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King of the Woods

looking upwards into a large impressive tree with moss on the trunk and green leaves

Soft green moss and arching brambles
With desperate nettles shooting upright to light.

Dense, strong and stable, yet soft delicate and gentle
A squirrel runway extending arms, reaching limbs
Of sun-drenched lime, mottled light barely touching.

Fresh, yet decaying hands of friendship,
A ladybird highway knitted together.

Beneath a silhouette of darkness,
A planet in itself.

 

by Jess and Stephanie

A video showing how this poem was written can be found on the Resources page.

Currently Popular Poems:

White Hawthorns

The day speaks of white hawthorn Sundays Long washed out road trips, reluctant relatives waving you off on arrival. Rain from decades passed, a swishing of glimpses. Parents cramped and fretful. Passing through a littered accompaniment of faceless outlines. Stretched out warming children, car sick, scrunch up weathered newspapers. Pungent smells of nostalgia, almost Springs bouncing forward hours. Eager sweet wrappers lunge for half opened windows to adorn the floating blossom clouds of hawthorn bushes, March’s winds step in much like a bone-chilled but amiable hitch hiker. A querulous sibling rolls over, sickening, falls out in a screeching of tires. Tearfully rain-splattered. Another weekend pulled out and pegged up, redolent of adolescences quickly traversed. Mark Ereira-Guyer

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Dancing with lace-like shadows of forgotten worlds, the tortoiseshell creeps slowly, the last energies to lie upon the rough bark. With folded wings, Madame butterfly is no more til Spring. Charlotte

Dunwich Heath Cliff

Beachen sand, coastal gravel Heave and spew with every wave Are fixed above my head Banks of sand, clots of gravel Two million-years adrift Are rolling at my feet Same old, same old Dunwich Cliff, Dunwich Beach: The poetry of sediment remains Tim

Stones of Old

Tell me your song oh stones of old of the summers that warmed you and the strike of the cold the voices of song absorbed in your heart the anger and fear that tore you apart. Speak to me of church bells and whispered dreams the rough hands that gathered your broken seams the waterways that carried your bones of lime the soft crunch of bread and red rivers of wine. Who did you cradle in your shadowed arch as the songbirds heralded the soldiers march as battles raged in the skies ahead and you sheltered your spiders in a stony bed? Is the wear on your shoulders the marks of the wild or the scrape of a heel from a venturing child? Discarded windows frame the dance of time Oh tell me your stories great stalwarts of lime.     Emmalene  

A Woodland Ensemble - Psithurism of the Trees.

The plane tree With paper-like rustle Elephant patches And scaly trunk. Memories And mellow whispers Of a darkest tempest Dropping the bass. Constable elms Whispering, suckering saplings Converting To beetle runs beneath. Ash- With minstrel keys playing harmonies masking sinister die back. Crataegus thickets The scratchy rasping may catch you quick. Whispering pines Bend forwards Reaching skywards Splintering the silence. Mother beech With spaltered Marks waltzing And humoresque streaks. Holly reigns in Summer solstice Days shorten And poco a poco winter returns. King of the woods Ships hold Forte and Table fast. Eric

Love Poem To Myself

Yes, I can, I surely can. Reminding myself that I always have and always will. No need to worry, no need to fret, no need to bite my nails, nor lie awake, nor forget, in clammy doubt wasting sleep-time on negative imaginings. I make positive probabilities more certain and real. I am calm, I am kind, I am fun, brave and generous too. Smiling more than most I see the good in everything you do. Deep breathing with a cheerful heart, I’ll fight your corner, feel your pain, make you laugh. I am a ‘doer’, a helper, a friend. I align my thoughts to health. I let go and I love, dancing in rain and on the edge of a cliff. Silence is better than to deliver a curse, I like to smile and to listen. Encouraging others to be the best that they can be. I am a mender, a maker of things and I am mindful of my consumption. I plant trees, sing songs, make tea and play simply and fairly. I will be as I am the intuitive, the sorter, the lover of life, the mender of minds, the ideas person, the performer, th...

Blue Sky

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S.A.D

The black dog Shook his weary head Stay in bed He said. The black dog Followed me again Munching biscuits Lost energies for meals. The black dog Didn’t go for walks For three weeks He stayed inside. Not answering his calls The black dog remained silent Until Spring. Chris

Ravilious Rules

Yesterday’s heat evaporates taking with it the fierce glare of the sun. Yesterday, sunlight glanced off hills, danced on rivers, but I am used to this gentle Welsh spirit that now envelops the landscape, soft green mist that returns to the hills, softening edges, softening mood. Curvaceous, a line of grey green hills etched in waves of leafiness, dark green towering oaks, hedgerows draped with dog roses, flat, rounded clusters of elderflowers, the gracious sweep of the bronzed maple. Tutored by nature’s harmony, my eye picks out the tell-tale signs of human intervention, marks alien pylons astride hilltops. Tall, straight telegraph poles push their way up through trees, geometric road signs warn of hidden dangers, along straight, tarmacked roads. The sign for Maesmawr Farm shouts its rectilinear message, tempting me with luxury lodges. The arrow points straight to them. Even the forestry commission superimposes its orderly rows on nature’s wayward curves. But the rolling hills triumph,...

A Way of Life

It’s become a way of life this summer, the canvas bag slung over my shoulder hoping not to need it hoping the sky will stay blue long enough to get a walk by the sea. It’s become a way of life this summer, wearing my green jeans, wearing a matching sweatshirt to keep the wind out, wearing green wherever possible to match my green cagoule in case I need it. It’s becoming a way of life, it’s true, this life of uncertainty which nags at the back of your mind and keeps you constantly looking up the weather on your phone. It’s a way of life, this anxiety which sends me scurrying for help when it mushrooms out of control in the middle of the night. Julia