NaPoWriMo #3: Wild Goat Chase

Nothing about me seemed that special.
I'm just like any other Kashmiri kid.
Wandering the Great Orme with my herd,
grazing amongst the blooming orchids,
white fur and a beard as scruffy as any other.
A tuft grew out between my horns
and suddenly I was a marked goat.

Shenkin IV they named me.
Chosen to fill a vacancy I didn't know was going,
passed an interview I didn't attend.
Soldiers dressed in deciduous patterns,
white feathers atop their caps,
called out to me through the trees.
I wondered in those feathers
were their way of trying to blend in with the herd.

Still, I gave them the slip.
If they wanted to make me a fusilier
they'd have to earn my service.
I darted here and there, to a fro,
across the headland and through the thickets,
their whistles and entreaties useless.
My mother taught me not to heed mimicry.

How amusing to see allegedly trained troops
defeated by a four-footer for four weeks.
Being on the run was time-consuming,
but then a man with a dart gun caught me out.

Now I find myself a fusilier.
My sergeant's given me my own uniform
to make me part of this human herd.
Soon I'll meet something called the public
with my  harness and silver headpiece on.

Maybe I'll get to march by the Orme sometime
and let my old herd know I'm still here.

NaPoWriMo #2: The Coils of Dread

The coils of dread, diamond shape scales,
coils looping round a spade-shaped head,
eyes scanning all the jungle trails,
the coils of dread.

The snake glistens, skin freshly shed.
Against its strength few beasts prevail,
the python kills with no bloodshed.

Against it most other snakes pale.
It haunts a path few beasts dare tread,
unwinds, strikes like a whip or flail.
The coils of dread.

(Today's poem is a roundel, a form devised by the poet Algernon Charles Swinburne. This one was a bit of a challenge due to the fact that all the lines apart from the refrain need the same number of syllables, but I think I managed to get something out of it.)

NaPoWriMo #1: The Winter Tiger

In the windswept forest of ice and snow,
in the mountain blizzard and the winter's cold,
a spectre of stripes glides through the tundra.

Other creatures clear the way for her,
the terror of the northern reaches.
Her fur a tapestry of tawny and black,
a roaring fire amidst the white haze.

Her den cradled by the roots of an old pine,
the fallen cones scattered outside.
A hare crosses the threshold,
hears a rumbling growl within and flees.

The mother tigress shelters her newborns,
blind and mewling, against the arctic chill.
Soon the hunt will call to her again,
and she will haunt the ice once more.

(Yep, we're off on the NaPoWriMo adventure once more. Who knows where it'll go this year, but we'll soon find out with the next installment tomorrow. See you all there, and to my fellow poets, good luck!)

Heart of the Rage (Happy World Poetry Day!)

'Where rage consumes, nothing remains.'
The Sunset Vagabond

Some murderers and killers believe
that deep underneath Ragetown,
the stadium of rage and madness,
lies a vault with the strongest locks.

Drums accompany you up the steps
to a molten forged steel door,
sparks and embers
convulsing at the seams.

No one knows what lies behind them.
It may be a brimstone and lava torment,
fire rolling against the roof of chaos,
or maybe the white heat of anger

bursting into a vibrant bloom,
the frozen rage of old grievances,
so old they became crystallised,
fossilised and magnified,

formed over millennia
into the eye of the ichthyosaur,
a rim of untainted insanity
orbiting an infinite void

of eternal wrath.

(Happy World Poetry Day to all you poetry people out there! Hope the world is treating you all reasonably, and for those of you taking part in NaPoWriMo next month I wish you the best of luck. As a precursor to the madness ahead, what better than a poem literally about the heart of anger? Hope you enjoy and I'll see you all on the next poem!)

Paraceratherium

When nature has day dreams, it goes to town on new designs.

The Paraceratherium, browsing on trees growing in an ancient desert.
Charcoal-plated skin makes it seem a towering, armoured beast,
giraffe neck and legs thick as elms with cloven feet,
rhinoceros face devoid of any horn, top lip grasping at leaves.

A beast destined for the plains mimics its forest-dwelling friends,
over-engineered and feared, no smart hunter will try their luck.

Someway down the line the great-great-great-great grandchildren
of this titan will shed his neck and sprout horns,
content to graze on the plains instead of reaching their ancestor's heights.

Happy St. David's Day 2019!

Hello everyone, once again it's St. David's Day here in Wales, and having spent most of the day in Cardiff, it's positively buzzing.

Given our recent success with rugby in the Six Nations, the celebrations this year seem re-energised, with a large parade going back and forth through the city streets. The dragons, daffodils and bake-stones are in abundance. In Frynwys this morning the fields were dotted with patches of daffodils, and it's been one of the sunniest days we've ever had in February. All in all, it seems that this year's St. David's Day has been one of the most colourful on record, but what's happening in the world of Tiger Verse I hear you ask?

Well, things are proceeding at breakneck speed on this blog. Not only have I got another preview from the upcoming Mametz Wood poem to share, but there will also be a few new original poems coming next week. Alongside that, I can also see NaPoWriMo on the horizon again, so it will be all fingers to the keyboard for that.

In the meantime, hope you all have had a happy St. David's Day, and I'll sign off this post with a link to my guitar rendition of the Welsh National Anthem. See you all again soon.

Narrowboat Hootenanny

Roving Otter knew where
to get a decent narrowboat.
He found one at a lock
by the local pub.

The pigeons did their job,
dive bombing punters
sitting at the outside table.
We took no time in boarding.

I assumed command,
Father Vole was the lookout,
Smoking Gose was our engineer,
and Otter drove the boat.

The badgers, foxes, ducks,
geese, moorhens, rabbits,
even Spencer Swan booked
a reservation on the prow.

But our favourite friend
was Manic Owl.
He brought the instruments,
drums, guitars, and saxophones.

The man arrived in time
to see us waving from the stern.
Turns out cruising's all
a narrowboat's good for.

We set up our instruments.
Otter had his bass,
Vole was on the drums,
and Goose had a piano.

Manic Owl had a saxophone,
faded gold and battered,
but it produced sweeter notes
than anything on the water.

I had my old guitar,
an archtop with a red finish.
It was the lead in a jam
with a most ear-raising tune.

Our party went on into the night,
rhythm after rhythm buzzing
off the boat and across the water
to disturb slumbering cows.

Ducks danced with rabbits,
badgers danced with geese.
Spencer Swan demonstrated
the arm-breaker swing

for a group of astonished teal,
while Owl blistered solos
on his saxophone, and we
kept the beat of our hootenanny.