September Changes & Poetry Changes

September is here. I will soon be spending my days following a schedule, a structure. I will be leaving behind my days of freedom to amble about the house in pyjamas, eating orange-yogurt ricecakes and reading blogs until 5 in the afternoon. From next week, I'll be rising at an early hour, pairing the right shirt with the right trousers (or trying to), making sure my shoes aren't scuffed, and my hair is straight as I leave the house. I'll be sensible about breakfast. I'll check that I've got my paperwork in order. I'll be a grown-up, a member of the workforce again.

But only for the mornings. I'm planning to get to the gym some afternoons. And to nap in others. I'm thinking how precious my weekends are going to be; how I'll be wanting to use those days for all the things I love best, and how necessary it will be to maintain order around me if I'm not going to have to spend my weekends just restoring order. I'm reminding myself that I have good habits established in using my calender and diary, and that I just need to keep that up, so things don't get lost, so I can see what my commitments are, and not feel I'm losing touch with my life. I'm wondering what will be good coffee-times for my friends, if I'm no longer free for mornings or lunch. I'm wondering about alternatives. I'm just a little bit anxious moving into this new phase of my life (again).

And just when this change comes along, along come others. Last week saw the demise of Poetry Thursday, and now it seems that the efforts to install a replacement project aren't going ahead. There are plans for the community to take it forward by posting a poetry piece in their blogs on Thursdays, and for one person to 'host' comments linking to their post. The wonderful Delia is going to be the "Blog-Momma" for the first round tomorrow. I don't know how much blogging time I'm going to have over the coming months, but I really want to continue the connections with all the wonderful poets who appeared in my life via Poetry Thursday, so I'm committing to doing something each week. Last week, I mentioned that, along with Poetry Thursday, I'm part of two "real-world" writers' groups, and very lucky I felt to be. Well, this is changing too.

Life just IS change, isn't it? Things happen to cause people to move on. - Work, education plans, relationships shift in our lives, and so our lives have to move to accommodate the changes. In one of my groups, too many members have reached times of change all at this time. The group couldn't hold, and a graceful goodbye is being said to Glass Apple Writers. Then, at the first post-summer meeting of my other writers' group, we learnt that two members are moving away for a while, - but another, who had taken some time out, has returned. Enthusiasm for the same type of projects we've done in the past is flagging. There's a feeling that something needs to shift, a need for a new energy - for change. Yes, I can take change, but not too much. After we'd had some time discussing business, checking in, we got to the work of the evening, - sharing our writing, and oh, that was when I breathed, that was when I realised that This is what draws us together. We love to write, we love to read , we love to get inside the piece of writing, or to let it get inside us. This is what feeds my soul. This won't change. I know that this won't change.

Poetry Thursday. The last post

There is a lovely optional prompt available at Poetry Thursday this week: "an open window". I will use it sometime, I'm sure, but today, what I have to offer is not what I'd intended. I thought I might find something celebratory, something sweet, something light and joyful when I went to my file of poems written and not yet posted/published/workshopped. What I found was this:

Untitled

She might go searching
for the name of the thing
that makes him what he is.

She might be thinking
that label fits, and what that doctor
on the radio said, that made sense;

and the cousin whose son
turned on them all, when the voices said he should,
that sounded familiar;

and she might think that having a name for it
will make the way he tortures her
somehow more bearable,

but I doubt her sleep will be any easier
for that word; doubt she’ll let his threats
leave her mind; doubt the name will matter when
what does is the lump in her throat,
the fear in her heart
when she hears his key in the door.
----------------------------------------

Not celebratory at all, and yet, it's an indicator of the power of Poetry Thursday that at some time I wrote this piece, put it in a file on my laptop, and forgot I'd written it. It sat there, having taken something away for me, having allowed me to distil a memory into something small, something that relieved what had sat in my gut or my heart.

