tell me when
just when
social masks
aren’t needed
tell me when
just when
the wind in the grass
is heeded
(c) A. H / K. H-H (21/5/18)
Tag: New Verse
xv (2020)
never to walk in apple orchards
as May blossoms bless the wedded year
is not now unusual for humans
separated from earth’s delight
A. H / K. H-H (18th May 2020)
xiii (2020)
full moon, tide tired, turns dark
its Sisyphean thirst dry in night
tongue black hidden sky haunt
your jealous seas will wake again
pull ocean roar to slake tranquility
A. H/ K. H-H (18th May 2020)
a green thought
seething in foliage
half visible underneath
leaf broken branches breaking leaf
cage support for swaying dances
sheaf of skirts all a’twirl
shivering in air’s heaving
rare the truly broken limb
so pass seasonal advances
the dispensation of the sun
A. H / K. H-H (15th May 2020)
lockdown i
recently the sky seems bluer
have we been stretching it too far
when its like this I look at it
and it seems more present to me
looking back with more depth
I recognise a friend I’d lost, or is it
only that the seasons are changing
or is the silence with birds
only more redolent for gazing
A. H / K. H-H (4th May 2020)
iv (2020)
this, prayer iv and the next two or three poems were all written together in an online workshop at a time I felt flat, especially for writing, and so, of course, wrote about that . . .
blog birthday
a short review of two years of blogging and a new poem
read on here –
sung to silence
shall we wonder at the message of the birds
or relax, not try to read them as words
accept their mute simpatico
magpie sorrow, joy to numbers beyond
wood pigeon love in golden wall light
string of companions on a walk bereft
robin oh robin, robin old chap
blackbird low across my path, hedge chorister,
a puzzle clicks, it is not me doing it
A. H / K. H-H (20th April 2020)
medded
the wave thinks of becoming itself in the swell
but looks at the moon, big as a pill, forgets
a piano pupil sits at the keys, statuesque
instants pass to settle, just moments ago, fluent
everything seems settled,
smother of self into a pillow of chemicals
AKH (10th April 2020) & edit 11/4/20
prayer iii
i don’t wish to trump your love of anything with mine
to give a false security, pseudo-ownership
i only wish to celebrate my own divine
and open heart spaces in which we all may shine
AKH (7th April 2020)
televisioned
sometimes i feel i’ve the depth of a screen
and the best it gets is a script with depth
or an actor who’s learnt what background means
something i wonder if i’ve done for myself
mixed in a crowd on its narrative tracks
passing me by with their shows in their eyes
our dialogues only mine the seams
of what things meant to us already
K. H / A. H (20th March 2020)
fast in the tree of hello
fool of fools, awkward,
in love with all, dumb-stuck fast
in the tree of hello
A. H/ K. H-H (12th January 2020)
Poem Published at The Writers’ Cafe Magazine
my sonnet ‘A Reunion’ has been published In The Writers’ Cafe Magazine, issue 17, ‘Masks’
Masks – Issue 17 The Writers’ Cafe Magazine — FREE!
(it’s the final poem in the post)
I’ve been enjoying some of the other contributions already very much
edit — I should say, this is a personal poem, and I think a goody.
xxvii (’19)
all this time stealing poetry from myself
because because debt’s interest makes sense
all those fields’ haydreams ever unrolled
butterfly butterfly meadowsweet blown
all those souls loved-so love could not be
wallflower wallflower now you may breathe
A. H / K. H-H (17th November 2019)
grace
a figure awaiting her own sculptress
to deliver her from stone retreat
knows a dream – sun marbled skin uncovered
ease of limbs free to be observed
simply present, still, in every moment
truth ringing through her pose
A. H / K.H-H (7th November 2019)
Instead of just gushing, as sometimes I do (for good and bad reasons), I picked a theme and tried to write seriously as I can, an ear to metre and coherence.
I learned this year that Martin Luther described Grace as “the experience of being delivered from experience”. It’s one of the reasons I wrote this.
My poem ‘Early February, Town Moor’ is published on the Places of Poetry map
I’ve added a second poem to the lovely Places of Poetry map. Anyone can add a poem here about places in England, Wales and they’ve added Scotland too, but it closes for admissions tomorrow.
Plight
Is it vulgar, to gambol, on both sides
of a sacred marriage? Not one thing or the other.
There is a smell of spring and a smell of winter,
the sound of a party and a wedding altercation.
I’m unsure I’m invited to either.
Small inside my puff pastry story
I’m blowing on some ember – sometimes a flame,
sometimes cinders – dizzy oscillator.
Truth in both – true in neither.
A neuter case to curse the wedding night.
Unless, dance card spirited away, secreted
in some fold, I turn toward my song,
party of one, alone, seeking paradise.
A veil lifted, falls to outward celebration.
A. H / K. H-H (15th September 2018 & March 2019)
on a theme from Munch
suddenly intense
the gardens’ scream of beauty
tortured by our scythes
A. H / K. H-H (Thursday 4th July 2019)
Stream Song (v. ii)
a weeping heart sinks toward water
in low levelling finds her kin
a stream she dreams sat by singing
rill harmonies of tears gush seaward
from all her dripping siblings, trampled
A. H / K.H-H (17th April & 29th June 2019)
is modern life just
is modern life just
the entrapment of innocence
still winds blow, clouds dress
A. H / K. H-H (17th November 2018 and 28th June 2019)
Tree Tops
tonight i watched some tree tops stir in the breeze
watched them closely, began to see, again
their vulnerability, reaching out
their grab at air, protected from below
by the present branches of survival
but there up top small, exposed, reaching
as their closest relatives just below
empathise as the wind blows, encourage
go, go, go
A. H / K H-H (14th June 2019)
xix (’19)
before i write off all other expressions as tropes
and with that what else?
examples of the great misunderstanding
words just words no matter of their roots
and though i may seem to do just so myself
accidentally opinionated on high
despite a hidden lifetime avoiding this
would someone,
gently,
lovingly perhaps,
touch me
K. H-H / A. H (11th May 2019)
xviii (’19)
glimmer light coagulates
molten metal sea
furnacing itself steel
mercurial quixotic
a flash of life
ignites heart
diamond bonded gold
treasure you must now hold
A. H. / K. H-H (29th April 2019)
XVII (’19)
hidden from yourself the most
whilst not at all
twisted by a fascinator
blaggard white coater
dissembler of organic
in their straight
hidden from yourself yet not
. . .
continued at A blind catch in the sun (as far as the writing goes)
xv (’19)
i
how a lie may find you
weeds invade the garden
intelligence that probes
as it strangles
. . .
XVI (’19)
marsh grasses gentle in the breeze
dune path mile-halved sea
warm spring sun cool air lamb fleeced
dangers lurk in boggy places
path finder safe remain always
A. H / K. H-H (29th April 2019)
Cairn, 2019: girlhood xxiv
second bloom in a mirror
she steps forward in pigtails
embraces temporal dissonances
this previously quite taboo
life bound in a double plait
A. H / K. H-H (24th May 2018)
Cairn, 2019
In ten days It will be a year since I started posting regularly and more seriously here. I’ve surprised myself, over one hundred and twenty posts – many poems written just to be posted, not all of them though and fewer recently due to work demands. Its been a great stimulus and to connect to…
