The East Wind’s Breath - Tony Gardner

There's an icy tang to the East Wind's breath

It seems to carry the scent of Death

But I shrug it off for that's known to be

Just an old wives' tale from antiquity

So I trudge on through the cold, cold snow

Trying to keep my mind on which way to go

Just a month ago, such a lovely scene

But tonight all’s white instead of green.

And I hear a howl, from the snow-filled sky

Maybe just the wind, or a wild beast’s cry

But it may be neither, just in my mind

For my limbs are lead, my eyes half-blind

And I’ll have to stop, rest a little while

I’ve no more strength than a new born child

And sleep…..just a minute….or so……………..

Tony Gardner


Image : Pixabay - Printeboek

Le Jardin Des Tuileries - Oscar Wilde

This winter air is keen and cold,
And keen and cold this winter sun,
But round my chair the children run
Like little things of dancing gold.

Sometimes about the painted kiosk
The mimic soldiers strut and stride,
Sometimes the blue-eyed brigands hide
In the bleak tangles of the bosk.

And sometimes, while the old nurse cons
Her book, they steal across the square,
And launch their paper navies where
Huge Triton writhes in greenish bronze.

And now in mimic flight they flee,
And now they rush, a boisterous band -
And, tiny hand on tiny hand,
Climb up the black and leafless tree.

Ah! cruel tree! if I were you,
And children climbed me, for their sake
Though it be winter I would break
Into spring blossoms white and blue!

Oscar Wilde
Image : Pixabay - Pezibear

Snow Horses - Tony Gardner

In the frozen North where the Ice Wind blows
And the Devils dance in the thick, thick snow,
Where the nights are long, and the daylight brief
And Jack Frost paints every Aspen leaf.
The horses pass with never the sound
Of their hooves ringing out on the deadened ground.
While the white Owl glides almost unseen
Around the haunt of the cruel Ice Queen.
While the Devils dance where the ghost trees stand
In this beautiful, deadly, pure-white Land.

Tony Gardner

Image : Pinterest

December - Tony Gardner

There was frost this morning on roofs so dull and white

A chill outside was trying to come in here and bite

Then the sun made an appearance and it faded out the rime

But couldn't raise the temperature, it's well past summertime

The day was dry but sunny though the temps just wouldn't rise

And the wind's been cool but easy yet it chills you cold inside.

But tonight the wind is howling and the hail is shooting down

It seems that Winter's serious in spreading misery 'round

But it can't kill childish belief learned sixty years ago

Tonight Santa and the reindeer are flying through the snow.

Tony Gardner

Image : Pixabay - Prawny

Garden Diary - Richard Fleming

Old Sion Chapel wall is high:
the ladder feels precarious.
Up here, I combat vertigo,
fix nesting boxes to hard stone
with fingers, winter-wounded-cold,
claw hammer, last year’s rusty nails.
Below, the bird-table is strung
with nuts in cages, fatballs, seeds.
The Parish beech trees all seem dead,
my garden tools are stained with rust.
Wood-smoke, soft dew, birdsong, light,
this mellow January day,
awake my hibernating heart
as, high above, jet trails on blue
chalk out simple geometry.
The hours hang in the chill air.
Damp earth within the Chapel yard
smells like dank cemetery soil
that sucks away without return.

Today I knelt to plant small bulbs,
each squat shape pressed into the loam
like buttons on a telephone:
their planting, one long number dialled.
Down wires of weeks, green life will hum,
till springtime, when these mended hands
may pluck, from softly yielding ground,
bright blooms like syllables of sound.

Richard Fleming

This poem first appeared in The Man Who Landed, as part of A GUERNSEY DOUBLE, a joint collection with poet, Peter Kenny.

For further details and availability of this book please go to http://redhandwriter.blogspot.com

Ashdown - Tony Gardner

The sleet was ghostlike, laughing
with no purposeful intent
It came and covered nothing,
said 'Hi' and then it went
The scene unchanged remained the same,
damp and green and good
Half-hearted snow, that came tiptoe
all over Ashdown wood

A hiccup hardly noticed
in the thousand years or so
Of hunting grounds and industry
and sunny hours that flow
Today I stand and and watch the flakes
ephemeral and false
That dance in stately gaiety
to Time's unending waltz

Tony Gardner

Pink Sky - Kathy Figueroa

Pink sky
Pure snow
Fluffy white crystals
Blanket the ground
Silence reigns
All around
During this time
Of rebirth
...If only this peace
Could cover the Earth...

Kathy Figueroa

"Pink Sky" was published on February 3, 2011, in The Bancroft Times newspaper.

In The Bleak Mid-Winter - Christina Rossetti

In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him
Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When He comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-winter
A stable-place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty,
Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him, whom cherubim
Worship night and day,
A breastful of milk,
And a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, whom angels
Fall down before,
The ox and ass and camel
Which adore.

Angels and archangels
May have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim
Thronged the air -
But only His mother
In her maiden bliss
Worshipped the Beloved
With a kiss.

What can I give Him,
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
I would bring a lamb;
If I were a wise man
I would do my part;
Yet what I can, I give Him -
Give my heart.

Christina Rossetti


"In the Bleak Midwinter" is a Christmas carol based on a poem by the English poet Christina Rossetti written before 1872 in response to a request from the magazine Scribner's Monthly for a Christmas poem. It was published posthumously in Rossetti's Poetic Works in 1904. Source: Wikipedia

Winter Sun - Stephen A. Roberts

Don't be afraid of the silence
Don't be afraid of the dark
The winter sun is behind us
But the devil has left his mark

There is a devil inside every one of us
And we must leave our mark
Don't be afraid of the silence
Don't be afraid of the dark

Stephen A. Roberts