Moondancing

"Summer's on hold" the weatherman said.


Cold grey days are back and
scarlet folded petals peeping
from dwarfen rosebuds, shudder
and withdraw.

Bold cream roses, partly open
try to hide, quail in the chill,
purple petunias, buffeted by the wind
bloom extravagantly, scenting the air
and a solitary lobelia slinks,
sapphire among the greenery.

The clematis flowers regardless,
although not Heavenly Blue as promised,
but the honeysuckle shrinks, its buds tighten.
Strawberries suck up water but refuse to ripen.

Crimson carnations bebop in the breeze,
releasing clove and spice scents;
herbs flourish in this weather, growing
faster than I can use them;
the smell of basil makes me hungry.

Come back barbecue weather.


This is far from finished.  I will come back to it.

Pensively attempting to quench my caffeine addiction with a glass of sparkling mineral water, I muse on the damage to the environment I'm condoning - the plastic bottle, the miles it has travelled from Scotland to North Wales, the machinery involved in extracting the water from the earth, force-feeding it with CO2 for the bubbles and so on, but today I don't care.  Today I allow myself to question the green precepts which have guilt-ridden me for so long.  I have an urge to start smoking again.  Maybe I'll even smoke pot, which I never did before.

Perhaps I'm just tired of endlessly shredding and recycling the drifts of paper which accumulate daily.  How I long to just throw everything away instead of separating, sorting and sometimes even washing every single item of waste.  Profligacy of rubbish is what I require right now.  Throwing without sorting, eating junk food in front of day-time TV from polystyrene packets which won't degrade before Judgement Day.  Eating Turkish Delight and smoking until the room reeks of it and the wreaths of smoke dance in the rays of sunlight.

So that became this, which I haven't given a title to yet.

In her private book, she wrote
promises of cake,
trumpet fanfares and
permissions to dance with wolves;
a unique opportunity
to gain something mysterious.

A sack of hedge clippings,
the faded orchid she'd held to her lips,
a riot of memories;
the gold charm she bought in Venice,
the only thing she could afford,
and somewhere, hidden in it all,
the key to a happy life.

Profligacy of rubbish,
throwing without sorting,
junk food eaten in front of daytime TV
from polystyrene trays
which won't degrade till Doomsday,
eating Turkish Delight and
smoking till the rays of sunlight
are filled with dancing wreaths
of blue illegal smoke.

I know there are no verbs in the second and third stanzas, but sometimes you just have to do it.

Or do you?

I don't quite know how this came about.  I just found it in my notebook and it obviously came from a class exercise, but I have no recollection of it at all.  I haven't even given it a title yet.  It probably needs editing and maybe pruning, but I shall come back to it as I think of edits.

I wonder about the line I've triped in red.  Do I need that?

In my third ear
I unheard the warning,
ignored its silent pleading
for me to be gone, to flee,
listened instead to
the voice of The Tempter,
offering passions and lusts,
an unholy Litany of
cigarettes, Jazz and booze,
and other base desires.

In my third ear
my Angel whispered,
words of warning,
admonitions for good behaviour,
reminders of consequences,
lists of responsibilities and
memoranda of hurts to others.

But I was off..............
in a dazzle of stardust,
a slick of bright red lipstick,
a ruffle of saucy petticoats,
striding down the street
in red stilettos and
too much make-up,
heading for danger.

I thought I'd explain why I'd chosen the name worshipthemoon .  In fact it wasn't my first choice, I wanted to be "moondancer", but that was taken, so I chose worshipthemoon as second best and called my LJ "moondancer".  The reason I did this is a bit long-winded, so you might want to miss the next bit, under the cut.

( Read more... )
                                                                                      

Like the Moon

She was Molly, like the Moon,
luminous, distant, beautiful.
Brown, pubescent, awkward,
I worshipped her as I did the moon.

I watched her pale, self-conscious grace,
studied the dark mark of her shining beauty,
admired the black silk gloves she wore
to set off her fine elbows and white arms.

Sweetly she taught and, bewitched,
I mashed the paper into the watery glue,
laid it in strips over the dull clay,
learning about fascination.          

