Week 16 – Photograph by Chris Sims
The selection of poems submitted in response to the photograph above were quirky, emotional and empathic. There can only be one winner and I am delighted to tell you that this week this is Angie Butler. Congratulations Angie!! I won’t name a second this week as several poems shared an equal number of votes so well dome to you all.
Poem 1
Storm voices
The wave torn cottage
hunkered down
closing its eyes against the storm.
The pathways of its face
run,
rivers caught in flood.
Over and over again the
waves beat against
its gnarled old face.
Taking each pounding fist
it didn’t think,
it just held fast,
time will pass
come do your worst,
I have stood in this place
for a hundred years,
I have seen worse
and survived.
I will and I can.
and calm did come
it fled, as cowards do
the storm had had its fill.
It was exhausted
It’s power gone.
Until next time-
so be prepared
this is a warning-
ignore and be gone.
I am nature, older than time
teaching you lessons
you refuse to learn
I can creep up slowly
in the night
or rage and rant
against your foolish ways
live with me and listen
suffer or survive.
Angie Butler
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Poem 2
Rain
Rain falls, rain falls, rain falls
on fields and lanes and streets and walls.
Drains burst, immersed, rain’s cursed.
Save all of us, the children first.
High tide, waves wide, banks break,
boats untied, High Street’s a lake.
Flood alert cracks blocked
mud and dirt door locked
Flood aware sandbags high piled
filth everywhere and floods flow wild
and rain falls, rain falls, rain falls
on fields and lanes and streets and walls
Janice Windle
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Poem 3
The Water Mark
Look at you all squashed and folded
Like innards with airs and graces
Sunk water and good-for-nothing
The once magnificent doorsteps,
Your power, reminding us all
Too much of a good thing!
The pain, worry we feel and look
Soon to be a remedy to filter you back out.
Johanna Boal
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Poem 4
Absent
I’m sorry. We’ve locked the door,
pulled down the plywood blinds
and gone away.
We didn’t know you were coming
and in any case there is no cake –
we don’t bake now.
We’ve locked the door,
pulled down the blinds,
escaped.
Gill McEvoy
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Poem 5
The Aftermath
The house remains;
my home has gone
receding waters
like beaten warriors
leave behind the stench
of destruction and decay.
Memories like limpets
cling hard while raw
emotions of life
rise then plummet
into despair as forty years
hard graft disappears
beneath the mud.
Sheila R. Bracewell
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Poem 6
Welcome
Welcome what comes through this door –
Friends, family, letters – everything before.
And food – in bags, or, like a take-away
Promising good at the end of a long day.
Not water, though, unless bottled and clean
Or pictured, filtered, in the pages of a magazine.
And not sand, except in kind irritations between toes
Or imagined, time running out – you know how it goes.
But water comes, now, unwelcome but insistent,
Still, rising, mocking the once-resistant
Door. And sand, too, bagged, testicular,
Impotent as a failed promise and unfamiliar.
Close the door, pile up the bags, wait, pray.
And when the spoiled things have been taken away
And it’s over, words like promise, welcome, good?
Only time will tell if they can still be used, like swollen wood.
Michael Docker
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Poem 7
243 Marble Road
Do not ring the door bell
inside we have birds
trees – lavender bushes
and a blue stream
that has settled itself safely
flooded our kitchen
so that we have forgotten
ordinary life
you may like to know
the honeysuckle is blooming
and a goldfinch is breeding
in the bathroom
we have cookies stored
in wellies and pizza’s
delivered through
the back window
nobody quarrels anymore
squirrels nest in the roof
we’re told the council
tax is on hold.
Audrey Arden-Jones
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Poem 8
After the Rain
The house underwater is an echo,
wallpaper peeling like burnt skin
and reflected in the muddied water
my face after you.
I twisted the rag of me dry,
released every drop of your moisture
but still I carry the stain of your river mouth,
the wet lick of you, dark by the front door
sandbagged fierce against the rain.
I have mastered the art of camel,
cactused myself against the need
for even a dripping tap.
Come summer the house will empty itself,
but the brick’s water scars
will shine in the winter sun.
Stephanie Arsoska
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Poem 9
Blockade
Words of hate, raised fists and shaming me,
Blaming me for the crooked picture now smashed upon the floor.
Barbed love as you pull me to you and whisper you’re sorry,
Not to worry, it won’t happen again.
But it does and the eggshells I tread on slice the soles of my feet.
You have stolen my pride and sold it off cheap.
Each bruise is a sandbag, placed gently at my door
‘Til you reach me no more.
Sarah Miles
