Winter Beach

Restless, the sea foam

flashes quicksilver.

Watching, I long to be a mermaid,

lifting the tangles of my hair

to the keen windrush.

Then the ebb tide

rolls back, long and slow.

The crests of the waves

peak like white wings

of skimming gulls

before the water, far out there,

smooths to transient peace.

Written in response to Poetics: Names of the Rose at dVerse. We are asked to include at least five from a list of rose names. I have used a few more: Restless, Sea Foam, Quicksilver, Mermaid, Tangles, Windrush, Ebb Tide, White Wings, Peace. One option was to make the poem about the approach of Summer, but here in Australia it's Winter that is approaching. I used the memory of a beach I used to live near and loved to walk in Winter. I also loved to photograph it.

In Winter

In winter she howls,

crouching down in the dirt,

trying to burrow away from the storm.

The forest howls too,

in echo, in its own tongue,

silencing everyday rustlings and shrieks.

She is cold to the bone,

lost and alone in the night,

bereft of rhythm and rhyme – in chaos.

No lullaby soothes,

no warm arms embrace.

No-one is coming, ever, to save her.

The tell-tale light
of the white, remote moon

shows her only despair; never changes.

Written in response to Friday Writings #13 at Poets and Storytellers United, where we are asked to use at least three of the following words:  bone, night, tell-tale, rhyme, tongue, storm, forest, moon, chaos, winter, echo, howl, dirt.

I used them all – but the poem stemmed from that one word, 'winter'. I hate the cold! As a child, I have fainted from cold; as an adult I have cried with cold, become disoriented in cold – so the above scenario is not altogether far-fetched.

Image © Rosemary Nissen-Wade 2022

A Tale of Folderol and Bric-a-brac

At 'imaginary garden with real toads' just now, Fireblossom would have us Get Listed. She asked us to use three or more words from her list, and hopefully include one in the title. But they were such good words, I went overboard, used the lot, put two in the title, and added a few more good ones of my own. It was fun!


A Tale of Folderol and Bric-a-brac

It was an instantaneous episode of derring-do, 

momentary, but lucid – no need for you

to pontificate, all smug, as if I were a green,

wet-behind-the ears novice, or a slipshod

unvisionary, striving-in-vain Ms Plod.

Just because I yelled and did that fist-pump, 

and followed it with a twirl and a hip bump 

(over-enthusiastic by only the merest smidgen)

or was less than demure brandishing my lollipop –

how was I to know some idiot’d seize a photo-op?

And now you’re carrying on, waxing operatic!

I think your turn of phrase is unduly dramatic,

making a bit of harmless fun sound obscene.

So my bum wobbled like blancmange? So the snooker

table stopped play and they eyed me like a hooker?

So what if all the ornaments fell off the shelf?

I didn’t do it on purpose, much less by myself.

It was only the hokey-pokey when all’s said and done.

You’re rendering it a major catastrophe.

I say, better be a bit of clown than to atrophy!

Here is the list:

folderol, bric-a-brac, instantaneous, momentary, lucid, derring-do, pontificate, green, smug, photo-op, slipshod, hokey pokey, fist pump, demure, lollipop, snooker, rendering, blancmange, smidgen, operatic

Unseasonable

Poetry Month, day 19

In Get Listed at "imaginary garden with real toads" I chose, from several lists of words to include in a poem: sensual, features, blue, mouth. (We could also be inspired by a poem about Spring in April – but where I live, April means Autumn!)

Unseasonable

Sensual Autumn fails to arrive 

this April. The warm blue skies

we expected do not appear.

Instead we look up at a vast white

stippled with grey. So far, the month

features rain, thunder, wind, more rain. 

The mouth of the river is rippled 

with stormy waves, even before

it merges with the sea. What gods

must we pray to, so as to avert

further punishment for all our misdeeds?

Are we ourselves the gods who now

make the weather happen? Then who

indeed shall we pray to? (Mother 

and Father both being gone.)