poetry diary

I rhyme to see myself, to set the darkness echoing. (Seamus Heaney, from Personal Helicon)
February 5, 2011

Sanctuary

Yellow roses on your shelf,
half-open, dreaming in their vase.
A book, laid as if half read,
and pictures on the wall.

Little things that make me smile.
Fire, warming silence, holding space.
Glass and jug for someone else,
and pebbles on the floor.

Familiar face, familiar place;
your open mind, opening space;
A table bare to fill with tears,
and banishment of fear.

Frames and moments you’ve passed through,
Stacked and wrapped against the wall;
suggesting of a life outside,
and time will come to go.

© Matthew Rhodes 2011

2 Comments
February 1, 2011

Aubade

Emotions, like autumn leaves wind-stirred, float,
and fall back to cover red-raw earth, soft
with your last breath on my cheek. If you wrote –
just one line, sunlight warming seeds tossed
by your smile to the ground, I would not wait;
new stems would rise to greet the light, partners
in growth and joy; we’d make afresh our fate,
and find new strength and space: who cares who errs?
But maybe it is easier to stop.
Skies are cold and clods strain beneath the frost.
Un-nurtured leaves will drift, decay and drop;
Our chance, that came, and went, was worth the cost.
I wanted so to strive and yearn with you,
But if you won’t, I cannot face the dew.

©2011 Matthew Rhodes

—————

Shared with Poets United May 15 2011

10 Comments
January 27, 2011

On felling trees

There was a fir tree this morning,
beside the drive.
Now there is a new horizon.

That tree came home for Christmas
in nineteen ninety eight.
A triumph of domesticity;
surviving planting out,
children and twelve summers,
until it blocked the light
and had to go
despite a fight.

Felling trees is always sad,
I find – their slow joy of growth,
and patient presence;
stillness and solid love of earth,
roots us all as one,
and tames the sun.

So shame on the axeman.
You have much to learn:
let houses move instead.

© Matthew Rhodes 2011

2 Comments
January 26, 2011

Kenilworth, England (Fortress III)

In a place like Kenilworth
you see the character of a country:
a castle built for a single party,
still remembered
after four hundred years.

A queen came here once —
in the days of power

(for a week).

And so did a general,
puritanical,
and not so fond of parties,
or queens,
sixty years later blew down the walls,
drained the lake,
and spoiled the fun —
when the days were earnest

(in an hour).

But not the memory.

People come to see the walls,
not the holes.

And who would build afresh
such castles in the mind?
In these days of quiescence

(with a decade, or two,
of luck, and pain).

Such power persists
through centuries —
time to deal with it?

(Not here, not now).

Not ever —
in a place like Kenilworth.

© Matthew Rhodes 2011

4 Comments
January 25, 2011

Fortress II (Dunstanburgh Castle)

Without the walls, wave-tossed rocks
cry loneliness, even now.

You yearn for sky, I see;
and feel your pain.

So hard to be stone in love
with air – caressed and shadowed;
shaped, smoothed,
and finally –
consumed as dust.

© Matthew Rhodes 2011

Image

4 Comments
January 23, 2011

Fortress I

Unfeeling stones that sat, grassbound
and sheep-licked, even in Alfred’s day;
touched by light, as they were once
when carted from the hills.

Human hands, still –
then and now through time –
shaping fortresses and fates;
passions turning walls to blood,
and nothing new.

© Matthew Rhodes 2011

4 Comments
January 19, 2011

Courage – 0649 to London Marylebone

Day building slowly from the east.
Dark frames of magic beasts reach out,
uncurl and strengthen, with the sun
still crouching, growling, out of sight.

Unthinking motions of the spheres.
Unhalting journey of these trains.
The force of gravity; this too,
draws on, and down; you cannot fight.

And now the sky grows light, and grey.
You cannot hide, can’t run away.
Courage, my friend, is not out there –
courage is yours, for every day.

© 2011 Matthew Rhodes

I wrote this on the train as the sun rose this morning, in mistaken response to a prompt that I thought I’d read somewhere on the web to write a poem about courage, but can’t now find! (Stop press – I just have – it’s writers island). However, I opened up my laptop and found an empty file labelled “Courage” so here’s a poem…… (I’m glad I did, it made the journey much more fun).

2 Comments
January 17, 2011

Muse

Who’s that smiling underneath my window?
The need to write, the need to love.
Flowers bloom and fade, your face does not.
Your face does not, your face does not.

Where are we going with each little rhyme?
The world goes on, and on, and on.
All at a pace, it’s time to stop.
It’s time to stop, it’s time to stop.

What is the future, for each of us now?
We find our ways, the days are kind.
Many and varied, never enough.
Never enough, never enough.

Looking for angels, we never arrive.
Hope is the wonder, the glint in your eyes.
Hoping and wondering, that love will survive,
And when we are ready, you’ll come to my side.

© 2011 Matthew Rhodes

I just felt like a love poem (kind of) tonight.

3 Comments
January 16, 2011

Walking to work – Leamington 7.30am

Rainfall gentle against my skin;
sky draws night from dampened streets.

No one moving without purpose, now:
yet all without haste – fresh:
the quiet, clean energy of another day.

These are the harbingers of city life –
street sweepers and delivery men,
a woman setting out her stall,
an opening door.

Peaceful, and incomplete.

© 2011 Matthew Rhodes

I’ve always loved the early morning in towns, all over the world – just before the day starts, and the people arrive, but after the first shops and cafes have opened and are just readying themselves for the day. There is a better poem here, but I thought I’d make a start and see if I can improve on it with time.

Shared with Jingle’s Poetry Pot Luck April 2011

6 Comments
January 12, 2011

Seeing things differently revisited

This is a reworking of my very old poem below. Not sure I’ve learnt much, but enjoyed the challenge from we write poems. I feel this would benefit from another rewrite yet!

Existence, at nineteen, is a blank page
in a book unwritten, and without
rhyme.

And the moments of love
that follow,
if you are lucky, by chance,
and in unexpected places,
resonate for years, like wars.

The poetry of life is a wonderful thing
and at forty four more complicated again
than you can possibly expect, when wondering
about existence, and love, is a route to pain.

Different perspectives: understood more, and cared
less for, having invested so much in our own.
Mostly by accident, in fact, we have bared
our soul, and sought others’ identities, on loan.

And those moments of love
return, again:
just moments – months or weeks;
so much more than rhyme,
which is easy, in time.

Poetry is not.
Uniqueness –
cannot last.

© 2011 Matthew Rhodes

4 Comments