Naked Spine
Tall tattered lady
will mother earth stretch to heal
your wounded torso
Category: Poetry
International Women’s Day, Going to Extremes
She has a £300 head of woven on Russian hair
She has her head shaven in mourning
Her clothes are designer disposed of when the colour is last seasons
Her clothes are shabby raggy charity shop rejects
She steps out in killer heels feet pampered pedicured and painted
She has heels and soles like elephant hide hardened from a shoeless life
Her house has six air conditioned bedrooms one for each child and three spare
Her six children sleep on the grass covered mud floor
She luxuriates in a bath tub fragranced with jasmine
She walks three miles at dawn to carry home cloudy water
Her family lunch at pizza palace leaving the excess food grabbed in greed
Her children wait twelve hours to share the same maize pap as breakfast
She drives to the shops in a gas guzzling monster
The cost of which would build a clinic and school
She labours in scorched fields ravaged by war and rife with danger
For a dollar day if she’s spared
Just a little piece to mark International Women’s Day.
Estuary
Estuary
a liminal waterscape endlessly dynamic
with the twice daily ebb and flow of the tide
where sometimes a lost soul will wash up
or a golden coin from five centuries past
a giant seed pod carried by the Gulf Stream
from five thousand miles away
the bones of a fish sucked white by an albatross
or thrashed by the brutal oceans swell
human detritus of sanitary wear
once flushed through some distant drain
tangled in plastic that surrounded well water
bottled in Delhi sold to an unsuspecting
ill prepared golden triangle tourist
tide so low that the other side may be walked to
if only you’re aware of bottomless mud sink
if not cursed to be the next being
nibbled by crabs, inhabited by barnacles
and gowned in kelp to wash up like a lost soul
Lazy Poets Thursday Poem
Fickle Gold
You may wonder why you’re carried
to a distant tropical shore
by fragrance like sweet coconut
rising golden over moors
from January til December
turn a woodland path
and you’ll know its kissing season
as you’re sure to see some gorse
but be careful where you romance
because if you are untrue
her flowers hide a secret
the most capricious thorns
Signs of Spring
It’s been hard to go and take photos recently. Relentless rain and gales, flooded roads, high tides and fallen trees have kept the gypsy indoors. Yesterday lunchtime at work the sun came out, so I grabbed my coat and went to feel it on my face!
Even so, signs of spring were hard to find.
Signs of Spring
A thousand buds are waiting
to burst with golden pride
beneath tender hawthorn
it’s zenith months away
but first to bloom are snowdrops
a promise rising from the underworld
but now stop wait
don’t miss Mahonia’s fragrance
it will make your senses sway
This post is for Bastet’s ‘Signs of Spring’ challenge, perhaps you ‘d like to join in? http://wedrinkbecausewerepoets.com/2014/02/17/bastets-pixelventures-february-18th-2014/
Lazy poets Thursday Tanka
Steps on a Bridge
It’s time to forgive
so let’s meet in the middle
mend and build bridges
discover new ways to be
walk a fresh path together
Lazy poets Thursday Haiku
Strolling
At last I see hope
wild violets smiling through
a purple delight
Lazy Poets Thursday Tanka
Flotsam
a rusting record
of vehicle or tin can
decays origin
thrown long ago by human
sure to turn to sand with time
Lazy Poets Thursday Haiku
Sweet phalaenopsis
blooming for a second flush
bringing me a smile
100 Word Challenge for Grown Ups Week# 115
Julia’s first prompt for 2014 is, the path ahead . . . Very timely don’t you think?
Here is my entry, a lazy poem of exactly one hundred words.
Ancestral Path
The path ahead carries the imprint of the ancestors,
wide, red and littered with rocks.
There are many diversions squeezing through tunnels
narrow tracks, and sinking sand.
The path ahead carries the footprints of my ancestors,
who crawled on their knees, jumped for joy,
and stood up for justice
on their journeys through time.
The path ahead is bleached
like the bones of the mothers,
stained with the blood of the warriors,
and flooded with the tears of the children.
The path ahead climbs through forgiveness to freedom
meandering green to air, fresh and sustaining,
to nurture my infinite descendents.
Join in with Julia’s 100WCGU at http://jfb57.wordpress.com/2013/12/30/100-word-challenge-for-grown-ups-week-4/
Lucid Gypsy 