Author: traceefindlater
Rhododendrons
After Walk Two Moons, Sharon Creech
The closer we get
to the Badlands,
the more wicked the whisper
of song in the air,
sunset pushing the sky
as you disappear down river
where the rhododendrons grow
in every living colour.
Imagine every curve,
every lift of their smoothbeautiful, folded world,
poised to dance
at the edge of the gorge
where the high sky
greets the black hills,
higher than everywhere I have ever been.
Siding
Pulled over, the engine lurches some
and takes my stomach with it.
Words turn to maths,
a confetti of scattering fractals
that talk without end
about redness and suffering.
One star hangs in the window,
a salvagers lamp wrought silver
to pierce through an acid blue sky.
I remember myself
a scavenger
scratching at clues about time,
about happenstance,
breakfast and Betelgeuse,
how you could leave us
without going anywhere.
Motion gathers the pieces
and I’m creased between pages,
folded like paper upon my own lap
as Betelgeuse fades
in a shift of slow beats.
Window
3am.
The vans sail by.
Baker.
Plumber.
Police.
All carrying you
through impossible time,
meeting that ending
so clearly defined,
till it came
and I said
I’m not ready.
Moon (Haiku)
Your slender fingers
draw down the elegant moon
to hand me her tears
Lily (Haiku)
Indigo naked
to frame the midnight lily
tethered majesty
Sunbleached
Here the haven of dunes
holds us in white gold,
a tantalus of limbs set in time
by the shape of a bottle,
our transistor crackle.
We could never be so free
as to fold the sands in sympathy
with the waves’ eternal courtship.
Such folly in remembrance
sunbleached to wordless sepia.
Published in Freedom-Rapture: Black Bough Poetry 2021, https://www.amazon.co.uk/Freedom-Rapture-Black-Poetry-Barddoniateh-Gangen/dp/B098GJD92C
Neon Ghost
Published in Cape Magazine inaugural edition.
See page 6: https://online.fliphtml5.com/tnapr/qjhi/#p=1
Tiny Wings
There are flowers
but I couldn’t say what colour.
Some sort of pastel arrangement,
probably cream and the bluey sage-green
that’s magazine shorthand for rustic.
I remain immune to their beauty.
Even a poem is torture.
I will the words to lift from the page,
to dance, haphazard and delicate as butterflies,
a pure formation of restless wonder.
But in my haste to hold them I may crush
their tiny wings with murderous hands,
desire a lethal, grinding stone
to spoil and darkly smother.
Unburdened by enchantment,
the verse stays stiff on a dusty slab,
its richness faded, without note,
as I lie frigid beside.
Tatty Sparrow
What are you up to,
you scruffy young rascal,
with feathers all up in a puff?
Did the wind carry you,
leaf-lined and weatherworn,
landing, a ball in the rough?
Maybe a fight for a mate,
or some tasty buds.
Tricky escape from the hawk.
Or has the morning light
sharpened your senses,
set keen for defiant retort.
Tracee Findlater 