The grove

Poem for the week, 6 February 2023

 

 

 

 

The grove

Winter is the burning.
Rotten hearts of once sturdy oaks
stripped and axed and set ablaze.

Ashes fall from the sky.
Dark flurries of cremated yew
scattered on grit-covered snow.

Embers glow; soot remains.
The dead particles of old friends
keep us warm and on our feet.

Until the sun rises.
...
Until the sun rises.

Ice melts; nature wakens.
Springtime bursts with saplings, new buds
breathe unwooded joys of youth.

Pruned branches stretch fresh arms.
Treetops nod and gently whisper
secrets that winter forgot.

Leaves reach out to be touched.
Sycamore and ash are reborn
shady havens for lovers.

Until the sun goes down.
...
Until the sun goes down.

First published in 'magnetic resonance imaging' (buy here).

Sociopath media

Poem for the week, 30 January 2023

 

 

 

 

 

Sociopath media

My wall's a stream of platitudes,
those mass-produced collectables
viewed through heroic spectacles,
waving a flag and a god and a bloody big gun.

Each day turns into saccharin,
a box to put your feelings in,
where truth is out, replaced by spin,
refreshed non-information dressed as favourited fun.

Like me and fill your database
with status, feeling, time, and place.
We're free because we share our face
in terabyte-size clouds where clever algorithms run.

Other poetry by this author:

Magnetic Resonance Imaging: lyrics of love and loss
Those Footsteps Behind: around the world in 50 poems

See more at http://brucemarsland.com 

This is not not a rondine

Poem for the week, 23 January 2023

 

 

 

 

This is not not a rondine

Earth is burning. Choked by smoke, torn by storms,
deniers clog the web and airwaves saying
this is normal, this is fine; lies we're paying
through the nose and throat for.  Truth transforms
from fact to Wonderland on news platforms.
Moguls make bank; it's us they're betraying.
Earth is burning.

Outside our media studios, future forms
itself as cyclones, wildfires, locust swarms:
rough beasts from fiction intent on staying
here, the real and now, and they're not playing.
Earth is burning.

from The awkward geometry of a warming oblate spheroid (buy here)

 

Post deconstructionism

Poem for the week, 16 January 2023

 

 

 

 

 

Post deconstructionism

Our landscape has changed.
Spaceland, faceland, wasteland, what you will.

The users wtf and lol in the distance,
a gurning orgy of burning thesauri;
a lethal injection of terse free verse.

The others --
there's no sound of them
on this blasted derivative heath.

Meanwhile,
a thousand cottage industries
forge endless aphorisms;
embryo memes in screaming template font,

post after post after post,
gathering virtual dust on virtual walls.
Three likes.

Other poetry by this author:

Magnetic Resonance Imaging: lyrics of love and loss
Those Footsteps Behind: around the world in 50 poems

See more at http://brucemarsland.com 

Sun worshippers

Poem for the week, 9 January 2023

 

 

 

 

Sun worshippers
Milan, Italy

Shelterless
above the nativity of St Mary,

like sunflowers
we orient our adoration,
in echo of the Magi,
towards the closest star;

high solar clergy
genuflecting
factor 30 on bare skin,
below an azure altar.

Divesting denim vestments,
we inverse-prostrate
ourselves below
the Madonnina,

facing the heavens,
backs to the buttresses.

Metropolitan soundscapes
rise as prayerful murmurs,
muffled by time,
dimmed by height,

intruding soft as incense
on our supra-cathedra sanctum,
where one has rolled her skirt
up to her groin

and one tucked wicking wool
inside her intimate silk
in timeless vogue
for worshipping the sun,

less fashionable for vespers
in the nave below.

from Those Footsteps Behind (buy here)
more at brucemarsland.com

That Palaeozoic trilobite groove

Poem for the week, 2 January 2023

That Palaeozoic trilobite groove

This is the age.
This is the Cambrian Period, man.
Not some fusty Archaean sludge.
It’s cool; it’s happenin'.
Deal with it, proto-grandpa. 

