Spider (and other poems)By Natalie Crick
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Spider
The whisper
Wicks from her lips.
A soothing salve.
She bends, twists,
Feet touching the walls
In eight different places.
Her laurels always rove.
Search.
Hold.
Gagging the dawn chorus
Until
The hunger moon thins.
Dissecting a house fly,
She commits
Murder on the brightest window,
At first frost
Opens the door
Without a guest to feast.
The whisper
Wicks from her lips.
A soothing salve.
She bends, twists,
Feet touching the walls
In eight different places.
Her laurels always rove.
Search.
Hold.
Gagging the dawn chorus
Until
The hunger moon thins.
Dissecting a house fly,
She commits
Murder on the brightest window,
At first frost
Opens the door
Without a guest to feast.
Rose
Today I drift through an apple orchard,
Calloused and scabbed,
Branches bent in silver and gold
While the sun sets on the prairie,
Rousing the dead.
Some nights
It rouses me too.
Sweet low hanging fruit,
Break your skin for me.
Each meagre flower is thin,
Sparse of leaf,
More precious
Than a single Rose,
Lifted in the crisp wind,
Pale as moon-shell.
The deep blue Violets
Flutter on the hill.
Violet,
Your grasp is frail,
But you catch the light;
A star edged with frost and fire.
One hundred years of you
Is just enough, yet not enough to see
Full beauty beyond its frame,
And name this life yours to love.
Today I drift through an apple orchard,
Calloused and scabbed,
Branches bent in silver and gold
While the sun sets on the prairie,
Rousing the dead.
Some nights
It rouses me too.
Sweet low hanging fruit,
Break your skin for me.
Each meagre flower is thin,
Sparse of leaf,
More precious
Than a single Rose,
Lifted in the crisp wind,
Pale as moon-shell.
The deep blue Violets
Flutter on the hill.
Violet,
Your grasp is frail,
But you catch the light;
A star edged with frost and fire.
One hundred years of you
Is just enough, yet not enough to see
Full beauty beyond its frame,
And name this life yours to love.
Things of Grace
Blue night is
An absent shade now,
A broken memory of sky,
Shadows moss-damp and
Pearled with honey.
There are corpses floating in the trees;
Things of grace,
Swimming over us in flight,
Fluent beings on bone-white wing.
They call to me
When the sky goes dark,
When the clouds are a wish
But no rain pours,
When the moon rolls past and
My eyes catch fire.
They curl over pools
To drink,
Pale-eyed, beautiful,
Something half-remembered.
Blue night is
An absent shade now,
A broken memory of sky,
Shadows moss-damp and
Pearled with honey.
There are corpses floating in the trees;
Things of grace,
Swimming over us in flight,
Fluent beings on bone-white wing.
They call to me
When the sky goes dark,
When the clouds are a wish
But no rain pours,
When the moon rolls past and
My eyes catch fire.
They curl over pools
To drink,
Pale-eyed, beautiful,
Something half-remembered.
Birds At The Bay
In folds of white heat
Birds dive, colourless, soft-boned
Wither to water
Like Spring’s first buds
Skipping and falling,
Little souls lost.
In moonshine
The tide’s slow pull
Entices
Their star-shaped mouths,
Beloved waters: kissed.
In folds of white heat
Birds dive, colourless, soft-boned
Wither to water
Like Spring’s first buds
Skipping and falling,
Little souls lost.
In moonshine
The tide’s slow pull
Entices
Their star-shaped mouths,
Beloved waters: kissed.
Remember Her
When she turns blue
Remember her as sky.
Grey, she is the sea
Leaden, gone,
Still half-asleep,
Dragging death by a string.
It already sounds distant as
The sharp gasp of ghost,
Punishing us, shy thing,
By turning into a light leaf
Or leaping from
The edge again
O so sweetly,
Blood effervescing and receding,
The promise of forever
At the end of every line.
My hands write, poised like a pianist,
And I wait.
When she turns blue
Remember her as sky.
Grey, she is the sea
Leaden, gone,
Still half-asleep,
Dragging death by a string.
It already sounds distant as
The sharp gasp of ghost,
Punishing us, shy thing,
By turning into a light leaf
Or leaping from
The edge again
O so sweetly,
Blood effervescing and receding,
The promise of forever
At the end of every line.
My hands write, poised like a pianist,
And I wait.
Midwinter
Trees appear as brides,
Their snow dance wounding
The cosmos.
I am numb to you.
No one sees the snowdrops budding,
A bright field of knives.
If I turn away, they grow
In lines of white flame and,
As darkness falls,
A kingdom of black blossoms
Deep as a moaning mouth.
Trees appear as brides,
Their snow dance wounding
The cosmos.
I am numb to you.
No one sees the snowdrops budding,
A bright field of knives.
If I turn away, they grow
In lines of white flame and,
As darkness falls,
A kingdom of black blossoms
Deep as a moaning mouth.
The Moon’s Call
Hush now,
The sound of the moon
Budding on the float of her own white voice,
Her call, like
Spider silk strung from the darkest
Branches, swaying woozily.
Moon turns her ripe eye
To the ground, making
Music that melts,
The whole wood
Lit with alarm,
Dawn like a black knife.
Hush now,
The sound of the moon
Budding on the float of her own white voice,
Her call, like
Spider silk strung from the darkest
Branches, swaying woozily.
Moon turns her ripe eye
To the ground, making
Music that melts,
The whole wood
Lit with alarm,
Dawn like a black knife.
Natalie Crick, from the UK, has found delight in writing all of her life and first began writing when she was a very young girl. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in a range of journals and magazines including Rust and Moth, The Chiron Review, Ink in Thirds, Interpreters House and The Penwood Review. Her work also features or is forthcoming in a number of anthologies, including Lehigh Valley Vanguard Collections 13. This year her poem, 'Sunday School' was nominated for the Pushcart Prize.