(I wrote this in May and didn’t post it because we had one glorious week. Then the weather turned grey and damp again. Today is the solstice so if I don’t post it now I never will!)

After the bravery of the crocus bed was dashed
And the daffodils danced in vain
The fruit blossoms hung heavy and long,
Sullen promise of good harvest if the bees
Had not been kept at home
Fearing windtorn wings and sodden fur.
February frosts marched into an April
Whose showers drenched May
But still the flowers rose,
Shaking their sodden blooms,
Turning soaked faces to the rain,
Cajoled out of winter hiding
By the promise of light nights;
Certainly not by a warmth that never came.
Forget-me-nots tried to capture
An audience in the lanes
But humans scurried to car or door, heads down,
Hidden beneath umbrellas or wide hoods.
(Flowers hardly noticed would surely be forgotten.)
Bluebells rang a brazen fanfare to spring
But no-one listened.
Lilac competed with the clouds,
Intending a colour statement to brighten lives
But tints were leached out by leaden skies,
And then the delicate sprays
Were crushed by storms.
Just recently the may decided to recall
That this month was its own peculiar thralldom;
The hedgerows are alive with whiteness
But the skies remain grey.

I wrote the following some time ago as a ‘gift’ for a friend who commented on something in my personal blog – some kind of offer of poems or stories for the first few people to comment. We both like dragons so that was my theme. The poem references books, TV shows and films but the alien dragons who came to help Anne McCaffrey’s Pern, the television series Stargate Atlantis and the Star Wars films have no existence other than in my imagination, so this is fanfic poetry in only the most peripheral sense. I hope there is no need for familiarity with the various fictional worlds in order to understand the poem – they merely give my dragons a contemporary cultural context and perhaps add an extra layer of meaning to people who are fans of those works.

The dragons of fantasy

(for Zellieh)

When they were fighting thread and dying, when they were going between and tiring,
When they were squabbling and sighing, the other dragons came rushing, flying
Out of the stars, out of the skies, trumpeting softly, rolling their eyes,
Teaching them how to be better and braver and how to preserve their fine planet for ever.
Dragons and riders and lizards all bowed to the dragons who came in a shimmering cloud.

When they were fighting the Wraith and dying, when they were rushing through gates and tiring,
When they were studying hard and sighing, a cloud of dragons came rushing, flying
Out of the stars, out of the skies, trumpeting softly, rolling their eyes,
Teaching them how to be better and stronger, how to defeat the Wraith for longer.
Scientists, airmen, all gave praise to the dragons who’d helped extend their days.

When they were fighting each other and dying, when they were rebels, outlaws, tiring,
When they were giving up hope and sighing, the alien dragons came rushing, flying,
Out of the stars, out of the skies, trumpeting softly, rolling their eyes,
Teaching them how to be better and smarter, how to defeat an old empire and rule there.
Warriors, robots and royalty all gave thanks to the dragons who’d answered their call.

Then the dragons who came from the alien worlds looked at the people they’d lulled with their help,
Bowed to the north and bowed to the east, bowed to each other and began their feast.

I have other gift-poems to post gradually, then I might throw the offer open to my readers here.

I thought I’d celebrate Easter by posting two poems which are based on my own family experiences, the death of my father and a more lighthearted look at an incident in the life of my grandfather. The poems were originally written a couple of years ago, though they refer to events much longer ago than that. Anel Viz did some wonderful beta work on them for me but I have since changed them slightly again. The first was simply something I ‘needed’ to write. The second was in response to a prompt  (‘shoes’) in a writing magazine which instantly transported me to my childhood.

 
Death of a beekeper.

In the morning he collected the bees.
He waved  goodbye to her and drove some miles,
Listened to advice he didn’t need (he had two hives
Already) and set out for home.

But in the car, somehow they got out,
Crawled everywhere: pedals, seats, gear lever, steering wheel,
Buzzing softly in counterpoint to the engine.
They didn’t sting…knew their new protector, perhaps.
Still, it was hot
And the windows had to stay tight wound.

