A poem I wrote this time last year and never got round to posting...

Last night, I burnt a thousand peacock feathers,
cast-offs from the feather factory,
ten tidy bundles of a hundred each.
Brown string noosed them in a sheaf
of glorious indigo, green and gold
tapering into pearly quills.

What bounty for a budding writer -
material for a thousand pens.
But oh! what disappointment to discover
the moth within, shredding all
to scattered coloured slivers.

Bonfire Night the perfect time
to consign them to the flames.
See how the vanes just crisp and curl,
the iridescence fades to black,
all beauty lost in smoke.

bonfire