Tag: Poetry

Winter Doldrums

Raunacht Collection: Day 08

Winter doldrums are days of a permanent grey. The sun remains unseen, and light barely breaks through the dirty curtains.

Hark! Sarnies to the rescue and a cuppa.
Coffee. Black. Strong. Fragrant.
You may have tea.
Small blessings are the strongest anchors of joy.
Each creating a colourful dot on my fairy light string.

Cold drops play a splattering song,
on the wet street and the hood of my coat.
I shuffle along to the 12 bar blues, somewhere water is leaking into my boots,
and the world around me is in brown and grey hues.

Winter doldrums are a never ending grey.
Where the day blends into the night and the nights won’t become day.
So I bring out the candles, light fire, fairy lights, books, chocolate and journals are all my favourite things.

I meander between stories and rhyme, as I wrap my blanket tightly.
Warm beeswax candles shine.

Shush now dear reader, just pause and listen.
Because in the right light even dull dirty grey rain drops with glisten.

A photo taken during a rainy night, I held the lens right at the glass pane from the insight, outside the fairy lights are caught in the rain drops on the glass and create interesting fractions of light on the window pane. It's like looking through a kaleidoscope

A Grey December Day

Raunacht Collection: Day 07

One of those nearsighted days,
During which I pull the grey light around me.
A blanket of distortion.

There is no discernable horizon,
Just a gradual thickening of dreariness,
Until even the blurred silhouettes of trees disappear into the nothing of this day.

Time is on hold.
Indeed the proud buzzards sit on the ground.
Watching mole-holes, soaked feathers drooping, talons dulled by mud.

I study hula hoop waves dancing across mawkit puddles.
Until the rain grows too heavy,
And recoil destroys the circular serenity.

Dullness has piled into darkness now.
I switch on the light.
And all I see is the reflection of me in the French windows.

This photo is literally described in the poem. Dull day a field with trees barely visible through the fog on the horizon. Only the buzzards are missing here

It’s just so damn flat

Raunacht Collection: Day 06

Flat was my main complaint.
Everything is just so flat.
No mountains, not even hills,
At most we have some rolling fields.

There is no ocean either.
No seaside, beach or other feature.
A river half an hour walk across the road.
At least in our cellar lives a toad.
-Or three
And summers are hot.
And winters have snow.
If only there would be some hills to show.

Ink sketch exercise of rolling hills with trees and a church, sun breaking through clouds, a river runs from the background of the image to the foreground. The poem is written below. The sketch is extremely abstract just line drawings.

Witchgrass Acre

Raunacht Collection: Day 05

Witchgrass Acre
An Ice age afterthought
Rocks salt the soil
witchgrass sprouts from tiny crevasses
Mammoth teeth strewn below ground
Teeth, geodes, rocks and sand
Blanketed by brittle clay
Stone age pottery brought to the surface by autumn tilling
Once I even found a bronze age brooch

Witchgrass Acre
Ancient land
A meandering river bed
An old side arm
Indentation across the Western end of the farm
This is where the floods go first

Witchgrass Acre
The ancient creeds are still walking along paths forgotten
Overlaid realities
Sometimes you can see their shadow
Paths come and go
Medicinal plants everywhere
Holler* and Rowan protect the parameters
Witchgrass Acre grows powerful women

silhouetted corn field in the foreground with the sun setting behind and a blue darkening sky above featuring nice weather clouds

*Holler is an old fashioned word for Elder Tree in German

Disappearing pathways

Raunacht Collection: Day 4

Paths meander between realities
Today I walk along
Amongst the trees

Woodpecker greeting me with her staccato efforts
Tomorrow you are not there
You that path branching off at this tree


Tomorrow I will pass the tree and you won’t be waiting
Just to re-appear another time


And so I walk in between the here and now
Along the tree lined ribbon
Guided by the drum of a beak

Ink and watercolour sketch of a yellow path lined by trees and grasses, the draft of the above poem is written on the yellow path. The format is horizontal and the bottom right corner which is free has a rough sketch of Babd one of the iterations of the Morrigan

A Sansa Walk

Raunacht Collection: Day 03

Knee deep snow beyond the paths
Mountain pine branches bent by white weight
Stillness of a windless day
Monks’ chanting
In the Buddhist temple at the apogee
The only noise besides the crunch of snow underfoot

The chants an eerie iterance
In a silent world
Carrying us up the mountain
Breath visible in frozen air
I am in this world and other world
Walking the liminal space
Floating in a white suspense

Prayers as metronome
On a snow-muted day
I am here, and now
And always and everywhere
In this moment

Grandma’s Duty

Raunacht Collection: Day 02

Your rough-hewn hands
Move over my anxious skin.
Head, neck, shoulders, arms, hands.
Head, neck, shoulders, arms, hands.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
A little twirl,
more emphasise as you move over my hands,
and out and away.
I ought to sleep.
Alas I can’t.
My skin burns from carrying the day:
smells, sounds, colours have seeped into my epidermis,
setting the organ alight.
My stomach churns with thoughts and questions.
My brain spin tales and stories.
It won’t stop.
So you begin to sing.
Let the sound carry all away.
Let the sound quiet the stories
soothe the stomach.
All the while your hands move in their duty
of gathering an anxious child back into her body.

Christmas Eve

Rauchnacht Collection Day 01

Joyful chimes
Dance through the winter’s eve.
We are wrapped tightly,
In thick scarves and coats like down blankets.
Woolie socked feet, in big boots,
Crunch their way along the dark road,
Carefully determined,
Towards the sound of the bells.

Waiting are candle light, warm hugs from friends, carols to be sung, and nativity play.
Our noses numb with cold,
Mother, sister, me.

Stars decorating the dome above
Like the candles on our tree.
Snow is sparkling tinsel along the wayside.
We celebrate the light born.
Sun rising again and the days growing.
Stories blending into rituals,
Ancient tales in new dress.

The path, a road now,
Once carried mammoths,
And neolithic tribes.
And still we strive to the building on top of the highest elevation.
Coaxed by the sound of the bells,
To celebrate light reborn.
As we have done and will continue to do,
As long as the sun rises the next morning.

-Wright

(someone who creates, like a playwright)

what about a
rhyme-wright
line-wright
verse-wright

word-smith
worth-smith
world-smith
ink-slinger

tone-deaf singer
word-monger
time-squanderer
dimension-wanderer

follow me
follow
down the rabbit hole
we go

follow me
follow
along the edges of the plane
infinity returns

let words guide you
along the verge
of sanity

let the words ensnare you
temptress of worlds
yet to be created
world-wright
worth-wright
word-wright

follow me
follow
along the stanza
never ending


Angel Lost

My wings aren’t—actually—small and maimed
In fact they are strong
Huge
Not white, not fluffy, no soft down
Razor sharp edges
I am no angel of softness
I am avenger
Deep down I am fire and brimstone
I am righteous by nature
Fallen
Risen
Back with vengeance
Tethering on the edge of self-righteousness
A dangerous edge
Always hoisting myself back
Someone had to point it out though
The flaws
I mean it was so clear
Remember Cain and Abel
It’s always the messenger
Always
The voice that gets bumped
But someone had to point out the flaw
One sacrifice as the other
No preference
I sigh deeply
All the pomp
I stop my thoughts there
Whatever
Not all equal in his eyes
I still haven’t found my sword
It fell too
Got lost
And now
I need to point out
Again
The flaw
Again
The preferential treatment
Again
Small acts
Big impact
My wings shiver with tension
Always the same damn story