Week 51 – Photograph by Krys Kelly
Nine very lovely poems this week written with the above photograph as inspiration. The readers’ favourite was the delightful Bordello by Susan Castillo-Street (poem 2). Congratulations to Susan and many thanks for every submission and every vote.
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Poem 1
black lace in winter
the sharp relief of trees in
the pale light of dawn
Jilly Henderson-Long
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Poem 2
Bordello
There’s something risqué
in these winter sunsets.
Black lace trees are filigree
on blue and pink sky satin,
lewd sexy colours.
Not an easy look to carry off with flair,
this joining up of lush and spare.
Susan Castillo-Street
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Poem 3
I Think I Hear
I think I hear the dawn tune up.
Dim January light stirs, rustles
In the pit of clouds. Now the first low footlights
Grind to cobalt all black powder-paints of night:
From star-dust to sun-hint, rose-tint, sun-glint.
Barely audible, woodwinds quaver and quiver
Along the sky’s bass-line, tree-line; dawn
Scrapes the horizon with a wail of light as flat and thin
As a child’s protesting bow
On the unrosined strings of a violin.
Slowly, light pulses up and breaks—no choristers,
No liar’s cock-crow on a winter’s day—
Gathers itself for the morning’s glissando,
Crescendos, rosy-coloured, all rhythm-and-blues,
With a trumpet fanfare’s ringing blast.
And so the sun erupts triumphant
Across the breathless audience of sky and space:
Songbirds and the full orchestra of day
Proclaim the longed-for light’s return.
Yes, I know I hear the sun rise.
Lizzie Ballagher
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Poem 4
In Bed Naked
My foot dangles, sways over the spaces
the romping bed; hopes planted of nest building.
Up. At the window and seeing bare shoulders
trees leafless, branches reaching an effervescent sky.
The uncovered low sky cheerful; blue and pink offerings.
Johanna Boal
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Poem 5
Nature’s Gift
Red sky in the morning
A dire warning
According to the shepherds
But pink doesn’t threaten
It heralds the promise of a perfect day
Starkly silhouetted against the pastel hue
Branches denuded of leaves
Reach for the sun
In anticipation of new life to come
Beauty to behold
Soothing a troubled soul
Nature’s gift to humanity
In a world soiled by depravity
Carol Mills
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Poem 6
Nature- the artist
On the eternal canvas,
of boundless space,
Nature paints at ceaseless pace;
Rose gold and blue,
a splendid sky,
A blush of dawn
emblazoned high;
A silhouette of trees
in winter ,bare,
Brushed with strokes
of dash and flair;
A sun she ‘ll paint,
the scene will change,
Before our eyes,
she ‘ll rearrange;
Colours dull to dazzling white,
Her palette rich,so rare,so bright;
Her art no hand can emulate,
or even try to imitate.
Leela Gautam
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Poem 7
Red clouds in cold air
Promise brief blue, breaking
bright, blood or black.
Like thin fence trees, bare
From winds, not yet making,
Can’t hold it back.
It comes surely, is nearly here.
Red sky’s delight or warning
Turn blue, or black.
Michael Docker
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Poem 8
The Space Between
The atoms which build molecules,
the lignin which builds trees.
Particles are mostly space,
an emptiness of existing which fascinates.
So when I look at objects
it’s the space between which draws me in,
not the scratching of the branches
but shades of dusky sky.
The evenings I have watched upon on the Westwood,
grass turning, trees whispering, the perfume
of May, the last anemone found before it fades.
At the still point between breathing in and out,
oxygen, molecular, free, combines with haemoglobin.
The lungs of Earth providing life for these lungs of mine.
Clint Wastling
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Poem 9
Turn Once More
Before your eyes
flowers fade,
no tree but a rose,
blight all too soon
bites at the red velvet.
Seasons spin,
snow becomes rain,
sun moves to wind,
petals rise and wither
in strict rotation.
With quiet clips
the gardener dead heads,
leaving a crisp cut weeping,
he nourishes the root
and tends the soil,
ready for the next year
and a new rotation.
Andy Scotson
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