Monday 30 April 2018

NaPoWriMo #30: Spectre of Bali

Even the smallest member
of the family stands tall.

The Queen of Bali,
of the mangroves and the grasslands,
she prowled the dense jungles,
sending deer and birds fleeing,
shrinking from her shadow,
as fierce and revered
as her Indian brothers.

Those from across the sea
came seeking her,
to pay her homage
with steel and lead,
with the teeth of snap-traps
and bullets to the skull.

Every part of her had use,
to the visitors and her neighbours.
Her teeth and claws warded off evil,
her skin adorned the hunters' den,
her whiskers made the sharpest poison.

Such reverence and torment
scattered her to the winds of history.
A museum forms her tomb,
her bones laid in state,
her skin with the stripes faded,
her skull with the bullet hole
decorating her forehead.

Out in the mangroves
the deer sometimes cower
at a passing feline shadow,
a spectre
from the forests of yesterday.

(So ladies and gentlemen, that's it. NaPoWriMo is over for another year. To anyone who's followed my journey through the challenge this year, thanks for sticking around and I'm pleased that we got through it again this year. To my fellow poets who took on the challenge this year, well done for sticking with it to the end! I'll have my full thoughts on how I think it went this time out tomorrow at the latest. Thanks once again, and until next year, goodbye NaPoWriMo!)

Sunday 29 April 2018

NaPoWriMo #29: Mesozoic Summer

In the Mesozoic forests
the summer lingers all year.
Ferns and conifers lush
and dripping with moisture,
the effect of a greenhouse planet.

The kings of the earth roam
unfettered.
Pteosaurus, leather-winged
masters of the sky
dart above the canopy
snatching dragonflies.

Coelurus, quick-footed, shrewd,
the nightmare of mammals
cowering under the leaf litter,
while a bullish Stegosuaurs
crashes through the underbrush,
its psychedelic plates
pulsating against the green.

Out on the plains, giants assert
their presence without effort.
Diplodocus steps shake the earth,
dainty heads on preposterous necks,
tails swishing like gargantuan eels.
They scan the forest edge for enemies,
the packs of therepods
lusting after the potential
of such a gigantic feast.

(This is a poem I've thought for a while about doing, and now I think I've found the right way to do it. Hard to believe I started twenty nine days ago but it seems we've gotten through NaPoWriMo for another year. Only one more to go, so I'll see you tomorrow when we're finishing NaPoWriMo in style!)


Saturday 28 April 2018

NaPoWriMo #28: Railbound Vision

The glass of a carriage window,
granting views of the passing countryside,
a blurred tapestry morphing
into cold concrete and metal
of the rain-drenched cityscape.

Many hours are passed
staring through this window,
the fields, trees and rivers
blending into daydreams
of snapshots from the past
and hopes for the future,
a crystal ball looking both ways.

Then the monotone announcer
tells no one in particular
that the train will be arriving at...
And the kaleidoscope vision
dissipates.

Friday 27 April 2018

NaPoWriMo #27: Acacia Siesta

The savannah simmers in the heat of midday.
A single impala wanders the plains
keeping one eye fixed on a nearby tree,
the danger underneath it not hard to see.

Six lions rest in the acacia's shade,
the pride male watching the grassland haze.
All of this he fought for and won by force,
a cycle of violence runs it usual course.

The cats sleep easy with their hunger sated.
A night comes the hunt for which they've waited.
The buffalo huddle close, but they're unprepared,
the lions attack what no one else dares.

Thursday 26 April 2018

NaPoWriMo #26: Whitewall

Sitting in a whitewall room,
designed for your comfort,
to help you unwind,
also to assure anyone
looking through the online prism
that this room
is a quality place
to spend a few nights.

The blankness of the paint
sterilises the mind,
and the best hope of sanity
lies beyond the window pane,
yet all you can see is the rain.

The walls scream in silence
for a splash of splendour,
just a dash of colour
to give them some way
of expressing themselves,
yet the whitewall smothers the
into brushstroke uniformity.

