Travelling

It's a dangerous business
travelling
the empty path
of dreams

sunlit as it is
you'll never see the
danger
until you're bundled

into mouldering blankets
and dragged
into
shadow

there's no telling
where you'll be swept off to-
mountaintop or
Khazad-dûm

you could fly
or fall

and never stop


 A.J. Ponder

On a more upbeat note, our family went to the opening of the Rivendell Archway in Kaitoke National Park over the weekend, it was great fun, and we are especially grateful to our "fairy godmother" Kristi Klein who made our gorgeous elf costumes from dresses she found at the SPCA op shop.


For more photographs of the event go here to my Wizard's Guide to Wellington site. https://wizardsguide.wordpress.com/2015/03/09/pass-through-elven-ruins-and-discover-a-world-of-magic

Poem inspired by the Lord of the Rings quote: “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door,” he used to say. “You step into the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no telling where you might be swept off to.” (Frodo Baggins about Bilbo, The Fellowship of the Ring,) Which I think was itself partly taken from "The Hobbit."


This is not the first Kaitoke, Lord of the Rings inspired poem. My original Kaitoke poem (published Quiet Places 2005) starts...

I run as lithe as any elven maid,
through forest steam and...

and is here at http://anafflictionofpoetry.blogspot.co.nz/2010/07/nz-poetry-day-kaitoke.html

Wishing you all a little magic, and look out for more fantastic poems at the Tuesday Poem Hub

Cul-de-Sac

I am walking

I was walking

I will be walking

past the road to nowhere

down the oft turned lane

where the green grass is speckled with daisies

Time to turn the fresh-faced flowers

into chains

 link to more Richard Ponder art

I am picking flowers                                                         

I was picking flowers

I will be picking flowers

in the lost paths

down in the meadow

where the horses are grazing

Keeping the grass

            short enough 
for ghosts


 A.J. Ponder


Alright - that's not exactly the picture I wanted - or at least not the one I had in mind - but I think it works well enough.  Better possibly.  Let me sleep on it and make up my mind.  In the meantime I hope you enjoyed meandering through this temporary field speckled more with pixels than with daisies, so I would caution you not to try picking them out - or in fact using them for chains, not even to make crowns or bracelets, after all some flowers were always meant to be wild.

To connect to more Fairy Tale poetry I've installed a rabbit hole within this field, so if you find yourself, by chance, becoming curiouser and curiouser - please at least know I gave fair warning.   And enjoy :)

 A.J. Ponder's work is also available through Rona Gallery, Amazon, and good Wellington bookstores

A New Skirting

Green petticoats ruffle the shore

frothy laughter dancing to and fro

around a traffic cone perched jauntily

on a well-dressed rock

#

Across the bay a digger

tears old concrete apart

ready for the shiny metal corsets

to hide an old lady's unsightly shoreline.

Soon she'll be dressed in black,

the perfect evening wear

clinging to luscious curves

that will never breathe again.

A.J. Ponder

This is the dread poem I started working on two weeks ago.  And like any old lady, she's certainly had her whims and tantrums - not unlike the weather.   But she's a game old bird, and love her or loathe her, (or the new walkway around the bays to Eastbourne) the new version is a lot safer - at least for humans...

A.J. Ponder 

 A.J. Ponder's work is available through Rona Gallery, Amazon, and good Wellington bookstores

Fairy Tale Conventions

We are the child

Stepping out into a world of danger

We are the guardians of the child

Watching the path

And although the answer is no

It's always, 'no'-

The child goes -

We go

All the way to the end

Because

When the road is bleak

And full of wolves

Someone must hold our hands

A..J. Ponder 

In the world of Fairy tales danger lurks around every corner, which of course only makes the journey more more irresistible.  This poem is for every child with whom I have walked that path into brilliant darkness.

For more fairytale poetry click here to my Fairytale Poetry Hub

 

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And tell me which poems you'd like to see in my upcoming poetry book—2024? https://ko-fi.com/ajponder