I say "the power of Poetry Thursday" rather than simply "the power of Poetry" because I know that Poetry Thursday has been the thread that has kept me most in touch with poetry over the past year and more. It has been the regular pulse of poetry in my life, more than journals and magazines that have arrived in the post; more, even, some of the time, than being at meetings of my writers' groups. There have been times I made it to meetings, times I didn't, and I know there have been times I have been absent (as in not posting, when I've been away) from Poetry Thursday, but I've checked in on return to see what prompts I'd missed, to read a smattering of the contributions.

Yes, I think it fits that this poem is not about Poetry Thursday, and that it has nothing to do with this week's prompt, because it is one of the little fruits of Poetry Thursday that has made it such a remarkable endeavour.

There was no special formala applied to the creation of Poetry Thursday other than love of poetry. That was the ingredient it began with. To their love, Liz and Dana added enthusiasm, encouragement, openness, humour, respect for all participants. I think what they did was a shining example of going with an impulse. At some point, one of them wondered "What if...?" and didn't dismiss the idea. They inspire me to listen to ideas with more willingness to follow them through, wherever they may lead.

So many of the participants here have expressed good wishes for Liz and Dana. I want to say again that I know I cannot express my thanks adequately for what they have done, nor can I say how much I wish them well in everything they do, in every new venture they take on.

Namaste, my friends.
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Postscript: (Added Friday). Two things: In some comments, I gather people are thinking the poem is autobiographical. Happily, I can tell you it is not. The "memory" is of having spent time with a woman for whom this was a real experience.

... And, for some reason, I haven't been able to post comments that include permalinks on the Poetry Thursday site, so my response to the last, last post - Liz Elayne's request that we nominate one of our archived posts, is in my Why I Love Poetry post from January last. I want to share it with you again because it DOES have the celebratory air I thought this final post should have had, and because I will never publish it in print - except to distribute it in random acts of Guerrilla poetry! ( I think I just might occasionally feel the urge to "poem-bomb" somewhere, having overcome my initial fears of the idea!)

... I'm sure I will meet many of you via the new project, but for now, I want to say to all the people I've encountered here via Poetry Thursday: Thanks to all of you for visiting, for commenting, for your encouragement, for your own poems, and for your friendship.

Poetry Thursday: Coming Back

It's Thursday, and especially since these are the last weeks of Poetry Thursday, it seems all the more important that I find something to post here. I don't think I can write something from this week's prompt right away, but I can tweak the idea of this poem - coming back, returning - to sort-of fit with using a last line from another poem to begin a new one.

This is the only poem I wrote during my recent stay in California.

Orinda

I have come back
across an ocean and a continent,
to claim something -
and not, as I'd thought,
to abandon something.
Not to cast away
that remnant of our nineteen years,
but to claim these five,
and the Me that's in them.

To sit in sunlight
(Can I hear bells? Down the valley
they are ringing bells today!)
To sit in sunlight, quiet enough
to let the deer return,
to await evening and the horned owl's flight,
to say My heart is big as this place.
I have found a place big enough
for my heart.

I wrote it on what would have been my 24th wedding anniversary. I'd wanted to be away, away, away on that date, but when it came, my perspective had shifted. If you'd like to read a little about my travels, that's on my previous post HERE. If you want to see what else is on offer from Poetry Thursday participants, go HERE.

It's so good to be back.

Poetry Reading(s)

Tonight, as part of the annual Earagail Arts Festival in our county, I'll be joining fellow-poets who have been published by Summer Palace Press to read at a wonderful old house in the country. Over the past few years, perhaps I've become blasé about reading in public. I'm blessed with a demeanour that hides any nerves I might feel (people always tell me how "calm" and "serene" I am when I get up to read), and I have come to trust that "it will be alright on the night".

I love to hear poetry read. I love to hear the voice of the poet. I love to hear any few words of introduction they might have. I love to recall moments from readingsI have attended. When I read, there is always someone who comes up to me later to say that hearing that poem brought it alive to them, allowed them to relate to it, to understand something of it in a new way, and I think I've done my job well if there is just that one person.

