The Portal to Fairy Tale Poetry

As a bit of a late birthday bash I decided to do a little Fairy Tale Poetry Portal this week - So here are a few links to Fairy Tale poems (alphabetical), and the portal poem is below

A Cloak for a Fairy by Anonymous
"Spider, Spider what are you spinning?"  An old favourite that might not precisely be a fairy tale, but still...

A Pict Song by Rudyard Kipling

To be fair, this may not be so much a "fair folk, or "little folk" poem, so much as one celebrating the power of the powerless

A Sonnet to the Muse by A.J. Ponder Are demons fae? Are the muses fae? Probably. This sonnet to the Muse is a little darker than some of the others. And all sonnet-y. Click on it if you dare. 

Elegy for Jabber, by A.J. Ponder
Lewis Carol got it wrong... a science fiction take on the original fantasy.
 
The Fair Folk/The Fairies, by William Allingham
Up the airy mountain, down the rushy glen... need I say more?

 Fairy Land, by William Shakespeare; If You See a Fairies Ring (Anon); and I'd Love to be a Fairy's Child by Robert Graves.

Fairy Tale, by Katherine Mansfeild

I'm not entirely sure how to describe this poem, but it's worth a visit.  Even though I'm not sure I've managed to wrap my brain around what exactly she was thinking when she wrote it.  

Fairy Song by John Keats
Shed no tear! oh, shed no tear!
The flower will bloom another year....

Fey by Helen Lowe 
This careful poem starts with an open door...

Frozen by A.J. Ponder
A poem referencing Hans Christian Andersen's Snow Queen and C.S. Lewis' White Witch as much, if not more than the Disney adaptation, Frozen.

Happily Never After parts one, two and three - 
Where the narrator and the characters of a play have very different ideas.

The First Chorus: by Catherine Bateson

Inspired by the little mermaid

In the Wood of Finvara, by Arthur Symons
"I have grown tired of sorrow and human tears..." 

Jabberwocke, by Charles Dodgeson (Lewis Carol)
Absolute favourite.  What can I say.  Utterly charming and brutal. 

 

Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf, by Roald Dahl:

A famously twisted Little Red Riding Hood tale.

Not my Best Side: by U. A Fanthorpe
The Dragon the Princess, and the Warrior Saint all have a turn to talk in this witty poem. 

 Rapunzel’s lesson: by PS Cottier
 Rapunzel's story turned sideways

Robin Hood and Alan a Dale: Anon
True loves course ever runs, well let's just say this is a very sweet traditional ballad

The Sleeping Beauty by Sir Alfred Tennyson, telegraphic really.  
A sweet image of Aurora sleeping.

Snow White, by A J Ponder
Snow White always seemed too sweet to be real, (although I admit I preferred Snow White and Rose Red, at least she wasn't just waiting around for some male to rescue her - she was too busy rescuing the male - and that's how I remember it even if it's not exactly true - so please no contradictions). So anyway this is the whole beauty and the beast side to the idea that white and pretty and sweet is good and we should not be seduced by such fantasy. Ask any diabetic.

The Stolen Child by William Butler Yeats
WHERE dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake...

Stolen Time, by Alicia Ponder
...And twenty years, they rushed by
The night I passed that way...

Truths and Fairy Tales, by A J Ponder
Or should that be lies and fairy tales?

 

Tuesday: A Poem:
While some might argue it is not exactly a fairytale, it is a legend to celebrate Tyr, the Norse God of Tuesday, and left handed god of the sky. My lines were: "but the righteousness of battle; a sinister champion of single-armed combat, under the sky." - because of course, I couldn't resist the double meaning of the word "sinister" and was hoping like mad nobody else would put it in first.

This Way to Grandma's, by A J Ponder The wolf is taking you up the garden path, run along now.

The Portal

I hold the world in my hands

A portal to forgotten lands

Where prince and princess

Kind and able

Welcome the pauper to their table

Where Knights are brave and true and free

And lies are guilded falsity

Come open your Window

Of links and code

To discover a long forgotten Ode

A palace great and glittering

A magic bird upon the wing

And dare to stride

the forest dim

To save all that was lost within

Go now, I say, while you are able

Enjoy the rhyme or hate the fable

See picts and pixels,

Take my hand,

And come explore this wondrous land.

A.J. Ponder 

To me fairy tale and fantasy are almost synonymous, although of course the traditional legends and fairy tales are of marked importance because they have survived, and they have survived for a reason. They say something about life that is important, so important that it is best couched in metaphor, or in an enhanced setting. There is a romance attached to these pieces, but more than that they speak to the soul in a way that facts and reality so rarely do.

Find my stories and support my writing on ko-fi 

And tell me which poems you'd like to see in my upcoming poetry book—2024?  

https://ko-fi.com/ajponder

Lament - otherwise known as Brains on Toast

Since I've been having rather a busy week - driving up to Auckland, meeting up with lots of writers and having fun here's a fun poem.  Next week I plan to compile links to fairy-tale poems.  I've got a couple in mind, but if anybody has any others that would be great.

The Zombie's Lament

Food

Food

Brains

Toast

The Teenagers Lament

Food mumble

Food mumble

Brains mumble

Toast.

A.J. Ponder 

Under the Surface

Deep,

deep 
in the ocean

a story squirmed on a hook.

I tried to reel it in

struggling to the surface,

but my calamari twisted

just out of reach -

not yet ready to loosen its hold to life.

