Old mans beard
wreaths the hedgerows
Black-ruby-berries
dangle purple and colour
our fingers, our mouths
We gather dog-roses
to make 'perfume' and
confetti for sunday weddings
Miss hands out stars
orbiting her own
self made constellation
I never understood
why we put our chairs
up on the tables
In the near dark
the donkeys wait
We bury our fingers
in their shaggy brows
Their farewell cries follow us
down the dirt lane
shaking leaves on ink blot trees
like demons in a dream
Comments
SundaysChild | March 29, 2011 - 19:00
Stunning. I absolutely adore those last four lines.
Highhat | March 29, 2011 - 19:31
Beautiful- especially 4th stanza
;)Pia
jennifer | March 29, 2011 - 19:40
Love this line:
'shaking leaves on ink blot trees'
but why oh why oh why not punctuate, and then add a random semi-colon?
I find this rather odd, can you help?
J x
fatboy74 | March 29, 2011 - 22:26
Very beautiful - reminds me of early Heaney. Well done shoe. :-)
sue dinum | March 29, 2011 - 22:49
Nice to read you again, shoe. Yes, I agree there was some lovely lines here, and I do like three line stanzas.
sue
ScoZen | March 30, 2011 - 14:23
Shoe, hello.
Enjoyed this.
I passed the time with some travellers passing through the village last week.
Your tale reminded me of that day.
Nice.
shoe | March 30, 2011 - 17:07
Thanks Sundays, that was the most difficult, I'm still not sure I said what I wanted, how I wanted so I'm really pleased you like it.
Highhat, I think that's my own favourite too!
Jennifer, Um I don't know really, I'll take it out!
Fb, Heaney eh, yes, I'll take that!
Sue, Thanks, I enjoy brevity.
Scozen, how intuitive you are! many thanks
Silver Spun Sand | March 30, 2011 - 17:39
I missed this one, shoe. I'm sorry. It is beautiful. Love the ink-blot trees;-)
Tina
jennifer | March 30, 2011 - 21:19
I don't want you to take it out! I want you to put all the missing bits in! One should punctuate poetry as it if were prose: for grammatical sense!
J x
seashore | April 2, 2011 - 09:16
`like demons in a dream' - lovely last line, shoe! I like this poem very much.
Another stand-out stanza is the `I never understood why we put our chairs up on the tables'...
shoe | April 2, 2011 - 14:03
Thanks Tina and Seashore for taking time, I'm glad you like it.
Hi Jennifer, thanks for your input, I appreciate what you're saying and I agree that punctuation is important in prose, perhaps if I had more confidence in it I would be more willing to have a go!.
I read a lot of poetry and most of it uses very little if any punctuation and to be honest, it looks cleaner on the page and as long as it doesn't muddy the meaning I prefer to read it that way. I'm undecided actually.