On the substitution bench

[Bench]

Ode to a Cornish Hedge

O great resolver of land disputes
Your salt and pepper stones were heaved with sweat
And dressed with tools kept in a leather pouch
By men who drank their ale in candlelight.
The earth they pounded there between each course
Is home for the blackthorn’s raptor-claw roots
And wire tendril grasp of yellow gorse
That line as gold and silver clouds in spring
And make your sides unclimbable all year.
Your mighty core beneath this modest shroud
That whips wing-mirrors with cow parsley flails,
And bursts in purple digitalis spears,
Has prompted many late night calls to mum
By teenagers who’ve totalled dad’s beamer.

[5th column]

Hello Bench. Well it wasn't my Dad's Beamer but my MGB GT as I sought to avoid a late night tractor towing that day's hay bails.... I recognise the elements here. Wonderful.

[Andrea345]

VI) was a story well told. S4 really shows the bent towards the absurd and brings that final strophe to a good climax. Great pacing.

[Bench]

Thanks Andrea and 5th for reading & pointing out what you liked. This NaPo intensity might be ubiquitous but I don't feel competent enough even to fluff some threads. Even harder than finding muse. Talking of which I'm just off to look for mine.

[Bench]

Flight Path

A dart-board dart determined that Denmark
Was where we’d want to wallow in our grief.
But she’d been such a lively little lark
More apposite was rum in Tenerife.

[Bench]

Windblown

Last I heard,
Matt had gone off-shore:
Mapping the sea floor,
But he’s always made time
For racing around Falmouth bay.
We shook hands,
Compared and fancied boats
And I remembered his young boy.

His face suddenly drained.
He quietly explained
His son caught meningitis
And died
Before he got ashore.

“I don’t know what to say”
He smiled sadly, apologetically,
His skin flickered between
Porcelain and steel.
“There’s nothing you can say”

We set off
from Prince of Wales Quay
Where there is a stone
Stained with poppies
Remembering brave men.
I wondered where Matt
Would like his.

[Donner]

Hi, Bench,

I'd take rum in Tenerife over Denmark. Darts can be rethrown. (It's always good when you can make a title do double duty, too.)

I thought "Windblown" was one of the best of yours this month, probably because I'm partial to the subject matter and how you handled it, with understated poignancy. "He smiled sadly, apologetically," speaks to the guilt Matt must have felt for being away when his son died, but you don't belabor the point, the matter-of-factness is a far more effective way to write it.

Oh, and "The Beast of Carnon Downs" is just fun. Boys. Incorrigible.

Donner

[prokopton]

The Beast of Carnon Downs

The vicar could drop me
so far. The rest I had to walk
cross country
(She could be a bit sanctimonious).

I am of course the prince
of dead reckoning,
and knew the land
of marmite toast and tea
was that-way-ish.

In the dark and flannel wind,
I fought a thousand
troubled brambles,
and spooked
a barnful of beasts.

It took many falls
from gates,
before I saw the light
(bathroom, I think).

After he told me off
for skidding my BMX,
my neighbour said
that old man Collins
has spent three nights
waiting with a gun
for the big cat
that terrorised his herd
last Friday night.

Sort of a Hound of the Baskervilles meets Nancy Drew, and I mean that in a nice way.
Of course, I hoped there would be more of the big cat but a mystery is a mystery.
Good enuff, you're in!

ffoGe

[Bench]

Donner, it's a privilege to have your comments. feGof, thanks for letting this one under the wire, especially as there was no actual cat.


Home Time

Under the tree, rain gallops the windscreen
in morbid drops that cast expanding holes
on streetlight orange skin like liver spots.

Attacking the wheel doesn’t work. Even
with palms and elbows (head-butting would sound
the horn) the spots grow either way.

I wait until she’s put the kids to bed –
this bed-time story doesn’t end so well.

[Bench]

Lionheart

Lets sing for Empire once again
“Britannia ruled the waves”
We built our empire with a gun
And paid for it with slaves.
Lets sing for British values then
Our righteous sense of pride
Like how we helped Afghanistan
Expand their genocide?
Hold on there lad you go too far!
It isn’t how it looks:
We sent our young men to a war
To stop the burning books.
Destabilise the Middle East
And then you run away?
You turned three thousand kids (at least)
away the other day.

[Arlene]

Hallo, Bench, I enjoyed reading the poems about the pilot, made me think of Randall Jarrell's 'Death of a Ball Turret Gunner,' and Windblown, too, and this last, Lionheart...Everything Stanley, too. I must like you best at your darkest, though the ode is lovely -- Cheers, A.

[Mike M]

Just catching up with this thread - you have a great ear for rhythm, and I got caught up in the serialized Stanley saga - I wanted to know what happened next, after each cliff-hanger. Fun stuff.
Also very impressed with those of you who have stuck with it.

[Bench]

Thanks Arlene and Mike for reading and commenting, and also thanks generally to everyone else's support throughout my first NaPo. So what if I only managed 27/30, I still feel there are one or two things that have a skeleton to build on, so it's been really worthwhile being sucked in to this all consuming madness. Looking forward to seeing you all in the forums. Cheers and gone, Ben