NaPoWriMo #30: The Spring Tiger

In the shade of the sal trees by the silent grass
where the chital and the sambar grass en-mass
sits the ruler of the lakes keeping watch
while a butterfly rests on her tawny shoulders.

The tigress watches pairs of spotted stags
prancing and posturing side by side,
paying their usual menace no heed
for the monkeys keep watch on her

until they turn their back to the trees
and the mother of the maidens disappears,
stripes distorting her amidst the grass
as a ghost with white-spotted ears.

She lunges out from the nothingness
and the stag crashes to the earth,
teeth embedded in his throat
while alarm calls flood the forest.

NaPoWriMo #29: Herring Feast

A lone spout on the rolling sea,
towering above the surf.
The first signal of a great summer feast
and the first dinner guests start arriving.

The spouts billow out from the waves
followed by flukes breaking the water
like banners for the rest of the pod
directing them to the shoal.

The ring of bubbles rises,
a circle formed in the depths,
a net with no rope or mesh
in which the herring jostle.

The cavalcade of whales erupts,
mouths agape as though calling,
engulfing the school in unison,
gorging on the plentiful bounty

before turning and descending
into the ocean blue once more
to lay their trap anew
and relish the summer currents.

NaPoWriMo #28: Matriarch

Just when it seems the drought is at its end,
a new day arises, sunshine and all.
The lakes dry out, the rivers join the trend
grasslands now deserts awaiting rainfall.

The elephants trek through the baking wastes,
the matriarch following ancient trails
urging her family on with great haste
to a place she knows from her mother's tales.

An oasis in the sand, out of sight,
the herd quench their thirst at the waterhole
alongside other animals who won their fight
against hunger, heat, and the drought's harsh toll.

The matriarch spots lions off in the haze,
they will not risk meeting her prudent gaze.
She watches on as her grandchildren play,
at dawn the herd will re-enter the fray.

NaPoWriMo #27: Song for Home

Five tries, two conversions,
the statistics required
to unleash mayhem onto the streets.

They flood out of the stadium,
pour through the side streets
into every pub in town,
singing to the sky beyond the rafters.

In the railway station
the pigeons start awake in their roosts
as the thunder of a thousand footsteps
rumbles up onto the platform.

A cross-city trains slithers alongside,
every carriage a battleground
filled to the brim like fishermen's nets
and hauled to cities beyond the hills

reverberating with drunken choruses
along every mile of darkening rail
while the city sings into the night.

NaPoWriMo #26: A Fox and a Bulldog

The fox forages on the open field,
eyes turned from the glare of sunlight,
black clouds swirling ahead.

He digs through the furrows,
hoping treasure lies beneath his paws
while rooks shadow him from the hedges.

White tail-tip swishing behind him,
the fox spots something emerging
from the hedgerows, scattering the rooks.

Short and barrel-shaped, lolling tongue,
wide face and button nose,
the bulldog tumbles out of the leaves.

Never has the sharp-nosed fox
seen something so ungainly
as the bewildered beast before him.

As the bulldog approaches, smiling,
the fox appears to cough, then chuckle,
and the rooks watch on from the hedges.

NaPoWriMo #25: Lava Flow

Mountain of fire, overlooking the sea,
snow cascading down the spurs,
occasional steam from the crater,
a reminder to the town in its shadow
that the mountain sleeps for now.

Sometimes the ground rumbles
and the crater belches sparks,
flecks in a royal blue sky
as the caldera simmers miles
under the seaside town.

The fire thunders from the mantle,
cascades above the peak in a wave,
while the molten flows smother
the groves, hissing and glowing
as the rock cools into new crust.

New shoots burst forth
from under the mountain's new skin,
the olives fester on the young trees
and the mountain resumes its slumber
till the caldera boils over again.

NaPoWriMo #24: Return of Spring

And so sits the dove in the ivy-clad tree,
watching as one season gives way to another.

Watching as the skeletal brown
turns to green, and the treetops

are now alive with birdsong.
Thrushes, finches, tits and robins

conjure up a chorus
of incessant cheer.

