet, eiderdown, towel and bone
while the daughters rev and roar
next door
smoke blooms in the night
once more
peachlight clouds against grey-to-black sky
nostrils flare
all is so quiet but that smell of fire
over the horizon
there
it’s
a wreck of gold and crimson
beyond the shore
Photo: https://unsplash.com/@wtexxfaa1
Somewhat inspired by https://poets.org/poem/diving-wreck
I am the watcher
the runner
unofficial custodian
alone
non-partisan
my feet pray
to mother earth
my breath
synthesises
salt-sea molecules
of sky
and my eyes
monitor
the ways
in sweeping surveil
from mountain
to ocean
and over there
the horizon
mine not mine
owned only
in a global
internal
knowing
tread the land
stomp the sand
it’s yours, ours, no one’s
take care
Photo: Claire Doble
I learnt permanence from the beach
the way the sand never shifted
and the dunes stood still
a dead spike-backed fish
forever there, the arcs of tides
ancient and fixed
I learnt love from the sea
constant, predictable
ever reliable
turn your back, nothing happens
risk free
and the rocks, so orderly
I learnt life from the wind
always that solid blue
careful, unchanged
no cloud-claw wisps
nor breeze-tossed leaf
to mar my view
can’t stop touching
my face
sucking fingers
biting nails
turn my cheek
to be licked by the wind
run at birds
who beat, beat, beat
wingflashes of white
in sea-salt air
they’re still scared
of me, I’m alpha
right?
the world has not
changed its laws
fragile, stupid, greedy
glorious
needy
I want to swallow the sky today
Is it mine?
ripples in water
make perfect art
for no one
to own
devastated
reinstated
again, again, again
can’t stop touching
my face
If you love the sky and the water so much you almost cannot bear it, that is a door
life flowing cleargreenblue at the bottom of oyster-encrusted steps
clean water, the salt tang, the ripple against stone, how the light strikes
a big sky over a railroad track and the way beer disappears with the sunset
aching sweet, being drunk feels like love
we twist our affections around a glass and tip whiskey in the crevices love has eroded and cut
sluicing the jagged bits, juicing over hurt
the intense blue sky, blue like plastic, a blue dome, a blue tarpaulin from the 80s, blue like sky, a perfect cloudbroken blue over a back lane in Adelaide
ground tinted rust-red from bore water, the world’s blood and corrugated iron in the sun smells like dirt
your eyes like a tannin creek, running smooth and alive with the promise
if I pour myself full of wine from the grapes of the sky, salted from the sea, grown against wire fences in a red-brown earth
if I lie down with you and join our mouths our rivers our waves
will I be granted love
or does it just feel that way
I took the first line of this from Women Who Run With The Wolves by Dr Clarissa Pinkola Estes.
Photo: Claire Doble
The blue days
The bright daze
How will
You fulfill
A promise made?
Shadows sharp
Cookie-cutter heart
Could still
Bode ill
For the next part
Can’t contemplate
The relocate
Will kill
Summer’s spill
Rather desolate
This poem was for yesterday’s prompt, a poem that is specific to a season and includes a rhetorical question (like Keats’ “where are the songs of spring?”). It also fits OK for today’s prompt: a poem that uses repetition. Not sure if it’s an official form but by repetition, I mean the rhyme structure is AABBA, CCBBC, DDBBD. Hmmm, or maybe it’s just an off-prompt poem after all! 😉
Photo: Claire Doble
Never been so sad to smell the blossoms of spring
and I ache as the blue-white light of morning gapes across the sky
stretching, yawning, already weary and soft-boiled eggshell cracked
thinking of long hot days to come, the fatigue of grass
that steam of green in the stalks and the buzz
the singing, ringing zing of high season and deepest cornflower blue horizons
my cheeks cool in the 7am, useless, yearning for the summer I’ll miss
a loss, pre-thought onslaught of grief, mess of relief
hard to believe those blooms will burst and shine and shrivel
music washing, bright splashes sloshing of chlorine, kids scream
not me, I won’t be here this time, my life splintering
and the perfect pale of latent April air swirls round
faint scent of airline fuel inches consciousness to stay
promise me, please – desperate bargain I’ll betray
dreams stillborn, nascent, can’t beg more time, it’s racing
sands have slipped beneath and the sun will snap and break
my heart, my heart, what depths of sorrow exist in bright never-tomorrows
shimmer perfect, absent-death preserves a chimera of not to be
Today’s GloPoWriMo prompt to write an elegy, one in which the abstraction of sadness is communicated not through abstract words, but physical detail.
Recording: https://soundcloud.com/user-808707280/lost-summer
clairevetica 