Today’s poem for Paul Brookes’ challenge. You can see the images here.

Wondering

beyond this dull day
of coming winter, parched grass
still brown, browner leaves fallen,
to the times when spring will not heal
this cracked and broken land,
blood and sap no longer course, rise,
bones snap like brittle branches.

When the earth sighs,
the life that once teemed dies,
will clouds still roll across the skies
in battleship grey like today?

Wondering,
for a thousand billion friends.

For Paul Brookes’ challenge. You can see the photos here.

The uncertainty of clouds

They are fickle, the clouds, speaking
languages that change from day to day.
The sky is all some of us have,
especially on days when the world is mute
and dumb and indifferent.

I watch Manannán’s horses tread white,
scattering foam from their manes,
hooves scraping, then watch the light sabre
cut across their path, chop them
into a flock of docile sheep.

They call first in the ancient tongue
that echoes across green hills,
then in the alien clicking of electronics,
dials and meters. I lose the thread,
the drift, all out at sea.

I wish not for stability,
for who ever heard of a stationary cloud?
But for the story to be told to the end,
before they break into another darker tale,
before the failing of the light.

Guest Features on Patricia’s Pen – January 2022 – March 2022

Over the next couple of weeks why not revisit some of the guest features on Patricia’s Pen during 2022?

January kicked off with crime fiction author Val Penny – you can read her blog HERE

Author, Mary Schmidt, followed with her children’s book Davy’s Dragon Castle – you can read what Mary had to say HERE

Next up was one of my favourite poets –

Damien B Donnellywho joined forces with the lovely Eilín de Paorto write their poetry conversationIn the Jitterfritz of Neon

If you missed it – you can catch up HERE

Romantic Author, Liz Martinson, started us off in February – you can read what Liz had to say HERE

Author, Camilla Downs followed, blogging about how her walks proved inspirational in writing – read how inspiration helps Camilla HERE

Last week’s poetry form was the extremely tricky Welsh form, awdll gywydd. It took a lot of fiddling with, but I’m satisfied it gave something pleasant to listen to. And a chance to repost Kerfe’s owl painting. You can read the other poems on Paul Brookes’ site here.

This dark night

I heard owl call this dark night,
When the light so bright had dimmed,
Saw his ghostly, silent flight,
Eerie sight, bone-white, sky-skimmed.

This night they walk, fox and deer,
Without fear, not here, for we
Are abed until the lark,
Though dogs bark, too dark to see.

Dawn will break, mother-of-pearl,
Day uncurl, unfurl, fill soon
With swifts. Till then shadows creep,
Blackbirds sleep, hares leap the moon.

In response to the photos, day 6 of Paul Brookes’ what shapes can you see in the clouds challenge.

Cloud-break

a shaft of sunlight
streams in golden glory,
cathedral-filling,

dust mote-floating, touching
the shadowed fields below
with the echoing voices of infinity.

In pale imitation, we scrawl our names
in exhaust from screaming engines
across the purity, scratch the coping

of the sky with fingernails,
until the white stuffing bursts,
disperses, sea foam.