Nettle

Ah, nettles. August walks wouldn’t be the same without these special friends would they? Grrr.

Stinging nettle

Nettle

Nettle…
after the apocalypse,
you, with your pain suit and your stealth roots
will survive –
a zig-zag scrap of hope
(at least for the butterflies).
But, though I know you to be
a sleeping saviour,
unwavering in the face of eco-calamity,
I still loathe you.
Viscerally.

There you stand, waist-high,
all shouty trousers,
the glad-swaggering big I,
your two-bit tendrils lunging brashly –
just an overgrown irritant
acting rashly.

And beside you,
the dreary dock leaves
paddle-faced and dead-eyed
clutch their scout badges tight and simper:
We’re really VERY sorry.
Come, crush our worthless bodies
to ease your blisters.

 

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Image by analogicus from Pixabay

Photophobia

It’s nowhere near Halloween, so time for a creepy rhyme…

Photophobia

The light is like the sound of something breaking;
he waits inside the upturns of the waves.
Don’t touch the switch. The click will find him waking.

The kitchen has the scent of someone aching
to live. Reflections hold the things he craves.
Their light is like the sound of something breaking.

If light consoles you, watch its edges shaking
in bedroom corners, cringing at his gaze.
Don’t touch the switch. The click will find him waking.

I wonder, have you sensed a brightness taking
your vision? Have you felt in recent days
that light is like the sound of something breaking?

You may be free. You may be quite mistaken.
I guess you must believe, for now, you’re saved.
Don’t touch the switch. The click will find him waking.

So come to terms with darkness now. Start making
new routes, believe your senses, and be brave.
When light is like the sound of something breaking,
don’t touch the switch. The click will find him waking.

 

First published by Snakeskin Poetry – www.snakeskinpoetry.co.uk

Geek notes: This is written in villanelle form, which has a very specific pattern of rhymes and repeating lines. You may have noticed there are only two rhyme sounds (although I’ve been a bit loose with waves – craves – gaze – days – saved – brave!) You might recognise this form from this slightly famous poem by Dylan Thomas. 😉

 

Image by Bruno /Germany from Pixabay

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Blooming

Bang!

This week I have been mostly… blowing up all the pretty flowers! Or rather, they  have been blowing themselves up in some sort of petal-strewn apocalypse. This poem featured on the lovely blog The Wombwell Rainbow this week, but I thought I’d share the fireworks here too.

Blooming

A celandine went first,
and if we had ever looked, we would have known
it was a freeze-frame of a live firework,
we would have expected
the violence that sparked from the inside out,
the heat petalling sweetly,
each stamen springing a hellmouth.

A rose caught,
thorns spitting pop-pop-pop from the stem,
the leaves crisping, and as an afterthought,
the buds, like charged kisses,
lipped the flames to ragwort and vetch.
An oxeye daisy burst,
white-hot in its eagerness.

We dialled nine-nine-nine,
we called the press, but our words burned away,
and as day bloomed into evening time,
the honeysuckle, its lashes
glowing in the last light of the sun,
tipped a long wink to Venus
and blew like an H-bomb.

 

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Artwork by Thomas Suisse on Pixabay.

Back To Me

Nothing wrong with a little feel good poem from time to time…

Back to Me

This my nothing-happy,
my stone-faced bliss,
this is my sweet release
from grinning artifice.
I am floating on zero,
life-sloughed and stuff-free,
I am guileless, I am tribeless,
I am back to me.

 

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Bellows

You are supposed to mellow as you get older. I have not. I am barely able to watch the breakfast news any more, for fear of whichever condescending windbag politician is to be wheeled out at 7:30 to trot out the party line. For fear of the rage they will provoke!

So! Today, instead of breakfast news, I am posting my little poemy rant. Enjoy!

Bellows

Hand him a twitch to wake the bag,
breathe him a wind and watch him blow!
His leathery skin will show no marks,
the flames need fuel and bellows.

Offer him up to breakfast news,
pipe him a phrase and watch him blow!
his spasming mouth will puff and squeal –
the flames are fuelled by bellows.

