At the equinox

Photo by James Wheeler: https://www.pexels.com/photo/brown-wooden-dock-414612/

Beneath our moon’s cold quarter-essence,

Pinprick beads on threads of night,

The poet strings our luminescence,

Word to word, as cosmic rite.

 

Each hoped-for orb, a constellation

From vast expanse of untapped night,

Continues in its inhalation,

Of poet’s hope in setting right

 

With rhyme and rhythm, structured space,

Our small cacophony of place

Of bright, of bursting, ‘ploded, done,

Then lost to night, vast darkness

 

Gone.

—

It’s been a while since the poet has shared publicly. Perhaps the tides are bringing new momentum. Perhaps.

On the tube the poet picked up the Evening Standard from the opposite seat. News, celebrity updates, opinion pieces and business insights read, the poet turned to the horoscopes. All nonsense, of course, except that it said something about acknowledging nature and sharing this with someone who might agree. The poet takes this to be readers. Together we may acknowledge nature, be it equinox or blossoming trees.

Outside the poet’s loft the moon is on its rise, glowing white against the evening’s blue. The poet has read, in passing, that tomorrow (today’s) spring equinox in the North may bring about a turning way from the stagnant, unhelpful, whatever-drags-us-down. Spring often suggests this type of transition (as does autumn, with a different spell). As the poet has done for many years, she seeks out and notes the blossoming at the end of the neighbours’ backyard and of her favourite tall tree in the local “wood”, the turn from snowdrops to narcissi to daffodils. We wait for the bluebells.

For more poems about spring see:

Supportasse Boughs (a personal favourite)
Palette of an overcast spring day
March burst
They’re purple but blue better rhymes

See @beadedquillwrites (Insta) for photo’s plus micro, everyday poems. You can also follow on Facebook for updates on blog posts. And do sign up for (very) occasional emails from the poet’s desk on the website homepage.

Books are for sale on Blurb, including the latest project: Jangle between Jangle, poems written during the London commute.

Fire door

Photo by ZUMRAD NORMATOVA from Pexels

Danger
Thunder and lightning

Caution
A box that opens
(but should not)

Caution
Red seeds you could eat
(but should not)

Caution
A bargain to make
(but should not)

That door
Keep shut

Only those who dare
Do not.

—

Earlier this week I took a photo of a door that entertained me:

Photo taken by BeadedQuill (C)

I liked how the list of commands added up to make a story about the fire door that ought to be kept shut. As a final coda (a whisper perhaps between the sign-maker and us) there is the assertion that whatever is behind that door is private. A funny, little joke, I thought.

Knowing it was time for a new blog post I started playing with caution as a starting point, thinking about things that were dangerous and ought to be kept enclosed or not broached. It was too obvious to go for the apple of Eden, so instead I turned to mythology and literature (although I am certain there are mythological bargains that would work, too). Those old tales suggest that some doors ought to be kept closed and yet there are those who dare otherwise.

For your enjoyment, here are additional poems inspired by mythology and symbolism:

Visitation

Hope and Sky have disappeared

Every Sign of the Zodiac

—

See @beadedquillwrites (Insta) for photo’s plus micro, everyday poems.

You can also follow on Facebook for updates on blog posts.

And do sign up for occasional emails from the poet’s desk on the website homepage.

Books are for sale on Blurb, including Jangle between Jangle, poems written during the London commute.

As if nurtured

Photo by Nathan Cowley: https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-tree-on-lake-2463951/

From the fallen log,
A sapling grew.

Now an upright bark,
With an outstretched canopy:

From the waters of the lake,
It skims the heavens.

—

A friend sent a beautiful card for my birthday (in July). The photograph was originally selected for the National Wildlife Photographer of the Year (2012). Please admire the original image by Adam Gibbs here. Alongside the photo he gives us an insight into his thoughts on seeing the scene at Fairy Lake, “To me, the little tree looked as though it had been nurtured by a bonsai master.”

Struck both by the image and Adam’s description, I thought about a possible poem a good few weeks ago. Two versions of this poem, that included more rhyme, I lost. They came to me while I was walking and then I didn’t write them down in time. Maybe those versions will come back to me.

This last week I have been reading a novel about the last Dowager Empress of China, hence the influence of heavens.

For other poems inspired by art, books and music

A Bequest of Wonder

Phillip’s Log: Entries about my Moonlit Sylph

Leo’s Entries

What We Were all Thinking (The Symphony Seldom Played)

Nos Liberavit

—

See @beadedquillwrites (Insta) for photo’s plus micro, everyday poems.

You can also follow on Facebook for updates on blog posts.

And do sign up for occasional emails from the poet’s desk on the website homepage.

Books are for sale on Blurb, including Jangle between Jangle, poems written during the London commute.

Residue / Our Pride

Photo by Earl Wilcox on Unsplash

I was told
there were regrets,
sadness over the things
gone sour.

Still to this day
it’s never been confirmed
to my face
by you, the one concerned.

I am determined
to maintain
it will always be
a little too late.

As it is, your stupid goodbye gift –
I’ve thrown it well away.

