This is a recording from the 10Radio programme Talking Books when Suzie Grogan invited me to read my work and requests from her listeners. It was wonderful fun.
You can check out Suzie’s blog here http://nowrigglingoutofwriting.wordpress.com/
Archive for September, 2013
In this semi-silence,
a world of whispers and distant thrumming
tries to seep in.
But my ear’s not open for business.
It isn’t just outside either,
there’s all that internal static and rumble.
No out, no in.
Meeting a solid barrier,
sound beats against the drum.
Rebounds, thunders round
and rebounds again.
This is the constant rhythm rolling
on a shore rebuking all waves
until they’re left seeking another listening post.
Tonight we are gathering at dVerse pub for poets and having fun writing poems from sayings we’ve heard … this is based on that proverb: ‘A leopard can’t change its spots’
Sunlight slices through leaves.
Primaeval amber eyes trapped
unblinking in a spotlight.
Instinct welded into their depths.
The hunter pads softly on,
soundlessly brushing undergrowth.
Head, legs and flanks tiger-striped
as it lopes through light and shade.
Flickering colours, creating
a bow wave of fear for sharp eyes.
Panting reveals its red maw
like some raw slash from
claws on a victim’s rump.
Light and shade,
stripes and shadow.
Emerging into scrubland,
camouflage stripped away,
it stops.
Ears flat,
black spots
bared in the dust.
Life and death,
bleached on to this peaty moonscape.
Here it is elemental.
Moor and sun,
a harsh unforgiving beauty.
Knuckle on knuckle.
Each notch etched clear
in its whiteness.
No wool.
No flesh.
No muscle.
Picked clean.
Purity laid bare.
Simplicity of structure in
the chaos of wilderness.
This is where it all ends.
Bone and earth.
It explodes out of the quiet.
An electric surge
flowing above the water.
Then it stalls and in a wing flicker,
there’s a flash of rust.
Cutting back it darts again.
A vivid turquoise streaming away
into the bank.
All that’s left is retina seared brightness
and a mind replaying the moment.
welshstream 