I didn't always love poetry. At school, the way in which it was taught (and read) turned it into a bore for me. The first poetry-reading I ever went to, I went by accident. Back in 1989? 1990?My friend had a new job, working in administration for an arts-journal, and one of her duties was to make arrangements for the hospitalty for a group of visiting poets. She roped me in to go along and help with the sandwiches. So I did. And I went home and wrote the following poem, dedicated to the women of Killybegs Writers Group.

..........Poetry Reading

We said 'It might be good for a laugh, at least'
Imagine going totally rhapsodic over trees!
Don't get me wrong.
I like trees. Really I do!
But they're hardly that inspiring.

And then, a woman's voice came up
and spoke my heart,
unfurled the rumpled fabric of my life,
in front of all those people.
It was all said in six lines.

Looking around, I saw faces
saying 'She's telling my tale'
and we stood, applauding our lives.
-----------------------------------

That night, in the Trades Club in Sligo, a smoky, beer-smelling room, filled with people, my soul opened up to what poetry might mean in a life, in my life, and my life did actually change forever. Where I live now, the friends I have, the journeys I have made, the paths I travel, have all been influenced by that night. My sanity has been maintained because of that night.

Since then, I have attended poetry readings in churches, in fine houses, in arts centres and in hotel meeting-rooms. I have heard Billy Collins, Seamus Heaney, Paul Durcan, Paula Meehan, Wendy Cope, Mary O'Malley.... many, many fine poets read, and there have been magical moments for me in each of those readings, but the memory of the night where I first met real poetry stays with me as the one that was the true gift.

If you don't go to poetry readings, try to find one. If you can't find one, open a book and read a poem aloud. If you have someone to read it to, all the better. If you don't have a book, read a poem from Poetry Thursday aloud. Stand up! Applaud!

Poetry Thursday: Homage to Gaudi

I have a fascination with the architect Gaudi. His work thrills me, and I feel blessed to have been able to visit Barcelona and be in his buildings; to stroll about Sagrada Familia; to walk through Park Guell.



The salamanders there delight me, and prompted this poem:

How to Build a Salamander
...............after Gaudi

You’ll need the kind of wife who shouts a lot,
stamps her feet and throws things – pots,
plates, all the crockery piled on the table.

Better yet, a mistress or two girlfriends – lots
of women smashing all around them. Give them
reason to. It’s all in the cause of art.

When they leave, as they will, gather the bits.
Sweep all the broken pieces into piles. Save them
somewhere out of sight until the time is right.

Then – you’ll know just when – climb to the roof
of a house with odd windows, misshapen doors.
Sleep in the sun until your brain feels fried.

When it seems as if the plane trees below are saying
Jump, when it seems that the sky has blue dragons
painted on blue that only you can see,

call the boy, fill a barrow with your hoard – with
plaster, wine, all the stuff essential to the work.
Yellow, mustard, lemon, tan, terra, all blues,

all greens – a hundred shades, product of years
of anger, product of fury and a name gone to mud.
Pebbles – smooth, rounded, black, cream, polished, brown.

Where the park will be sit and wait
until an eye blinks before you. Catch it.
Place one cobalt shard right there, and wait.

The rippling of skin becomes a frantic challenge
to capture – work fast, grab pieces, bleeding fingers
placing waves and rivulets of colour on the beast,

the beast that calls you – only you – to give it life.
Under your hand, a heart beats. Under your hand
a quick tongue flicks, a cold eye glimmers.

............................................................ (© Imelda Maguire, 2004)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On 20th July, I'll be back in Barcelona to see my nephew (and only God-child) be married. It will be a wonderful family occasion, and apart from the wedding, there will be the added pleasure of spending time with my sisters and brothers (and other relatives and in-laws) in one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

I dedicate this Poetry Thursday post to my family, and especially to Glenn and Claire.

Poetry Thursday. June

I'm sure the ladies of Poetry Thursday and all the marvellous contributors who have been writing articles and features deserve a summer break, and I'm hoping their summer will be wonderful, but I have to admit to feeling slightly bereft when I saw the gap there was going to be in my life. I've gotten used to the almost-constant presence of new poetry-stuff to read and think about, or not think about, but just soak in.

