Poems from Poland

Hi, I'm on holiday in Poland at the moment. Hope everyone is fine. Amazingly, the sun has been shining and I'm forgetting Britain's downpour of an April!! I won't be posting much this week, so here are some of my poems. They have been published in Kaleidoscope and Travelling Light. Hope you enjoy one!

We ride in cars

Slow to ride
Our comic days
All drowned in wine
In the stifling heat
We ride in cars
With windows down
Singing to strangers
Who cannot sing
Hold the tune
Against the summer breeze
With the dog’s head bobbing
He laps it up
The speeding cars
And the lingering lights
The ripped out trees
Shouting our sights
We ride in cars
Chase the tyre tracks
From dawn til dusk
We hold our fire back
And we scream and laugh
In the silencing
As the dark draws near
And we pretend to sleep
Keep the fires burning
As the dog nods on
In the piercing light
Of the summer sun

Rain

She sits and dreams of making rain
In the dark, shadows dancing mimic
Colours of the aghast
Sights and sounds and murmurs
Still breathing
Watching over the edge
Of everything
The glass splinters into a million shapes
Cast in a myriad of lights
Bright and sparkling, dancing
In the spring sun
And she dreams of making rain
That tears and crashes
Washing away the shards of glass
Splattering the colours rent
With droplets of ice-cold nothing
Cuts and caresses
Shards of grass peeking through
Clouds gathering
Dust.

Moon beams

Distancing the days
In her fragile accolade
The moon reaches down
Towards coloured boats bobbing
Twinkling she shines
Lighting the way
For every stranger passing
And old friends returning
She travels the skies
In a silvery glide
Always remembering
The shortness of time

I don’t mind

I don’t mind
If you stare
Or paint the room in blue
While I sleep

I don’t mind
If you walk a while
Or smile in your style
And mimic your expression

I don’t mind
If the urge to be is too much
Or the strength to see is gone
While I dream

Mother 

Mother, I called in the summer

Remembering a picture past

You were dressed in red

Hair glistening in the sun

You laughed so easily then

You felt no passing of time

I twisted and pulled that day

Wriggling to play in the sea

But you held on tightly

You wouldn’t let me go

Warm hands protected me

Against the wild elements

Today I remember that summer

How the sun shone so bright

The seagulls whooped and screamed

In their crazy delight

I wanted so much to swim

To leave you and play

You wrestled my independence

Urged me just to stay

Now I live so far, far away

In a city built for strangers

I work in a grey building

Dressed in a greyer suit

Even my skin feels grey beneath

In streets littered with figures

Speed is of the essence here

Substance was cast adrift

As I sit here, memories flood

Seeing you in this photograph

That red dress daring me

To pick up the phone and say hello

Mother, I’m remembering you

Pulling this struggling little boy

So he’d stay just a minute more with you

So we go

Into the night we go

Free as birds

Soundless and unseen

Trivial and green

Unknowing, unthinking

With no boundaries

No obstacles –

With wings, groundless

Ballerinas

Ballet dancers painted by Degas

Bright sweeps across a canvas

Lithe bodies captured in movement

On tiptoes, a fleet of lace

Swan Lake shimmers in snow

White tufts of hazy dew

Tap-tap tapping across the stage

Soaring then to sink and fly

Leaping skyward full of life

Jumping in motions eternal

Over again in a silent curve

Showering the empty stage

Danced out and spent

They sit and wait chattering

Dizzy with a bright energy

That leaves them laughing

Painted with a sharp compass

That scrapes across the skin

The model suffers for her art

But marvels at the result

Captured for an eternity

She shares an enigmatic smile

Standing tall and straight

As still as a porcelain doll

Moonlight

Moonlight remonstrance

Of a twilight dance

Sends shivers through winter

Blessing in disguise

Chills the epoch of time

Uplifted

Breathless I conquer all

Neither big nor small

Everything that the day reigns in

I envelop in the mist

And the love of unravelling

Until my own self is but an imitated sound

The picture

When she breaks

She dances in the mirrors of a sea of broken glass

A myriad of colours burns the fire in her tomb

She breathes in silence the warmth of summer

The sparkle of daylight upon expressive hands

And it shimmers so like developing film

This memory of mine

Fails to tear my eyes from imagining her

She dances on, alone, entombed

My selfish skin closes in again

Where the shape shifts into a swirl of colour

In my arms she plays for me alone

When she laughs

She dances in the mirrors of a shattered, broken dream

Silent now like so many others

Running naked in the night

Pausing to escape the words I never said

Gothic

Gothic glimpses of golden ages

Stricken dumb in unseen places

Giddy up the days in faces

Come and see the wilder traces

Of days once lived and glances

Back.

Journey into the darkest hour

Murder wrapt and bloody sour

Into arms of grim dark ardour

Come and see the wilder fervour

Of days once lived of dusty glamour

Dead.

Scan all the yawning faces scowling

Poor and cold in the daylight yearning

For food and shelter in the dawning

While night unravels winter’s drowning

Of sorrows in ales and dark prowling

Woe.

The fine woman in furs slips her mask

In the light she regrets her one task

That night brings with a single cask

Forgetting numbness come here fast

Lest morning remembers this time past

Hell.

Gothic glimpses of fallen ages

Trembling across unwritten pages

Lived and dreamt on wooden stages

Fuelled by fire and unlocked cages

Come and see the magic of mages

Gone.

War

Acorns in the sand

Grow into bullets in the hand

Wedged still and deep

Bringers of eternal sleep

Smashing a world of hate

That reaps a many splintered fate

Copyright Vickie Johnstone