.
In a multiverse, where the red string of fate
bow ties, ribbonesque, ’round the entry points,
shallow mortals sit sipping tea and cherry cola.
.
Their polar opposites in composite poses
propose alternative roles where nobody knows
if we’re up or down or Wednesday or wise
.
while the madmen who pose in invisible clothes,
dispose of our funds by the hundreds of billions;
pushing us all through the red door,
in battle painted handcarts.
.
.
©LorraineVoss.Sept2025
Steam swirls curl up from the cup summoning a biscuit battalion:
Little brittle squaddies waiting to be called.
.
I grip one; a ginger sergeant. Granite hard in fiction
but buttery flour and sugary in truth.
.
He eyes my sea of sepia tea and I whisper, ‘easy soldier!’
The ensuring plunge is perilous.
.
The tea swells, its tiny tides tugging at his sides.
Dip… dip… drip… He trembles.
.
Misjudge and he will liquify, see himself dismembered by the dunk.
One more dip, he’ll be sunk.
.
But fickle tea says: Never mind, there’s plenty more of me.
Bring in Private Bourbon.
.
.
©LorraineVoss.Oct2025
The words that first caught me were ‘bombazine black’.
Truth is, there’s not much that’s blacker than that.
Not the smooth inner crease of a Jackdaw’s wing
or anthracite chipped from the deepest mine.
Not the ring of a bell that warms of the plague,
not war, nor grief, nor a man in his prime
cut down by the sound of babanau crying.
.
Not the tar running stream of bubbling hot
hindsight that comes in a dream we forgot
or the sky in December at three in the morning
all ‘starless and bible…’ and lacking in hope
like mourning clothes made out of bomb… bomb… bombazine cloaks.
.
————————————————-
Translation.
Babanau (Welsh) pronounced babban eye – Babies (English)
.
Note: This one was inspired by the literary adjudicator for Llanwrtyd Wells Eisteddfod 2025 who commented that my entries for the poetry category (placed 2nd and 3rd) put her in mind of Dylan Thomas poems.
I hope I’ve not done him a disservice by stealing a few words from Undermilk Wood and painting them darker.
Llanwrtyd Eisteddfod, 2025 (2nd prize)
.
Stone sits, still
and silent in the gentle pulse
of valley streams
and the hills hold hymns
hallowed and haloed
by centuries
of bardic verse.
.
Caves of coal
cradle indigo veins
that pulse with the pride
of hard working men
who dreamt of rivers
and rain and rhyme
and choices with hindsight,
while wise chapel words
wound through the weft
of their worries.
.
Their language lingers
like liqueur on lips;
like light in the home porch;
like hiraeth and love.
.
Up top where the land is a loom
all sea thread, slate thread.
lichen and legend;
a bride and a groom
dressed in dragon’s breath
make plans for a shelf
full of memories they’ll share
when they’re eighty.
.
and always and always
the roots remain,
tangled in truth
and the tongue of the land.
.
The writings, the songs
the poets, the singers
the language the people
all planted boot deep
in the grain and the veins
and the granite.
.
.
Llanwrytd Eisteddfod 2025 (3rd)
.
Verses arrive (some of the time)
through the dark of soft soil
or the crackle glazed bases
of terracotta pots.
.
They linger under fingernails
or sticky-weed hitch hike
on a cardi
or the woollen tops
of Auden’s
grubby gardening socks.
.
They defy all the clocks,
any timely habits,
missions,
traditions
and seasonal gardening law.
.
They come when they want
sprouting and waving
through cracks in the paving;
spreading their tendrils and
savouring light.
.
Their roots are in prose
but their shoots give birth
to rhythmic philosophies
offered on loan
to borrowing poets
who write them but know
that the essence must hold
past the edit.
.
The next seeds are sown
while we’re pruning the blind-side
lines of Virginia Creeper.
.
.
Note: W.H. Auden, best known for Stop All The Clocks, had an explicit and metaphorical appreciation for gardening, believing it symbolized a healthy relationship with the earth. He incorporated this idea into his ‘Daydream College for Bards’, where he instructed his students to cultivate their own garden plots as an act of principled living against societal exploitation of soil.
He’s wearing his close fitting, rather special coat.
The one with the hole in the stone in its pocket
and a penny in the lining
for when the luck runs out.
.
The cloth, designed by Alchemy
is threadbare but performing.
There are no proper holes
that his holey stone can fall through.
.
Each ninth stitch
is a backstitch to remind him
of the benefit
of early interventions.
.
But every time he wears it
he becomes a better ghost;
an apparition of his very best intentions.
.
.
Copyright: Lorraine Voss
Slicing white and purple light
blazing fork trails to the earth.
Backlit cloud and crackling sounds
arc the sky for all it’s worth.
.
A distant Reynard raised alarm!
then eerie quiet and breathless calm
followed on from stair-rod rain
which threatened more to come again.
.
The thunder rumbling, distant, far.
The beating drums of raging Thor.
The ‘oos’ and ‘ahhs’ through open doors.
The pleasant scent of petrichor.
.
A fox again, but less distressed.
a tired Thor resumes his rest,
and all is quiet and all is still
among the Welsh, Llanwrtyd hills.
.
Lorraine Voss (aka Ven) 