Poems

Ghost Train

Ghost Train

I remember the little electric railway
that ran on a single loop around
the kitchen table, diddly-da-diddly-da,
just like a real train, except no smoke,
no puff the magic dragon, no sense
of a schedule or arriving and departing
when circular time is meaningless,
as are the numbers on the sundial
when the sun isn’t shining,
or the hands on the clock’s blank face
when the numbers are missing,
and you don’t know whether you are
looking in time’s distorting mirror
or are standing on your head
in the Antipodes, and all the while
the clock hands are marching round
and round, tick-tock, and there is
no track by which time can be tracked.

And the runaway hands go round the track,
and the electric train goes round the table,
 and the ghost train hoots whoo-hoo,
as it vanishes into the timeless tunnel,
then exits, the engineer, like Rip Van Winkle,
grown old with a long beard, and the carriages
all covered with cobwebs, and skeletons
leaping out of the compartments,
then sitting beside the travellers
as they snore on their seats.

Comment: Another poem based on a prose prompt. What a great source for poetry those prompts can be, when you don’t take them too seriously and allow your imagination to run riot and your memories to flow. Not automatic writing, but writing that springs from an absurd, surrealist approach to the crazy world that surrounds us. Rain that causes the yucca plant to grow, then falls so hard that it is battered to the ground by the very thing that gave it life. And so it is with my memories of the many trains on which I have travelled and with which I have played. Once upon a time, I couldn’t conceive of life without the railway. Where is it now? I haven’t been on a train for more than fifteen years. Strange how their ghosts flit through my dreams at night: fast trains, slow trains, the wrong train at the wrong time taking me to the wrong place in time. Ah, the poetry of trains yet, “ni temps passés ni les trains reviennent.” And you can give yourself a glow of satisfaction – thank you Tommy Reed – if you recognize the quote, and two more if you know who Tommy Reed is. I use the present tense because, although long gone, he is ever-present in my mind.

Today’s painting – another gift from my friend Moo.

Past Times

Past Times

When I was young, I used to watch
my fox terrier chasing his tail,
running round and round in circles,
never quite catching it,
but never giving up his high hopes
 of catching that little rag-tag of a bobtail
that dangles there behind.
 
Round about and out and in and out
all day that silly dog did spin,
spinning in prose and then in rhyme,
until I lost all track of time.

Comment: I loved a part of one of my prompts, so I turned it into a personal poem. The second stanza is based on a poem by Thackeray. I learned it in my youth. Learning poetry and remembering it, another past time from past times. I also love playing on words. Imitatio is one of the rhetorical devices used traditionally by poets. To imitate, is to express one’s admiration of another person’s work. It should not be confused with plagiary / plagiarism, which is something entirely different. Anyone who has followed my writing, on this blog and elsewhere, will know that I echo the words of other poets and that I do so deliberately, to praise them and acknowledge their creativity and their continuing influence upon my own poetic world.

Today’s Cartoon – A Time Apart – by my friend Moo who is very generous with his art..

Situations

Situations

I am sitting at my desk, typing to you.
Many thoughts are running through my head.

I am checking the weather regularly –
high winds and rain are due soon.

Clare has just walked past the window.
She waved at me, but didn’t ask for any help.

The washing is almost dry and needs folding.
 We need to tie down the umbrella and porch chairs.

The cat has just walked across my keyboard.
I correct her footprints. They have typed false words.
 
Now she has discovered the dried blood on the floor.
It soaked into the boards when I cut my arm last night.

I meant to clean it up this morning, but I forgot.
I can hear her tongue rasping as she licks it up.  

Real People

Real People

They lie there, lifeless, in their little black coffins.
They refuse to pick up their beds and walk.
Powerful as you are, you are powerless now.
You are unable to grace them with the gift of life.

Listless, disappointed, you turn away. Don’t look,
but now, while you are not watching them, they move.
A gesture here, a wink of the eye, a tiny smile,
a broken tooth, a scar from a dog bite, and they come alive.

Now they stand before you, dressed in the clothes
you wove for them, from their own words.
When you listened, they spoke. They didn’t want
to be forced into falsehoods, forged from your fake words.

True to their own natures, they now walk and talk,
naturally, in the words you heard when you let them speak.

Window Pain

Window Pain

I live in a world beyond the material world.
At night, I swim, a silver fish, among the stars.
Constellations net me in their glistening hair.

By day I wander along a piano’s keys.
I replay life’s golden dreams again and again,
its quartets, concertos, and its symphonies.

A harmonious blacksmith, I no longer know
who, or what, I am. I only know I exist right here,
at my desk, looking out through my window,

a window in my mind, that serves as a mirror,
reflecting all I was, and am, and ever will be.
Sometimes, the sun shines. Often the rain

falls cold against that window pane, and I press
my nose against cold glass, and feel again the pain.

