Category: writing

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

When the Sea Was Origami

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The leaves on the tree shimmer,
catching the breeze, casting
my mind this way and that.

I have words circling my head,
clattering around - flitting
between memories and dreams.

What did I have?
What would I like?

I want it all and none of it.
It is all inside, cloaked in smiles.
The sunshine cannot let

the moon control the tides. 
The sea is calm, tacit; it ripples.
Wavelets are origami ships.

My dreams are beneath 
an ocean heart. 
Blue. 

Serene.



©Sarah Drury 2023

Chardonnay

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I wrote this poem last year, after a special moment with my son last Christmas…

Wine

It is civilised,
beans on toast swished down
with non-alcoholic Chardonnay.

Generic classical music, Radio 3,
Silence from lips often throwing
flames and shrapnel.

‘This is awkward’ you say,
sophisticated words,
and we share a movie moment.

You read a poem,
and for a time, I feel 
Bohemian, and 

I forget 
that life is not art. 


© Sarah Drury 2021

Winter Solstice 2022

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Hope everyone had a happy solstice and Yule, and wishing you a very merry Christmas with everything beautiful for 2023! Here’s a little poem I wrote! 


The sun has slipped below
the monarchy of the moon
its cool, harsh Winter glare
clings on, a moment longer

From here, the days have turned
The daylight stretches out its
icy respiration, Pagan gods
and goddesses scatter

blessings on the crackling
mirror-glaze Earth
the sparking lanterns
lifting jovial voices into

balmy, freeze-breath skies.
We merrily turn our faces 
upwards, praise the solstice
pray for hope reborn. 

© Sarah Drury 2022

Ophelia (1910)

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after John William Waterhouse

              Be thou as chaste as ice:       as pure as snow:
    your purity a catechism.
                 
 Flowers grace your palms, in repose.
                          Get thee to a nunnery:
                                     a virgin?      Can we know?
                                     
 Anoint your flame hair -
                                thou shalt not escape
                                     calumny:    your visage:
                   
your chaste lips, a phantom kiss
                   cheeks smarted rose with denial.

                                The trees are vessels of your        sorrow.

                                                 Ophelia,     love is a dead Hawthorn. 


Copyright © Sarah Drury 2022


Waterhouse, J.W. (1910) - Ophelia 
Shakespeare, W. - Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1 (Hamlet to Ophelia