—

It might be pre-birthday angst, hormones or summer-fuelled heat, but when I sat down to write this month’s blog poem there was annoyance in the pen. I had been toying with a poem about the cost-of-living crisis (“levelling up with price matches”) or being left with an empty bed and sheets needing washing (“changing sheets again”) or being confronted by time’s speedy passing (“left too late”). (Interesting that in their descriptions both a laundry chore and the passing of time become states of being in my sentence.)

My mother has a philosophy that if she hears from someone a relay of something said about her by someone else, and especially if the something is criticism, it counts for nothing. If you want to say something to her, you ought to do so to her face. It’s a view I’ve inherited. And let me share, it isn’t always shined on as a response to managers in the workplace: “Whatever the Head of the Unit has to say about me, he can say it to me himself, otherwise I’m not considering it relevant.” I’ve learned with time to react differently, but in the realm of poems it means nothing unless you say it directly, to my face.

In this poem the matter is a pseudo-apology from one party to another expressed to an intermediary. Forget such nonsense! Say it to my face.

But it may be a little too late.

I looked for poems with a similar tone. It seems my poetic pen has a knack for diluting negatives into whimsy. Here is a selection of poems that have a darker undertone:

At the right age

Livelihood – Listen to me you golden beauty

An overdose of summer

Small talk

The overdose of score

—

See @beadedquillwrites (Insta) for photo’s plus micro, everyday poems.

You can also follow on Facebook for updates on blog posts.

And do sign up for occasional emails from the poet’s desk on the website homepage.

Books are for sale on Blurb, including Jangle between Jangle, poems written during the London commute.

Visitation

Photo by KoolShooters via Pexels

All in white
descended on my doorstep,
in a cloud of cologne:
the amoretto, the deuce,
the quicksilver son
of Mercury.

Some spells
are an intercession.

—

Other poems about visits, hellos and good-byes:

Different rides

My heart was a rogue balloon

Pavement Writer

On a traffic island halfway across High Road, evening

The mattress turned over

In this place, I eat butternut soup

Winterreise: on the table – a glass of water

—

See @beadedquillwrites) (Insta) for photo’s plus some micro, everyday poems.

You can also follow on Facebook for updates on blog posts. And do sign up for occasional emails from the poet’s desk on the website homepage.

Books are for sale on Blurb, including Jangle between Jangle, poems written during the London commute.

Palette of an overcast spring day

Photo by Ray Hennessy on Unsplash

Seen from the poet’s loft:
Red London bus, double-decker,
then a postal van.
Grassy yards where in the beds
Tulips, bluebells, wilder forget-me-nots
Now show.

A man in puffy jacket,
fluorescent against ground grey
far away.
A neighbour shakes a sheet
up to the washing-line.

Pigeons, magpies, parakeets,
finches, robins, full-bodied crows
frequent the rooftiles,
Conifer,
Wooden fence below.

Some say on such a day
The only colour to be seen
Is grey.

—

You may also enjoy these other spring poems:

In an English spring-time

Spring Wants

The first of two poems about blossoms

Supportasse Boughs

They’re purple but blue better rhymes

—

See Instagram (@beadedquillwrites) for more photo’s plus some micro, everyday poems from my recent trip.

You can also follow on Facebook for updates on blog posts.

And do sign up for occasional emails from the poet’s desk on the website homepage.

On the secret beach

Photo: (c) poet’s own taken at the secret beach, Mauritius, Feb. 2022

When we’re not there
Or if we are
the waves
draw up resolve

To putter out on shore.

Great energy, momentum
Dissolves in frothy white.
The rest draws back
to charge on blue

To roll a course infinite.

—

After two years of serious COVID-anxiety, I flew to Mauritius. In the two weeks there I planned to write, read and exercise. I’d packed leggings and trainers to go running. In 30C heat and 85% humidity my willpower wilted. In the mornings, a cooler and more sensible time to run, I instead pottered around making breakfast porridge and then drinking vanilla tea on the balcony until finding my resolve. At that point I’d focus on what one should do on a beach holiday: go to the beach.

I’d take a secret route (over rocks and a hotel’s wall) to a secret beach. I can’t tell you where it is, or its name, but locals and long-time insiders know of it. It is beautifully scenic, with little shoals of fish that dart in pockets of the shallows. In the garden of one of the houses on the beach they keep chickens and a rooster. The rooster spent much time cock-a-doodle-dooing. For me, this was an unfamiliar accompaniment to waves breaking. I’m more accustomed to seagulls.

After the cyclone, I spied a dead crab spread out over one of the rocks. He did not smell too good, but by the next day all of him was gone. Coming and going seems to be a way of the shoreline.

On the beach and in the day-to-day I did so much staring. Yes, like an activity. I stared at the waves pulling up their energy and dissolving it on the shore; at the seemingly still far horizon; at tossing palm fronds; at a bamboo-framed mirror on my bedroom wall that resembled a sun with rays; at my feet and legs; at the sand; at the beige cushions on the sofa in my rental apartment. Sometimes you have to charge, it seems. Or dissolve.

