A sea-change

Tonight Toads wants us to revisit one of 3 archived challenges from Imaginary Garden. I’ve chosen Kerry’s ‘Wednesday Challenge (Very) Old School’ from 2012 which involved a now popular phrase originally from a Shakespeare play at http://withrealtoads.

from Ariel’s song in The Tempest

Newspapers roared ‘sunbed slaughter’
but it was also the death of
a particular innocence.
Those seaside holidays
with their buckets and spades,
sandcastles, ice creams,
brightly coloured deck chairs,
children darting in and out
of ankle deep water.
The black world of terror
broke through to a level we
thought was cocooned.

It tainted every photo album
all the way back to 1953.
Mum riding a donkey on Rhyl
beach. Everything was
so black and white then.

The Fire Has Gone Out

Today Fireblossom wants us to write a poem of 60 words using some of the 23 ‘ultraconserved words’ that, in simple terms, are at the heart of 700 languages at http://withrealtoads.

The fire is black as night,
even the ashes give
nothing back. Embers
lie dead on cold ground.

We sit in quiet while
the spit and crackle
of bark is still alive
in our minds.

I want to hear anything,
but even mother’s voice
finds no resonance
in this dark silent air.

Pictures of Grey

Today Fireblossom wants us to write a poem with a title “Pictures of _____” at http://withrealtoads.

Beyond this mist
the valley is still talking.

Its voice is a river
breaking over rocks.

Its voice is a blackbird
whose song can’t be smothered.

Its voice is the leaves
that rustle in a breath.

Its voice is the sheep
crying on a hill.

Its voice is the traffic
surfing down a lane.

Its voice is the sun
haunting the edges of the mist.

Empty Space

What if there was no-one in your life
I mean

no-one.

How would you fill those empty spaces
that crackle with tension?
Silence that really isn’t
because noise is always humming
from sources beyond you.
Until then you won’t realise that a clock
actually ticks somewhere in the house.
A metronome marking every vacant moment
as you sit watching the weather
shape shift beyond your sash window