But, the good news is that through the summer, there will still be, as there always has been, a post on Thursday to which we can attach a comment with a link to a poem. So I realised it was up to me to put something here today. But what? What month is it? It's June. I trawled my past year's poems, and this turned up almost immediately. I'd forgotten about it, and now I'm glad I've found it again.

For Caroline

Our summer days, and you gone to the country,
to the sea. Back and forth the whole summer,
our letters, packets thick with happenings,
the kisses you got, sweet French words you’d heard,
and my pleas for more information.

Postcards wouldn’t work. We tore reams from school
copybooks, filled them up with girl-gossip
and mild bitching – why that one never wears a bra,
and when will you be home?

You were gone for good – banished – by the time I started
the trek to and from the high walls, through three gates
to cook a bland meal and home to sleep the afternoon away,
exhausted from the prison-strain, the being watched, the fear.

But then, and always since, and still, your first picture hangs above
my father’s reading-spot, great blobs and streaks of reds
and pinks – a vivid chrysanthemum world: one of a series
you churned out, more and more wild,
more and more colour, just before you went.

If I were to start a letter now, one of our girl-letters,
I’d have to tell you that it’s June, and there are
no kisses here, no sweet words, and there are
tears, more tears than I could leave on a blue-lined sheet,
more tears than I can even name.

And what might ease them?
A packet in the post, a tight wad of pages,
looped words, your cartoon-jokes,
a word from you. Your memory.

------------------------------------------------------------------

This week's offerings from other Poetry Thursday participants will be found HERE

Poetry Thursday: Down by the River

Every town I've lived in has been on a river - I was born on a town on the Liffey, which enters the sea in Dublin. From age 3 til 21, I lived in Limerick, at the mouth of the Shannon, Ireland's longest (and most majestic) river. At 21, I moved to live in Sligo, where I was lucky enough to live in a house overlooking a lake just where it joined the Garravogue river. That was where I lived when I met my husband. While we moved to live in another part of the town, the river was a presence during the early years of our marriage, and when my son was born and during his first 9 years of life. Then, 12 years ago, we moved to live in Donegal, and the river in our town (the Swilly) is a less dramatic presence in the town, but still, when I catch a glimpse any time I drive out of town, it soothes me. Here, it makes its way to the sea, and if I walk far enough up my road, I come to where I can make my way to its banks.

The only "River" poem I've written (that I can recall) brings 3 of these rivers together. As a ritual of release, after my marriage ended, and after I had had my long plait (braid) cut, I brought one strand to each of the 3 rivers and let them go.

Plait

The Shannon was a rushing greedy swirl,
grabbing my offering, tugging it in a whirl,
pulling that first strand towards the salt,
tearing into dark and deep places.

The Garravogue curled towards where I stood,
welcomed my gift, held it only a moment
before the sinking, the drift to oblivion,
the dropping down, the loss.

The gentle Swilly, wide and kind
has taken the last years to its tide,
given me the clouds, the moon,
sweeping birds that flow to her line.

These waters are the westward flow,
the waters of my days, my life.
I give them the traces of our years,
three strands, unbraided:

beginning, middle, end
of me as wife.

-------------------------------

You'll find more Poetry Thursday River poems HERE

Poetry Thursday. From a Random Prompt

This week, Poetry Thursday is inviting humourous poems, but as Limericks are banned, and I am a Limerick-woman (I mean it, really! Literally! Limerick is my home-town, the city made famous by Frank McCourt of Angela's Ashes, and before him, by the 5-line jingling sillinesses of those rhymes) - in protest, I'm not posting anything funny. (Real truth - asking me to be funny is the kiss of death. I knew as soon as I saw that prompt that it wouldn't work for me. I'll probably turn out something funny the week the prompt is "Funeral")

So, in the absence of anything funny, amusing or even mildly humourous to post, I will post the poem that was "cooking" last week in response to a word offered by the Random Prompt Generator. The word is Flock, and I've taken a traditional approach by allowing that to be the title of the poem. Here it is:

Flock

This is evening:
Into the sycamores they tumble
from the skies above Downings.

