NaPoWriMo Poem 2

You Push Your Hands

You push your hands

push your hands into the

wild inconsistency

of water

and the water takes you

with the generosity of ocean

making your cadences its own.

Sally Douglas

This came from the same prompt as yesterday's poem - a couple of words took me in a different direction. Not sure about the title, but I don't want to pin the poem down so it seemed the best option.

Thumbelina

A few people have mentioned that they have enjoyed my poem Thumbelina, so I thought I'd post it here in case anyone else fancies casting an eye over it. It was first published in iota magazine a few years back, and is also in my collection Candling the Eggs. I'm rather fond of it as it was the first ever poem I had accepted for publication.

 

Thumbelina

Last night I had a

baby. She was tiny -

even smaller than my

thumb.

Her heartbeat fluttered

mothlike in my palm.

The cot was vast. Instead

I laid her in a  matchbox,

nested her in scraps of silk,

and scattered unstrung pearls

for her to play. I slid the

cover closed so she’d be safe.

Then I forgot I’d had a

baby. Life went by. Emptying

my locker, wondering

why am I at school? my

fingers found an unfamiliar

box, light as the moon.

Inside: my baby, dried

out like a leaf, her hollow

cheeks transparent, and

her tiny hands like claws;

a paper husk now sighing

into dust.

In morning’s  pallid light I

heave myself from my

uneasy bed. Inside me you

remind me you’re still

there.

 I don’t think I

can do this.

Sally Douglas

NaPoWriMo Poem 1

The Vocabulary of Absence

It stalks the spaces of this house.

Walks between the pillars

that hold up the sky.

It pushes into cold stone

finding its tenderness.

It plates the surfaces, the skin of things.

It is chinkless,

clattering and sparking

covering the dark.

Sally Douglas  1/4/13

NaPoWriMo

I've had a very unproductive time in my writing during the last year or so. A fallow field, I hope rather than a totally sterile one. So to get myself kick-started I've decided to take the NaPoWriMo challenge, write a poem a day for the month of April, and post the results here. I can promise you that they probably won't be good, and certainly won't be polished, but I feel that it might be a good way to get myself going again!

The Poetry School is posting prompts each day on its Facebook page so most days I plan to use these - unless of course some other inspiration takes me. But since inspiration has been sadly lacking recently I have a feeling I'm going to be very grateful for having someone to tell me where to start.

Watch this space - I'm hoping I'll manage to fill it...

Released Poem 2: Jigsaw

Jigsaw

The kitchen floor is cold.

It aches my legs.

A girl is scattered
all around:

eyes, arms, fingers,

wispy hair.

Mummy’s high above me,

humming,

watching sky,

paddling clouds of bubbles

with her hands.

And suddenly – did I do that? –

the girl’s joined up.

It’s magic

like the yellow kitchen cupboard

with the bathroom

through its back.

I’m bigger now

bigger than

God.

Sally Douglas 

Released Poem 1: Reunion

Reunion

Remember summer. Hours

of slanting sun

rising like a lever, hot

and long enough to move a world.

                                                                                                        

All the way to breaktime

its dry tide rose behind me,

scorching the slow fields of morning

until all the paths were gone.

You’d pop the silver top down

with your thumb,

post the straw and suck

your milk.

I’d hold back, hold breath:

gauging the heat-gap’s smallest slenderness

between warm glass, damp skin.

Feel the clotting of my throat.

If you were here

       you might

          remember this.

Sally Douglas



Released From Captivity

Sitting on the hard drive of my computer are hundreds of abandoned, unsubmitted poems, shut away there in the dark cage of Windows files. They are mostly not poems I would write now - some are really quite old - but occasionally I get them out and tinker with them, cut out a few words, move a comma, put the comma back where it was in the first place...  And this is not a productive use of time! So I've decided to post a few of them here - abandon them in a more public place in the hope that they will be content with that, and let me get on with writing some new ones.

Watch this space: poems will be appearing soon, blinking in the unaccustomed light. Some might come limping out, but hopefully a few might feel up to hopping. There might even be the odd one which attempts to fly.