Category: Napowrimo

The treetops echo with the throaty hoot
of woodpigeons, nuthatch whistles
and the resonating thrum
of woodpeckers. All colours glow:
the orange of the blackbird’s bill,
the new green leaves,
milky wood anemones and golden celandines;
through the dapples stray
the first few butterflies.

Soon the swallows
will wake from hibernation
and squirm free from the mud;
from every pond
in ones and twos, then flocks,
like huge blue mayflies
pulling themselves free
of surface tension
and basking to dry their feathers in the sun
before a first flickering flight of spring
to gorge on midges.

~~~~~

I quite like the idea here, but the language is a bit earthbound at the moment. hohum.

Augustus Bagley, snaggletoothed and fat,
pants his way along the shingled beach
wishing he brought his hat;
the salty sweat, like bleach

burns in his eyes
but all he thinks of is the sting
between his thighs
where fabric scrapes on skin.

(There was supposed to be more of this poem, which would have made it a rather different thing. But time caught up with me and rhymes didn’t.)

Parks

There is a theory that a park
is an attempt to recreate the savannah
of our species’ youth;

that Capability Brown,
when laying out his ha-has,
was trying to scratch an unreachable itch;
his inner caveman’s yearning
for hot red soil, golden grass and thorn trees.

How charming it would be to see
Hyde Park with herds of zebra and impala
weaving their skittish way between
the office workers stretched out on the grass

and it would add a hint of spice
for the couples
savouring each others’ bodies in the sun
if every rustle in the rhododendrons
might be a leopard
hoping to crunch their skulls like popcorn.

[S3 tweaked slightly]

Orphosis

Some body hair and a deeper speaking voice
seem poor reward
for thirteen years of dutiful
eating and shitting.

Boys should pupate,
and claw their way from the chrysalis
transformed into kaleidoscopic manhood.
Or at the least should
slough their skins,
peel off their old selves
and step out sleek and bright.

I’ve decided to try to get to thirty poems, but loosen the time constraints. Just FYI.

On the little screen
that shows the progress of the flight
Europe is a blob of green
between the beige and blue and white.

Sand and sea and snow,
expanses that once defined
the limits of the known,
the limits of the mind.

We no longer need to wonder
at the unfamiliar;
the wild places just pass under
while we drink our cans of beer.