They wheel and tack,
then fall to settle
in noisy clacking groups.

Some twirl like smuts in the air,
black smudges with no direction,
but a feel for home.

The rooks claim the trees,
shake sunset’s golden spangles out,
spread like a heavy flock blanket,
before night finally falls.
---------------------------------

More Poetry Thursday poems will be found HERE. There should be some chuckles there. But no Limericks. I mean nothing that reads like:

In defense of her own native city,
She proclaimed 'It's a terrible pity
that my rhymes should be banned,
quite out of hand.
I think that that rule is quite......
mean'

[Only joking, Liz & Dana! Sorry, but I couldn't resist!]

Poetry Thursday ---- Mary

This week's prompt from Poetry Thursday was to take a word generated by their new Randomizer, and make a poem from that. I've put my word into my notebook, and it is gently simmering at the moment, so maybe it will be ready for next week.

This week, because it's my sister's birthday (I have two sisters, and yes, I did post a poem for my younger sister back in March, when her birthday and engagement came around), but this time it's Mary's poem, and it's not a new one. I wrote it quite a while ago. But it all still holds true.

Mary

Mary has the arts
of home-making,
quiche-baking,
photo-taking
.... all sorted.

Mary is the master
of birthday-remembering,
kitchen-decorating,
.... five-plates-spinning.

Mary will organise
two weddings,
a christening,
and a surprise anniversary party
.... while we're all thinking about it.

Mary's a genius
at cheering up,
turning up,
being there.

Mary's the Big Sister.
------------------------------------

Over the past few years, Mary has been a rock of support to me. She DOES turn up - when I've been ill or low, she will get in her car, drive 5 hours and tell me it's no problem. She sends me little cards and trinkets to let me know she's thinking of me. She looks after so many people in this way. I count myself so lucky to have such a wonderful big sister, and in our family, not just my siblings, but all of my cousins too receive much more from Mary than we could ever give to her. Love you, Mary.

The March of the Guerrilla Poet

Did I do it? Yes. I did. I began right here, in the town where I live. I had a few errands to run before I left on Friday, so, when passing a bookshop, I nipped in, and deposited a poem in a copy of one of the secondary (high-school) poetry textbooks. My photo is of the exterior of the shop, but you can take my word for it that a Denise Levertov section also contains a copy of my poem, "Why I Love Poetry"

Then, I moved to the post office, to send off a package to my son, and left a poem on the counter. Here, I got braver, and actually took my camera out to capture the deposit:

Having completed my errands, it was time to begin the 200+ mile drive to visit my family. There were a few stops: At a petrol-station for a loo-break:

At the tea-rooms just by the churchyard where WB Yeats is buried (I left a poem on a table in the tea-rooms... couldn't bring myself to leave one at his grave)

In my home-town, shopping in a health-food store for some nice relaxing music, I found a magazine for sustainable-living, and tucked in a poem there:

And, on the return journey today, at the ladies' room in a pub called 'The Yeats Tavern':

What I've realised: I can do these things. It's taking the photographs that pose the most challenge for me, and, if I was disseminating someone else's poems rather than my own, I'd be much braver. Anyone want to do a swap?

Am I proud of myself? Yes, I am.

Will I do it again? Yes, Yes, Yes.

Now Look What You've Done!!!!!

Inspired by the adventurous, the brave, the clever, the poetic participants of Poetry thursday, I've decided to strike out, to make a mark on behalf of poetry, and participate in guerrilla warfare of the gentlest kind: to deposit word-bombs in a number of locations down the length of the country as I drive south to visit family tomorrow (thereby avoiding the dreaded "local poet" scenario alluded to in My earlier post). Photos and full report will be posted on Tuesday/Wednesday (unless I'm languishing in a prison-cell, awaiting some kind person who will bail me out).



Am I serious? Am I really going to do it?

Am I READY?

Yes!!!!!

I am.

