Posts Tagged ‘pencil drawing’
walk on the shore
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ignition
Sea-rocket (Cakile edentula Hook.)
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clumps of Sea-rocket
are splashes of lime on sand
missiles from lavender flowers
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pepper to tongue
pungent breath of Cakile
cardamom and caraway
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flavour our laughter
giggles of gulls cross sober sand
intervention in sluggish lives
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launches from Cape Canaveral
moon-walking on the beach
splash-downs in Sargasso Seas
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most days are moth-eaten –
paper cuts, missives, e-mails to answer
problems, resolutions without teeth
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the seawind smooths its sand
begs for someone to take a stick
scratch out a love song
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Copyright 2015 Jane Tims
ordinary magic
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ordinary magic
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small blue jar
emptied of face cream
reveals a false bottom when held to the light
a bright inverted inner shell
hovers untouchable
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the peel of an orange
spurts flammable oil
cantrips of fire
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press a shell to your ear
murmur of ocean
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Copyright 2015 Jane Tims
places for writers … writing workshops – part two
Sometimes the ‘place’ experienced at a writing workshop is the local area, the community where the workshop is held. I wrote this poem in 2014 after a writing workshop at WordSpring in Saint Andrews (New Brunswick) …
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‘oak leaves and acorns’
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encounters
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on a windy night
in Saint Andrews, a toad
out of place, hop-toddies across
the street
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also, on Prince of Wales, a deer
pauses on the sidewalk, stares
up the hill, and I hesitate
before driving on
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in the Algonquin, a light
switches on, in the room I know is mine
and a couple huddles on the hotel porch
their attitude more suited to summer
than a night when leaves skip
mottled across the street
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Previously published in ‘writing weekend’, June, 2014, http://www.nichepoetryandprose.wordpress.com
Copyright 2015 Jane Tims
spring orchestra – downy woodpecker
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sticky tongue, tail prop, zygodactyl feet
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beneath the key of chained song (chick-a-dee
whistle, robin melodic and whitethroat
mnemonic, wheezy phoebe, junco click) –
grubs mumble, coil in rotting wood
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beneath low woodwind, blazing brass and string –
jagged percussion and drum roll, Downy
Woodpecker excavates sugar maple
stump, black jackhammer
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beak throws wood chips, heaps sawdust and splinters
dapper shudders, black and white, a grey smudge
bright head-bars, a red blur, tap a stammer
steady stutter, busyspeak
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Copyright 2015 Jane Tims
spring orchestra – fee-bee
Carving of the name ‘Phoebe’ on a beam of the Tantramar #2 Covered Bridge near Sackville, New Brunswick
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Phoebe
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unknown, she nudges
her way into Monday –
carved name in the covered bridge
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Black-capped Chickadee pipes
fee -bee, hey-sweetie
(bored with chick-a-dee-dee-dee)
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and Eastern Phoebe, rasps fee-bee
whee-zy, Phoe-bee
black bed-head, smuggie throat
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unknown, Phoebe nudges
her way into Monday
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Copyright 2015 Jane Tims
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one of the usual visitors to our feeder … the Black-capped Chickadee
woodpeckers and covered bridges
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Woodpeckers are common in our area. Both Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers visit our feeders in winter. Pileated Woodpeckers hammer on our trees in summer, their flaming heads a blur as they excavate dead trees for insects.
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Woodpeckers don’t confine their tapping to dead trees. I have seen them pounding on telephone poles, metal roof flashing and even the shingles on the side of our house.
Lately, as a result of a project I am planning, I have been thinking about covered bridges and their use as wild life habitat. So, a question …
Do woodpeckers excavate the wood of covered bridges for food?
Last week, we visited three covered bridges in Sunbury County in New Brunswick and, in two of them, we found the answer …
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woodpecker holes in the soffit at the gable end of the Smyth Covered Bridge near Mill Settlement, Sunbury County (April 2015)
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old woodpecker excavations on the face of the Bell Covered Bridge near Juvenile Settlement, Sunbury County (April 2015).
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woodpecker holes inside the Bell Covered Bridge (April 2015)
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I would love to be in a covered bridge when a woodpecker comes to play his staccato song.
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Copyright 2015 Jane Tims
in the shelter of the covered bridge – through a spider’s web
April 4, 2015 ‘web’ Jane Tims
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web
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after the rain,
says the spider,
I am purveyor of worlds
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peer through my web
800 raindrops
inverse images
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each a replica
of roof, walls and passageway
joists and beams
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loops of lenses
strands of crossing
binocular bracelets
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built a web to catch
the rain? I don’t think so
but insects never came to call
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so I am content
with captured
covered bridges
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swimmers, girls gone fishing
and the occasional
Chevrolet
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Copyright 2015 Jane Tims
in the shelter of the covered bridge – conjunction
March 1, 2015 ‘conjunction’ Jane Tims
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conjunction
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planets and moonlight whisper, scamper
into crevasses in the covered bridge
half-ton’s headlights enter
overwhelm the shadows
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chin velvet of Venus and Mars
sickle of mid-winter moon
truck lights startle a winter hare
erect on haunches, paw lifted
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frosted by sky-gaze, worshipping
the sliver of moon, dismayed
at desecration, round glare
of predator eyes
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fright to stop a heart
or flight to mobilize
hind-legs, straighten before
fore-legs turn
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and long ear shadows
quit the length of the bridge
ahead of whiskers, nose
and rabbit wisdom
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Copyright 2015 Jane Tims
a moment of beautiful – shadow forest
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tree shadows, drawn on a sloped roof
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tilted shadows on snow, graphite stems, crowded trees
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pencil sketch of woodland, whim
of northern winter, slanted sun
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from the trees, truth, but the artist lies
maligns tree shape, size and colour
wind direction
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shadow trees without wild life
red squirrels and blue jays
seldom visit while light and pencil
sharpen their edge
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only phantom light in space
between sender and receiver
message warped, passed
from molecule to molecule
through lead and air
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Copyright 2015 Jane Tims
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words from the woodland – bird song
I have a lot of projects underway, mostly on the ‘administrative’ side of writing. I have been ordering and revising a manuscript of poems on abandoned aspects of our landscape ( see https://nichepoetryandprose.wordpress.com/2015/01/19/first-and-last-and-in-between/ ). Now, I have reached the point where I really need to set the manuscript aside so I can approach it with a fresh eye in a couple of weeks. So I will use the days between to order another manuscript of poems about sounds from the woodland. The poems mostly use animal and bird sounds and songs as metaphors for human communication.
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Some of these poems have been around a while, packaged in another form. In the last weeks, I have been thinking about the bird song metaphor and now I am ready to consider the poems in relation to one-another. Perhaps I am responding to the Black-capped Chickadees, chattering in the Tamarack. Or the Hairy Woodpecker who comes every few days to beat his head against our telephone pole. Perhaps I am thinking more than usual about human communication (having just learned to ‘Twitter’).
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January 8, 2012 ‘two Mourning Doves’ Jane Tims
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drawing doves
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‘… cease to mourn …’
Virgil, Eclogue I
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grey sighs beneath graphite
or where eraser softens
troubled feathers
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doves lament, disturb
fine detail, mourn
the fingers’ tremble
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pencil strokes beak
and fingernails, kernels
of corn, husks of sunflower
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Copyright 2015 Jane Tims
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