Hard notes on tin roof
Spots
run
to gether
– joined
dots
Happy;
sparrows
chirp
n.b. Today water proof clothing required.
CLP 28/05/2019
Tag Archives: Poems
On Rain VII
Remember such drops
Cold globular spots
That flick eye-lashes
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n.b. This morning there was sufficient rainfall to damp down the dust; slicken the grass; to leave minute craters marking the impact of the fleeting shower that soon passed.
CLP 27/05/2019
On Rain VI
Humidity high
Seventy percent or more
Yet dust devils spin
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26/05/2019
On Open Ground
Hind steps from bracken
Edges to field centre
Grazes in full view
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n.b. Have you noticed that deer do this? They often choose a wide open area to settle down, eating and resting in a place that allows them to be easily seen, but allowing themselves time and space to respond to approaching threats. Safer to be out there and able to breathe fully exposed, than to be living constantly nervous of being caught when confined under cover.
CLP 27/05/2019
On Rain V
Strung across the yard
Today’s washing dries in minutes
Clouds heavy, hang limp
.
CLP 25/05/2019
On Rain VI
One hundred percent
Cloud cover at dawn, moist air
Nothing more offered
.
n.b. Rain on Tuesday is the best the weather forecast can promise. If there was a competitive market for rain I would change my supplier.
Privatised water management companies will profit regardless. Government intervention is required to ensure that commercial interests do not override the need to conserve and recycle water.
Who owns UK water boards sold off by Conservative free market ideologists?
Read more about this issue here and here One of the owners is an investment fund that employs a former UK Chancellor of The Exchequer, George Osbourne, (another snout in the water trough). More information here.
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CLP 25/05/2019
On Rain III
Full Sun and half Moon
Dress the early morning sky
Clouds dissolve to blue
.
n.b. Breakfast can be taken outside again with shirt off. To the west there is no sign of precipitation. Dunnock, pigeon and the young sparrow hawks nesting in the adjacent hedgerow join the sparrows in chorus. Is it a rain song?
Yesterday children around the world took time out of school to re-iterate that teaching them the same old shit isn’t going to address the climate crisis that threatens their futures.
CLP
On Rain
Green and pleasant land
Rivers run shallow, grass weak
Flaming June due next
.
n.b. We need rain and lots of it. The promised low pressure by-passed South-West England. The concrete water troughs that collect the run-off from the barn roof are markedly lower, a ring of algae marks the recent high water level. The Dowlish is so low that many of the stones on the river bed are exposed. Grass-fed animals need a healthy variety in the sward to thrive, but in these dry conditions not all grass types will prosper as they have done historically.
Meanwhile Somerset gears up for the next Glastonbury Festival at which 175,000 (!!!) people will need water for drinking, washing, cleaning and toilet flushing. The local water table needs this drain on resources like a hole in a bucket.
CLP 23/05/2019
On Thermals
Roundels on fanned wings
Clockwise spiral up on high
In sight; out of reach
.
n.b. A buzzard new to this part of the country, with distinctive creamy roundels, eventually disappeared from view high above, ascending on a rising pocket of hot air, (that brought some gulls drifting in from the coast). The buzzard soared with its primary feathers extended.
I have never seen such markings as these roundels on a buzzard. She will be easily recognised should she ever return here; should she ever return to Earth.
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CLP 21/05/2019
Metaphysical
It was Mrs Howard who Love taught me
In the temporary classroom
Sat on the rugby field
Her love of Love and its expression
From the page in gently found words
Spoken In bright metaphors
And subtle allusions
.
She spoke to me of hidden themes
And how a phrase could mean so much
How a rhyme can unlock the heart
Or harden up that vital muscle
To misunderstanding
And ill-focused yearning
.
She hooked me in
Close by the Itchen River’s bank
A young rainbow trout lifted up
From its soggy bed
On a fly fisher’s sharp whip
I was spotted, baited
Hungry to be caught and taught
To engage with finer forms
Than all those scawny spratts
With whom I’d been engaged before
Directed to gods, war, injustice
We were un-schooled
In more urgent places
Behind softly closed doors
Beneath blankets of meaning
Where bodies of learning could be openly studied
At length; in depth
.
It was not a coy mistress
Who opened Love to me
Her joy of Love
Without ambiguity
Writ large in her notes
Like billets doux that pointed me
Towards insights and Passion’s feelings
Mrs Howard my teacher
So pure and simple.
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n.b. Paul Gordon and I formed “The Mrs Howard Appreciation Society” of which we two were, (dare I write it), the only members. She was a great teacher and we never thought of her lustfully. She was just a lovely person with a gift for sharing her love of poetry. Thank you, Mrs Howard, where ever you are.
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n.n.b. NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 28 prompt: Write a poem about writing poems 🙄. Like writing songs about writing songs, this is navel gazing of sorts, which in the right company is a pleasant enough pastime I suppose.
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CLP 28/04/2019
Journey of Words 