Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
See also my Woodrat photoblog and my Flickr account.
My castle has a moat
bordered by weeping willows
and filled with tears.
Great blue herons pattern the sky
with dinosaur wings.
They land and line the bank,
erect and still as meditating monks
in grey-blue robes, no longer
prehistoric but eternal.
Happiness holds my hand as, slowly,
we walk to raise the drawbridge.
I have a hand-me-down iPhone 4S and an Instagram account linked to Flickr, and so I’ve been amusing myself with poetic one-liners. It started with a particularly antisocial woodchuck, who (unusually for his species) has a den in the middle of the forest.
Continue reading “Woodchuck in the woods and other instagrammatic things”
This ground heaves, lurchingly
uneven through its mulch of leaves,
tips us towards the tilting graves,
the shade of tall, stooped trees.
The stone sarcophagi are empty – burial
was below, in now unfathomable depths.
Toppled headstones sink slowly
in a green lawn where the nameless
are marked by darker green hollows
that tempt today’s visitors to lie down,
and a girl in a vintage print frock
carries a golden bowl — her cycle helmet,
its glinting curves reflecting miniature
monuments, tiny people, old light.
What place is this
that sings alone
half devoured
by some spiteful air
what city spreads
such emptiness
Quel est ce lieu
qui chante tout seul
à demi rongé
d’un air mauvais
quelle ville autour
s’étend déserte
Untitled poem by Jacques Brault.
Photo: Camberwell Old Cemetery, half devoured.
More photos at Gnarled Oak.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/89056025@N00/25413842402
I turned 50 on February 24. The fact that I haven’t gotten around to mentioning it until now shows, I think, that I am completely fine with reaching this arbitrary milestone. Continue reading “50”
Is this the challenge, then,
as older age begins to settle in:
to be fully present to the precious
and fluctuating here and now
while bearing witness to the past
that lives and breathes inside you?
to be cradling always, one in each hand,
two things that cannot co-exist?
as you relish the magic keyboard
that sends your words across the world,
to recall that lost gesture of feeding
a sheet of paper into a typewriter?
to say something about a time
and place that disappeared?
With thanks for both the sentiment and the typewriter image to the wonderful Spanish writer Antonio Muñoz Molina.
Here in the UK, “orientate” is actually an acceptable verb. And it’s one they use often. Continue reading “Finding my way in London”
trompe-l’oeil on Regent Street
painted woman lounging
in a shop window
My father left school at twelve,
my mother told me.
He had told her he didn’t leave
until he was fourteen,
she told me,
but his sister
had told her it was a lie.
I wonder why she needed
to tell me this.
She could never let things lie.