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Oak Meadow

Banished by force are warmth and sunlight
Where we scratch and hack in the undergrowth.
Nature’s front line is well entrenched here,
In-grown and wiry with brambles and brash.
Ages running wild, seeding and shooting
At will, snagging, choking and smothering
Have toughened her. In self-strangling struggle
She scrabbles and claws her resistance –
A tortuous mesh of trip-lines, barbs for skin
And slips for boots in the mush underfoot.

Old, alone and confused, like a geriatric tramp
She bristles in layers of shredded sacking.
Let’s tease out her bits, put to the burning
Barrow-loads of combings; rake up the mess
On her breast, sticky with burrs and briars;
Open her up to the sun, re-stitch her
Seams in woven hedgerows, with patches of
Flowers fight back the years. Waken Beauty,
Give bees and butterflies her face to love
And we too will grow young with the work.

Julian Case

Poetry Theme(s):

Currently Popular Poems:

Change

As  I stand with my feet in the ocean, and look at the setting sun, I think of how many me's, have stood in how many seas, but always stared at the same one. A snapshot of scenes in the movie of me, at various times of my being. A new version of me every single time; the same star I'm always seeing. It fills me with curious wonder, for the places that I may go; And the life that has yet to happen, and the things I have yet to know. Jess
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Abbey Stones

Laboured stones Rough stones Stones of dismay Honest stones Pocketed stones Hidden stones Fractured stones Unstable stones Foundation stones Clumsy stones Ancient stones Split stones Abbey stones Stephanie
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Pandemic

Piecing together all our hopes and dreams, joining the broken fragments of our lives, managing the pain of another loss, full of joy when finally together, society’s fabric hangs by a thread. Julia Duke
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Ode to a Tilted Tree

Your body tilted Your leaves wilted Your energy royal, your friendship loyal. But you are discouraged and tired of being sparingly admired. Your head bends steadily towards the water, The by-standers do not seem to bother to listen to the stories you can reveal, Allowing the history and your presence to heal the wounds one carries in her mind; You seem exhausted yet humbly kind. Welcoming strangers with a warm embrace Your wrinkled skin and a weather-beaten face contrasts with a jovial and mischievous grace of the young branches so naive but stable… How much you must be grateful - for these smooth slender arms, With your inner protection nothing harms.   Anon .
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Becalmed

I can no longer dot the i’s, nor cross the t’s. A pale haze, like Sunday afternoons, pleasant after a glass of wine too many, drifts across my day. I am at peace. I find myself disposed to acquiesce, content to live life at this gentle pace, content, it seems, with how life’s focus, now diminished, takes on the softened blur of evening light. Something sharp is lost. But the time for mourning it is done. The wind that swelled the sails has dropped, the tide recedes, the fierceness of the sun is quenched, leaving the sunshine’s golden glow that speaks the lateness of the hour. A taste of salt upon my lips - no call for worry or regrets - a bitter-sweet recall of what has gone. Julia Duke
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Ballinasloe Station

Flood plains replenished and diminished, a deceiving here-and-there fluidity and the flat statement of stubborn water. Occasionally trackside trees are stranded, littered in swirling pools that soundlessly disappear. On the horizon, tall walls and radio mast mark the far-off asylum neatly screened with its avenue of trees. The people are hidden beyond the town, their tears reaching as far as the railway lines. The train navigates the flood’s edge like logic escaping emotion, trim engineering escaping danger, holding firmly onto the rails. (Ballinasloe was a major mental home in County Galway) Pat Jourdan
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Seasons

To each a season: the planets Turn in Kepler's gyre, Swelling the mental weather, Fattening the wealth Of light and dark I weekly Feel in my own solitude. To each a season: a death Of what was hard and cold: A burst of sun to break My hoary sadness And gild the shining tower I build around your smile. But let's not talk of sun But speak instead of life And all the things I feel When living through mortality. The lovely times We feast and meagre times We only feed on memories. I have my seasons. Tim Holt-Wilson
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Birch Tree

White bark shedding tissued layers And stripes across the brown earth deep leaf littered floor. Diamond shaped fissures Twigs with small dark warts Pointing to the sky. Light green Tooth-edged leaves Swinging to the wind. Jane  
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To Shed My Youthful Skin

To Survive Against at the odds of secure authorities And recognised establishments. I shed my youthful skin. I Thrive Against the odds I flourish and prosper Desolate and torn by institutions. The arrogance of the untouchables. Anon.
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Thoughts Beside a Stream

Flowing alongside water's edge An overflow of activity And constricted Jumbled thoughts. Broken passages and swollen memories of channelled energies And intermittent promises. Hungry vines Competing for light Succumbed to the fragility of life. Awash with echoed considerations Downstream they float Towards a bareness. Dynamic vitality Sparkling from the frontier Invigorated to the final source. Daniel  
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