Guerrilla Poetry - Poetry Thursday

Life is busy, and I wasn't going to post anything for Poetry Thursday today, and then I realised it's been two weeks already, and the next few weeks will be even busier ones for me, so I thought, OK, let's look again at what the prompt is.

Uh-uh. It's that Guerrilla Poetry thing. Oh. Now what? Here's my tuppence worth:


Why I am not (yet) a guerrilla poet

Because there is an image in my mind
of standing before the supermarket-manager’s desk,
and his finger pointing at the CCTV monitor,
and his shaking voice saying “We have the evidence.
We know you contaminated the frozen food section.
Don’t deny it!”

Because I can see the headline:
Local Poet fined €400 for wanton
littering at bus station.

Because I have a picture of the notice
that will appear on the library notice-board:
Before returning books, please check that you have removed
ALL bookmarks, etc. Library staff’s time is precious!

Because I am a scaredy-cat.
Because I am a big scaredy-cat.
Because I am a big, big scaredy-cat.
Just Because.
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But, but, but..... I really, really look forward to seeing what others have done, where they have deposited poems, and hope that maybe it will inspire me, en-courage me, make me a warrior in the path of poetry. Go Guerrilla Poets! Find them HERE

Poetry Thursday. To The Poet's Wife

This week's suggestion at Poetry Thursday goes like this:

" This week’s idea has a two parts (which are both, of course, completely and totally optional):
Part I Write a poem to, for, or about a poet.
Part II Write a letter to a poet and then share it with the Poetry Thursday community on Thursday. "

When I saw the prompt, I thought "Great! I'm not going to have time to write a new poem, but at least I have something close to Part I. I have a poem to a poet's wife". I've long had a crush on Billy Collins. It's an open secret. Here's the poem:


To Mrs. Billy Collins

I hope you get his eggs just right
(I bet he likes them soft, doesn’t he?)
and his coffee – strong, dark, isn’t it?
I know he’s a modern man,
I know he’d fix his own breakfast
and I don’t expect you to do it.
But I would, if I were you.
I know I would.

While he’s working – sitting at a window,
looking out, wool-gathering, wondering –
do you watch him? I would, I’m sure.
I’d drive him mad, with watching him.

Does he – while you’re eating dinner, say –
does he pause between mouthfuls
and utter a phrase,
like another man might comment
on the rising (or falling)
of the Dow Jones index?
And are you accustomed to that?
Is it just a matter of course,
ordinary? Does he – when he sleeps at night,
tell me – does he snore?

And when he reads aloud,
a few lines,
testing them out,
does your heart lift,
the way mine does?
--------------------------------

Part II of the exercise is to write a letter to a poet. I suppose it's only fair that I should complete it. Here goes....

Dear Billy,
I mean, Dear Mr. Collins,

Forgive my forwardness. Forgive the cheek of my poem. Forgive me for my besottedness. It's not you. It's your poetry. Maybe it is you, but I doubt it. It's not that you're unattractive, but I know (and hope you won't be offended when I say this), that if I passed you on the street, and didn't know who you were, well, I would just pass you. I wouldn't particularly notice you. Maybe. And then, maybe I would. Because you have a way of pausing, there's a look in your eye when you're just about to say something, and if I passed just as you were giving the world that look, I might catch it.

Oh... This is not where this letter was meant to go. I meant to tell you about the poems that make me catch my breath. The poems I have to share with people. "The Dead" - I force people to read that, and the one about Angels. I meant to say what it meant to me to hear you read; how I count myself as lucky, lucky, lucky to have had that chance, not just once, but twice.

My friends tease me. I have been seen to blush when your name is spoken. I know... ridiculous. You're not a pop-star. You're not Robert Redford. But you are a man who has a soul, a living, active, real, soul that shows itself in poetry, and my soul comes to life when I read your words.

Thank you for them. Thanks to Mrs. Collins for looking after you.

Your Number One Fan.
--------------------------------------------

OK. My big secret's out. You can read about other poets over at Poetry Thursday.