Now cycle it out to the populace!
Pump up their passions and watch them blow
and blurt on their garrulous timelines; feed
the flames with fuel and bellows.

And when some commission arrives to prise
his apertures open – watch them blow!
Why, empty has nothing to answer for.
The flames need fools and bellows.

This poem was first published in the May 21 edition of Snakeskin:  www.snakeskinpoetry.co.uk

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Image by suju-foto from Pixabay

Lunacy

You make one simple mistake…

Whoops

Lunacy

I didn’t mean to kill the moon,
Your Honour. Just bad luck, I guess –
one hiccup, and the sky was strewn
with moon-rocks. Whoops! Who doesn’t mess

with isotopes from time to time?
I didn’t mean to kill the moon.
Ballistics? Well, if that’s a crime,
they’ll ban my vortex factory soon,

then what? Some health and safety goon
declares my new black hole a sin?
I didn’t mean to kill the moon.
Uh-oh – the shrapnel’s coming in,

prepare to die! No, seriously,
can we get under something hewn
from rock?  What’s up? Don’t look at me –
I didn’t mean to kill the moon!

First published in Snakeskin Poetry

Geek note: This poetic form is known as a quatern. It has four stanzas, each of four lines, with a refrain which appears in line 1 in the first stanza, line 2 in the second, line 3 in the third and line 4 in the fourth. It’s a really fun form to write in, as you fit the poem round the refrains like a jigsaw, and also very satisfying to read, I think!

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A Short One

Dating dating dating. Ah, the fun, the joy, the humiliation, the hollowness of rejection. I met my husband fourteen years ago so it’s been a while – but I’m sure if you’re single it also feels about fourteen years since you were able to date normally. Rubbish.

So, to remind you of the  ups and downs, here’s a poem about the tedious joy of being attracted to someone who’s most definitely not marriage material. Much has been written about falling for the bad boy – but what about falling for the dull boy?

A Short One

You’re not much to look at
My body says hot
Borderline dull
My libido says not
My friends think you’re average
(I checked)
I’m literally aching
I’m wrecked

We kiss in a nightclub
I’m painfully willing
Our fling is like curry
Spicy and filling
My body’s a twist
A sigh
You bore me to tears
Bye bye

Bored

 

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Photo by Camila Quintero Franco on Unsplash

 

A Tousled Boy

A little poem I wrote upon discovering that Our Beloved Leader messes up his hair before speaking to the press. Glad he has his priorities right. I mean, I’ll grant him, it’s been a quiet month.

A Tousled Boy

This is the hair I used to mess
to win round Nanny. “Oh God bless
that tousled boy,” she used to say
It made the bad stuff go away.

When cricket balls met greenhouse glass,
I’d muss my hair in one quick pass –
“There there,” she’d say. Or, caught pants down
with Daddy’s maid, I’d play the clown –

she’d smile and pass the girl a scone!
It’s different now that Nanny’s gone.
Quite baffling. Take Barnier.
I went FULL RUFFLE. Could not sway

the man. Now even Murdoch seems
immune! The stuff of lurid dreams!
The markets fall, the lorries queue,
I tease each foppish strand askew,

the bodies pile, the untruths stack,
Rees-Mogg is smirking at my back,
the germs mutate. Oh, save me, mop!
Please Nanny? Nanny? Make it stop…

 

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A Funny Old Form: Double Dactyls

Of all the forms of poetry, the bizarre “double dactyl” has produced some of the most wonderfully bonkers poems. And for that, I love it.

Here are a couple of my double dactylic efforts. If you would like a go (and who wouldn’t?) the rather odd rules are provided below. I’ve also added some links so you can read some more examples.

Queen of the Dancefloor

Ooyakah Booyakah!
Dear Queen Elizabeth’s
ninety third birthday
turned into a rave.

She did the running man
extraordinarily,
crafting a move from her
famed royal wave.

It’s been a blast

Agedly sagedly
David F Attenborough
said we were doomed
with a very sad face.

We dragged our knuckles round
uncomprehendingly,
wrapped him in plastic
and launched him to space.

