Saturday, 14 March 2015

Months: Lyrics: March

Having written a monthly series of longer poems, all in the same format, on the months of the year (posted together 6 February 2015) I decided to write a series of shorter lyrics with variety of form and concentrating on just a handful of things observed. Otherwise the same "rules" obtained - each poem to be written within the month and based on actual observation. Again, the series begins in March and ends in February. Initially each poem was going to include references to the Christian year but that rather fell by the wayside under the struggle of composition. Something I now regret. I wrote the poems between March 2014 and February 2015. I intend to post them monthly and draw them all together at the end.

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March murk done, the chilly dew
Drips from the shock-head churchyard yew,
   Quicksilvers grass,
   Glistens like glass,
Speckling the dusty graves anew.    

Freshly, the tight-fist orange sun
A cloud-tall morning blush has flung;
Daffodils prattle in the breeze,
Blue-skinned crocuses flop and sneeze;   
   The dip-gathered frost
   Like a glint-toothed ghost
Hugs close its winter miseries.    

Drumming its creaking bone-break thud,
The woodpecker, splashed with Jesu’s blood,
   The year’s agonies
   Shrilly cries:
Lady Day primrose lights the wood. 

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© March 2014