Poetry - August 2025
Forest floor
layers autumn's
shed abundance;
shared inheritance
returning to the ground-roots.
No history except memory.
***
Late summer stars -
give thanks for the late summer swallows
giving thanks for the late summer stars.
***
Tell me all the shades of blue when twilight fades
from pale sky, to slate grey, to ocean-deep
dog howl
***
Pine-tree silhouettes
map galaxies, stargazing -
night's thin, cold beauty.
21st August
The daily resurrection of waking
like the thin scent of coal-smoke
skyward from the eyes from chimneys.
Cold English beauty. Pale northern perfume.
On into the warmth of boulangerie
and deoderant-spray,
the grey corridors of work, the salvation of caffeine,
the underpaid clock ticking.
22nd August
I collect sticks with my sonin the field behind the housewhile my wife makes supperand remember gathering firewood with my motherto heat the lonely homemy father made when he left her.I will keep you warm all the winter.I would blow on the emberswith the last breath in my lungs.
I collect sticks with my sonin the field behind the housewhile my wife makes supperand remember gathering firewood with my motherto heat the lonely homemy father made when he left her.I will keep you warm all the winter.I would blow on the emberswith the last breath in my lungs.
23rd August
My mother would fall asleep with the radio on loud enough to drown out the depression
which explains my subsequent addictionto nonsense rhymes, and to her other penchant,
the bottle of wine, both battlesI am winning
although the Shipping Forecast still, inexplicably, exists.
My mother would fall asleep with the radio on loud enough to drown out the depression
which explains my subsequent addictionto nonsense rhymes, and to her other penchant,
the bottle of wine, both battlesI am winning
although the Shipping Forecast still, inexplicably, exists.
***
Still and quiet, God,
the stars on a clear night -
Christ watching the sea.
24th August
My son shooting hoops -Sunday morning in August'ssimple salvation.
***
My son shooting hoops -Sunday morning in August'ssimple salvation.
***
Not the sound of stars -
distant roar of the M6
cutting through the night.
***
My greatest blessings:
my wife, my child, and that we
have somewhere to live.
Sycamore gap in autumn
i. /
For all our academic
i. /
For all our academic
talk of literary geography
and landscape art;
for all our well-put-together
metaphors of season -
now just a gap
in the heart.
ii. /
Our sycamore,
our angel of the north.
iii. /
The dark Satanic mills.
Chainsaw. Bastard.
The illiteracy of hate.
25th August
Mary, Mother of God,oil paint over chipped gesso,fading resin, eyes raised
praying for the roofof Cumbrian slatethat it might not cave in;
for the sandstone plinththat it might not give waybeneath her feet;
that when it failswe will go to pray on the hillsand that I will take her with me.
Mary, Mother of God,oil paint over chipped gesso,fading resin, eyes raised
praying for the roofof Cumbrian slatethat it might not cave in;
for the sandstone plinththat it might not give waybeneath her feet;
that when it failswe will go to pray on the hillsand that I will take her with me.
27th August
Sunlight. Bone-ache.Bleary-eyed recommencing of the clock.As we age we grow closer to stone.Work-weary. World-weary.Still, this morning there is a soft wind through the branches of the plum tree. Tea. Guqin song.At the moment of waking, we are children.As-Salaatu Khayrun min an-nawm.
Sunlight. Bone-ache.Bleary-eyed recommencing of the clock.As we age we grow closer to stone.Work-weary. World-weary.Still, this morning there is a soft wind through the branches of the plum tree. Tea. Guqin song.At the moment of waking, we are children.As-Salaatu Khayrun min an-nawm.
***
Unnoticed in t'field,
some cattle among t'dock weeds -
rural poverty.
31st August
Garden path of sweet evening chimney smoke;inside, mingling steam, simmeringchicken soup on the woodstove top.
The days we need healing,we at least know we're living.
Garden path of sweet evening chimney smoke;inside, mingling steam, simmeringchicken soup on the woodstove top.
The days we need healing,we at least know we're living.
#poetry #micropoetry and #haiku first posted on johnnorthwrites.bsky.social