I didn't know I was her project,
her training teacher's subject,
but I was her subject right enough.
Her later tragic story always appalled me;
she knew less than I thought.

And when the whizz-bang fireworks man
runs along the street, scattering bangers like roses,
I remember family fireworks and a bonfire,
and leaping, dancing home,
away from that brooding house,
twirling, spinning in that cold star night,
curtseying to Lady Moon and vowing.........what?

Then taking her picture from the bureau drawer,
I gaze at her in black and white, wondering
why such grace was not enough to save her.

PS I wonder about that line I've marked in red.  I can't make up my mind whether I should lose it, or keep it.

PPS
The whizz-bang fireworks man actually existed.

When we first moved here in 1999 people started letting off fireworks from about September onwards and a strange man twice ran down our street early in the morning, barefoot and scattering bangers left and right as he ran, like a bridesmaid scattering petals from her basket at a wedding.

Several years ago I had a beautiful engaging dream about somewhere entrancing I had never seen before and as I woke up, it seemed as though somone whispered in my ear "Athabasca !  Athbasca !"

I had never heard the word before and had no idea what it meant, but the Internet pointed me to Athabasca and Lake Athabasca in Alberta Canada.  The name was the Cree name for the lake, meaning "grass or reeds here and there".  My dream had had a pool full of reeds and bulrushes.

I found out a lot about Lake Athabasca, which is, apparently 200 miles long!!  One of the things I found was a place called Uranium City, where they mined uranium.

The real Athabasca was nothing like the place I dreamt of, although equally wonderful

I became fascinated by Athbasca and started saving up to go there, but alas, my situation changed and not only did I have very little money, but I'd developed arthritis, which would have prevented me having the kind of experience of the place which I felt  I wanted.

So instead, I have to visit Athabasca in my imagination, and this is my latest visit.

Athabasca

I have longed to walk here in these forests
on the way to Uranium City,
to travel from Athabasca by boat to the landing.
Is the lake really two hundred miles long?

I imagined Uranium City, sparkling, new,
like something from a thirties' sci-fi movie,
but here it is, more like some western mining film
lacking only the mules and the bandits.

Will you take me to the glacier sometime?
And maybe on a hair-raising trip along the river,
through the black rocks and the white water rapids?
Afterwards we could rent a fishing lodge,

spend sunny days in companionable silence,
pretending to fish, reading, painting, dreaming.

As a result of my last post, I noticed that the advertisement banner at the top was for various kind of chicken feed and a book of chicken recipes, all from eBay!  Not exactly sensitive!

Giggle!

I've decided that I'd like to publish the occasional piece of writing on Live Journal, so I've set up this new account to save my friends the boredom and/or embarrassment of having to read it unless they really want to.

I may come back and edit the entries from time to time as better ways of expressing myself occur to me, so it's all a work in progress.

I may ask readers for their suggestions for a better word where I'm not sure I have the correct one.

All writing published here, whether poetry or prose, is the property and copyright of Geraldine Messenbird Smith.

This poem was written as a result of reading an article in the Daily Telegraph.  The following link is to the BBC's covering of the same thing      

http://tinyurl.com/cd3l6j

Garden memories

All over the country
people are knitting sweaters
for rescued battery hens.

The cinder path ran
the length of the garden,
past the tiny orchard
to the chicken run
behind the blackcurrants.

Driven out of the arms of
the large apple tree by wasps
swarming around the ripe plums
next door, I would take refuge
among the soft fruit.

Fully-feathered, snuggled down
into the dry earth, our hens
fluffed up their feathers,
bathed themselves with dust,
clucking softly in chicken.

A dusty wriggling worm,,
or a fat green caterpillar,
went down gratefully
along with bacon rinds
and vegetable peelings.

I made them mash ,
hot potatoes and chicken feed,
but their favourite was curly kale
which made the yolks very yellow.

That smell of mash, strangely appetising,
and the smell of dusty warm chicken,
the piquant smell of blackcurrant leaves,
a heady reminder of girlhood.


I'm not really sure about the word "piquant"   All suggestions gratefully received, although not necessarily adopted.