Wednesday 25 April 2018

NaPoWriMo #25: Hornet Warning

Caution: Do Not Disturb This Hornet Nest.
Contains Vicious Warrior Insects
Liable To Sting You To Death.
Orange, Yellow and Black Markings
Are Outline To Help
If You Ignore This First Warning.
Do Not Mix With Bees
Unless You Wish To Provide
A Giant Hornet Buffet.

(Today's poem comes from the daily prompt on the NaPoWriMo website, which asks participants to write a poem in the style of a warning label to myself. Since giant hornets are warning labels in and of themselves, I'm not sure how helpful this poem will be in helping people to avoid them, but we can hope. Now with five poems to go we're finally near the finish line. See you tomorrow with the next poem!)

Tuesday 24 April 2018

NaPoWriMo #24: Chilling on the Water

They know a lot them ducks,
about where it's best to retire
when the need for rest takes over.

A mallard, who works every day
on the weir-torn river in town,
dabbles on an oval lake

designed by gardeners
imitating nature's haphazard
perfection.

He mingles with the swans and geese,
scoffs at the moorhens
as they patrol the reed.

The moorhens return the gesture.

His family sit on the banks,
five fuzzy brown ducklings
and their speckled mother.

The ducklings learn to swim
in an uncertain straight line,
the first of many lessons

while their father tries to sleep
on the water, and is dive-bombed
over and over by a hooligan chaffinch.

At day's end, they sit and watch
the swans argue over who shall chase
an unsuspecting coot.

Monday 23 April 2018

NaPoWriMo #23: Madness and Rage

Is it anger? Is it ineptitude?
Is it unpreparedness?
Is it all of the above?

Rage, a force from the unknown,
arrives unbidden,
devastates all before it
when let loose.

Madness feeds Rage,
nurtures it like rain
on a wilting dandelion,
till it bursts forth
and blooms
into a frothing cataclysm.

Sunday 22 April 2018

NaPoWriMo #22: The House with No Name

It sits on the hill
as an empty skeleton,
its residents vanished,
the mortgage no more,
who knows if it ever had one?

Now it's a monument
to something unknown and untold,
a vestige
from when trams
rolled up and down
the coal-choked hills.

The decrepit door
allows whispers
to cross the silent threshold.
The tumbledown walls
long surrendered to the moss.
Somewhere in that ruin
the chipping of pickaxes
resonates in the dark.

Saturday 21 April 2018

NaPoWriMo #21: Battle

Every once in a while the fields rumble
when cuirasses and greaves clatter on the march
and sword and shield rattle in unision
while a robin sings his tune in the thickets,
unaware of the great king's defiant speech,
fuel for the brave and the petrified
should there be any breaks in the line
when the enemy advances in formation
like driver ants marching in a column,
arrows buttering up their impeding obstacle
before steel rings against steel
and dying scream blends with battle cry.

Friday 20 April 2018

NaPoWriMo #20: Moonlight Chase

Howling on the wind,
the settlers shiver at the sound.
The great hunters of the woods
gather on this moonlit night.

The elder wolves know the ritual,
passed down through the ages
from one pack leader to the next,
scouring the frozen forest for prey.

The settlers seek comfort
in preemptive solutions
and set out with spear and flame
to drive their monsters out.

They come for the pack that night
but the wolves melt into the trees,
shades as old as the winter chill
and man's eternal, abstract foe.

Thursday 19 April 2018

NaPoWriMo #19: Sunshine Garden

The sunshine outside the window,
the trees growing new leaves,
the grass growing taller.

The puddle at the bottom
of the garden drying up,
sparrows and blackbirds

darting through the branches.
Somewhere in the distance
someone hammers nails

into a fence, the latest
apprentice carpenter
to appear in the village.

(Today's poem is inspired by the daily prompt from the NaPoWriMo website, which today was to write a paragraph describing a story, the scene outside your window or directions from place to place, and then either erase words to create a poem or use some of the words to form a new poem. I took this prompt and used it to describe what my garden in Frynwys looks like in the current weather.)

Wednesday 18 April 2018

NaPoWriMo #18: Agama

The old agama lizard stretches
on the ground under his rock,
his smouldering red scales
morph into freezing blue
as they descend from head to tail.

