Within my gardens soul abounds,
A spirit stirring neath the ground,
Aroused by secret depths that found,
Concealed, inspired, a place profound.
And as the rustling leaves surround,
With stories from the breezes sound
The haunting wind shall sing and pound,
Upon the life beneath this mound.
And in this knoll of moistened dirt,
Where worms dig deep into the earth,
The tubers turn to sleep from hurt,
As winter storms its first alert.
And slumber waits for times delay,
To show how seasons laws obey,
Arousal’s that deny decay.
David Hollywood co-Directed The Bahrain Writer’s Circle and founded and ‘The Colours of Life’ poetry festival in Bahrain , The Gulf, and latterly worked in Antigua, The West Indies upon a variety of poetry in performance events. He is the author of an eclectic collection of poems titled ‘Waiting Spaces’ plus co-author of ‘My Beautiful Bahrain’, ‘Poetic Bahrain’, ‘More of My Beautiful Bahrain’, ‘Lonely’ and a variety of further publications. He was the in-house poet for ‘Bahrain Confidential Magazine’ and is one of the most widely read poets in The Middle East. He is a literary critic for ‘Taj Mahal Review’ plus an essayist on the subject of poetry appreciation. There are plans for a new collection of poetry and essays to be released in 2018. David has additional responsibility for the teaching of Wine Appreciation Programmes and Themes which he developed for the hospitality industry, and currently lives in his home country of Ireland.
Quite evocative, surreal, and nicely done. I was wondering what kind of illustration the editors would use, and I must say, am impressed by their choice as usual!
Lovely Nature themed Villonnet David.
Dear Sultana and David, Many thanks to you both for your appreciations. Best regards, David.
Beautiful. And a wonderful sense of meter!
Beautiful David! Great to see you have found a venue that accepts our structured styles! So evocative and appropriate to the season.
Dear Rohini and Cyrus, Many thanks to you both with best regards,David
Great stuff – very accomplished use of rhyme. One tiny caveat, though: isn’t ‘Arousal’s’ a plural, not a possessive, so should be ‘Arousals’? However, I still thoroughly enjoyed this poem and plural or possessive makes no difference to the sound of it in the mind.
Dear James, Many thanks for your very kind words and appreciations and please forgive my delay in sending this response, and which is a consequence of the carousel style world we live in. It’s wonderful to receive your observation and correction, which I accept as probably true in its view because while I had seen the subject matter as plural due to my thoughts being scattered across a variety of shared life forms plus reference to ‘a’ spirit, I clearly hadn’t made this evident. It escaped me that the imagery may have given the impression of a singular plant and its essence, rather than many, and which now makes me think I ought to be more careful in my presentation, and so therefore I thank you again. Also, it reveals the experience of seeing a poem from more than one perspective and which is something I have often tried to highlight with others, whereas now I have fallen into the trap of seeing it only from my position. Anyway, best of regards as always and I am uplifted that you gained some joy with my effort.
David, this is my favorite poem of yours that I have found so far. I was, however, a bit puzzled by the last stanza. Should it be:
time’s delay (an apostrophe because the possessive form is being used)
Arousals (no apostrophe because the plural form is being used)
Dear Kim, Many thanks for your very kind words, and yes indeed you are correct in your observations/recommendations. I need to go back to school for further instruction, and thank you again, best.