And Here Be The Rules

  • A double dactyl has 8 lines divided into two stanzas.
  • Each line should consist of two dactyls. A dactyl is a rhythmical foot with a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables like this: “YOM-pa-pa”
  • Lines 4 and 8 are the exception to this, rounding off each stanza with a “YOM-pa-pa YOM.”
  • Line 1 should consist of a pair of slightly nonsensical rhyming words. These can be relevant to the theme, or not. They might simply be there as a little oral warm-up. Flonkington plonkington.
  • Line 2 should consist of a single name. Now, some people’s names are simply MADE for double dactyls, (Gillian Anderson, Christopher Ecclestone, Edward Jehazaphat*) but many are not. A middle initial (“David F Attenborough) or slightly illegal adjective, (“Dear Queen Elizabeth”) can help, but some names, alas, are just beyond the reach of the double dactyl.
  • Line 6 should ideally consist of a single, six-syllable word. Quite a lot of double dactyl writers gently ignore this rule however. Why? Because it’s REALLY awkward.

And there you go. Simple. Right?!?

 

If you’re loving the double dactyl, by the way (and what’s not to love), Snakeskin Poetry recently did a rather marvellous DD special feature, which you can find here.

And if you’d like to find out more about the origins of the form (ie who on earth thought this was all a good idea and why), take a look here. There are some more examples to enjoy too.

And finally, if you’d like some lovely, or fun, or slightly odd poetry to pop up on your newsfeed now and again, all you have to do is follow me at www.facebook.com/parmenterpoetry

*At the time of writing, Edward Jehazaphat does not exist. But should. 

The Exhalations of Stones

Many of the poems I write are on the lighter side, and they are quite obvious in their meaning – deliberately so. But where I write less clear-cut poems, I try to avoid explaining what they mean to me, unless asked. This is partly because I don’t want to be a spoilsport. But it’s also because I know that each reader may take something completely new away from a poem – different to what I intended, yes, but nevertheless equally valid.  And that is a glorious thing.

Now, I have carefully explained that rule because… I am now going to break it. This poem featured in this post is an attempt to convey something that I have tried to get across to people in “ordinary” words, but cannot. Poems can be good at throwing a light on things that we don’t have decent everyday language for. It’s one of the things they’re “for”, after all.

So does this poem convey what I wanted? Well, judge for yourself. The explanation is below the poem. And if you don’t want me to be a spoilsport, then stop reading at the end of the poem!

The Exhalations of Stones

We are the exhalations of stones, they said.
We know it because we know.
Tell your children of the cool breath
that fashioned their bones.

We are the sense of senseless things, they said.
We feel it because we feel.
Let the faithful shape the new law
from their imaginings.

You who blow doubt across creation, they said,
should quiet your tawdry lies.
Ours is the rock the air the spirit the peace the world.
Yours the damnation.

 

This poem was first published at The Hypertexts.

So what’s it about?

As an atheist, I find it difficult to explain to people with religious faith how their beliefs sound to me. It is really hard to explain this without tripping over language that may seem dismissive or insulting, or any of those things I don’t want to be. Even writing this paragraph is fraught with pitfalls!

People’s religious beliefs baffle me, to be honest. And I do get so frustrated by assertions such as “Ah, but you should have faith.” But why? Why should I have faith in this particular out-there suggestion, rather than any other out-there suggestion? What possible reason would I have to “give faith a go”, as has been suggested to me previously, when the thing you suggest I have faith in is so utterly unbelievable to me?

So, I decided to fabricate my own out-there suggestion and present it in the way mainstream religions are presented, to hold a gentle mirror up to faith and say, look. This is how it looks to me, and you saying “We know it because we know” isn’t really helping me out.

That’s a pretty long explanation for a pretty short poem. If you still don’t get it, well, that’s probably down to me. I’ll get my coat.

 

If you enjoy poetry, you can find poems from me, poems from people who are not me, and other poetry stuff at my Facebook page www.facebook.com/parmenterpoetryWhy not give it a follow?

Image by Frank Winkler from Pixabay