Tag: creative writing

Crows

On By Mick CanningIn creative writing, crows, poetry, writing37 Comments

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This is the first poem in a series still not quite completed. Although the rest of the series needs to be read as a single entity, this one works as a standalone piece.

Crows are unsettling.

They make eye contact with you,

Like all their kind:

Rooks, magpies, jackdaws and their ilk,

Black-eyed, mocking, wind-flicked feathers,

Watching you from high branches,

Scattered trees, lone rocks and open fields.

Krra icily in the harshest breeze.

 

They could be smart, dark-suited undertakers,

Clearing up dead bodies or

Smug bankers, lounging in the hotel bar with

After-dinner drinks, bragging raucously.

 

Crows solve problems, are wary, learn,

And remember you.

They may reward kindness

With coins and pieces of glass,

With golf balls, or feathers.

But crows make up murders.

They hold grudges and will plot your destruction

If you cross them.

 

A Thought

On By Mick CanningIn compassion, poetry, writing24 Comments

Without Compassion I am Nothing

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Without compassion I am nothing.

For pity is not compassion,

It is no more than a patronising aloofness

That demeans the recipient.

But compassion encourages action.

 

Without compassion I am nothing, yet

Without anger I have one hand tied behind my back.

I must not lose my sense of indignation

At injustice, for without anger,

Nothing will be changed.

 

Without compassion I am nothing,

Yet without wisdom my anger will be directionless,

Blindly striking out to hurt both enemy and friend.

And doing more damage than any original wound.

 

Without compassion,

I am nothing.

 

Aggie

On By Mick CanningIn abuse, attitudes, comment, poetry, writing12 Comments

Aggie sits smile-chuckling at nothing much on TV today.

She’s made her shopping list,

And tidied her room.

She cried a little when Patrick called her stupid,

But she seems to forget him when children’s TV comes on.

 

It’s on the television screen that life makes sense to her.

 

Aggie, did you put that food in the waste?

No! Aggie is a good girl! Large-eyed-scared.

I smile easily. Soothingly. Of course you are, Aggie.

The same ritual every evening. But I wonder

Just what happened in that huge, rambling institution

She called home.

 

It’s then I think, for the hundredth time,

Of the pages in her file, the report from the hospital,

By the doctors and the clinicians,

With their tests and scans and

‘I can find no evidence…’

 

By all accounts a normal child,

Who, just after the war

 

Got into trouble.

She was sent away for her own good!

 

A cousin, sharp-spiteful,

But who refuses to say any more.

None of my business, or of yours!

 

‘There is evidence of a number of fractures,

The upper left radius, several ribs,

The right fibula, particularly poorly healed…’

 

Have you seen my baby? Asks Aggie, suddenly.

What baby’s that, Aggie?

Distracted-distant.

I have to do the medication, right now.

I’ll talk to you later.

 

‘There appears to be no reason for her disability,

No birth trauma, no accident,

No diagnosis…’

 

It’s Aggie’s seventieth birthday, tomorrow.

What would you like to do, Aggie?

Do you want to go somewhere?

 

Aggie nods.

There is something she’d like to do,

But the words won’t come and the more she tries,

The harder it seems to get, and so

She gets distressed, and cries and runs off

Slipper-slapping to her room.

The door slams.

 

‘Aggie spends a lot of time crying…’

 

The Old Way 6

On By Mick CanningIn creative writing, poetry, The Old Way, travel, writing19 Comments

Poem #6 of 6. The end of the journey.

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The Old Way 6

 

When the square sails of the invading Romans

First appeared over the horizon,

This path was already ancient.

When the first sword was forged,

When the giant stones were placed

In mysterious alignments,

This path was already old.

Only when the great ice giants

Relaxed their grip on the land

Were these paths young.

These are paths to tread reverently,

Mindful of those countless others

Who also once passed this way.

Friend, take your place on this journey,

You are in fine company.

The Old Way 5

On By Mick CanningIn creative writing, poetry, The Old Way, travel, writing13 Comments

Poem five out of six.

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The Old Way 5

 

The Old Way now rises,

Leaving the rich damp soil behind

And attacking the ridge.

It becomes a wound, a scar,

A deep, dry incision in the chalk.

It runs up beneath the shelter of ancient trees,

Their roots knotted and matted beside the path,

It passes a mound, faintly visible in the turf;

The ghost of a cottage, if buildings can become ghosts.

Although is there any reason why they shouldn’t?

If they die abandoned, deserted and unloved,

After long years, perhaps only their sadness remains.

 

There are other ghosts here, too.

You might tell me it is only in my imagination

That I hear the plod of hooves, or

Voices speaking in strange tongues,

That I hear the creaking of cart and harness.

