Nicholas Rowe Poetry: – Selected Poems

Dear readers,

I have added a new ‘Selected Poems’ area to the site menu.

While the main menus (under 2018 and 2019) continue to contain all poems and are chronological, the idea of this new menu is to provide a curated selection in a customised order.

If I one day publish a book, I imagine it would include a similar exercise of selecting and ordering those to include, and I might be tempted to end with an ‘off-cuts’ section, including many of the rest.

I might (probably quite fairly) be accused of not being sufficiently selective in the ‘Selected Poems’ menu area, or missing out ones you think I should have included. Do let me know in comments if you have any thoughts on whether this new menu works for you, or on what you would leave out or add in.

Thank you,

Nick 😊

Spring Promise (a ‘Big Triku’ poem)

Sparkling white sunlight

on wavelets in the cove, cooled

by early spring sea.

~

Air warms in sunlit patches

sheltered from the salty breeze, coloured

by the first flowers of spring.

~

The colourful warm,

intoxicating flood of

summer on the way.

The Soul of the Sea

I remember, at the age of four,

a violent storm that blew outside

like nothing else upon this earth –

when I was taken near high tide

to feel that force of Nature’s birth.

Within the shelter of the land

the trees would sway and whip and sigh,

below the dark and dreary sky.

Before the beach a bank stood high,

with us behind, within its lee;

we climbed to face the deafening roar

and fought to stand upon the shore,

and saw the savage sea.

~

Far offshore great mountains boomed,

crashing in heaping boiling whites,

spray streaks pulling through the air –

bright in the green and purple light.

The salty blast blew through my hair,

blew through my clothes like paper, soaking

my face, my eyes, and stinging my nose.

I shuddered, cold from scalp to toes,

in awe as Nature’s violence rose.

~

And here I am in silent air,

nothing moving in this room,

trapped in a timeless, heavy gloom.

~

But I remember being there,

and once again I long to be

a shaking figure fixed before

a mighty storm upon the sea

with huge waves crashing on the shore.

~

And I will see that storm arrive,

my feelings swelling with its rise,

a fire burning in my eyes,

insignificant beneath tremendous skies,

the Atlantic blast beating through me,

a smile behind my wild eyed stare,

knowing that I should be there –

a part of Nature, with Nature in me,

alive in that moment, with the soul of the sea.

The Path (A Big Triku Poem)

Prickly gorses brown

and grey – flowering yellow

by the blue green sea.

~

And in between an earthy

path that dips and weaves with stones and shells,

heading through my memory.

~

Close, far, elusive

as a star, sublime. Other

place and place in time.

The House by the Sea

Winter leaves a land

of still anticipation,

bathed in orange light.

~

Biscuits, coffee, nestled in

his ship – a cutter perched on rusty

barrels, small before the sun.

~

A nearby nest of lanes – the garden

done, she heads to yellow flames, as coldness comes,

and cuts, and the colours merge to grey.

~

And as they sink within the

night, I think of them, the single house,

the trees and whispering sea.

~

When I return, the

smiles will be warm, and I will

find a part of me.

Big Triku ‘Winter’s End’

I had time to think,

standing by the sea. My main

challenge is clear – me.

~

Suddenly, I feel full of

hope. I know what to do, to become

the person I aspire to.

~

But first I shall stay,

to be one with this world of

passing winter grey.