Saturday, January 20, 2007

from The Poetry Challenge Quiraing

















Quiraing

for Pam and Simon

Trotternish escarpment
still slow landslip
to the sea.

We came this way
low and long
along the Trotternish ridge
that towered beside us
and the steep fall to Raasay Sound below.

We walked that rough track
one late October
where we fought the wind
wrestled the cold, breathless
with thick clotted cloud
scouring the sky
picking the bones
of the exposed land.

We hardly spoke
in that roar and twist of the air
that tore into us,
picked us clean.

I waited at The Saddle
where the wind rose to meet me from both sides
wind bitten, hands numbed
as I clutched at the hard neck of rock
like riding the rock fall deep,
plunging long into the sea far below.

And watched the distant Torridon Hills
glowing red in the growing dusk
beyond the far Inner Sound.

© David Loffman



20 January 2007

Thursday, January 04, 2007

from The Poetry Challenge The Samurai Sunset

The new year has begun quietly. We saw it in with friends. It is always an awkward moment for me and I never feel comfortable with it. But this was easy. We made our peace with the old year and welcomed in the new with old friends, plenty of wine and good things to eat and lots to talk about.

2006 was a difficult year in lots of ways but I think 2007 should be more straightforward. We are still settling in and adjusting to the major disruptions of 2004/5, as well as coping with new challenges at work and with the children.

Any way here is a poem from the poetry challenge which is going well I think. The poem comes out of some of the stresses and tensions brought about by 2004/5 changes.

Hope you like it.

Happy New Year!

Love

David

The Samurai Sunset

I brought you back this glass plate.

A peace offering,
that came with its own light,
as red as a hard pulsating bruise.

Translucent.
The colour of blood
skeletal shadows
inhabit its depths.
Deep magenta
too dark to fathom
a flame too hot to touch.

Incendiary,
incandescent magma spill
to cauterise the wound.

In the gallery where I found it
they framed the Samurai Sunset
with smooth glass pieces
soothing curves
pale shimmering lights
soft undulating lines
of green blue sea surge
and aqua-dark cyan.

I bought it for you.
It spoke my rage for me
transformed it into something of beauty.


© David Loffman


29 December 2006