Month: October 2023

A Bluebird in 8 Ways

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A BLUEBIRD IN EIGHT WAYS
                           ~ After Wallace Stevens
 
I

A poet is a bluebird
who drizzles the sky
with indanthrene songs 

II

I am making words
out of the bluebird’s tongue,
littered on the paper 
like a rejection letter.

III

The bluebird looks at me
with its reticent eye - 
wants to sprinkle lies
in the blackbird’s ear.

IV

I have no time for cheats.
Bluebirds are full of infidelity,
wagging their sweet 
little tails at the worms.

V

I know a fine song
if it licks my heels.
I smile and my breast heaves
at the fortissimo.

VI

When the bluebird flies away
the chicks’ chasm-jaws 
snatch at a stopped watch.

VII

The snow dusts the blue wings.
Makes snow angels on the ice.
I fall, my womb a pomegranate.

VIII

I never did fit in a box.
Too big dreams for a small forest.
No blackbirds with carbon plumage.
I want diamonds. 

Copyright © Sarah Drury 2022


Wallace Stevens, (1954), 'Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird' from The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens. New York. Random House.


Images by krstnwatts0 and Johnny Gunn from Pixabay

Sunflowers

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Good morning! An art group I am a member of, on Facebook, has regular themes. This week’s theme is anything related to ‘the sun’, which is in a broad interpretation. There have been some wonderful posts of members’ sunflower paintings, which I find delightful, as I love the happy, optimistic flowers!

I discovered this really interesting article from The National Gallery regarding the most famous sunflower painting ever. You guessed it…Van Gogh’s Sunflowers!

Here is the article: https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/learn-about-art/paintings-in-depth/sunflowers-symbols-of-happiness

I painted this sunflower a couple of years ago. It makes me so happy…the beautiful, vibrant, loose colours. I must get a little frame for it and put it somewhere I can gaze at it as therapy when I feel a but challenged!!

Sunflower, Sarah Drury, 2020, watercolour

How do you feel about sunflowers? How about sunflower art? Do the sunny flowers fill you with joy and optimism? I bought a vase of artificial sunflowers to remember a young boy (he was 15) who took his own life by jumping into the River Trent. I keep them on my windowsill where the sun shines onto them. I hope he is at peace.

*Featured header Image by Susanne Jutzeler, Schweiz 🇨🇭 suju-foto from Pixabay

Blackpool Tower

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Many, many years ago I had a very frightening experience. I was young – around 14 – and my life pretty much revolved around playing the cello. I joined an orchestra in Lincoln, which is a fair drive away from my hometown. An older man, must have been sixty-plus, used to give me a lift there. There were usually several of us, but this one night I was alone with him on the journey home. He stopped his car and made a very inappropriate move. It was dark, and he had pulled his car over to the side of the desolate country lane. I screamed and went ballistic, which must have taken him aback, as he quietly drove me home.

That is the backstory for this poem. Blackpool Tower is a metaphor, but I won’t explain and ruin the images your mind will weave as you read!

The layby takes me back 
to the lanes not lit up 
like Blackpool Tower, where I fell, 
illuminated by blown bulbs.

I should not have been hitching rides
with dirty men, him telling me 
we couldn’t make babies 
with his thing choked in rubber.

His death would be better.
I would prefer a cadaver.
Stiff fingers, curled, like questions.

His wife.
Evenings, he slipped into her.
The usual in, out, in, out.
Nothing in it for her. 
Never is.


Copyright © Sarah Drury 2022

Glass

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My husband passed away 12 years ago, which affected me deeply for a long time. I have come to terms with his death, which was traumatic. I wrote this poem as a tribute to our love. 

GLASS


You hold me, I am porcelain. 
I am chipped in places, but not broken.
You like the chinks and cracks, 
they let hope shine in. 

Our lips meet in earthshine, 
until the moon’s shadow dances 
at my throat.

Your hands, they are granite, 
they are feathers.
I like the crowns of thorns 
you wear upon your palms. 

They make me bleed 
when you place
them on my breasts.
I know we are living
amongst the dying.

I am Venus, you create me. 
You take me from my abstract world 
and paint me into starry skies 
above the Rhone.

Your kind hands model the widow 
from the girl. You carve me 
out of glass to see 
if this heart still beats –

if it is still yours.


Copyright © Sarah Drury 2022