Hang with the 'bites.
Dig that exoskeletal gear.
Perfect for piercings and tattoos.
Hard rock, blind fury.
Rage against the marine! 

Screw limestone, bro.
You seen those protozoans there?
Long aeons crumbling into dust.
Live fast, die neo.
I’s not headin' their way, dude. 

Just get a life!
Three lobes good, two lobes bad. No sweat!
That evolution’s some good shit.
Don’t split, go sexual.
Make love not walls. Forevah!

First performed in March 2009 at Poetry & Jazz by the Finn-Brit Players, at Arkadia International Bookshop in Helsinki, Finland.

First published in 'magnetic resonance imaging' (buy here).

A brief guide to the sea turtle

Poem for the week, 19 December 2022

A brief guide to the sea turtle
Koh Mannai, Thailand

from Those Footsteps Behind (buy here)

 

A roundelay delaying extinction

Poem for the week, 11 December 2022

 

 

A roundelay delaying extinction

They said: we don’t cause the weather, don’t buy it;
fossil fuels are forever, don’t be a reformer.
After they lied, the truth started a riot
against worldwide environment trauma,
but they filled their oil drums and then denied it
while the weather got warmer and warmer.

After they lied, the truth started a riot
against worldwide environment trauma.
Fish, fowl, and insects die off in this climate
but when we said so we were told that’s just drama,
as they twiddled their thumbs and then denied it
while the weather got warmer and warmer.

Fish, fowl, and insects die off in this climate
but when we said so we were told that’s just drama.
The heat will decimate most of our diet
leaving nothing but mosquito korma,
but they fiddled their sums and then denied it
while the weather got warmer and warmer.

The heat will decimate most of our diet
leaving nothing but mosquito korma,
all the hot summer facts cannot belie it:
our present lives soon will be former.
Still, they loaded their guns and then denied it
while the weather got warmer and warmer.

from The awkward geometry of a warming oblate spheroid (buy here)

A rondeau for Ukraine

Poem for the week, 4 December 2022

 

 

 

 

A rondeau for Ukraine
an entry for the Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge, September 2022
after ‘Take Heart’ by Bonnie Riedinger
and in homage to ‘In Flanders Fields’ by John McCrae

A Rorschach map that bleeds with yellow blood
drenches the flag where seeping borders could
turn poppies into blue, a weeping sky
inverted in distress; no norms apply
in murder harvested from brotherhood.

The sea and tears and gore mix in a flood
of fiery images by drones of mud,
all blurred, all smudged. You might as well tie-dye
a Rorschach map.

But clearing out the sulphur and the crud,
restored integrity can point to good,
a word the world’s forgotten in the lies
fed to us daily, blinding all our eyes.
Slava Ukraini. Show honesty withstood
a Rorschach map.

Other poetry by this author:

Magnetic Resonance Imaging: lyrics of love and loss
Those Footsteps Behind: around the world in 50 poems

A visitation

Poem for the week, 27 November 2022

A visitation
Talgarth, Powys, Wales, United Kingdom

In a house near a hamlet near a village near here,
the White Lady walks, they say.

Even amid the braggadocio of drunk tongues,
voices hush for the tale in reverence,
in melancholy, in deference.

There is talk of a fire in a cellar
and a deliberately locked door.

There is talk of a miscreant cursed
with the head of a giant bull.

Stories hop across my synapses
as I lodge in the shadows of Lord Hereford’s Knob.

My imagination shifts the spirit
from lady to daughter to serving girl,
until a library clock lullaby of a dozen tiny bells.

In the noiseless night, the house inhales
the hamlet’s restless air.

Without waking or dreaming, I find attention upon me,
held in the power of an impartial curiosity.
Without seeing or hearing, I observe the observer,
bathed in the pale aura of a subconscious whisper.
Without moving, without feeling,
I am returned to my sleep, not permitted my senses.

Night drifts on.

After days after hours locals chat in the pubs,
pausing at cook’s clatter and caterwaul.

In a house near a hamlet near a village near here,
the White Lady walks, they say.

from Those Footsteps Behind (buy here)