poetry diary

I rhyme to see myself, to set the darkness echoing. (Seamus Heaney, from Personal Helicon)

Category: Poems

Au Lapin Agile

A crowd not breathing;
two women dancing with drums,
moving like water.

——-

For haiku heights September challenge. The prompt is ‘agile’ and the phrase that came into my head was ‘au lapin agile’, which is French, but beyond that I couldn’t remember anything – so I looked it up, and it turns out to be the name of a famous cabaret club in Montmatre which was the haunt of struggling writers and artists at the start of the 20th century. (I have been there in spirit many times, and in reality 20 years ago). So just right, really.

The Milky Way

Stars gathered to hear
new sounds in the darkness, but
it’s only a child.

——-

For haiku heights September challenge.

Autumn

Smoke rises from leaves;
an old man watches traffic,
and we all move on.

——-

For haiku heights September challenge.

By moonlight

Clouds obscure the moon;
as the owl swoops silently,
a tired mouse stumbles.

——-

For haiku heights September challenge.

Loneliness

Your fingers touching
mine, as snow settles outside:
I feel them still.

——-

For haiku heights September challenge.

At the seaside

That colourful stone,
disturbed by winter storms, turns
to sand in my shoe.

——-

For haiku heights September challenge.

Drawbridge

A squirrel pauses;
chestnut branch like a drawbridge,
defending summer.

——-

For haiku heights September challenge.

Late summer sunset

Alien clouds, red,
as summer fades and roses
yearn for their sunset.

——–

For haiku heights, prompt 159, Alien. Also prompted by the sunset over Warwick castle yesterday evening, while playing tennis.

Another Sunset

Watching the sun sinking in the West,
like a middle-aged man sinking into humanity;
reddening with resignation and wine, and trailed
by fading clouds, rose-tinted
but cold.

At least the sky is blue
(which rhymes with you,
who may yet catch that falling orb
and make another dawn).

——

Posted at dVerse Open Link Evening 28 August 2012

Blue Moon

The roses bloomed twice,
and nobody noticed but
you – who stole my heart.

———–

For Chevrefeuille’s Tackle it Tuesday prompt.