Saturday 3 June 2023

Five Poems by Wendy Webb

 




REFLECTIONS INTO FALL (Palindromedary Sonnet)

PUBLD/2017-09 Crystal (101)

This beauty in a season I could touch,

it begs another glance, another taste

and I just want to say it looks so much

like yesterday when Autumn was all waste.

 

Reflecting, as Kay does, with vibrant colour,

that cake is here to cut and breathe and eat.

No candles on the wind snuffed-out as thorough

as this scene's memory. My place's seat

 

is here with you; and him; and them. You know

it is the place we see beyond the moon.

If I could pebble-throw this pond, and how!

Its reflection's imperfection, gone too soon.

 

Can you see too? The birds have flown to fall?

Their colours leave my dreamscape in their thrall.

 

Their colours leave my dreamscape in their thrall.

Can you see too, the birds have flown to fall?

 

It’s reflections, imperfection, gone too soon,

if I could pebble-throw this pond, and how

it is the place we see beyond the moon.

Is here with you, and him, and them you know,

 

As this scene's memory, my place's seat?

No candles on the wind snuffed-out as thorough:

that cake is here to cut and breathe and eat.

Reflecting, as Kay does, with vibrant colour

 

like yesterday, when Autumn was all waste.

And I just want to say it looks so much:

it begs another glance, another taste,

this beauty in a season I could touch.



Valley of the Tiger’s Shadow (Glosa)


[Inspired by ‘The Rock’ T S Eliot] Crystal Magazine, 2008-11/PUBLD

The tiger in the night pads with soft claws,

his breath as Aslan melts the icing air

and turns in quest of prey, but then a pause,

and wraps his dawn-fur close and richly-fair,

too bright for mortal vision

 

which comes by slow degrees too light to touch

and chills the shivers of last night, grown cold

with labours, bloody, futile and not much

except obscurity of good’s cool gold.

O Greater Light, we praise Thee for the less.

 

We warmly bathe in salt of buoyant morning,

raised high upon the waters of our day,

flick through damp newsprint of the world’s red dawning

and sting as aspirations flush that may

the eastern light our spires touch at morning.

 

And soon inscape slumps shadows’ lengthened hound

that slinks into the shade that howls at noon,

where stress is twitching instress corner’s pound

of wraiths that seize the black dog’s tail too soon.

The light that slants upon our western doors at evening

 

slits pools of hiss and slish on sonic waves,

of moths and mice and moles and hedgehog snuffles,

slants golden eyes around long-brambled graves

and snakes the shadows, breath’s expiring ruffles,

the twilight over stagnant pools at batflight.

 

The earth is shrouded in a misted lawn

where Eden rises in the damp of dreams,

or where the night-frost clutches pad’s pricked thorn

to wrench and unplant tares where life unseams

moon light and star light, owl and moth light.

 

Where darkness rises, firefly power trebles,

yet seeming strongest with an hour till dawnlight.

How bright the luminosity of pebbles

and how the porch of home will cheer, like sighting

glow-worm glowlight on a grassblade.

 

The Tyger, Tyger’s burning bright; digress

where lambs are safely penned within a Ram,

to bond the golden eyes of paper tigress

and snake Euphrates to a mane’s blocked dam.

But be ye satisfied that you have light

 

to crook the shingles’ ninety-nine of doubt

and find a pebble pummelled in the stream

of living waters marbled to a clout,

where David looks away, as in a dream;

enough to take your step and find your foothold.

 


If I Had… A Daughter

 

If I had a daughter:

she would dress stunningly

with nails and perfect hair,

matching styles that blend or clash;

to make a statement.

 

If I had a daughter,

she would organise her boudoir

with sparkly lights and drapes and designs,

her treasures categorised and stashed.

Dreams and hopes and future.

 

If I had a daughter,

she would spend our money on fashions, make-up,

killer heels, designer bags,

regular hairstyles, gel nails, or spas.

Something to make us proud.

 

If I had a daughter,

she would tidy her room weekly.

Deal with laundry/ironing, splash out on cooking

a family meal (smiles and compliments, no matter burnt).

Maybe – sometimes – wash up.

 

If I had a daughter,

we would drive her anywhere, collect her late.

Smile over the girly piles of clothes (from one night out).

Compete with Dad for attention; cat fight;

giggle over movies/Chick Lit/tat.

 

If I had a daughter,

she would worry us until safely homed – always.

Drink as much/comment on the food/

have conversations I couldn’t join in; with Dad.

And, you lose your sons. Keep your daughters…

                        Brave New World: I have…


 

Where’s It Going?


Tidying, decluttering, sorting.

Will they take dust-ridden Charity?

Unsorted? Missing parts?

I need a bin sack – now.

Why are they sat around chatting?

Do they know what’s needed?

What goes where? What to keep?

They’re laughing; I’m stressing.

It’s like some TV show…

overwhelming.

No smiles here, I’m boxing up.

A pile of toys arrives, upstairs:

the man is sorting, downstairs.

Useful, how? Where to put what.

Make the bed. Tape it up. Sellotape, please.

Sinking under clutter, no way out.

I want, I need…

all bathrooms, with no loo.

My son is gone. My daughter’s 25.

Daughter?

I wake up.

 



At Cross Purposes


[Inspired by Heidi Kaplan’s grave post/FB/2023-03]

I am so cross, so tall, I’m leaning in

to you sweet rosy blushing rock.

We are a pair, I’ll guarantee the sin

if you will rest within this lock.

 

I have no use for words now, learning’s fine,

and we are much of muchness now.

Positions are so close, don’t draw the line

before you read my lasting vow.

 

My occupancy’s vacant (or quite silent),

let’s fall together into earth.

It’s moving for me now, so violent,

such subjugation of your worth.


Wendy Webb - Born in the Midlands, home and family life in Norfolk. She edited Star Tips poetry magazine 2001-2021. Published in Indigo Dreams, Quantum Leap, Crystal, Envoi, Seventh Quarry, The Journal, The Frogmore Papers) and online (Littoral Magazine, Autumn Voices, Wildfire Words, Lothlorien, Meek Colin, Atlantean), she was placed First in Writing Magazine’s pantoum poetry competition. She devised new poetry forms (Davidian, Magi, Palindromedary); wrote her father’s biography, ‘Bevin Boy’, and her own autobiography, ‘Whose Name Was Wit in Waterr’ (title inspired by Keats’ grave in Rome).She has attempted many traditional forms and free verse. Favourite poets: Dylan Thomas, Gerard Manley Hopkins, John Burnside, John Betjeman, the Romantic Poets (especially Wordsworth), George Herbert, William Blake, Emily Dickinson, Mary Webb, Norman Bissett, William Shakespeare, the Bible, and the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.Current poetry collection: LOVE’S FLORELOQUENCE, Wendy Ann Webb, Amazon.co.uk.Love's Floreloquence: Amazon.co.uk: Webb, Wendy Ann, Meek, CT, Meek, CT, Webb, Wendy Ann: 9798372967595: Books

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