Iceland Poems – Bev Tappan

Bev reads at ESOM – 6/22

Bev Tappan — Mon, 20 Jun 2022 17:27:00 +0000

Ellen Schmidt’s Open Mike – June 20, 2022

hosted by Dan Tappan
Iceland Poems
Wild Harvest
There Be Dragons

ICELAND POEMS: THE HIDDEN FOLK

Bev Tappan — Fri, 20 Jun 2014 11:23:14 +0000

THE HIDDEN FOLK

Land of falling waters,

Land of ice and fire

Where the Hidden People

Have chosen to retire,

They say Eve’s unwashed children

Were forced to hide from God

And so they fled beneath the earth

To shelter from His rod.

They will do you favors

If you spare their homes,

But woe will surely follow

If you disturb their domes.

Boulders scattered in the fields,

Seastacks on the shore,

Six-sided basalt columns,

Jagged lava flows:

All the work of Hidden Folk

Who can become your friends

Or who can do you mischief

If you defeat their ends.

Land of falling waters,

Land of ice and fire,

There is much in Iceland

To gaze at and admire.

(June 2014)

ICELAND POEMS: WILD HARVEST

Bev Tappan — Tue, 17 Jun 2014 19:21:46 +0000

WILD HARVEST

Icelanders know where sea birds live

In crevice and cranny, on crag and cliff.

Icelanders know how to climb

And where to look and at what time.

The locals have learned just how to take

Their eggs from murres and kittiwakes:

Not too many and just when

So every hen will lay again.

Stormy petrels and razorbills,

Fulmars, gannets and wagtails:

In markets you will see them all

Colored, speckled, large and small.

They cannot get enough of puffins

Yet puffin populations boom

And eider ducks produce big eggs

As well as marketable down.

Sheerwaters and guillemots,

Only the ravens are their foes.

Icelanders know what they’re worth:

Icelanders are for the birds.

ICELAND POEMS: THERE BE DRAGONS

Bev Tappan — Mon, 16 Jun 2014 12:57:29 +0000

THERE BE DRAGONS

Beneath the Iceland ice cap

Sleeping dragons lie

Dreaming of the day when

They once again will fly.

And while their dreams are pleasant

They lie in restful ease,

But in a fiery nightmare

Their hot breath starts to wheeze.

So in the month of April

Of the year two thousand ten

Eyjafjallajokull

Awakened once again.

The melting ice above him

Flooded the coastal streams

And added to the outburst

Their blinding, boiling streams.

The earth shook with his movements

As he rose to his knees

And lava flowed like red blood

In rhythm with his keens.

Until he launched a geyser

With his desperate dragon roar:

A tower of tephra boulders

That tumbled toward the shore.

As his fire at last abated,

He sank down in despair

With just some final hiccups

Of blue haze in the air.

But his neighbor Holuhraum

Has now begun to stir

So Icelanders are watchful

For new tremors in their earth.

And they keep the ancient adage

In the forefront of their minds:

Do not disturb the universe,

Let sleeping dragons lie.

ICELAND POEMS: THE TASTE OF ICELAND

Bev Tappan — Fri, 13 Jun 2014 22:14:29 +0000

THE TASTE OF ICELAND

Iceland tastes like dried cod

That sweetens slowly as you chew.

Whale’s fishy beef taste may seem odd

Until it becomes familiar to you.

Pickled herring and smoked trout

With slices of cheese and deli meats

Boiled eggs, hothouse tomatoes and cukes

Are arrayed on trays as breakfast treats

Flanked by rich brown thermal bread.

Yogurts, skyrs and fluffy mousse,

Golden butter and liverwurst spread

Are served with espresso and apple juice.

ICELAND POEMS: LIVING ON THE EDGE

Bev Tappan — Fri, 13 Jun 2014 20:01:42 +0000

LIVING ON THE EDGE

In Iceland the shore’s the place to thrive:

Warmed by the North Atlantic Drift,

Your crops and you will stay alive,

Safe from the glaciers on your roof,

Those peaks robed in eternal snows

Whose rivers water and feed your crops

That burgeon in the summer’s light.

The shore’s the place to love and hope

And garner the bounty of the sea,

To dry the cod and ferment the shark,

Harvest birds’ eggs and minki whale meat

To see you through the winter’s dark.

ICELAND POEMS: ALL THE PRETTY LITTLE HORSES

Bev Tappan — Fri, 13 Jun 2014 18:59:50 +0000

ALL THE PRETTY LITTLE HORSES

A line of horses smoothly pacing

Past the windows of our bus,

Heads to flanks, manes streaming,

They look like poetry in motion to us.

Splashed white, silver and golden,

Dapples, duns, roans and bays,

Chestnut, smutty, palominos,

Buckskin, creme and smoky grays.

Flaxen manes and tails flow past

Like Neptune’s steeds upon the waves,

Slipping from our view at last,

Icelandic horses on their way.

ICELAND POEMS: LUPIN LAND

Bev Tappan — Fri, 13 Jun 2014 02:59:41 +0000

LUPIN LAND

They call you Iceland, but to me,

You are the land of the light-flecked lupins

Lapping liquidly up from the sea,

Flowing like lava on slopes and banks,

Softening the once-rough lava beds,

Cooling the once-hot thermal earths,

Injecting beneficent nitrogen,

Fixating fine and friable soils.

Their petals are blue as the glacial flows,

Tinged with the white of glacial ice.

Like the ancient Norse, they’ve arrived to stay.

They’ll hold their ground, come what may.