Skip to main content

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

Currently Popular Poems:

Decay and Madness

From the depths And gazing into the distance Strength not normality Fallen to the post. Long in sadness Decaying and madness. Kim

The Rain

Pitter patter falls the rain, on the roof and window pain Softly softly it falls down, Makes a stream that runs around. Penelope

Waiting For Snape

Only wild reeds resonate As the breeze crosses their beds Motivating memories Of woodwind in Suffolk Reds Halyards hitting muted masts A Wherry waiting to waken A Hepworth holds its dignity Whilst wistfully forsaken Vacant is the vestibule Lost of anticipation Still steps tantalising Leading to frustration Malted beams over empty seats Staring at a silent stage No tautophonic tunings Musicians waiting to engage No bustle at the bar Drinks in the intermission The terrace now so solitary In summer a perfect position So until this pugnacious problem This intruder that impedes our needs Is controlled to a certain degree We’ll listen to the rustle of the reeds. Hugh

The Pandemic

Unprecedented Unprecedented Unprecedented Present distress repeated, repeated recent disease breathed present unprecedented, sent in coughs. Cough, cough, cough. This disease sent on the air. Cough, cough, cough. Unprecedented present breathed in unprecedented disease breathed out unprecedented hand-washing unprecedented deaths dent the present. Can’t breathe. Can’t breathe out. Dented breathing. Cough. Present deaths unprecedented. Enough. Too many deaths. Too many people. Too many families. This time Covid19. Another SARS disease present. Unprecedented but not unexpected 2020. Sue  Foster

Insect Playground

Hidey holes and pockets of flowers Silhouetted with a lonely crow, watchful of artists. A jumble sale of geology, thoughts, and passers by; A granulated sugar platform Of sandy grains and apple pie. Abbey Tales Group  Poem

Bones on the Shore

We walk the shoreline down in that dark dip at year’s end, while life’s still slumbering. The beach is a graveyard. We clamber, beneath ominous skies, through cathedrals of bones. Beached giants, prone on the sand, gaunt skeletons, arms uplifted, feet still reluctant to leave. In the lifetime of my children, these dinosaurs, these mighty oaks have fallen, their forms sculpted by time and weather, yet even in death they hold such power. They lie, steadfast as ever, awesome, majestic, statuesque, garlanded with gifts from the river: soft green fronds, little crabs, bladder wrack decorating their fingers. For centuries they stood strong, hearing the river’s song: ebb, flow, winter, spring, tide and moon rising, falling, curlew calling, calling. We will walk the shorelines at that bright time of new beginnings, now we are awakening. Jan Armstrong Photo by Daniel Lincoln via Unsplash

River Stour, Sudbury

Mirror of ripples, floating tangles and bubbly foam. Swans racing The togetherness Of aqua. Sallow splashes Poplars tremble And minds drift. Jungle of reeds On vertical plane Moorhen hideout. Anon.

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

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  

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.