Tomorrow we are back withSeason 2, Episode 3…
EAT THE STORMS- THE POETRY PODCAST – NEW EPISODE – SATURDAY 6TH FEB — Deuxiemepeau Poetry by Damien B. Donnelly
On the 8th of January I was the lucky guest of the Cheltenham Poetry Festival live on Zoom with the astounding Catrice Greer and a gorgeous group of poets reading that the Open Mic. Below is the recording of my set, a 25 minute tour of the first 45 years of my life, poetically, with…
Cheltenham Poetry Festival, Recorded Set — Deuxiemepeau Poetry by Damien B. Donnelly
As night settles, her dark vigil begin
Guiding shadows every night
Watching over all hunted by demons within
Calling lost souls to the lightAs countless as the stars her kin
Find at her side, respite from the daily fight
All those made to feel uncomfortable in their skin
Feel recharged by her watchful caring sightWhen teary sorrow and stormy fears set in
Her birds catch nightmares in their flight
As she new rainbow dreams spin
Mistress of watery midnight©RedCat
As soon as I started looking at that art piece, a phrase from a song started spinning through my mind. “Mistress of watery midnights” is from this healing chant I found on Insight timer.
See all art and read all poetry at The Wombwell Rainbow.
What moons are these?
Or are they some stars descended
from celestial spheres,
What birds perch here?
all unmoving silent, resting, in your
cool pristine aqueous Eden,
silver white presence reflecting a
glowing mosaic of fireflies, floating
in the deep,
beauty of nature, in perfect order,
In sphericity uncoiled, no sharp stones
no walls perceived,
What strange snowy sweets, placed
as gifts received,
Know then the truth with the vast dark pall,
Almighty Creator is the Greatest of All.
This is the final day of Paul Brookes’ Ekphrastic Challenge. (The dates were a bit off.). I participated every day, and it was a challenge, but a good one. I think the art made me think in different ways and produce poems that I would not have come up with otherwise. And now, I have a group of poems to revise and perhaps put together in some format. Thank you to Paul and to all of the artists who provided their creative work for this project. You can read all about them by going to the link. Congratulations to all the other poets who participated. There was one image for today:
Like Birds
She chants the words–
like tiny birds they fly
from her lips, the magic drips,
and she slips fever-nipped
to the riverside.
Is the reflection hers, or some other–
who might have been spirit or…
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Mam at Coronation Street. Fought Cancer for seven years.
I Watch Athletics With My Mam
All house mirrors have been removed.
I sit on her soft bed, rest an arm
on a spare pillow. Mum’s pillows
stack behind her as we watch
a tv placed where her dress mirror stood.
Once she cried as her hair fell out.
She cried as she gained each pound weight
because she takes the chemicals
to stop her dying, stop the spread.
Once she was ‘petite’, now Mum’s fat
jowls, bingo wings slop on the bed.
Together we watch lithe bodies,
sharp muscle tone dash for the end.
Her home is spotless, a show home.
Every day we polish, scrub,
vacuum, she wants it welcoming.
She nods off half way through the
100 metres, I soft clap
the winner as she would have done.
I remember good times, and smile
at her laughter, gleam in her eyes
when she sees another winner
dash over the race finish line.
Meanwhile, she looks forward to Oakwell,
a new fan of Barnsley FC.
I never go as I don’t like
football, regret my selfishness
and time not enjoying her life.
She will sit in her hired wheelchair
yell and clap at their confidence,
vitality, their will to win.
Note: Mum died of cancer in 1997
-Paul Brookes
FINDING THE RIGHT WORDS
Last visit to a friend dying of ovarian cancer
She is propped up with cushions,
a glass of lemon barley water
on a tray beside her,
polo mints spilling from a packet.
I sit on the sofa beside her;
She fumbles with the TV remote;
a huge cartoon dog dashes
across the technicolour screen.
I pass her the silver-framed photo,
the two of us at primary school,
broad grins and NHS glasses,
all gappy teeth and optimism.
She startles as a bird hits the window
and clings on to me tightly.
I draw back, shocked by her fragility;
stick arms like bird’s legs,
breath wreaking of sulphur
and disappointment
Maybe she senses my dilemma?
Tears well up in her puffy eyes
We had a wonderful childhood, she says,
Shall I make us tea?