Hiraeth

Hiraeth

If only the impossible could become possible.
I think we all experience these longings.
Maybe not everyone, but I certainly do.

I wish I could go back.
Back in time to a slower world—
Back to Highway 81.

Back to that warm feeling of innocence.
Back to the safety of my dreaming days
when wishes were made on stars each night,
when the skies were clear and stars were bright,
and fireflies were imprisoned in mason jars
with holes in the lids to allow them to breathe.

When was the last time I saw a firefly?
Or heard a mocking bird’s song?
How long ago since the nights were so clear
we could lie on our backs under the sky
and count each star twinkling above.

Remember the days of watching the clouds
that chased across the afternoon sky,
Forever changing as we named each one?
“Look, it’s a kitten, or puppy or sometimes even a cow!”

We lived in the country and knew every shape
from our hours of work and play
back in the day when children were children
even as teenagers
and guns were only for bringing home our supper.

I even miss the party line in those days 
when it meant four families
sharing the same telephone line.

“Hang up Miss Lockie, it’s private”
was always the first thing we said.
It never worked, she always listened
especially when we were talking with boys!

Ah, Miss Lockie, the party line snoop,
and the bane of children and parents alike.

If only–sad words indeed.
If only I could go back for a day
a week, a month.

All the things I would appreciate more,
the dreams I would rethink and change
to realistic wishes.

But for now the only impossible dream I have
is to return to the slow days of my youth.
Hiraeth!

Comment: A poem from my long-time friend, and fellow poet, Angela Wink, that I am so happy and proud to post on my blog. Great poem, Angela. Thank you for giving me permission to post it.

Bone Fire Night

Bone Fire Night

Sometimes the sun’s too bright
and we are best, at night, by moonlight,
when shadows flicker and we seize,
in the shimmering half-light,
half-truths glowing in the dark.

In the full light of day, these ideas
take forms, flesh themselves out,
grow skin and bone, flesh and blood,
their skeletal beings standing,
fully-clothed, beside us.

They take on match-stick bodies,
twisted, pipe-cleaner shapes,
or stick their stakes into the ground,
hold out their arms, and turn into
scarecrows that scare away the truth

Do they bring us release from our
darkest yearnings, or are they those
self-same cravings, hankering after
their day of glory, that precious moment
when they stand upright in the sun?

With the advent of bone fire night,
we stack them into wheelbarrows,
place them on the gathering pile
of outmoded thoughts and ideas,
light a match, and watch them burn.

A Game of Chance

A Game of Chance

You make me think of the road not walked,
the path untaken, the bay around the headland
where we never swam, the cliffs on the Gower
that we never had the time to climb.

Who knows which path is right or wrong
when we throw the dice and stake our future
on a single moment of time when, thinking done,
we come to a decision and take that first step.

The more I know, the more I realize that I know
so little and am surrounded by a world
not only unknown, but totally unknowable,
and me with my life dangling from a frail thread.

Sometimes, I dig deep into bottled sunshine,
But find no answers there, just the same questions
swirling round the glass, and the glass filled with
the same uncertainties and lack of knowledge.

I really don’t know where to go, or how to get there.
And then I remember that, if I don’t know where to go,
any path I take will lead me there. That is when I shuffle
the cards, breathe deep, and give the dice a throw.

Lac Megantic – 10 years on

Lac Megantic
ten years on

Fire on the water, the waves ablaze,
and the sound, a monster, indestructible,
a dragon descending, breathing fire,
so swift, so powerful, come sudden
from nowhere, yet another disaster,
one of the many that torment us
now and then with its ravage and roar.

It refused to move on until sated – but
who could satisfy the monster’s hunger,
destroy its will, defeat its power?
Not us with our pitiful sacrifices,
homes, friends, family, devoured.

In spite of our efforts to rebuild,
nothing can ever be the same.
Ten years later, memories, grief,
and our tears are all that remain.
Yes, it has left, but what can we do
to stop it, if, and when, it comes again?


Comment: I wrote this poem on July 6, 2023, while listening to the CBC radio commentary on the tenth anniversary of the Lac Megantic disaster. A terrible event, it still haunts so many people, and yes, the fears, tears, grief, and memories linger on. How could they not?

Painting – Poppies – by Clare Moore.

Hanwell

Hanwell

Here, in Hanwell Woods,
a seemingly abandoned chapel,
paint peeling, and two stark crosses
marked on barred doors.

The new copper spire gleams
as sunlight casts leaf shadows,
sending them dancing under trees.

Neither sight nor sound of bells
this sunny afternoon,
just the mosquitoes’ whine,
the black flies’ zip and buzz.

Across intervals of silence,
a far-off chain saw rips wood.
Trees and branches topple then fall.
Trails set free from winter’s debris.

The wind herds clouds instead of sheep.
Giant footprints drift shallow
across the shadowed land.