Dancing in the moonlight

 

Moths are the poor cousin of butterflies but they have their own beauty and a mysterious quality linked to their nocturnal natures. The challenge this week was to write an epic tale or poem about moths full of drama. Here's two quite different responses - a narrative poem and a poetic piece of prose! Thanks for reading.

CATCH ME IF YOU CAN

Batting wings briskly under a back porch light

Seemingly, a million moths appear out of nowhere each night

While some fly slow and others dart quicker

But watch your wings little moths near the door mat

For you're being eagerly eyeballed by a caramel coloured cat

He's stealth and quick, quicker than the spray of a sneeze

And he'll stalk and hunt you, with untold ease

He's mastered the art of catching many things, including you guys

As his senses heighten and he widens his eyes

Many moths dance teasingly around his head

But he's quick to swipe, leap, prance and swat them dead

With his claws out, sharp at the ready

He watches one intently, keeping his body stiff and steady

Then with one leap he bounds in the air

Sending the moths into a chaotic frenzy up there

He hops and bounces around the porch like a wild bunny

To witness all this commotion is actually rather funny

And just like that he's caught one, a magnificent prize

As it wriggles under his paw, he watches with deep black eyes

Then all of a sudden, the movement stops

He lifts his paw slowly and to his paw his nose drops

It's not moving.....is it deceased?

As he stands up from the floor and his inhaling is increased

Just like that, the game is over, it's no fun anymore

As he walks away, the moth lays still on the floor

Then out of nowhere, the moth flickers and flutters away

Smart little bugger, who gets to live another day!

By Jacinda Hurring

JUST NOT MY TYPE

The lights were everywhere. Dazzling, they glittered in the low-drifting mist, split into sintered glass fragments, dropped onto the lawn and glowed on blades of damp grass.

A wet macrocarpa leant slowly towards the dull full moon, which glared down, its light dispersed across the mist, stolen from its beaming face and scattered, to be lost on the haze. Flickering colours ran up and down the tree as carnival decorations switched on, and the soothing mist waited expectantly.

As the people walked in, quietly, hopeful, two moths awoke from their caterpillar-sleep and crawled from secret places burrowed in the macrocarpa, to sit watching, waking, stretching. Wings unfolded and lengthened and, as night drew darker their patterns and spots were revealed; to any who could see in the dark.

First flight was exhilarating, weaving around the tree, moving quickly from one light to another. They wove around each other, and away, and back.

“Ugh moths” roared a woman, as her swinging handbag sliced through the air, knocking one to the ground. Gathering wings in quickly it sat stunned on the planet as the Handbag moved on.

Reoriented, it lifted and fluttered quickly to a tree branch, blending its browns and greys. A rest, reinvigoration. More light now, the mist was blowing, slowly. The moth fluttered, again chasing the lights, checking for the right wavelengths. Above the moon shone through clearly, full-spectrum reflection. 

The two fluttered around each other eyeing the greys and browns, purples and yellows, iridescent in the moonlight, then split away, still searching.

- KJ

Bibliomancy

Bibliomancy is to use a book to make a prediction just by holding a question in your mind and opening the book at random and seeing what turns up. In our case we used a dictionary, opening it three times to find three words. We then used these as prompts for a poem or a short story. Writers were challenged to add an element of prediction to what they wrote. Here's a couple of pieces from what turned out to be a very enjoyable session!

THE STYLE OF THE HEART

Nestled within our hearts, lays the style of the mind; embedded within darkness of self beliefs that make us blind.

There is a light that shines, a diffract, cutting away the dark. Revealing ourselves from within, of who we were; to reveal to us who we can become.

The diffract embedded with the style of the soul and all the possibilities that lay before, in a glittering blaze of hope. 

Shattering the darkness of past days revealing in the hour of our need, what we ourselves require to see.

To reach beyond all that we held in belief that made us blind. Opening our eyes to the truth we hold and always did, setting us free.

- S. B. P. Davis

THREE WORDS ... SINCE 1975

Flood Slip

Inexperience was Master

the dull, distant rumble beneath

             the constant dropping of rain

Vibration, house-shaking, earth-sliding

            evoking queasy-danger

not quaking, not rolling, unlifted-unlowered

unlike a rolling earthquake through banked grass

Acres of retrospection don’t do justice to memory

A story told and retold doesn’t live the fear, the doubt

the anxiety driving thought to weird action

Events infrequent, rarefy and scatter emotions tied to aloneness

Again with the rain, the flood, the slip

not rare now are fear, doubt, experience

Again?

- Kate Jenkins

Next level acronyms

 Acrostic poems are indeed like long acronyms with each letter standing for a word or sentence. They're a great starting point for poetry where the poem often encapsulates the meaning of the word. Here's a few poems from a recent creative writing session. In case you wondered, the title is the combined first letter of each line!

