Still Life (A Reflection)

I sit with hands clasped around the cup.  On the kitchen table, a jar of honey and a salt cellar.  The motor of the fridge gently hums and every so often it switches itself off, and I too switch off, pay attention and hear the sound of silence.

Eternity (A sonnet)

I dedicate this sonnet to Mari Maxwell who posted a link for:  Sonnet or Not (2012) cannon poets competition, and so for the first time I had a go at writing a sonnet.  I missed the deadline, so therefore did not submit, so instead I'm posting it here:  Playing around here with iambic pentameter, alternate rhyme scheme and setting it out in 14 lines as required.  Thanks Mari for the inspiration.

On these Autumn days of amber and gold
I find myself in pensive mood and look
At tumbling leaves and days I cannot hold
of lengthening shadows dangling like a hook.
The bonfire burns the leaves that fall and die
And crackling flames in a fury of sound
Rising higher and higher in the sky
Remind me like these sparks I’m homeward bound

Look at creation and dissolution
The death of Autumn and the birth of Spring

Everywhere an infinite solution
Eternal joyous song to you I sing

So do not look at dying leaves and sigh
Look instead at stars shining in the sky.

A Certain Type of Pie

All my life I’ve had to eat

A certain type of pie

The one that most of us hate to eat:

Not apple crumble or Blueberry tart:

No,  the pie we all hate to eat is called

Humble pie and sooner or later

each of us are invited to

 taste its bitter flavor.

Yes sooner or later most of us,

Blah di blah

But why does it keep coming

To my table and insisting

That I partake of its sharp taste.

I recall the words of the poet

Who said the answer to certain

Questions was blowing in the wind

Yes, the answer may well be blowing in the wind

And shining from the stars

And dancing on the crest of a wave

And so I smile and revert to

Silence.

Feb 28th 2012

And there was I
busily rehashing an old story,
when next I spotted the birds
doing their usual thing,
but oblivious of yesterday.

**************

©Rachael Stanley

Memory

How long ago it seems now,

A vague memory

Coming through the mist of years,

Surfacing beneath the layers of mask

Like a wild beast trying to break free.

Why this pounding in the chest -

This deafness in the ears?

Why the biting of lower lip?

Why?

Sunset on Agios Pavlos, Crete

I sit counting ripples on the ocean,
and watch the sun go down upon the bay
as the dog from the hotel
follows me up the mountain path.

For want of a pen, I root in my bag,
and jot down some opening lines
in black eye pencil, so as not to
lose the memory of this moment;

With this action, I reflect on contradictions,
the eye pencil, a symbol of the ego
and its vanity against this backdrop
of purity and innocence.

The sun looks like a large white host
like the one I saw in the monstrance
in St. James's church
in Medjugorje,

beaming out rays of love and beneficence,
giving its all for love
and asking for nothing in return.

Drowning

Drowning

Oh, it's easy to be romantic about the sea,
Not so easy if you're drowning and struggling
In its snarling clutches
And raging waters.
“Save me, oh save me
Help, oh Help me,”
The cry of many a drowning person,
Falling on the deaf ears of the wind,
Falling into the abyss of gigantic waves,
Falling out into the days and nights
Of eternal silence,
Falling back to the beginning

Like grapes crushed to pulp,
So sweet the taste of the wine.

This poem was inspired by reading Paul Durcan’s “Give Him Bondi”. I had written a poem called ocean which gives an idealized romantic view of the sea. His poem got me thinking about the horror of drowning while one is going through this process and feeling so helpless and powerless. However once the drowning takes place and one returns to pure spirit, the experience must be so blissful.