Poetry - May 2026

 

Reading at May's Word Up, @StArt, Carlisle

1st May, 2026

Sit in one place:

skeins of geese, the constellations —

everything comes to you.

***

May 1st 2026, 20:45

Lighting a fire

at the red edges of everything

I can see,

away beyond the mountains

ocean is becoming light —

all of this held in your eyes

turning to me

to borrow a breath,

to share the setting sun.

***

My cat on the front porch

yawns, stands up on two legs

and declares that

my language and wars and history

are all utterly, utterly meaningless.

Becomes cat again

and falls asleep.

I stare into my oolong astounded,

and listen to the disjointed sounds of the evening resume:

a distant car... gulls...

***

The low mist ghostly in the churchyard

after twilight turns to pitch.

The darkest night in a long while —

though still the stargazers come out by habit

and, finding gloom darker than the eye shut tight

nevertheless stay, to become

astronomers of the way mistdrops

drop, between owl-silence.

***

Dad always pointed to the fells:

– there, Cardunneth, and there –

Cross Fell, and turn around, there –

Blencathra and Helvellyn.

Mam, though, would point to the skies:

– there, The Plough. Ursa Major. Jupiter.

And there, Orion's belt, can you see him?

O, show me where earth and heaven parted.

***

Tonight owl sings into existence

the deep blue between the trees,

and the night air breathing between the leaves

that too is owl.

Owl who sings into existence your childhood —

you remember sitting by the stove

and through the window's single pane

owl song cold as starlight —

the stars, owl sang.

***

the clear night and a full moon says

stop writing poetry about yourself,

stop writing poetry about the moon,

stop writing poetry about yourself and the moon

it's a clear night and the owls across the field

don't even know what it is or is not to have a moon and a self

or no self and no moon only owl

***

The beck at night

stands and walks, 

ancient webbed feet

in sodden hose and shoon

wandering the village;

a lisping beggerman's

strange, funny craic —

I can hear him now, arguing

with the distant sounds of the river

and the motorway and the stars.

Come dawn he'll be gone, 

away beneath the bridge.

***

If I could I would give you

(instead of rings and roses

and all manner of sweet things

that all say the same thing)

silence, wrapped so carefully

in its own leaves

it would not leave a trail

or betray you —

silence which knows more of Love

than songs or whispers 

or anything louder than the stars.

***

What we chose not to say

became the smoke after the candle guttered;

the mist in the morning and the song

of the peacock heard in the physic garden;

the rain against the sandstone carving its pattern

and the bright marginalia entwining vellum —

old and ancient in the iron and the fire.

***

Go tell the young man

a tree grows where its roots go deep.

Will he listen?

***

The doppler shift

of her heartbeat stretched

like passing fingertips.

3rd May 2026

A sparrow lands on the page 

and asks: Who are you talking to?

The writing hand pauses.


11 May 2026

After Tang Dynasty poet Li Shangyin's 夜雨寄北 ("Written on a Rainy Night to My Wife in the North”):

Night rain in the mountains

swells the autumn pools…

when we light our candles again

we shall whisper of night rain.

君问归期未有期，

巴山夜雨涨秋池。

何当共剪西窗烛，

却话巴山夜雨时。


14 May 2026

Before clouds overtake them,

stars frozen in my eyes —

I am then I am not

says the owl.

***

All our sons 

finding for themselves

the love and violence

of manhood.

***

Thousands lie

under the same moon—

no northern horse

crosses Yinshan.

After "Going out to the Fronter" by Wang Changling, Tang dynasty frontier poet

秦时明月汉时关，

万里长征人未还。

但使龙城飞将在，

不教胡马度阴山。

***

Like a nest, my window holds

orioles in the willow; white egrets;

the ridge’s thousand-autumn snow –

boats from Wu sail over the sill.

After a juéjù by Du Fu, 8th century Tang dynasty poet

两个黄鹂鸣翠柳，

一行白鹭上青天。

窗含西岭千秋雪，

门泊东吴万里船。


15th May 2026

Heap of plum blossom

on a wet log —

Blencathra, snow.

***

Fox watches the old man

sit down by the cold open door

mistaking it for the fire—

warming his hands on fox breath.


16th May 2026

Weicheng. Morning rain 

settles the road's dust—

one more cup, I urge you,

before you ride beyond Yang Pass.

After Wan Wei, 8th Century Tang dynasty poet

渭城朝雨浥轻尘，

客舍青青柳色新。

劝君更尽一杯酒，

西出阳关无故人。

***

Autumn's silver candlelight.

The painted screen grows cold.

Her silk fan brushes fireflies.

None can cross the river of stars.

After Du Mu, 9th Century Tang dynasty poet

银烛秋光冷画屏，

轻罗小扇扑流萤。

天阶夜色凉如水，

坐看牵牛织女星。

***

Huánghè Lóu, flower-mist March.

His sail's shadow lost in blue.

Only the Yangtze River

flows to the edge of heaven.

After Li Bai, Tang dynasty poet

故人西辞黄鹤楼，

烟花三月下扬州。

孤帆远影碧空尽，

唯见长江天际流。


17th May 2026

Lu Yu drinks

new tea —

Jiangnan. Mist.

***

Sakura

rising to the branch:

butterfly.

After Arakida Moritake, 16th century Shinto priest of Ise Shrine

落花枝に

かへると見れば

胡蝶哉


18th May 2026

November

Half black branch,

half crow — crow-black branch

half dusk.

After Basho

枯朶に

烏のとまりけり

秋の暮

***

Wrapped in hare's-tail

cottongrass, fragile moorland,

cold fell's son.

***

On the fell-top,

skylarks.

How dare we.


20th May 2026

Honeydew melon —

the sweetness on my tongue

becomes you.


23rd May 2026

May, warm moonlit night,

(moon-warm May) night light

from bedroom window

baby's eyes — wonder.

***

May-warm moonlight night

moon, warm May night

light from a bedroom

window baby's eyes — wonder.

***

May. Warm moonlit night.

Moon. Warm. May. Night. Light 

from a bedroom window —

baby's eyes. Wonder.

***

May, warm moonlight,

(nightmoon-warm) nightlight

from bedroom window may

wonder — baby's eyes.

***

Baby's eyes — moon.

Warm nightlight, moon.

Mother, moon

24th May

Plum blossom melody —

one string becomes

tea, poured.

***

Scattered blossom —

my handful of worlds.

Cat unimpressed.

***

Peeling a tangerine

for the first time

in seventy-one years.


26th May

You Held the World in Your Arms

and across the Solway Firth

the Galloway Hills are reaching up

to sing along, wild and free.

Sit with your back to the cairn,

one earbud in. The other ear

echoes with skylarks

and four hundred years of murder.

The wind whips up and suddenly

a frenzy of crows.

***

the car parked under 

Carlisle's West Walls

(stone broken glass cider)

he sells whatever he wants to

from the drivers seat, his girlfriend

high as a fucking kite in the backseat

wants to show you her hamster

you're just a kid you just want to

bowk but you're driven round 

the Great Border City again

***

May hot (too hot);

gluttony of silage — hawk watches

monsters graze.

***

Pine woods summer heat 

like incense, steamed herbs, smoke.

Breeze—what a relief!

***

lichen                                light 

                     balancing

     space

                 between

                                    lichen

                  moss

between                       space

                   lichen

drystone                     moss

                 opening

***

between leaves

tree

sets sun


30th May 2026

A gathering 

of threads, the weft and the warp—

blood sample.

#poetry #micropoetry and #haiku first posted on johnnorthwrites.bsky.social