"punnet" poems
In God's breath he waits,
the candle dimming as the
clock ticks and hours are slate,
his heart's echoes losing the war
As his hands bridge the abyss
of his fate while his mind
catches faith's miss;
fortune has a length to climb
With the strength of string
and no true grip
or able grasp to ring
the tower bell of Heaven's kinship-
And to his back tied this pail,
of needed pride sinking him
to the depths of Jonah's whale,
unable to release the whim
Of something delegated to sin;
the inability to call to the power
and make true his acceptance of Him,
even as the shadows of his final hour
Creep upon his flesh-worn frame,
burdened with the punnet of age,
no fruit able to let him know youth's flame
nor his frailty an answer to sage
Wisdom that has been boast
to descend upon those of change,
with answers that are host
to those within death's range.
Sep 20, 2012
Sep 20, 2012 at 1:33 PM UTC
Today is the first day of Spring,
a significant moment when we shift into
a different rhythm of sleep and wakefulness.
When the dark turns back on itself
like thick rind peeled from a fruit
to reveal its golden glow.
That warm feeling returns,
not just superficially - much deeper.
Time has chance to saunter - people do too.
They find a moment to talk with each other-
too hot to rush off to wherever it is they're going.
****
Queueing in the supermarket requires patience.
People casually chat at the checkout
exchanging snippets of gossip as though
they've not spoken to a soul all winter.
Patiently I wait in line at the rapid-serve
with my punnet of strawberries,
their tempting fragrance filling my nostrils.
For a moment I am elsewhere-
in a sunlit field, hovering over row on row
of undulating furrows, where shy fruit
hides under spread leaves-
the ones that got away you might say.
Abruptly, my distant view's obscured
by an unfamiliar voice:
You are English-yes?
I had been studying his back,
muffled in a woolly facade of Tweed.
For him, it was still Winter.
Ah - An English rose - yes!
He tells me how I resemble his wife
and how she adored strawberries.
(simultaneously he waves over his shoulder
to somewhere in the past)
He says he will never forget her,
that once you stop remembering,
eighty years of life becomes meaningless.
A warmness spreads between us
like the weight of a cello concerto.
A kind of sad happiness.
Later in the day, under the almond tree,
I **** on season's first fruit.
My tongue curls around a mouthful of
forgotten language.
I am not disappointed.
It is impossible to believe how good it tastes-
like life sometimes,
when strangers offer a few kind words,
filling the days with sweetness-
the Summer coming.
Jul 20, 2014
Jul 20, 2014 at 10:57 AM UTC
Your like a grape on a vine, just like the rest of the bunch you are with.
Wanting to be anywhere but there.
Away from all the madness.
Trying to prime and fall to the ground before the rest so you can be picked for the punnet or for wine.
You can be bitter or the sweetest of sweet.
Tonight the choice is your as u hand in the night will you stay or let go.
Whatever you choice, when you wake up to dawn maybe you will no longer be sad.
Jan 8, 2014
Jan 8, 2014 at 7:17 AM UTC
Thoughts Meandering.
Thoughts meandering,
On a river of subconscious verse.
A motion for a notion,
Of unfulfilled liaisons,
Between memory and fact.
Too many meanings,
The poets curse,
Has seen me slip behind.
And litany’s and melodies,
Play havoc with my mind.
A punnet for a sonnet,
A play about a priest.
A painting to believe in,
Of believers at a feast.
Thoughts meandering,
On a stream of unwritten rhyme.
There’s a island in the future,
Where I may garner some relief.
If only I can bridge the gap,
Between fantasy and belief.
Aug 22, 2017
Aug 22, 2017 at 4:54 AM UTC
Positive thoughts are packaged with depressing discouraging chants in a plastic punnet.
I don’t know how to cope with that...
So to satisfy the thirst of my ever dangling drought of accomplishment,
I jam the thoughts in a blender on top speed.
Wait for the deafening swirl of the blades to stop,
And I lap up the monotonously foul “you are going no where’s”
With the chewy chunks of “you got out of bed, welldone’s”,
Slump back into a rotting pine chair,
And I glide through the emptiness.
Aug 28, 2018
Aug 28, 2018 at 7:40 AM UTC
Waves, braids. Dig deeper into the punnet squares. Certify your cells. "what are you mixed girl". "Tell me yo daddy is black".
I'm sorry, I'm just a white girl with nice hair. It's not all that, I'm not all that. It's not a weave, or something I've sowed into. I didn't buy into, my genes. They bought into me.
May 27, 2015
May 27, 2015 at 12:22 AM UTC