In the pond below the dove's perch
sits a chamber orchestra of frogs

all croaking in harmonic baritones
complimenting the treetop choir

heralding in the long days
and the longer sunsets.

And so sits the dove in the ivy-clad tree
singing as spring returns to the forest.

NaPoWriMo #23: Rivers of Coal

Up in the hills where the collieries sleep,
where the railway tracks are submerged in moss,
the wheels atop the tower seem to weep
the stones in the blacksmith's yard are all glossed
in a dwindling frost fleeing from the spring.
Caverns beneath the hills vast and still,
adorning the grey cliffs to which they cling,
sheltering sheep against the mountain chill.
The descendants live in the past's shadow
claim the ruins for their own, make them new,
no longer the halls where molten fires flow
but a monument to the mining crew.
Within these hills run the rivers of coal
that brought to the valleys their heart and soul

(And so, to celebrate the birthday of his majesty the Shakespeare, I bring you a sonnet about that most familiar of Welsh subjects.)

NaPoWriMo #22: Eggs of Time

Six eggs scattered in the halls of the past,
one for the beasts that ruled before man,
one for creatures frozen in a silent forest,
one for the statues carved from marble,
one for the tomb of the slumbering whale,
one for the tropical forest of giant dragonflies,
one for the hall of the dancing colours.
All lie in wait till the first light
their shells sport hairline cracks,
the first signs of a new birth,
windows to the past, the present and the future
waiting for those who go looking
and gaze upon the wonders of the world.

(So this one managed to be even more surreal that yesterday's. I tried to give this a vaguely Eastery feeling, but once again something different emerged.)

NaPoWriMo #21: Letters in the Dark

The tunnel cloaked in darkness
less solemn than it seems.
Lines left on the bricks,
luminous bursts swooping up
to the ceiling in a neon flare.

Contorted, distorted, obscure
yet far from indecipherable,
lighting up the whole tunnel
as trains rumble overhead
and water drips from the ceiling.

Swirls forming letters against the bricks
in glittering gold, pristine purple
and incandescent green,
illumination in the shade
and dazzled pigeons on the overhang.

A message to be read
in the curves and twists
made by faceless artists in the hours of starlight,
the hours where the letters
speak the loudest.

(So this poem was initially inspired by the daily prompt from NaPoWriMo, suggesting to write a surrealist poem inspired by Federico García Lorca, but this piece evolved into something much different to what I had in mind originally.)

NaPoWriMo #20: Sibilance

Silently sitting on a stone,
singing songs of sorrow and woe,
seething with symptoms of sanguine symphonies
of soaring skylines and scorching savannahs,
searing sentinels on stony statues,
silent as souls surrounded by shame
and the savage set-piece of sharks in the sea
slicing seals and soliciting sneers
from sinuous sardines who see but don't smile,
sinuses of snakes suffocated by soot,
all in sundry and sonatas,
sonnets strung simultaneously
as it seems in a single sentence.

NaPoWriMo #19: Firestorm

Single spark,
gust of air,
scorching soil
ignited by chance,
whipped up into a blur of a flame
ascending into a column
tall as the tallest jungle trees,
a furnace consuming the green
above and below
where the creepers crisp
and the branches burn
and the inferno engulfs
the canopy and the roots,
every animal for a thousand miles
runs, slithers, flies and gallops
for the edge of the jungle,
but the fire's wrath redoubles
the blaze pursues the denizens,
leaving clouds of ash and rubble behind
till the flames meet the river
and the scalding hot thirst is quenched.

NaPoWriMo #18: Tapestry

It's all captured here.

All written down,

all embroidered in stitching

as a song,

an eternal tale of war

told across millenniums

of three kings and three battles,

soldiers head to toe in suits of chain mail,

horses' hooves churning the mud,

shields feathered with arrows.

A time where any one action

could severe any thread

and the tapestry would unravel.

Yet all of it remains here,

the formations, the marches,

the victories, the defeats,

the conquest and the dominion,

the fall and the coronation.

