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.