Rainfall III.

Rainy Windscreen.

A radical reworking of Rainfall, from NaPoWriMo. Travelling a long road requires concentration, and an idea of destination. Sometimes we get lost on the back-roads.

Rainfall.

Rain comes and goes but the story continues
with its troubles and turns a backdrop to miles we cross.
On the road ahead traffic slows to the speed of the nervous driver
and red lights flash warnings that scatter up into the windscreen.
We drive and the wind and rain push against the narrative,
working crosswise against the end and the last page.

There is no location, we could be anywhere on this road,
ahead or past. The wipe of the blades back and back, again
and again the thwap of their turn, stripes of colour repeating
a line of text over the sound of the engine.  

This wind drawn night with its closed curtain darkness
draws silence into the cab, we are lost to the world.
I listen for you breathing, for anything to prove
I am not alone in here.  

The CD player reaches the end and starts again, jumping back
through chapters when light spills into the space around us, 
two silhouettes caught looking, following the words and waiting
for the journey to be something, a place or a reason or a destination.

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History.

Lonely Outpost

History.

Remember
The woods the back alleys and jitties
The cut-throughs and tracks or gravel pit lane
The smell of a school
Rough and mud of the field out back where everyone went
Running about with wild intermingled games

Ending then when the men left marching
And the boys we were
We knew as they joined
Leaving together in lines
Stretching away from us
So few returning
Thin lines of letters
Each wait interminable

The sounds of the wind across the fields
Home that clean fresh idea that brings it back

Remember

Looking up to see the shading
Of the light
green in the trees
And wild stories told on the run

And now
Knowing it and remembering each moment
Wanting what it meant
Making it mean something
In the passing of a year you might miss
In the blink of the strike
With the flash ringing in the same woods
Where quiet wanders looking for space
Where paths cross contours
In straight lines through the roots
Of trees that are not for hiding in anymore.

NaPoWriMo Rewrite. His Story, taken back 100 years ago today.

Lines. National Poetry Writing Month Day 30.

Words

Here it is, the final day. I’ve made it to the end, 30 poems in 30 days. Now I need to sort out what works what doesn’t and needs to be relegated to the drawer of no return, the line recycler maybe. With that in mind, I’ve played a game today and re-used all the first lines for a bit of randomness in this piece. A bit of a cheat? Possibly but it has been 30 days, I need all the help I can get. I will be replying to everyone next week, thanking you all for comments and awards, but for now, a small pause until normal service is resumed.

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Lines.

Ghost in the machine, I will be back tomorrow.

We’ll start here with the footpath I walked until the sun went down,
looking at the fresh mountain snow. Tendrils of low cloudy fingers,
it might be raining soon and I want to stay here as the rain comes and goes.

Sometimes, I could barely understand all the young faces,
the children from before we came to be people and songs.
The things that stay with us echoed in everyone here,
in beer bars and TV’s and do you want chips with that.

Remember the woods? The trees are just squandering the time they have.
Autumn has turned you into your destroyer, so take each silence as we travel
and soon there is nothing but the sea, just the headlights rising and falling
across the dark roads, when walking will bring you closer to the landscape,
to look a little more in detail, like looking from the window on a rainy day.

I’m not sure why we do it, making a paper animal, the quintessential curves
of a feline hunter, he’s standing there on top of the world at sunset,
arms out, feet close, line stable.

A Line on the Map. National Poetry Writing Month Day 29.

New Maps

So there we are, looking at the map, stood in a field, wondering where the wall/footpath/fence has gone. The black line on the map giving to us the sense of something physical on the ground. Something that may have long since departed this place. It still means we carry on, just using some different marker to get where we are going, and if all else fails, get the compass out and at least find where North might be hiding. I’ve just received my new maps, ready for a trip later in the year, and now I get to trace possible routes and ideas until the moment we see how different the land can be in the real world.

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A Line on the Map.

We’ll start here with the footpath,
although maybe that’s optimistic,
it may just be footprints in mud, grass
or just gaps in the fence, a stile.
It’ll change as we walk, to rocks,
to scree, bracken slopes or stream beds.
Rock filled gullies, quarry blocks or,
who climbed here before and left us
a cairn, marking a turn to lead us along
the cliff edge or turn us onto the ridge
and before we arrive at the final climb
up the cut, to the col, along the beck
by the ledge, over the scar and up
finally to the top, the peak, the summit,
the lonely trig point waiting to prove
that yes we were finally there.

Shack on a Hill. National Poetry Writing Month Day 28.

A House and Home.

Home is where we grow up. Where our loved ones will always wait for us. Where the welcome is strongest. Yet it is also an abstract, a place in our mind made up of memories, people, loved ones and some small, valued object perhaps. Here’s to that place, solid or not, that will always be home.

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Shack on a Hill.

It Might be raining soon,
but the roof still works
and the walls may not be straight
but they hold back the wind
and the windows are tired
though they let in the light
and the door is askew
but we always welcome visitors
and floor creaks with each person
walking from table to chair
which is all the better today
because its raining outside.