Circulating feelings, emotions, thoughts

Racing

Enthusiastically

About

The

Innermost deep

Voids of my soul

Igniting

Terrific 

Yearnings to escape and be free

- Rachel

Fire

Raging

Under

Solitary

Truths

Rendering

Attractions of hope, passion, and dreams

Tearfully 

Incapacitated

On the cold, empty road that will only take you down the path of

Never

- Rachel

Climb

Outside

Meet

Me

Under

Neath

The

Yellow 

- Anon

Music plays bedside

It flows in like soft scent as

Natural as a breath, a

Deep well of density

Filling my bones

Uplifting my spirit

Leaving me lightly, wafting

Nowhere but here

Eyes closed, but

Still

Searching

- Anon

Radio NZ ran a cool little comp for National Poetry Day recently. They give you six random words and you have to write a poem no longer than six lines using all the words. Easy except some of the words don't quite fit together, but it's a great challenge. We ended up doing the words from the last three years of competitions and the good news is - it get's easier as you practice! We were too late to submit these but we had fun! 

2021 Word List - Cloud, Sound, Orange, Clear, Shark, Break

Cloud break shows orange

Rays of sunshine

I can hear the sound of a shark 

Thrashing through the clear waters below

The shark breaks water

And reaches up to the sunlight.

- Gail Palmer

WHAT WAS THAT?
Skittering sounds, like orange pips skating on shark skin,
break clearly onto a cloud-free beach

- Kate Jenkins

2020 Word List - High, Still, Stick, Train, Can, If

If the train can stick to its schedule

We can be there by high noon.

If the train is slow we will still

Get there some time.

If the train stops altogether

We will be left high and dry.

- Gail Palmer

HABIT
We stick to the same train
but I care not for the high price
If I can I will be still, and stay

- Kate Jenkins

2022 Word List - Melody, String, Wave, Rumble, Tennis, Decision

RANDOM
His sentences bounce like a wanton tennis ball
rumble through, as if on a bass string plucked
            or a long slow wave crawling ashore
They trip on a rock of floundering indecision
Less a melody then an orchestral diffusion

- Kate Jenkins

The rumble of the crowd
The ball hitting the string
A game of tennis
With a wave going around
A final decision has been made
A melody of cheers going at the same time

- Julia Godfrey

Through the Mist

This week we were invited by the Kohukohu Library in the far North of the North Island to enter their poetry competition. What a surprise! So we did. Here are some of the poems created in response to their theme of 'mist' which is something special anywhere - the atmosphere, the mystery, the sense of isolation, perhaps even a spiritual experience? Mist is many things to many people. Enjoy these four poems from our creative writers!

 

FRIEND OR FOE 

Mist
Is it a friend?
Is it a Foe?

To me
Mist is a friend
Because it's very helpful

At night time, if you're up late
Mist will be there to save the day
Why?

Since night time is dark
Especially at midnight
It's the best time for mist to appear

Mist appears in different colours
But is very light
Also big

So if your travelling
Late at night
The mist can guide you home

That is why
I think mist is a friend
Because it always can appear 

In your time of need


- Julia Godfrey

m i s t

Descending stealthily

On valley ridge


Spreading damp white fingers into

Crags and crevasses of

Eroded landscape


Softening pointed caps of

Planted pine


Spreading quietly with

Loud effect


m i s t . . .

- Pauline

MIST

shapes forms

emerge dissolve

ethereal


creatures trees

ridge lines

shapes


mist substance

liquid light

reflected


sunshine moonlight

cold water

upright



- Kate Jenkins

v1a

Kapuka Taumahaka ki Otepoti

- Mt Cargill, Dunedin -

the cloud forest on the hill

soaks up moisture

sets itself for scratch growth

between volcanic boulders

unseen in the blanket of droplets

frequenting the upper slopes

sun fractures and reflections

shine grey or white

chilling rare micro-plants

moulded by this solitary climate

leaflet, moss and lichen

incredible wee shapes peek from

this mist pendent beneath the summit

wilting damp onto farms below

a halo light bright

emerging fading dissolving

- Kate Jenkins

Matariki Poems

 

We've spent a couple of weeks writing about Matariki and what it means for us. We've thought about dawn ceremonies and getting up early, and times when we've being up late under the stars. We've given the word Matariki an acrostic treatment (that is we used each letter as the start of a poem) and we've explored the whakatauki or proverb 'He waka eke noa' to think about our shared purpose. This loosely translates as 'We're all in this together'. Some of this poetry features in a Matariki display in the Artsenta windows along with waka sculptures, poems and paintings. Awesome work!

Meaning full
Attribute
Twinkling gathering of stars
Attending the dawn
Reviewing of year past
Interest in what beckons from the new
Kissing goodbye to creatures passed over
Inward-journey-eyes gaze upward . . .

