Tag: nature

Reflections on Ovid

Metamorphoses
No mouths or no noses
Now what do you suppose is
The meaning of that?

substance is changing
bodies rearranging
It’s often a strange thing
A tree or a cat

Gods chase lovely mortals
Who turn into myrtles
To bulls, rocks or turtles
To not be laid flat

So these transformations

Due to carnal relations
Between unequal station
Are unfair and that’s that

Turia Bridge (after John Clare)

Hello river, my old friend
I cross above you at day’s end
As my work begins,
The night does fall
And I wonder about the point of it all
For like you, river, I am running daily
And where I reach it never fails me
My joys I must often compromise,
But you, dear friend, are a balm for my eyes.

(This is from December 2019, when of course, I actually did cross the bridge to get to work, and when I was particularly enjoying the work of English nature poet John Clare)

Painter’s Muse

You stood stock still in the golden hour

Your brush dangled from your hand as you scrutinised the scene

It was the first time I’d watched you work

And the joy and the freedom were almost more than I could handle.

If I moved – to speak or to scratch,

You would gesture impatiently for me to resume my stance,

The crickets clicked their deafening wings

While the lowering sun engulfed us both in its splendour.

The heat of the day would not subside, but would linger

Long into the hot summer night, the mosquitoes usurping the crickets

Your sensual, gentle strokes continuing,

As your final touches transformed the wasteland around us into paradise

Zoophobia

Fur (n.) a covering of hair, often found on animals and human young 

 

Furry cute little creatures.

Creatures that bite,

Bite at your nose,

hands and

Ears

They sense your presence

And your fears

You can never go by

That cage in the window

Without those

glassy

black

Eyes

Staring. you. out.

Out of the cage

Out of sight.

Years pass by and you say you’re

All right.

They won’t harm you

‘Can’t.

Probably not even alive’

But their trace survives

Inside your head

Your brain cage

Between your ears

And although you know that they are dead,

You still feel

the.                                               Terror

Instilled in you

By the fur years

 

 

A Tree Speaks

Our mountain home is a good placeWe are green of leaf and, fair of face

The raven’s wing covers our scars

And we trail our branches beneath the stars

Dance by the light of the cherry moon

Fearing the furious heat of June

When Our brothers fell in their habitat

Mown down by fiery flames so that

Some concrete blocks could take their home

And concrete people with hearts of foam

Will park their Eco-friendly vans

In villas carved from forestland

We trees our home ground cannot choose

In a war with man, we always lose.

Thunderbirth (poetry prompt #1)

Ominous, malevolent

 pregnant-bellied

Cloud entwined within 

Herself and without – that

Soot-colored Sky

The turbulent and wild Sky

The air waves are fiZzling 

The cracking static hymns

Praising the parson at this demented wedding.

The wedding band strikes UP

A guitar twang and crash of drums

The flow of favorites come thick and fast

And the bride and groom twirl around 

Each other and faster

And faster

And faster they move,

Pulling their guests in their wake

and that dark pregnant belly breaks 

its water,

And we all attend the labour

The child, a girl

A daughter

April the first

The afterbirth 

Spring.

On a rainy night

In the dark hours of night with the sodium glow
permeating the sky and making me feel low
I stand in the downpour and get soaked to the skin
I raise my face to the sky and let my senses reel in
they’ve been gone for a while, as I wandered in rags
accosting strangers and tourists, begging for fags
screaming at ghosts, clawing at the air
sleeping with women who weren’t really there
I met cowboys and Indians, liars and crooks
I met men who appeared from the pages of books
they taught me to see the real world that we’re in
I wanted to warn people, but they wouldn’t listen
they call me a madman, a hobo, a drunk,
it seemed like my senses were all in a funk
but the rain washes away my physical sheen
my body is ready, my mind is pristine
I’m watching them both from a really great height
And I know the rain can’t wash away the truth in the night
originally posted June 28, 2012

No tocar

You cannot hear the silence

The music is lost under those vast skies

The cold hard light of a high desert  dawn

Throws deep shadows into my eyes
‘No tocar’ – do not touch, do not play

‘No tocar’ – do not touch me today

‘No tocar’ – This despair too shall pass

‘No tocar’ – I am fragile as glass
You cannot taste the limits

Your flavours are spread on a desert of sand

The longing to belong and escape this dream

Will end when you take my hand.
‘No tocar’ – do not touch, do not play

‘No tocar’ – do not touch me today

‘No tocar’ – this is bad for your health

‘No tocar’ – I am lost in myself

You cannot smell the perfumes

The desert air carries nothing but dust

Where the cactus grow and the desert is green

You do what you can, not what you must
‘No tocar’ – do not touch the display

‘No tocar’ – do not touch me today

‘No tocar’ – this is bad for your health

‘No tocar’ – I am lost in myself

‘No tocar’ – do not touch, do not play

‘No tocar’ – do not touch me today

‘No tocar’ – This despair too shall pass

‘No tocar’ – I am fragile as glass