But I have heard them.

I know that we are walking in the footsteps of giants,

And giants do not fade away readily.

 

 

The Old Way 4

On By Mick CanningIn creative writing, poetry, The Old Way, writing11 Comments

Poem number four in a series of six.

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The Old Way 4

 

Of course, I had been in a rush to get here.

I think I had been walking for about an hour

Before I reached this path.

But even so,

I had not realised how fast I was going.

 

I had known I needed to get away

(that almost goes without saying),

But finally I arrive, and I slow down.

I slow down so I might look and see.

 

And breathe.

 

I slow down to feel the breeze

And the sun on my head.

I slow down to hear the birds.

I am in no hurry,

Now I’m walking on the Old Way.

 

I have bread and cheese, and I have an apple,

As though I were one of those folk

Travelling in a bygone age.

My only concession to today is a plastic bag.

 

Which I now regret.

Acrobat

On By Mick CanningIn creative writing, poetry23 Comments

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Totally irrelevant photograph: Mt. Kanchenjunga from Darjeeling

I don’t suppose he would think of himself as an acrobat,

As anything special.

But I watch him measuring the distance by eye,

Before he gathers himself

And leaps,

Two…

Three…

Four feet into the depths

Down

To land on the tip of a tiny wooden post,

All four paws

Together.

 

Winter – a Tanka

On By Mick CanningIn Haiku, poetry, tanka, winter, writing33 Comments

I was writing a haiku yesterday, and decided to go the extra mile with it. Traditionally in Japan these poems were sometimes written in the form of tanka, which are essentially poems of five lines rather than three, with a syllable count of 5/7/5/7/7.

They could also be written as linked verse, with one or two poets writing haiku, and others supplying the two remaining lines between each haiku.

I’ve gone down the linked verse route, and also given myself the remit that each verse (of two or three lines) must contain a word or sentiment linking it to those either side – something that was also commonly done.

Yesterday was cold and miserable, hence the results.

It’s my first attempt – please don’t be too harsh!

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The flowers have gone.

Crumbling stems standing askew,

In waterlogged soil.

 

Outlined against the grey sky,

Old willows by the stream.

 

Ten thousand leaves are

All that remain of autumn.

Wistful nostalgia.

 

Memories of warmer days,

Are all but forgotten now.

 

Wrapped up warm and snug,

Watching the grey willows weep.

Hands in my pockets.

 

Leaves fall slowly through the air,

Onto silent black waters.

 

Now a gust of wind

Swirls leaves around and around.

Racing each other.

 

Shifting clouds race overhead,

Sudden drizzle on the breeze.

 

Spiteful winter day,

Grasses shiver in the wind.

Low sunlight dazzles.

 

Walking in meditation,

Clouds unexpectedly clear.

 

Sudden bright sunshine

Reminds me the cold Winter,

Will change into Spring.

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If I Could Just Wave A Wand…

On By Mick CanningIn poetry, writing15 Comments

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Pandering to my Inner Vagabond, here…

If I could just wave a wand,

I would wander the world.

With my notebook in hand,

And a bag on my back.

 

I would sleep under hedges,

In hotels and haylofts.

Drink beers under trees,

And eat cheese on the moor.

 

I’d watch clouds over hilltops,

And boats on the ocean.

Shapes and shadows at sunset,

A moon with a view.

 

And I’d write trivial poems

Of snowfall and sunlight,

Birds singing at dawn

And the sounds of a stream.

 

There’s the lure of a skyline,

And skylarks above me,

Wine and wood smoke my welcome

At the end of the day.

 

To travel, to journey,

There’s magic in wandering

Over moorland and downland,

Through woods and through fields.

 

The world’s full of wonders

All waiting for wanderers.

Let me follow these paths

For as long as I can.

 

Bilbo In The Breeze

On By Mick CanningIn poetry, weather, Work in progress, writing34 Comments

This is another standalone poem from my linked series, a work in progress, poems written around the theme of the weather.

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Please don’t ask me when the whole thing might be completed!

Bilbo in the Breeze

 

Tonight, there is no moon,

But I hear dry leaves,

Swirling and clattering on the path.

Fingers brushing my cheek,

Cold breath on my face.

 

Leaves, dry leaves,

Flung into the air and a voice,

A spiteful, hissing voice,

Whispering in my ear:

‘What has it got in its pocketses?’

 

There are nasty, cold fingers

Poking and prying around my pocket.

I feel a tug at my jacket,

A sudden push in my back.

 

I jam my hands in my pockets

To warm them and keep the nasty fingers out.

 

My fingers touch…

Something dry…

It crackles…

What have I got in my pocket?