A curious flash of colour
in the grassland greens and yellows,
the agama crawls onto his throne,
a dot amidst the flat vastness
with a perfect panoramic view.

Very few animals visit him.
The crew of vultures overhead
seem confused by his patterns,
and a passing serval with radar ears
only gives him a passing glance.

Such are the days for the old agama,
to sit and be marvelled at
by his numerous neighbours
like a gem in a reptilian jewellers,
watching the herds follow the rain.

Tuesday 17 April 2018

NaPoWriMo #17: Cold Blooded Beat

Midday sun
bathes a rock,
like an oasis,
a daily fuel stop
for sluggish snakes
and sleepwalking lizards.
The cold
festers at night,
their blood
permeated with it,
so they sit
on the rocks
facing the glare,
wait for the heat
to rise and ferment,
all the while
their ancient hearts
thump, thump, thump
like starting engines
under simmering skin
and emerald scales.

Monday 16 April 2018

NaPoWriMo #16: Urban Dweller

A furnace of concrete, petrol and cash,
city stream from the boiling streets
float above the blank-faced office towers.

To dwell on the hectic trading streets,
the city denizen must be astute,
as sharp as a swallow
at the turn of the season.

Sidestepping slow shoppers,
snapping up cut-price showstoppers,
drinking at the trendiest coffee shops

because all their friends go to them,
the watering holes of hollow insight
and futile strategies for the future
along with some rest from the tide.

Dodging traffic when crossing the road,
catching buses and trains on the go,
working indoors in the heat of day,

at the end of a chain of production,
heading finished articles to satisfy
the insatiable yet indecisive demand,
then walking home under the orange glare

when the street lights come out to play.


Sunday 15 April 2018

NaPoWriMo #15: Overgrown

In a jungle of a garden,
with a shed constricted by ivy,
a patio draped in moss,
a lawn resembling a green porcupine,

a lost fox makes its den
in what was a compost heap,
much to the dismay
of the resident slow-worm.

He tried to evict his housemate
but his size did not help matters.
To this day no one knows
if he moved out or not.

Still the garden grow,s
still the fox's abode,
till gardeners arrive, tools in hand,
to break the ivy's hold.

Saturday 14 April 2018

NaPoWriMo #14: Sparrowhawk

A silhouette
amorphous,

from a distance
resembles its prey.

In the branches
a silent jet fighter,

songbirds beware
of lethal eyes

and the talons
which follow them.

Friday 13 April 2018

NaPoWriMo #13: The Waking Weta

In the hollowed-out trunk
of a long dead tree,
the dead frost of winter
makes the old bark freeze.


A weta, king of crickets,
lets the frost take hold.
Sleeping, frozen in state,
a guest of the cold.


Spring disperses winter,
frees the weta's jaws.
Awake with new hunger,
time to hunt once more.

Thursday 12 April 2018

NaPoWriMo #12: Freedom and Reunion

The free circus tiger lives in the Sal forest, cloaked in a veil of thickets. He is used to the distant burble of jeep engines carrying visitors into his domain, yet when one stops in front of him as he rests under the shadow of a ghost tree, he sees a face emerge from the formless mists of the past, one which broke the collar and wrecked the chain.

The big cat runs

an old friend now tangible,

danger approaching.

(Yes, it's the return of the tiger poem, surprisingly one of the main staples of Tiger Verse. Today's poem is partially inspired by a prompt from the NaPoWriMo website to write a haibun poem - a Japanese form utilising a combination of prose and haiku. I'd also like to give a shout-out to fellow NaPoWriMoist Sam Allen for reminding me of these prompts as I had forgotten about them of late. You can check out Sam's own haibun poem here. Almost half way now, see you with the next poem!)

Wednesday 11 April 2018

NaPoWriMo #11: V8 Melody

The last wail of a dying breed,
a thunderous eight cylinder bellow
facilitated by perpetual ignition,
by the constant cranking of pistons
and the onslaught of fresh oil.

Yet the habitat of the V8 diminished.
The roads it roamed in ancient times
now infested by silent hybrids
and lifeless, whirring batteries,
imitations of the age of oil.

Perhaps it was inevitable.
To survive by guzzling and burning
fuel till the fumes choked the sky,
the eight pistons rattled along
until their sustenance evaporated.

