Since I’m writing more it’s probably better that I keep it all in one place so it doesn’t get mixed up with the foul-mouthed rants that I engage in on the main page…
Tight hipped houses densely packed together
like those soldiers from a Napoleonic war,
with front doors square on
to the enemy across the street.
And when the factory whistle blew
the doors exploded out
loosening their charges onto cobbled streets.
The sparks from clogs lighting the charges
of a thousand muskets.
And when the air cleared and smoke settled
the houses breathed in
preparing themselves for a repeat volley
when the day shift ended.
Posted in poetry | Tagged memories, poems
A Magpie Tales post
The milky-white page stares at me blankly,
a cataract clouding my sight of the words.
I must strike the right key to find the
rhythm where lines once disturbed,
can find order and see alignment
in the snow blindness of the page.
But my guideless fingers strike tuneless,
discordant notes in their rage.
The same fingers, veins filled with ink
once could write a life in the space of a line,
see connections in dissonant images
that my mind’s eye could design.
But now, the blind page unsees my work
and random letters fall and scatter
from ink-filled fingers, and, missing the page
fall unsighted to the ground and shatter.
Posted in poetry | Tagged jingle’s poet’s rally, magpie tales, poems
A Magpie Tales post.
You were one of the original hoodies,
peripheral, isolated on the edge,
cowled and stigmatised as they said
you were for the birds.
Yet you kept chirping away,
scattering crumbs of comfort as they pecked
at your stone-wall countenance
and made you blind.
But there was no poverty of sound,
the rustling of the winds habit as it
brushed past the trees was echoed
by the rattle of the corn
broadcasting their message.
But who listens to nature now,
when the only tweets come from a mocking bird?
We sow the seeds of our decline with every concrete footing
that falls on an abandoned nest.
In our desire to travel from here to there
we forget the journey.
Posted in poetry | Tagged church, jingle’s poet’s rally, magpie tales, poems, writers island
Submitted to Big Tent Poetry
Also submitted to Writers Island.
A swift fist to the head and onto the tarmac
knees skinned raw, black flakes
embedded in the cuts.
A grey-uniformed misshapen sack
of shaking limbs and snot trails on
cracked skin. Curled up tight,
a comma,
but nothing could pause this sentence.
Red blooded hands that penned your pain,
shuddering breath that couldn’t restrain
that whelping voice.
And everyday, it seemed, he came back
for his pound of flesh and left it
scraped across the yard.
Like a dog marking its territory
but it was your leg the piss ran down.
Scabs grew on scabs until they were armoured plates
and he became bored with the passive response.
The shaking stopped when he led his pack away
to rip and tear at some other stray,
until they too could roll over and play dead.
Posted in poetry | Tagged big tent poetry, dread, memories, poems, school days, writers island |
A Magpie Tales post.
Submitted to Thursday Poets Rally.
Framed
Charlie Chaplin doffs his hat as
Buster Keaton leans against the wall.
“We’re just flickering these days.”, says Charlie.
Buster smiles engimatically, keeps silent.
The white screen wall, blank in its
blinking light, absorbs their shadows,
soaks up their slapstick soliloquies.
In the stalls, Fatty Arbuckle finishes a bottle
thinks about youth arrested and smiles, wistfully,
at a career as cross-eyed as Ben Turpin.
Meanwhile, somewhere overhead,
Harold Lloyd is hanging around, out of time.
The frame shifts out of focus
and the reel ends.
Posted in poetry | Tagged memories, magpie tales, poems, jingle’s poet’s rally, silent movies, buster keaton, charlie chaplin, fatty arbuckle, ben turpin, harold lloyd
A Magpie Tales post.
Also submitted to Writers Island.
And to Thursday Poets Rally.
A Time to Reflect
A quick glance, backwards,
and a life is reflected.
Where an eye for regret
is stored in the gilt-edge
surround. The glass echoing
hopes long past, sundered, eclipsed
by shadows of lives not lived.
Where love almost lingered
but passed, etching layers
of guilt and memories inlaid
in wrinkles. And as I look again
that past life settles, like wind-blown
sand, on a present countenance.
Posted in poetry | Tagged jingle’s poet’s rally, magpie tales, memories, reflections, writers island
A Magpie Tales post.
Also submitted for Writers Island.
Backdrop
The light flickers, dances, focuses on the screen,
The projectionist loads the reel.
We begin.
Images flash up, some jerky, some still.
Is that you, snot-green hair and raw knees,
eyes tearfill?
More frames, technicolor now. And this?
Giraffe limbs, cows-lick, as you reach for
a first kiss.
Widescreen, a panoramic future, except
No leading lady for your Bogart face.
Joy sidestepped.
We roll on. Colour fades, a close-up.
Chair-soiled, you shake to unheard music,
on the cusp.
Was that your life? Played out on a screen,
blankly, while you watched from the back. The
last reel. Fin
Posted in poetry | Tagged magpie tales, poems
A Magpie Tales post.
Fall
Whisper the winter wind
as you coldly blow
through cottonwool cheeks.
Your breath scorching
the unsettled leaves,
like guests at a party
not wanting to go.
Whistle that wind,
whirring through branches
Causing copses of trees
to don yellow sou’westers
as they shiver their way
into darkening days.
Posted in poetry | Tagged magpie tales, poems
A Magpie Tales post.
Lamp
First Light
The old oil lamp, pumped into light
by fingers gnarled and rooted in wood,
that he routed, shaped
and turned. From pharmacists
bench to mahogany table.
Where children sat, planted like saplings
and listened to tales as old as the earth,
of fish slipping the hook
and grouse flushed from gorse.
Last Light
The wick dimmed and the light
was breathed into darkness.
And knotted, wood-stained fingers
loosened their grip on the soil.
Posted in poetry | Tagged magpie tales, nostalgia, poems
