Category Archives: Life

From the leaves

June 29, 2022Life, poem, PoetryLife, poem, poetryThe Cheesesellers Wife

Prone in the summer heat
birds singing
insects humming
mind wandering
body softening
and from the leaves overhead drifts down slumber

Science and Science Fiction poetry: Green

June 27, 2022Life, Science, science poetryLife, poem, poetry, published poem, science, science poetryThe Cheesesellers Wife

Green rumbles rambles rolls and ripples
in all its shades and hues
rustles murmurs sways and drifts
floats on and under the waters of both
chill chalk stream and ocean
surfaces the land
spawns and augments tall trees
defines jungles, swamps, farmland
cools and shades, feeds and shelters
sparkled with daisies
strewn with buttercups
cut red with poppy wounds

Green is waste light reflected back from leaves
by the quantum machine of photosynthesis
that powers all life

‘Green’ was first published in the Environs issue of Snakeskin: http://www.snakeskinpoetry.co.uk/snake264.html

Mondays are Science and SF Mondays!

A poem each week which either has a science theme or is Science Fiction….

Making Cheese

June 25, 2022Life, poem, Poetrycheese, Life, poem, poetry, poverty, waterThe Cheesesellers Wife

Put some water in a pan
easy when from a tap
yet children carry water along
hot dry roads every day

With 1 litre of whole milk
maybe you get up early to feed the goats
or buy it in a plastic carton on
the way home from the office

bring to the boil and stir
Is that music stirring
Or just too loud?

then boil again
The desert boils, is a
days death to walk

Add the juice of two lemons
Oh to walk the citrus groves
Of old Mdina once more

It will spilt
A transformation of form and substance
The very heart of magic, cooking, poetry

Drain the solids in a cheesecloth
I would drink the whey
others waste it

Press them to firmness
Either that of a ripe peach or
of your lovers kisses

Leonid

June 18, 2022Amsterdam, art, Friends, Life, memory, poem, Poetryart, Friends, Life, memories, poem, poetry, ukraine, warThe Cheesesellers Wife

There
Amsterdam and Leonid turns up at a friends house
with a case of ikons and art
new identity papers
no longer a Russian
but a proud Ukrainian
selling treasure for hard currency
to build a country

When
we traipsed with him around dealers and auction houses
awkward in an unfamiliar world
waiting for bona fides to be checked
deals to be made

Now
I wonder where you are my friend
cannot understand how it came to this
how dreams shatter
conceptions of nationhood crack
peace shatters into sharp fatal shards

Friday Poem: Kinship

June 10, 2022Friday Poem, Life, natureFriday Poem, Life, nature, Ursula K. Le GuinThe Cheesesellers Wife

Very slowly burning, the big forest tree
stands in the slight hollow of the snow
melted around it by the mild, long
heat of its being and its will to be
root, trunk, branch, leaf, and know
earth dark, sun light, wind touch, bird song.

Rootless and restless and warmblooded, we
blaze in the flare that blinds us to that slow,
tall, fraternal fire of life as strong
now as in the seedling two centuries ago.

by Ursula Le Guin

A poem for Fake Flamencos June challenge

June 9, 2022Life, nature, poem, Poetry#ffpoemapop, fake flamenco, Life, nature, poem, poetryThe Cheesesellers Wife

This poem is in the form of a naani poem. Naani means: expressing one and all in theTelugu language. This form originated in India from the Telugu poet, Dr. N. Gopi. A naani has four lines with a total of 20-25 syllables and no title. It was written for Rebecca over at Fake Flamenco as part of her June Poetry Challenge :

Grey dawn is a stranger
Yet I remember
Gulls on a clay flat beach
Frost sparkling a forbidden lawn

Comfort Food

May 28, 2022children, Life, love, poem, Poetrychildren, family, Life, love, poem, poetryThe Cheesesellers Wife

We drove back exhausted
you resting that nearly blind eye
me trying to focus on the road ahead
clinging to my steering wheel

This morning the optician had taken one look and
sent us hell for leather to a local hospital
where the consultant quailed, sent us
even faster to a top specialist

Several hours driving from town to town
then to the big port city
hurry up and wait, and again
Like at an airport, but worse

Finally, a laser welded your eye together
and we made the last call home
to our anxious schoolboy son
who fretfully asked how long we would be

Finally at home, we opened the front door
to the smell of baking breads
sizzling Halloumi, grilled Aubergines
fresh made hummous

A dining table laid with the best plates and cutlery
crystal glasses and
love

A Mood Apart

May 21, 2022Friends, Life, poem, PoetryFriends, Life, poem, poetryThe Cheesesellers Wife

At the hotel of lost companions
love like poison floods the pool

we choose to speak of anger and strife
yet, on a wild sweet thought

the lion and the lamb
are chasing shadows

Milking it

May 18, 2022humour, Life, love, poem, Poetryhumour, Life, love, poem, poetryThe Cheesesellers Wife

She calls it Moo-juice
in a trying-hard-to-be-cute way.
He winces, wonders why she does this
then is lost once more in her eyes.
I watch, hopefully furtive, observing
the locals in their native habitat

High on the Downs

May 4, 2022England, Life, nature, poem, Poetry, Wild lifeEarthweal, England, Life, nature, poem, poetry, wildlifeThe Cheesesellers Wife

Long grasses sift the evening wind
scent it with pollens
stars prickle through high cloud

somewhere, Skylark still sings
finishing the day shift
elsewhere, Owl calls
announcing night

dusk empties the land
of humanity
all close together
in their dim shelters

here on the ridge
Hare comes close
closer
black tipped ears erect

we return her stare
for what seems
forever

Written for this weeks earthweal weekly challenge: SPIRITS OF PLACE