NaPoWriMo #17: The Angry Bee

There's a cat in the garden
and its chasing me
along the fence
I could just sting
but make no pretense
I will use it
in defence,
my last kamikaze
will be no use to me
if the cat gets away
Scott free
or is it Charlie free?
I can never be sure
but maybe I should
maybe I should just sting
the mewling ball of fluff
those claws aren't worth much
against the wrath of a hive.

NaPoWriMo #16: Horses on the Road

A pair of horses trotting
along a narrow country road.
Higher than the hedges,
with views sheep and pigs crave,
taking in the spring fields
flourishing with renewed greenery.

The riders steer their steeds
past the hedges
and over the crossroads.
The clip-clop of their shoes
on sun-baked tarmac,
a familiar percussion
in the usual farmyard tune.

Cows and sheep line the fields
as the two mares pass,
eyeing the riders with bemusement.
The barn beckons up ahead,
with the promise of fresh hay.

Chickens and geese herald the mares,
a cacophony of honks, quacks and chattering.
No other denizen of the farm
gets to tour the lanes.
A foal leans over a gate,
watches the celebration in the yard,
dreams of the day
when he'll roam the roads.

NaPoWriMo #14: Grand Old Boar of the Dean

The forest harbours many

a strange thing.

From the ghost deer

on the bordering fields,

to the fire squirrels

in the strangling branches. 

Then there are the boar.

The great sounders saunter through the trees,

rooting out roots and bulbs,

the treasure under the soil,

with tusk and hooves

while the white-striped piglets

huddle in the shadow

of a weary old elm.

Grand Old Boar of the Dean,

seen many a challenger approach,

and sent them all fleeing.

Many a hunter took a shot,

just one made a near-miss,

skimming the hairs of his greying mane.

Now he rests in spring shade,

dappled under the canopy,

tusks broken, eyes half-open.

His patrol of the wood will commence

for one last night

when the nightjar starts calling. 

NaPoWriMo 13: Dead End

Glass holds a moving image,
trapped in a continuum,
never free but always moving.

Tethered by a business suit
collared by a white starch shit,
looking out past the city-scape
to a dream caught in the wind.

Choked by the overhead noose,
desperate to be set loose
the shadow of the street upon them.
Scores of maybe friends
smile and dissipate into the night.

They stand by the traffic lights,
on windswept rail platforms,
pigeons perusing the detritus.
Maybe one day
the track forward will clear,
the lights may change.

One day.

NaPoWriMo #12: Dracoraptor

Dragon thief,
forbearer of the tyrant lizard king,
dredged from the cliffs
in a many-layered casket.

Feathered fiend
shore dweller,
red from head to tail-tip,
like the serpentine fire-breather
adorning the flag of its resting place.

Still growing
before the rocks entombed it,
yet still the oldest creature
from the era of the giants,
a tenacious herald
of the giants to come.

NaPoWriMo #11: Twmbarlwm Tribe

The spring light bathes the ancient Celtic fort,
a forgotten tump sat atop a peak.
Nondescript, no markings of which to speak,
yet within its walls are tales of a sort.
The Romans on the plain would try and thwart
the tribe from the woods playing hide and seek.
Against the legion their prospects were bleak,
but on top of the hill they held court,
decided to make the forest their shield.
Subterfuge became their weapon of choice,
they'd strike and disappear into the green
to the phalanx of Rome they'd never yield.
A sentry on the hill yells at full voice,
the army approaches but not unseen.

NaPoWriMo #10: Wanderer

Wild gales whip the Southern Ocean,
spraying salt and surf asunder
across the waves,
an invisible conductor
of an Antarctic opera.

A cross-shaped glider,
black wings against the clouds,
a pink bill and ice white feathers.
The mother albatross soars above
the thrashing sea,
barely moving a wingtip,
glides through the theatre of her struggle,
her mission's end in sight.

On a blizzard-besieged hillside
a mess of black down,
his bill as pink as his mother's,
huddles against the chill,
weathering the winter alone
till a familiar shape plummets
out of the freezing tempest.

The chick feasts on what scraps
his wandering mother could scrounge,
meagre offerings from the unyielding waves.

Not long now,
and the ocean will call her away once more.