—

See Instagram (@beadedquillwrites) for more photo’s plus some micro, everyday poems from my recent trip.

You can also follow on Facebook for updates on blog posts.

And do sign up for occasional emails from the poet’s desk on the website homepage.

Out of Office

Photo by ROMAN ODINTSOV from Pexels

Talk with trees

You won’t find the poet
at the desk;
it’s out of office time.

On vacation, sabbatical,
gardening leave,
AWOL.

Out of the cubicle of mind;
in, instead, in long walks,
lie-ins, in time with trees.

I asked today if one
could carry me.

Follow BQ on instagram (@beadedquillwrites) and Facebook.

Sign up for occasional emails from the poet’s desk on the website homepage.

Find BQ’s books for sale via Blurb, including Jangle between Jangle, a collection of verse written while jangling to-and-fro during the London commute.

New Years, New Times

Photo by cottonbro from Pexels

Necessary Work

Types of Necessary Work:
Getting up.
Going to work.
Eating breakfast; taking meds.
Watching for my eye to mend.
Watching as the candle burns.
Letting go to say goodbye.
Waiting. Letting a breeze
into the room.

More Types of Necessary Work:
Devising shapes with pens and 
Filling lines. New fonts
embossed on diary covers,
new years, new times. 

Necessary work finds a rhythm:
It’s necessary work to rest
So as to carry on
The necessary beat,
The necessary song
The necessary commute
The necessary job. The necessary 
tasks to pay the necessary bills.
The necessary ways that take
the necessary tills,
and toils.
The necessary hurts and the 
necessary pains, to be lived,
maybe lived again.
(For you, I hope not.)

It’s that day of the year when, as a yoga teacher I once had might say, many of us are already in the plane. We are thinking about the promises of the New Year, skipping through the motions of today, while perhaps looking forward to an early night or a celebration. For many of us, the thought is “Can it just be 2022, already?”

Despite the 2020, too/ two/ part II jokes, an abiding hope is that all in all the year to come will be a better one for all, in all manner of ways. My go-to message for birthday and Christmas cards is often along these lines, “May the year ahead be filled with all good things.” Of course, realistically, we know it is unlikely for a whole year – especially a whole decade – to be without trials and even tragedies. But celebratory card greetings are not the socially acceptable place to reflect on the width and breadth of life. Like the classic happily ever after ending in a candyfloss fairy tale (or contemporary K-drama) such greetings are a fictional parallel universe where we can indulge in all is good, all is well. Even the end of this poem, unlike What is it even all for?, ends with a fairy tale ending for you, dear reader: the poet’s wish is that you will not have to (re)live life’s necessary tilling, toiling, hurts and pains.

Such a candyfloss life or marshmallow world doesn’t make sense, of course. The sentiment is what counts. I wish for you that things will be good, better, best. As I wish for all of us that 2022 will be good, better, best. May it be a year of happily ever after for humanity and for the planet.

—

This poem is in Necessary Work, an unreleased collection that BeadedQuill still has in the wings and has no steam to typeset. In the meantime have a look at Jangle between Jangle, a collection of verse written in 2018 while jangling to-and-fro during the London commute.

You can now sign up for rare to precious newsletter-type emails from BQ. Sign up at the bottom left of the website homepage.

Follow BQ on the gram (@beadedquillwrites) and Facebook.
Find BQ’s books for sale via Blurb.

And

From an original photo by Polina Zimmerman from Pexels

a poem to be paired with With

And, another word –
verboten in excess,
the Creative Writing Rules
would warn.
And then another thing
And, and, And, and.
Dandy and, 
Like but, not to be 
ushered in at sentence starts.
And so for years, and 
carefully was placed or
 erased.
But now the rules are weaker.
Butands, andbuts
Buttons, and boîtes,
All found in these small words.

15/03/2020

Today’s poem is a companion to With. Both poems are about a personal rebellion against recommended creative writing rules. Don’t end sentences with with. And don’t start sentences with and and nor should you use and in excess by using it to tag on extensions and meanders to your primary thoughts. Of course, I have an affection for these two small words. With and. And with.

There is a third word in this list of to be used correctly words and that is but. Like and, it should not be used to start sentences (with). In the poem, you can see how the association with but finds its way into the playful end list:

But now the rules are weaker.

Butands, andbuts

Buttons, and boîtes,

These three little words are little buttons as they attach and close the gaps between meanings and sentences. And they are little presents that add an extra thought (And then this other thing happened…) or swerve the original direction (I had planned to, but…) or bring in the possibility of open adventure and movement (Let’s go with).

Don’t do this in your homework, kids. You may have to wait until you are the final arbiter of your writing style.

—

This poem is in Necessary Work, an unreleased collection that BeadedQuill has in the wings. In the meantime have a look at Jangle between Jangle, a collection of verse written in 2018 while jangling to-and-fro during the London commute.

You can now sign up for rare to precious newsletter-type emails from BQ. Sign up at the bottom of the website homepage.

Follow BQ on the gram (@beadedquillwrites) and Facebook.
Find BQ’s books for sale via Blurb.