Inspired by...

Water Exhibits

Penetrate the meniscus

Press a finger through and

Feel the silent WHOOSH

As water greedily

Devours your digit

Fractured blues and hues

Of turquoise puzzle-pieces

Slap and lap and try

To tie you up in weedy knots

Of liquid treachery

A trillion gallons of

Dew and thawing permafrost

Curate their murky ambition

With pharmaceutical fish

Pump the aquifer dry

For supreme magic to purify

The climate-science circles

Of tepid doubts on drought

Poem created with inspiration from an exhibition at Gallery North during Water Week in the poetry workshop taught by Sally-Shanti Willow, Hailsham. 27th March 2019

Deceased Muses of Sussex

I duly park and pay entry fees

Two gorgeous houses I need to see

Where Rudyard wrote while his children played

And Doyle dallied in spooky games

Men of the pen who no longer need

Their redundant muses I come to seek

I search the carpets and grass they trod

From gnarly trees to stair-carpet rods

and inhale deeply imagined snuff of

Motes of their talent in lint and dust

Pelt

A fox of notoriety

A tail of thick and fiery fur

Producer of strong progeny

Sly master of the bin procure

A handsome vermin specimen

He spreads his acrid scent with pride

And yowls across the darkened park

To claim the night in cocksure strides

Though sleek and smart, this brazen streak

Has nothing in his repertoire

When blundering on man’s great paths

He meets his match, the mighty car

And there his mortal pelt is dashed

His stare is fixed on passing beams

And breath is labored one last time

Valhalla steals his soul and dreams

(Inspired by the poem, ‘Darkness’ by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

All poems copyright © Diny van Kleeff 2019
Not to be used or reproduced without written permission from the author