Eleanor Wallace

Official Poetry Portfolio

The warmest of welcomes to you and I really hope that you enjoy exploring my poetry website. Here you will find my developing portfolio.
I have been reading and writing poetry since I was a small child. Whilst I have always loved various aspects of visual art (although I was never very good at it), the process of sculpting beautiful images in the mind with words has always been a great source of pleasure, comfort and satisfaction for me. With poetry you can bring electricity to the mundane, showcase the beauty in the smallest of everyday things and explore the deepest emotions with colour and metaphor. There is no limit to poetry other than the boundaries of your own imagination.
My personal favourite is Dylan Thomas; he’s the bee’s knees. So grab a cuppa and several biscuits and have a nose around the site. Any feedback and suggestions for upcoming poems would be greatly appreciated.

Home: Welcome

My Poetry

My ongoing portfolio

I’ve put together a selection of my most recent and memorable work. I’m proud of each and every piece in my Poetry Portfolio, and hope you will enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them. For any inquiries, please get in touch.

Home: Work

Ode to the Lark Ascending

Winged singer, oh how I
would love to dance through cloudless skies
on a sweet August noon.
Uncorrupted.
With a song in my soul
that touches my tongue
and fills my voice.
Singing with quivering strings.

A placid arpeggio
echoes the Heavens;
a cry from some transcendent being.
Soothing the minds
and seizing the hearts
of all who hear
in a unified state of tranquility.

Bow dancing through the sunlight.
A tiny body sways
to the rhythm of the call.
The rhythm of pure serenity
untouched by man’s industry,
as you soar to higher levels
of existence.

©️Eleanor Wallace 2022

Ingredients

Mud and feathers mingled, merged,
trampled by scaled feet and a flourish of beaks.
The whinging coos and whining clucks;
they moan of the wind, the sideways smirr
and the thick mix of mud and dung
that squidges through gaps in yellow toes
like liquid stock for the cooking pot.

A sky blue coop,
rain-battered, earth-splattered
in a fortress of green beans and sweet peas.
There grow clumps of sage and thyme,
French parsley, whose tender stems
weave together, turned away
from the wind that rolls off chalk-flecked hills.
Leave shake like the shivery morsels they are
in cold dread of the burning cooking pot.

©️ Eleanor Wallace 2022

The Embrace

Wrapped up tight in scarf and coat
I set out late on Christmas Eve.
From the smould’ring embers of my hearth
to the biting cold I take my leave.
Boots crunching softly underfoot,
frost breath dancing in the glow
of the winter moon that drapes its rays
upon the path I set to go.

I stroll along the whisp’ring stream
flowing liquid silver on this night.
Past bare branches, their fingers reach
Heavenwards to touch starlight.
Past dusted hedgerows, frosted fields
and trees alight with painted eyes
of tawny owls, a’roosted tight
who rouse the spirits with their cries.

The haze of festive lights aglow,
from the nearing village church bells ring.
As I draw closer, my heart afire
I hear a chorus of people sing;
‘Tomorrow shall be my dancing day,
I would my true love did so chance
to see the legend of my play,
to call my true love to my dance.’

I pass singers, sinners, dancers, drunks
fresh from the inns and midnight mass.
I stop inside a darkened porch
and knock three times upon the brass.
The door swings open and Angel answers,
the dappled firelight on his face.
He whispers ‘Merry Christmas Love’
and draws me up in his embrace.

©️ Eleanor Wallace 2022

The Crappiest Month

Ain’t no sunshine in this miserable month
’cos the clouds are cryin’ rivers of rain.
Under the dead grey sky my washing won’t dry
and the frost has killed my begonias again.

Boy, I got them January Blues,
I’m feelin’ those wintery woes.
My next pay day seems so far away
and I’ve finally lost sight of my toes.

Got sent a member’s card for that gym
I joined up drunk on New Year’s day.
Deep down I know that I’ll never go,
but it’s the thought that counts, I always say.

Boy, I got them January Blues,
I’m feelin’ those wintery woes.
My next payday seems so far away
and I’ve finally lost sight of my toes.

A sad scrap of tinsel swept under the sofa
of a joy-devoid lounge feelin’ bare.
The Christmas tree died; cast on the curb side
and there’s still tape on the walls everywhere.

Boy, I got them January Blues,
I’m feelin’ those wintery woes.
My next payday seems so far away
and I’ve finally lost sight of my toes.

Roll on February! Roll on Spring!
Let the daffodils dance to and fro.
Let the blackbirds sing and the bluebells ring,
let my bank balance flourish and grow!

Boy, I got them January Blues,
but I don’t need to feel wintery woes.
‘Cos the next Spring day is a stone’s throw away,
bringin’ beauty wherever it goes.

©️Eleanor Wallace 2022

The Cockfight

Comb ripped, slick with thick red blood
that rushes down flushed wattles,
through matted feathers
wet with mud and shit.
From where he tumble-turned
through stinking slush
squawking, shrieking, crying.
His rival crowing, clawing
with sharpened spurs,
tearing into tender tissue.

A gouge at an unguarded face
snatches light from his left side.
The punctured eye a swollen gash
of crimson, perforated pride.
His crown is shattered;
now a tattered mess
of bloody golden feathers and broken quills.