In the evening, he had a class to take.
He waved goodbye to his wife and drove a mile or two,
Talked to the confirmation group,
Readied them for the laying on of hands.
Then he prepared the church for Sunday,
Straightened the cross and candlesticks,
Checked the flower water.

His heart stopped then;
Suddenly
(They said), so he wouldn’t have felt the pain.
But when instead of his car
She heard police wheels buzzing on the gravel,
Her pain was enough for both of them.

Next day a friend,
Fellow vicar and fellow bee keeper, came,
Driving a few miles to commiserate.
He visited the hives to tell the bees about the death.
Bees need to know such things.
And once they understood, although they’d only known him for a day,
They buzzed their sorrow to the warm autumn sun.

Shoes.

Every night we would lay them
Lined up for inspection beside the scullery door.
If anyone forgot there would be a shocked whisper:
Don’t you need them clean for tomorow?

Grandpa would assault them with oxblood polish
And a soft brush until they shone with love.
It was no use buying beige, tan or even chestnut;
In the end all reached a state of rich mahogany.

One day a tramp came knocking.
A bite to eat, Missus? Or a shilling for the road?
He was all tatters and flaps;
His feet scuffed on the ground through worn spaces.

Grandpa brought him a pair no-one wore.
They fitted well enough.
He ate his bowl of soup, admiring them with a sly glance.
Sit down, Man! I’ll polish them before you go!

And so he sat and Grandpa knelt,
Worked with the oxblood and brush
Until even the tongues gleamed,
And the difficult seams where the uppers meet the soles.

When he had done, the tramp thanked him,
Abruptly, quietly, and rose.
On the way he murmured,
‘But he didn’t polish the eyelet holes.’

Seriously slighted? Or making slanted fun
Of all the fuss over a new-old pair of shoes?
No-one would ever know, but Grandpa’s laughter
Followed him down the country road.

And I remember Grandpa telling the tale of the eyelet holes
To anyone who’d listen, for weeks and weeks,
And then he’d shake his head and ask
If we’d all remembered to bring him our shoes.

Comments welcome, as usual!

Badgers.       by Jay Mountney.     January 2012.

When the badgers came to our garden
they slipped in silently
in the dark,
ghosts with rough fur, claws and a sharp bite.
First they burrowed
under the shed but found
it was not quite
the des res they’d hoped for and so they went
via the lawn (and a fine game
of plough-your-own-furrow)
to the greenhouse. Beneath its foundations
they deliberated but decided the same
drawbacks applied and finally
they settled on the raised fishpond
where they spent the winter safe
under a kind of manmade ground,
dreaming of summer scents and the stars beyond.

When the badgers came to our garden
they dug out the conventions of gardenhood, the strife
between flowers and weeds,
the military precision of design,
and made it a haven
for their own version
of wild life.

When the foxes came to our garden,
hard on the badgers’ heels
(because after all, the place
was now a kind of haven),
they were not as particular.
They moved straight
into the tunnels under the shed;
the ones, you remember, the badgers had abandonèd
as not quite good enough.
The foxes didn’t care.
Looking for meals
or maybe fun,
they chased a few of the neighbour’s chickens,
not killing them,
just causing terror and and a rain
of feathers everywhere.

When the the badgers (followed by the foxes)
came to our garden
the squirrels, who had lived there peacefully
for quite some time,
chattered disdainfully
from the sycamore tree and then
left to seek better lodgings
on the other side of the fence,
telling the magpies they should consider moving while they could,
before the whole neighbourhood
was turned into a wild park.
The neighbour’s cat watched,
her furred expression
showing a kind of domesticated pain.
Her tail whisked.
I think she wished
the badgers had never come
to our garden.

As you can see, the fishpond isn’t finished. Also, a lot of the fish died last winter when we were away during very cold weather and something went wrong with the pump. So it is currently more of a white elephant than a feature, But the damage the badgers have done to what used to be a lawn has to be seen to be believed. And of course they are protected so we can’t evict them.