White signposts pockmarked brown.
Grass sprung from tyre-trodden tracks.
Impotent cartography on shifting green and umber –
Urban creep, crawling back.
From corset-clad, rocks,
Overhanging
gossamer roads,
To drystone walls riven
With lichen and slate-shifting press of green.
The village-hemmed-in.
The trees canopied,
Foliage fingered across
Quivering telephone wires and fading contrails.
Concrete hauteur and mono-blocked pomp –
Temporal veneers over
Heave of hill, over
Relentless nudge of slender white root.
What hold county border
And matchstick boundary fence
On ragged geese skeins
Or paw-padded range of wolf?
Fragile castings
Atop grinding earth, beneath broiling sky.
*Thanks for reading, folks. Image courtesy of Wikipedia. Recent stories of mine include ‘The Wind off the Clyde‘ and ‘Alder, Beech, Hawthorn, and Hazel‘.
Matthew Richardson is a writer of short stories. His work has featured in Gold Dust magazine, Literally Stories, Close to the Bone, McStorytellers, Penny Shorts, Soft Cartel, Whatever Keeps the Lights On, Flashback Fiction, Cafelit, Best MicroFiction 2021, Writer’s Egg, and Shooter magazine. He is a doctoral student at the University of Dundee, a lucky husband, and a proud father. He blogs at www.matthewjrichardson.com and tweets at https://twitter.com/mjrichardso0
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Love this!! 💛💛
Thanks so much – very kind of you!
This is a beautifully written poem, Matthew – a departure from your usual haiku form, but taking all the artistry from it. I really enjoyed reading and picturing the scene.
Thanks Chris. It was for an Ayr Writers’ Club exercise. As you say, it wasn’t my comfort zone but I enjoyed it!
You should write more of these!
Great write, filled with stunning imagery..
Thanks Goff. Something a bit different to what I usually try!
Pleasure reading.
👏
Cheers Alex. Happy New Year!
…wherein the talented short story writer and haiku master transports his eager readers along a journey toward long-form poetry in which images become characters…
Fascinating!
Thanks Annie. This higher altitude poetry runs the risk of giving me a nosebleed!
terrific images here, Matthew: I particularly liked ”impotent cartography’ and ‘concrete hauteur’
Thanks John. Very much appreciated!