Poetry Thursday. What an image prompts

Poetry Thursday's (completely and totally optional) suggestion this week is that we write a poem inspired by an image, and post the photo which prompted the poem. OK. I took the challenge, and decided to go to the photos I've taken over the past few months, select one without giving it too much thought, and see what it would prompt. This is the image I chose:



.........................................Under the Rainbow

................................This is what fell to earth for you, my sister:
................................All the wishes you have sent into the sky,
................................night wishes and wishes whispered;
................................wishes I was sending with you too.

................................Look what landed outside your window,
................................Sister. Look at the wealth winter brought.
................................Across the long shadow of a January day
................................colour dropped, and its echo, and the echo
................................again – Brightness for you.

................................Mine are the echoes of the echo. Mine are the
................................little rainbows that come into my room, now,
................................on the eve of a new year, as spring turns
................................round. Through the prism of one joy-tear.

................................This is what falls to earth for you, my sister:
................................every smile you have given out, every kindness
................................you have offered, your goodness returned.
................................Love has come to find you. Love.

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I took that photo from my sister's living-room window in January. She's just become engaged, and this poem is to celebrate that and her birthday this week... She's the friend of my heart, my companion through life in many ways. We are 15 months apart, and have shared a great deal of the ups and downs in life. So, here's another view from A's window. Can you make out that that is a double rainbow? It was!

For more image-ispired poems, go to Poetry Thursday.

Poetry Thursday -- RED

I am so, so, so taken with the new Poetry Thursday site. The columnists have begun to show up, with words of wisdom, words of inspiration, words, words, words. I didn't think PT could get much more invigorating, and here it is, with daily doses of life. Exciting. Happy-making! Go check it out, not just on Thursdays, but as often as you think of it. You'll probably find something new there! Or, rather HERE

This week's (completely and totally optional) prompt was to go find what's red in the natural world. I've taken a slight liberty with the prompt, but am pleased to find that something current in my life fits for me. Here's my take on RED.


Natural Red

(for Nicola)

My niece has fire in her hair.
When she turns her head,
sparks light the dull March day.

I show her my home.
Her first visit, we drive
out into the hills.

She wants to see wild, and we find
mountain, rock, dead heather, and
red rust streaking through the hills

Trees that hold what’s dead,
hold it, as though there is heat
in that flame, as though the blanket

of last year’s spent needles, tawny
old-blood red will bring life again.
I’m sorry the day is so cold.

"Wrong time of year", I say,
she shakes her head No.
"I prefer red to green any day".
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Find more Red things HERE

Poetry Thursday. Ch..ch..ch..ch....changes

Poetry Thursday have moved to their new site here. You have to check it out! The theme this week is Changes - being that there have been such changes in Poetry Thursday... and so on. For the past few weeks, I've taken the theme and dashed a 'top of the head' poem, a beginning, and I'm not sure whether it's laziness or bravery that has made me do that, posting something that in my notebook would be just a start, a jotting, but there is a sense of freedom in willingness to do that. In time to come, perhaps these pieces will become something else, but for now, here are my

Notes towards a poem on Changes


Out of the seed, the case, the shell,
out of the pupa, larva, chrysalis:
comes the bud, the sprout;
an emerging damp creature,
shaking sticky wings.

Unreeling bright petals
into the sunlight.

Out of the carapace of denial,
out of the place of ‘fine’,
out of the safety that is not safe,
out of the hiding-place that is open
to the world, she emerges.

Change’s necessary time is past,
time waiting in the cold,
time waiting for the flame that will burst
this case,
allow the beginnings of new growth,
the stretching of fragile wings.
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Do click the link above to see what other participants have done with this week's theme.

Poetry Thursday: Mathematics

Mathematics

Age 5, he knew what Y should equal.
Instinct, or the X that was his father,
(the accountant) gave him a certainty.

I thought it was wrong –
setting a question like that to my baby –
until he answered, unerringly.

He wanted more.
More of those X and Y puzzles.
It was as amusing as a two-year old

who could say Pterodactyl
or name olives in Arabic. My boy
the mathematician.

And when we told him
we were dividing the sum of us,
back into its constituent parts,

My single self and his father’s:
he knew then, as he always had,
that nothing would be lost.