My voice is shaky
She nods, attempts a weak smile
I fight back the tears
Please, just keep going a little while longer…
She lowers her eyes, averting my gaze
But I know in my heart of hearts
that sadly I have to let her go,
This will probably be our last time together
-Tim Fellows from his pamphlet (See below)
Bios And Links
-Tim Fellows
is a poet and writer from Chesterfield whose poetry is heavily influenced by his background in the Derbyshire coalfields – family, mining, politics, and that mix of industry and countryside that so many mining areas had. People can email me at timothyjfellows@gmail.com for a copy of the pamphlet
February 4th
-Christine O’Connor
-Kerfe Roig “Winter Forest”
Mistress of Watery Midnight
As night settles, her dark vigil begin
Guiding shadows every night
Watching over all hunted by demons within
Calling lost souls to the light
As countless as the stars her kin
Find at her side, respite from the daily fight
All those made to feel uncomfortable in their skin
Feel recharged by her watchful caring sight
When teary sorrow and stormy fears set in
Her birds catch nightmares in their flight
As she new rainbow dreams spin
Mistress of watery midnight
-©RedCat
Responding to CO4
Like Birds
She chants the words–
like tiny birds they fly
from her lips, the magic drips,
and she slips fever-nipped
to the riverside.
Is the reflection hers, or some other–
who might have been spirit or grandmother?
Is it past or future, what was, or what will be?
In the water, what does she see?
Stars and moon, earth and loon,
sky, earth, all upside-down,
she can’t decide
as she gazes there, unaware of time–
it seems like ages–
but only a moment has passed—
and when it’s over, she’s still not clear
what she has seen in the bits and flashes—
they collide,
the feathered-darkness and eagle-sight—
the stark gloom and the brightest light,
both appeared, both are here—
under Orion’s Belt,
they glide,
and she knelt
while the moon was rising,
now midnight blue shifts and drifts
to eastern pink, and as the wind sighs
she watches doves soar, with coo and cry,
to vanish—somewhere far, up in the sky.
-Merril D Smith
Undercover (CO4Feb)
If you interrogate the cormorant
he will tell you how he hangs himself
out to dry on the shale outcrop by day,
wings open in submission. He will explain
how he roosts on the cliffs, one eye open
to see the smugglers come in hoods,
candles in hand, dragging their bound loot
to the pickup spot. The lookout lowers
his hat, checks for trouble, ignores
the birds sleeping like headless corpses
on the rocks. This beak has more to tell;
but it will cost you. Moonshine flashes
on the water, a cold torch to mark the time.
A boat slips into the cove. A breath, release
the bird, and wade to catch the turning tide.
-Hilary Otto
KRFeb4 Winter Forest
Winter graffiti
Branches scrawled in black
tag the white landscape,
write their story in
a weak winter sun.
Birch trunks like mirrored
legs reflect a few
leftover maple leaves
underfoot, or is it
instead a splash of bright
blood? Shadows of scratches.
Bird tracks slash the path.
-Holly York
Bios And Links
-Kerfe Roig
A resident of New York City, Kerfe Roig enjoys transforming words and images into something new. Her poetry and art have been featured online by Right Hand Pointing, Silver Birch Press, Yellow Chair Review, The song is…, Pure Haiku, Visual Verse, The Light Ekphrastic, Scribe Base, The Zen Space, and The Wild Word, and published in Ella@100, Incandescent Mind, Pea River Journal, Fiction International: Fool, Noctua Review, The Raw Art Review, and several Nature Inspired anthologies. Follow her explorations on her blogs, https://methodtwomadness.wordpress.com/ (which she does with her friend Nina), and https://kblog.blog/, and see more of her work on her website http://kerferoig.com/
-Christine O’Connor
is an artist working in glass, metal, fibre and paint. Sometimes her work is based on photographs, but more often, she creates in the moment. She loves to play with texture and colour.
-Marcel Herms
is a Dutch visual artist. He is also one of the two men behind the publishing house Petrichor. Freedom is very important in the visual work of Marcel Herms. In his paintings he can express who he really is in complete freedom. Without the social barriers of everyday life.
There is a strong relationship with music. Like music, Herms’ art is about autonomy, freedom, passion, color and rhythm. You can hear the rhythm of the colors, the rhythm of the brushstrokes, the raging cry of the pencil, the subtle melody of a collage. The figures in his paintings rotate around you in shock, they are heavily abstracted, making it unclear what they are doing. Sometimes they look like people, monsters, children or animals, or something in between. Sometimes they disappear to be replaced immediately or to take on a different guise. The paintings invite the viewer to join this journey. Free-spirited.
He collaborates with many different authors, poets, visual artists and audio artists from around the world and his work is published by many different publishers.
-Redcat
RedCat’s love for music and dance sings clearly in The Poet’s Symphony (Raw Earth Ink, 2020). Passion for rhythms and rhymes, syllabic feets and metres. All born out of childhood and adolescence spent reading, singing, dancing and acting.
Her writing spans love, life, mythology, environment, depression and surviving trauma.