I wanted to taste the sea,

smell the sweetness

of lemons on fried fish,

I wanted most things

a writer wants

when an idea plays with them,

dangling wantonly,

before diving into the depths of the ocean.

In aggravation

I tried to pin it down with words

and pull it in,

my monster.

Its slippery skin

refused the invitation,

wriggling in meters,

drumming its eight legs to the beat of the ocean.

Squid, octopus, monster of the deep

opened an enormous maw

and sucked me in

until there was nothing left

but

teeth

inky paper

and stories

lurking

deep

deep in the ocean.

 A.J. Ponder

It seems Lorraine is right - I often cannot seem to help but want my poems to tell a story.  And the sea is definitely a recurring theme.  Maybe it's because it's so close, breathing in and out like an old friend, but more likely it is the fear - the "Here be Dragons" marked on the borders of maps; the giant squid, the octopus my father caught that tugged him around several bays in the sounds; the sharks; the stingrays, so silent and dark, like barbed shadows in the water... or maybe it is simply an inability to see clearly through to the sands and stones below.  I'm leery of the "big-bath", have been since I was old enough to speak.  Now don't get me wrong, I do sometimes go swimming, rational fears and irrational fears not being the same thing.  But there is something enticing and frightening about the ocean, something almost alive, so that even if only the friendliest minnows lived inside, I think there would be the fear of not coming back. And still the catch fascinates us, we are happy to sit in boats all day with a line over the side, trying to catch the big one, the one that got away.  For writers it is much the same, the patience, the work, the hope, the one that got away, and the deep dark fears that we tease out from as deep a water as we can find.

Click here for more links to fairytale poetry, some mine, and some from other great authors. 

 

Find my stories and support my writing on ko-fi 

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

Tuesday Poem: Ouroboros

Endings
Endings
Beginnings swallowed whole
Endings
Endings

  A.J. Ponder 
 
A cheaty poem today.  Having quite a busy week, lots of Rona Gallery things - including a great event at Rona Gallery, where we gathered in honour of Kate De Goldi and she talked about her book, "The Ten PM Question" and read from her new work, which was awesome - and I rather blithely having offered to put on a play was rushing around finding anybody brave enough (or gullible enough) to take on a part. And now there's an exhibition with advertising to go out, catalogues to do... not to mention a chapter to write, a book to crit... how do I get myself into these messes?

Stolen Time

 In the forest late at night
As the moon was shining
I thought I saw a fair one

Out at midnight dining

A blanket and a basket

A wine of claret red

A bosom warm as dawn

On which to lay his head

I blinked and all t'was over

The night was sped away

And twenty years, they rushed by

The night I passed that way

The fair one he was restless

And jealous of the Day

And fair he held her close

And bid her come his way

She spoke her words so warm
And smiled like winter sun
And when she laughed it burned
Twenty years undone

Now in the forest late at night
When sister Moon is swollen
I beseech her there to free
The years that Day has stolen

But sweet Day, so young and fey  
I do protest in vain
Though my bones turn ashen grey
I love you just the same

A blanket and a basket
A wine of claret red
Your bosom's far too warm
For a mortal's bed

 A.J. Ponder 
 

I love the classic fairy tales of lost time, the deadly romance of it all (mostly the deadly bit) and so this is my homage to those tales and poems (they had such a wonderful way with rhyme and metre) of my misspent youth.  And talking about misspent youth - received "Tiny Trouble" in the mail - thanks to Pearson's Journal, "Comet" and it looks fab :)  Also posted off the paperwork for "Legendary" (co-written with Peter Friend), which will be printed in their "Explore" magazine soonish.

If you love poetry, try out the Tuesday Poem hub http://tuesdaypoem.blogspot.com/
or for more fairytale poetry click here to my Fairytale Poetry Hub

Cheers,
A.J.

Give me the boy and I will give you the Demon

America created a tyrant -

and bayed for his blood

You might think that is the beginning

and the end -

but the middle?

Nothing more than one foot

after the other

over a trail

of bone and blood the size of a country

and slippery as oil.

 A.J. Ponder 

Something vaguely topical - and the carpet is metaphorically pulled from under my feet.  Ironic huh?  No picture this week, though. for more Tuesday poems click on the Tuesday Poem hub :)

The Grand Design

My Minion

Almost In the style of A.A.Milne, "Market Square"

I had a dollar

a brand new dollar.

Mum gave me a dollar

for cleaning the hall.

I took my dollar, my fine bright dollar,

straight to the book-shop, and asked them all.

"Have you got a minion, a slave, or a servant,

'cause I really am tired of cleaning the hall."

But they didn't have minions,

at least not real ones,

and story book minions

are no use at all.

So I took my dollar down to the bakers,

and showed them my dollar, and asked them all,

"Can you make me a minion, 'cause I really need a minion.

I need a minion to do my chores and all."

But the baker couldn't make minions,

at least not real ones,

and ginger-bread minions

are no use at all.

So I went to the shop where everything's a dollar

and said, "I need someone at my beck and call,"

but they wouldn't sell a minion, no matter how small,

they didn't have a minion -- not for any price at all.

I trudged home with my dollar,

and I slammed the door,

and I stomped to the kitchen

when I heard my mother call --

"Would you like a sandwich?  A rainbow-sprinkle sandwich?

I've cut the crusts the way you like them most of all."

That's when I knew I had a minion, my very own minion,

I'd always had a minion, after all. 

 A.J. Ponder 
This was a for a certain friend, who remains anonymous who was complaining there was not enough rhyming poetry.  You know who you are :D