©️Eleanor Wallace 2022

A Wee Bit Dreich

Today it feels a wee bit dreich;

the sky is dreary, grey and bleak.

The grulie weather’s getting mochie

and I think it’s gonnae rain.

I feel a fyag upon my face,

a light schiting now but gaining pace.

The fine smizzle turns to breezy rus

and I forgot my Mack again.

It‘s getting oorlich and my coat is thin,

the soaking smirr seeps through to skin.

A yillen grows into a squall,

sending spindrifts round my soggy feet.

The heavens open with a sump.

The sky lights up with a thunderplump.

It’s hooring down a proper bleeter

which pelshes down the street.

Raindrops stot off dubbs a’puddled,

in the uar I stand in a doorway huddled.

Looks like the kaavie’s in for the day

and I am totally DROOKIT!

©️ Eleanor Wallace 2022

The Broken Mirror

Fine lines spiral like silver cobwebs,

the jagged cracks a sprawling maze.

Like silver bruises on the surface

of a mirror that’s seen better days.

It catches dusty morning motes

and fills the floor with empty beams.

The world cast into kaleidoscopes

of lost hopes and fragmented dreams.

What anguish ravaged the burning brain?

What painful memories holds this place?

What demon of the mind possessed you

to strike down your own reflected face?

Proud splendour shot to painful shards,

a gilded frame now tarnished black.

I gaze past the broken mirror

to the shattered soul who gazes back.

©️ Eleanor Wallace 2022

Morpheus

Weary mortal, close your eyes
as your sinking soul immerses deep
into an endless sapphire sky,
into his realm of dreaming sleep.
Space and time are left behind
back in the world of waking things,
as Morpheus carries you away
enfolded in his feathered wings.

He can make the twilight dance
and it’s his name the nightingale sings.
He can move the moon, shape the stars
and weave the dreams of gods and kings.
Across the canvas of the mind
the brightest colours burn like fire.
He paints the future, paints the past,
sweet fantasy and dark desire.

He is endless, ancient, young.
With ease he bends realities.
In his hands he holds oblivion
and in his eyes shine galaxies.
And whilst you sleep he stands his guard
to keep the nightmare realm at bay.
As you slumber in poppy fields
until the night fades into day.

©️Eleanor Wallace 2022

My Mother’s Garden

She paints pictures with the seeds she sows,

and her little garden blooms and grows.

Snapdragons dance in the gentle breeze

as blossom drifts from ancient apple trees.

Red hot pokers burn away

in the sunshine of the Summer’s day.

Clinging from cracks in the mossy wall,

campanulas cascade like a waterfall.

She is an artist of the land

and makes use of anything to hand;

succulents thrive in broken pots

and an old sink blooms with forget me nots.

A stepladder acts as a planter rack

and alliums poke out of a chimney stack.

The clematis spirals happily,

weaving through the trellis like a tapestry.

The air thick with the scent of peonies

and the harmonious hum of bumblebees.

With each touch of her gardening glove

she brings forth colour, bright with love.

With her hands and heart she made it all;

a beautiful garden from a beautiful soul.

The Girl In Alicante

They stroll when the man turns green,
her hand held tight on the slender arm
belonging to sun-bronzed shoulders
and a tight white vest.
Just as a petite wallflower clings to dry stone,
petals burrowed into blackened moss.
Her locks burn marigold,
tumbling down a sunburnt back
onto a low-slung saffron top,
tie-dye ochre, sequin fires
dance fandango in dazzling flare.

Her right hand holds a single rose
clutched crimson against her bouquet bosom.
The petals shake with every step
as they turn down La Marina.
Along the gentle curve of the sea,
the waters shiver like endless cornflowers
quivering in the salt-kissed breeze.
They skip the cross-cross of patterned pavements.
Feet tango in applauding flip flops,
hips bumping, thighs brushing
to the hushing of hyacinth waves.

She turns to peck her girlfriend’s cheek
and a single petal falls to her feet.

Love creates beauty in every colour.

©️Eleanor Wallace 2022

Caliban’s Lullaby

Oh fiery child with fevered brow
who howls up such a hurricane,
I cast this spell to calm thine squall
and still the seas of sleep again.
Lay thy restless body down
upon the ground, thine eyes closed tight.
All the world’s a lullaby
to aid my love to dream tonight.

Gaia, guide me with thy hands
to carve in chalk my charméd art.
To root it deep like stony veins;
draw power from Earth’s beating heart.
Let loving embers ebb through rock.
A crag a cradle for his crown.
Enfold my infant in a nest
of limestone soft as thistledown.

I face the force of cliff crashed currents,
roaring riptides. Watery graves.
To turn the tide of Neptune’s wrath
to hushed sea breeze and whisp’ring waves.
Sing soft shanties to my son,
sweet guillemot and razorbill.
An echoed voice across the shoal
of silver water, shimm’ring. Still.

With strands of starlight woven twixt
I spin the softest lunar beams.
To cast a quilt upon my child
of velvet night and silken dreams.
My charm in the constellations
set in stars until next sunrise.
At last, he drifts off peacefully
into his own celestial skies.

(C) Eleanor Wallace 2023