Poem 5 - What News Have I to Tell?

What News Have I to Tell?

Today a jackdaw's fallen down the chimney.

I hear it scuffling and flailing in the soot.

     So is winter nearly gone?

Each year brings them to our rooftop

quarrelling as they drop their twigs

to make their chancy nests.

.

And one will fall. Trapped

in the bricked-up void, chack for a

wretched day or two, then die. Or –

maybe –  tumble flukily into the grate,

to sudden frantic freedom, to the bright

confusion of windows..

And I think of you, your six months in the dark.

Are there birds there? You keep so silent on it all.

    Come home soon.

With all my love to you, my dear Persephone.

Mum xx

Sally Douglas

The prompt for this one came from The Practice of Poetry, by Robin Behn and Chace Twichell (HarperCollins, 1992). The exercise was simply to write a poem in the form of a letter. I started it with a bit of news that I recently posted on my younger daughter's Facebook page, and part way through I realised who the speaker might be. I don't think the reader needs to know anything about Greek mythology to understand the poem, though. That's what makes those archetypal figures so great to use in writing- they're everyone and everywhere. At the last minute, just before posting this, I decided to hold back the classical reference  until the end of the poem so the reader would enter the space without any preconceptions, and the poem is not pinned down. In that way, hopefully, the identities of the characters add a layer rather than be all that the poem is - and the reader has some part in deciding how far this adds meaning.

NaPoWriMo Poem 4 - Seven Glances at Time



Photo: Natasha Douglas

   

Seven Glances at Time 

1.

The tock of the wipers

the long rain sliding

the road

unwinding

2.

A view

A haze

A mist

A cloud

A fog
A wall

3.

Inside a box, coiled tight,

there is all possibility –  

blue with stars.

4.

Sometimes the air is so still that even

the clock

stops breathing.

5.

A breath and a breath and a breath

and a breath and

6.

Years unspooling –

       the clack of cine film

                                             flicker

you flare

             and falter

years ago

7.

The way

minutes pucker the surface.

How, suddenly, my grandmother’s fingers

are holding

this pen.

Sally Douglas

The prompt for this came from Jo Bell, via Twitter (@Jo_Bell). The task was to read Wallace Stevens' poem 'Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird', and then to look at something else thirteen ways. This was quite a challenge for me because Stevens and his blackbirds seemed to be at my shoulder, whispering all the time! I did write thirteen ways, but decided the whole thing needed cutting back for the sake of the poor reader.  If I were to do this exercise again I'd write about something a lot less abstract, but I had the one initial image-based idea (which ironically was one of the bits I cut) and that dictated the subject without me really having a say in the matter.     

Not the greatest thing I have ever written, but the point of doing this month of writing was to break the block, so up it goes into the world.                                  

NaPoWriMo Poem 3: The Teller

The Teller

This is my story.

I am an owl. I am the baker’s daughter.

I do not cast a shadow in the dark.

This is my story.

I was found in a snail shell.

My nights leave gleaming whispered trails.

This is my story.

I was born among the stones.

My words are strata heavy on themselves.

This is my story.

I saw something in a bleached sheep’s skull

lying in its scatter of bones.

This is my story.

Each hour I wash my mouth with ink,

drink to that furious and empty head.

Sally Douglas

This poem came from Day 2's prompt on the National Poetry Writing Month's website. The prompt was to write a poem that told a lie. I started by writing myself a list of lies and playing around with them, but got nowhere. Then in the middle of the night, the phrase 'this is my story' came to me. Without turning on the light I fumbled for my notebook, and hoping desperately that I was starting on a blank page, I wrote two pages of notes that this morning became this poem. And which of course turned out to not be a lie at all.

Photo: Sally Douglas

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...