He holds the A, the B, the C
of us, carries it on, adds his own numbers,
Headed towards infinity.

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I wouldn't have believed that I could write a poem with Maths as a theme. I didn't do exactly what Poetry Thursday asked of us, but it's something. If you want to find some equations and poetic proofs go HERE

Poetry Thursday: Why I Love Poetry

Why I love Poetry

By Imelda Maguire (aka GreenishLady)

I love poetry
for the moose, for the fish,
for the terrible beauty,
the golden apples and the silver apples,
for the earthworms singing,
and the dead in their glass-bottom boats,
looking down at us.

I love it for the questions:
What am I going to do
with this one precious life?
And the promises:
I love how it makes me believe again,
and again that I am not alone.

Out there, souls found the words
for the heart’s ache and its joy,
dug them out with their squat pens,
scattered them on the page,
like this season’s first potatoes,
offered them. Offer them still.

I love the friendliness of poetry –
the way the poet expects me to see
what they mean. Like a friend would.
I love the trust in that. I love that
every poem is another hand, reaching,
warming. I love that it slowly softens the wax,
that it soothes.


That's this week's offering for Poetry Thursday, at which we were asked to say (in 153 words or less) why we love poetry. These are today's reasons. The ones that came to the top of my head - and excluding the title (because I am a good and co-operative person), my word-count is actually 153 words! Go and find out why other people love poetry HERE.

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A few hours later, I realise I meant to mention the list of poets referred to in the poem. They are Elizabeth Bishop, WB Yeats, Leland Bardwell, Billy Collins, Mary Oliver, Seamus Heaney and Primo Levi. I've never borrowed so freely before. Fun!

Poetry Thursday - A borrowed Line

This week at Poetry Thursday we've been lending and borrowing lines from one another's poems. I've extracted a line that is meaningful particularly this week, and for the first time, plan to just start a poem right here, and post it within the ten minutes I have to spare.

Thoughts of you keep sleep away

They sit on the side of my bed, poking at me,
reminding me, and laughing, saying
Remember? Remember?

They ask questions for which I have no answer:
Why? When did the slide begin? What can I say now?

And if sleep comes, she brings dreams of you:
Your face cold, and sometimes your back as you walk away.
Once your hand reaching out to me, only to be drawn back.

Now, new memories. This week's pictures. A tear in your eye,
Your hand reaching, and one last embrace. Your face.


[I borrowed the line from Rethabile. You can read all the other poems this week by going to Poetry Thursday HERE]

Poetry Thursday. Streets.

This week, Poetry Thursday invite us to take the theme of Streets I Have Known. I had a street poem. It's locked into a computer I can't get into. That's a problem for tomorrow, so I wrote the streets of my childhood/early teens instead.

The Journey Home

William Street,
smell of chips and vinegar
from the Golden Grill:
Boyds’ window full of
what I want, what I want next;
the Woollen Company, with a mirror-door,
for a Harry Worth trick –
became a ritual, don’t pass without
kicking up one leg,
looking in the mirror
at my marionette reflection.

Pass the bank corner,
and the Pavilion (scene of first dances,
maybe first kisses),
where William Street
yields to Mulgrave Street,
Horse and Hound,
the Mart, bacon-factory with its
squeals and smells.

The jail’s high walls, and the school of music,
where I happened to see the President of Zambia,
on my way home from school one day.

Asylum – walk on that side of the road,
kicking leaves in autumn, watch out for Berry Moss,
or the Shouting Man, or the Blue Boy.

Walk on, where Mulgrave Street becomes
the Tipperary Road, the road home,
past the Fairgreen, past the balconied houses,
turn the corner, across from the butcher’s shop.
St. Anthony’s. I am home.

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Find more street-journeys HERE

And for anyone who would like to catch my radio-poetry debut, it's HERE - you have to click on "Listen to the Latest Show", and the whole programme is good, but it's not all poetry. It has music and memoir also. There's a poem by Paul Perry to start (about the 12th minute, and mine comes in around the 54th minute!)