Originally from the deep woods, this fiery redhead now makes home in Stockholm, Sweden, where you might normally run into her dancing the night away in one of the city’s techno clubs.
Read more at redcat.wordpress.com
-Merril D Smith
is a historian and poet. She lives in southern New Jersey, where she is inspired by her walks along the Delaware River. She’s the author of several books on history, gender, and sexuality. Her poetry has been published in journals and anthologies, including Black Bough Poetry, Nightingale and Sparrow, Anti-Heroin Chic, and Fevers of the Mind.
-Godefroy Dronsart
is a writer, teacher, and musician currently residing near Paris. His poetry has appeared in Lunar Poetry, PostBLANK, Paris Lit Up, The Belleville Park Pages, and Twin Pies Literary among others. His first chapbook, “The Manual” (Sweat Drenched Press, 2020), explores the space between poetry, prose, and gamebooks. He has a sweet tooth for all things experimental, modernist, and strange. Follow him on Twitter and his Bandcamp for electronic explorations.
-Joy Fleming
Born in County Down, Joy has studied, mothered and worked in Scotland since 1980. Brief excursions to follow her heart, back to NI mid-1990’s and England for first round Covid-lockdown ’19, Joy is currently back living in Glasgow. Joy’s first poem was accepted as part of the C. S. Lewis themed Poetry Jukebox curation A Deeper Country in Belfast in 2019. This poem, Ricochet was published in The Poets’ Republic Issue 8 Autumn 2020. A love of reading poetry is now accompanied by sporadic writing of poetic lines which spill out as an apparent by-product of processing dark and sorrowful days.
-Holly York
lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her two large, frightening lapdogs. A PhD in French language and literature, she has retired from teaching French to university students, as well as from fierce competition in martial arts and distance running. She has produced the chapbooks Backwards Through the Rekroy Wen, Scapes, and Postcard Poetry 2020. When she isn’t hard at work writing poems in English, she might be found reading them in French to her long-suffering grandchildren, who don’t yet speak French.
-Alan Gary Smith
A Lincolnshire Ludensian living in Grimsby who built up his poetic stance after visiting Doncaster and Mexborough during his real ale and comedic music searches. Surprised to find a recent DNA check leaned heavily towards being a strong mix of Scottish, East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. A sixty year old baldy who loves Julie, astronomy and chocolate; after giving up on football and telly.
-Hilary Otto
is an English poet based in Barcelona. Her work has featured in Popshot, Black Bough Poetry, AIOTB, Ink, Sweat and Tears, and The Blue Nib, among other publications. She received her first Pushcart Prize Nomination and performed at the Cheltenham Poetry Festival. She tweets at @hilaryotto
-Jim young
is an old poet living in Mumbles on The Gower. He does most of his writing from his beach hut at Rotherslade – still waiting for the blue plaque
Anjum Wasim Dar was born in Srinagar (Indian Occupied )Kashmir, She is a migrant Pakistani.Educated at
St Anne’s Presentation Convent Rawalpindi she has a Masters degree in English Literature and History (
Ancient Indo-Pak Elective) CPE Cert.of Proficiency in English from Cambridge
UK. , a Diploma in TEFL from AIOU Open Uni. Islamabad Pakistan. She has been writing poems,
articles and stories since 1980.A published poet Anjum was awarded Poet of Merit Bronze Medal in 2000 by ISP International Society of Poets and poetry.com USA .
She has worked as Creative Writer at Channel 7 Adv. Company Islamabad, and as a Teacher Educator for Fauji Foundation Education Network Inservice Teachers
Educational Consultant by Profession.
Author of 3 Adventure Novels (Series) Fiction..
In Response to Kerfe Roig “What grows Here”
paradise descends
River of plenty flows on
Good grows here with peace
Kerfe Roig ~ Cool Silver
some enjoy the snow and play,
for them cold snow is a game,
some lie shivering,
no name-
some build bonfires the same,
sing dance and be merry
for tomorrow is, no blame
will come to shine and light,
my heart says forgive more,
make happiness and space
for others to share,
spend less
save more, war looms ahead
who knows what life may have
in store,
For Paul Brookes Special January-February Ekphrastic Challenge January 7- February 6. This is for February 3, and my poem is inspired by the three works below.
Wishes in the Snow
We ran from the soldiers, out into the snow,
into the birch forest, there by the trees,
where blood bloomed like flowers, red in the snow—
and I wondered if we’d be caught first–or freeze.
We ran from the soldiers, out into the snow–
Manya whispered stories of when women were fish,
and as the cold wind continued to blow,
she told of sea-blue wonders and a come-true wish
of times and people long ago—
before the snow.
We ran from the soldiers, out into the snow,
and I wished for roses, sunshine, birds, sheep,
but we were here, and where…
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