- Pauline

Mystical
Annual
Tradition,
Atmosphere
Reaching
Inwards,
Knowledge
Increasing

Mum and Dads’ birthdays have recently passed
At the time I missed
Their many little doings
A garden overhaul
Recent newspaper cuttings
Interruptions by phone
Kisses and hugs
In touch

- Kate Jenkins

STAR GAZING AT DAWN (MATARIKI 2022)

One time I rose early
Sleep would not come, Vexation driving it out
A quiet relaxing drive, no traffic on the road, to
A dark mountain blocking out the night
The challenge: to walk, reach the height, watch for dawn
It was a cloudy night

Two times I sat outside the tent
reveling in starlight, cursing my limitation,
What star is that?
Then Alpha Centauri, then Crux, and
the long line to Achernar, telling me South
I know my way

New times; I will rise early
Search the Eastern horizon for the promising stars
Rigel and the Seven Sisters – Puanga and Matariki
        for those who mourn
        the Hope Bringer
        the Gardener
        the Singer of Forest Songs
        the Watcher over Water
        the Team Builders
        the Enthusiast
Then will I draw back to Earth, to Papatūānuku
Begin again, anew

 

- Kate Jenkins

FOR SYDNEY - JULY 2022, 1

Having this water to deal with
each person must / should / could play a part
When Earth moves, or rain doesn’t stop falling
all of us together (he waka eke noa) can practise
kindness, comfort, giving, sharing – as our
attachments to Things wash away in this flood
Endless losses scour our hearts
kindle doubt, fear, horror, amazement and
excruciating shock
Now is the time to clasp tightly
onto the living – friends, pets, neighbours, loved ones, God
allowing Presence to bring a smaller sense of Life

FOR SYDNEY - JULY 2022, 2

Here we are
Everything shaken up
Wondering, why?
Affected, emotional
Knocked out of life
Are we safe?
Each person changed
Known spaces destroyed
Everyone challenged
Nothing will be the same
Ordinary now extraordinary
All we can do is watch

- Kate Jenkins

Today we feature one of our regular writers who has diligently written up the poems she has developed at the Artsenta Writer's Group over the last few months. This writing traverses a range of topics from shadows, exhibitions, and Autumn to the recent Queen's Birthday. All writing is by Kate Jenkins - thanks for sharing with us Kate!

 

* S P A C E *

Standing under the solid stars, brightly twinkling in a black sky.  Who makes their shadows?

On a blacked-out night when sun is down and moon has ebbed, if I stand in the light of only stars will my shadow be beneath my feet or scattered broken all around?

The sounds of Earth impinge and echo, as cars pass and person-walking dogs patter by, but those diffuse light beams, millennia old, are absorbed into the neons and LEDs of 21st Century days, and extinguish.

My soul always reaches up when my head is raised to see those stars.  Broken shards of pain and doubt scatter with my broken shadows, each a cloaking contribution to night.  That black cloak falls off and light-ness lifts my breath, steaming out into the airlessness of space.

EXHIBITION
 
An exhibit hangs, carefully mounted
Aligned to floor, ceiling and wall
A prospect, an incoming breath
Exposed          to view
                        to critique
                        or amusement
                        to confusion
Open to comprehension and incomprehension alike
 
An artist stands, not too close
Ready to speak, to explain, to elucidate
Fearful             of being seen
                        of incomprehensible criticism
                        of mockery
                        or misunderstanding
Hoping for delight, or awe, or just a simple ‘that’s good’

A GLIMPSE OF GREEN

Downed leaves, the rotten, composting, mould-ridden end of last Summer are trampled in the door on my shoes.  Brown, yellow and black they drift absent-mindedly on the wind, not staying at home but congregating in the corners and around the objects of everyday life, like teenagers out on the town for a Friday night.

My garden’s trees are nearly bare now, just a few lifeless stragglers swaying drunkenly on branches, then catching a passing zephyr they drop and mingle, onto my carefully ignored bulb patch.  Its occupants mutter together words of encouragement, sharing visions of Spring life, beauty and replication.  They are the shopkeepers, the place holders.  They will not drift away.  They cannot wait beneath this blanketing protection but drive upwards towards the Winter’ chill to exhibit, eye-catching, a glimpse of green.

DUNEDIN, QUEEN'S BIRTHDAY 
 
Four layers – still not warm
Four layers – now heated up, as
cold morning swings into a hot afternoon
 
Three layers, two,
Our blasting winter sun is
not enjoyed by our Northern friends
Each island, province, city
watching for the signs of warmth
            clearing of grey skies
            the end of the rain, fog,
            and those dull dull clouds
           
But here we take our Holiday
            - Thanks Ma’am -
And wear our cloudless sky
like a blissful flower-trimmed hat
as we race around, enjoying
            Indian Summer, La Nina
            Global Warming
            Dunedin in Winter