On a few isolated country roads,
a distant roar can be heard
by those who stop and listen
for a rising and falling vibrato,
the final note of the melody.

Tuesday 10 April 2018

NaPoWriMo #10: Melancholic Afternoon

When the sky is clogged with clouds,
when the roads are empty
and the houses steadfastly silent,
and the fields rain-drenched,
dotted by rouge magpies and jays,
melancholy takes over.

When the goldfinches vanish,
when cats shelter under hedges
and the mist settles on the hillside,
and the gloom of dusk arrives
heralded by the drone of airliners,
melancholy takes over.

Monday 9 April 2018

NaPoWriMo #9: Sapling

A sapling
sits
in stream-fed
soil.
It takes
its time growing,

overshadowed
by her sisters
thirty years
ahead.

A young birch
watches the forst
transform
through spring
to winter
without

a whisper.
She endures frost,
summer heat,
dripping sap

from insect-inflicted
wounds,
stripes of survival.

A hundred years on,
the forest shrinks
to a grove,
but the birch
still stands,
observing.

Sunday 8 April 2018

NaPoWriMo #8: Buzzing Under the Influence

The nectar-sozzled bumblebee
buzzing in a daydream bliss,
reverses out of a flower
speckled with pollen.

He stumbles about the petals,
nearly tumbles into the weeds,
but rights his wings in time
before colliding with the soil,
and burbles home
to what he thinks is his beehive.

Saturday 7 April 2018

NaPoWriMo #7: Waters of Oblivion

Shoreline, aquamarine and stained
with fossilised bones and mangled driftwood.
Scavenging crabs mingle
in the oasis of rotting fish.
Balding gulls and ocean-going vultures
perch on the prize,
a skeletal whale carcass putrefying the sand.

The surf boils over along stove rocks.
Out in the depths beyond the reef,
beyond the boundary of bleach-white coral
the sharks blend into the gloom.
Where pallid sunlight is extinguished
beats with no need for sight
wait to rise from their domain.

Friday 6 April 2018

NaPoWriMo #6: Extinction

'Oh the woes of being endangered!'

said the last Dodo in Mauritius, having lost sight of her neighbours.

The long-accepted dodo virtue of courage turned out to be misguided.
Such useless bravery
against the indifference of man.

Madame Dodo first suspected there was an issue
when the pigs and monkeys
moved in,
and the fertile oasis fit for flightless birds was soon sold out of fruit.
To be pursued by the sea-faring primates
was just the icing
on the calamitous cake.

Now the dodo sits, placid, on the beach,
cursing her pigeon cousins and their flight feathers.

(Today's poem was partly inspired by a prompt from the NaPoWriMo website, which suggested playing around with uncomfortable line breaks. We're a sixth of the way through the challenge, but so far so good. See you all with the next poem tomorrow!)

Thursday 5 April 2018

NaPoWriMo #5: The Lost Starling

The starling sat in the weathered oak tree
without the chirping voices of his flock.
Lost and confused and very late for tea,
he thought he might find them down by the docks.
He asked every bird on the waterfront,
from seagulls to terns to the grey heron.
After a while the starling took a punt
and followed the canal to the barrens.
There he found his flock, bristling in a tree.
When dusk fell, the starlings began to sing
and took to the air in a fluent stream,
dancing as the sun was slowly dimming.
Darkness fell and a half moon ascended,
the lost starling's search had at last ended.

Wednesday 4 April 2018

NaPoWriMo #4: Lillith

Escape was the beginning
of one last chase through the trees.

Those who thought they owned her
laid traps and cages in the woods.

She was made to roam the undergrowth,
such tricks she perceived and ignored.

Then those with live rounds
chased her with a blunt strategy.

He fate was sealed by what evolution
programmed, her high noon arrived

in a lifeless caravan park, besieged,
framed by excuses of safety first.

(This poem is based on the case of Lillith the Lynx, who was shot and killed under orders from Ceredigion county council after escaping from her enclosure at Borth Wild Animal Kingdom.)

Tuesday 3 April 2018

NaPoWriMo #3: Amphibian Night Commute

When the rain falls on the marsh,
it falls with the force of avalanches.

A frog out of water,
out in the torrential downpour,
commuting to the lake of flies
where pond-skates dance in chaos.

Her spawn clings to the lilies,
beer-frothing into being.
Limbs sprouting like roses
waiting to overflow.

The mother frog hops across tarmac,
glistening skin in the streetlight,
basking in the gift of amphibian life
as rain hammers the road.

She hops across front lawns
into the undergrowth of fronds.
Cats notwithstanding
she reaches the pond before dawn.

Monday 2 April 2018

NaPoWriMo #2: Rhythm and Verse and All Things Worse

So we start a new poem,
a stream of verse,
and with a rhyme scheme we begin to converse.

But how about going with the flow,
less of a structure and more of a never-ending discourse?
'Yes,' said the Poet-in-Chief, 'That's a good idea.'
But how many lines, what sort of syllabic construct should we use?

'It doesn't matter really,'

said

the Poet

-in-

Chief.

'Oh look at that, you've got the tense mixed up again.
Pick one for the next stanza and stick with it.'

Here goes a present tense poem,
tricky, but I'll try and hold 'em.
All those phrases, hundreds of them,
waiting to be placed in line.
Not a place for feeble writing,
you can try or go down fighting,
without additional lighting,
you can write some Allan Poe,
write Edgar Allan Poe meters,
the type would-be poets know,
such wondrous verse with the flow.

What about the villanelle, my old friend?
When free verse leads your meter astray,
can this tremendous form make amends?

Dylan Thomas knew, this was his trend,
he knew the power the form could convey,
what about the villanelle, my old friend?

Perhaps the sonnet could clear this mess up?
The form of love, strife, effective verse.
Good old Shakespeare used them in his line-up,
he had over a hundred in his purse
to be used when love or grief would beckon
and all his inner thoughts came spilling out,
though there are many scholars who reckon
they're not sure who he was talking about.
Yet it's handy for writing poetry quick,
the sonnet's short, rhymes and has great rhythm.
It's concise, lyrical, short and succinct,
a wonderful, potent algorithm.
Yet I wonder if we're viewing this wrong?
Let's try another form to end this song.

When all's said and done, verse is the worst,
so many meters and forms to rehearse.
Still, you can use any form or none at all
when you ride down the poetry waterfall.

Sunday 1 April 2018

NaPoWriMo #1: The Easter Cuckoo

The peace of spring settles on a pond,
calm descends like fresh rainfall,
and so too does the gaze of a cuckoo
upon an unguarded duck's nest.

Mrs. Cuckoo, an experienced hustler,
took out a deposit on the vacant nest.
One egg would cover the cost,
and she'd be reimbursed in time.

The Tufted duck hardly noticed
her eggs now numbered three.
Even with her sun-glow eyes,
she overlooked the imposter in her brood.

Three days before Easter, the imposter hatched.

He set about his morbid task
and turned on his nest-mates,
rolling them like pebble-skinned boulders
into the waters of the pond.

And so the portly cuckoo chick stat
in front of a species-blind duck,
demanding food from his foster mother,
a prize for his brazen crimes.

But his foster siblings were in luck,
they were found by a concerned Mallard duck.
He took them into his nest,
and reversed the cuckoo's curse.

They hatched amongst the mallard's clutch.
He told the tufted ducklings the woeful truth,
and they knew where to go when they heard
an alarm-clock call from across the pond.

The ducklings set out swimming, their first of many,
across the still waters to reclaim their nest.
The cuckoo chick was feasting on pond-weed,
and failed to spot the results of his blind-spot.

The quacking and flurry of feathers did not stop
until the ducklings forced their foster brother
across the grass and into the hedgerow,
where he waited for the return of his true guardian.

And so the ducklings greeted their confused mother,
harmony restored by the edge of the pond,
while the Easter cuckoo bides her time,
waiting for another nest to be left unguarded. 

(And we're off! Seeing as it's Easter Sunday, what better way to celebrate than with a poem about eggs. Not all of the poems this month will be of this length, but now it's started I must keep up the momentum. See you all tomorrow with the next installment!)