Stung between garden fences twilight coaxed you outside, to the square of wilding lawn uncut from summer’s end, the coils of wood smoke streaked with petrol rising above an evening glow of light behind closed panes as one by one they too flickered out.
You. It’s burnt into my memory that open mouthed gape swallowing my words, and the back turned mid-sentence on an answer to a question you had asked only for the slow spin, arm triangled over your head as you scratched your scalp, and those frown scrunched nostrils somehow still flared in a state of confusion when I refused to speak to a man not facing me.
Always just sort of truly set these ways wobble wonderfully, or is it woefully? Uncertain if they’re certain about the shape of the course decided upon, waited upon, debated upon. This is what has been done. So far… for now… Not quite as pictured. A very quick poem before I head to bed tonight. It was my first night back on the judo mat, so I’ve only just got home, but I didn’t want to miss the Quadrille night. Can’t wait to read the others tomorrow. (P.S, I almost think this might count as a political poem… huh… not really done one of those before.)
Well September is over and October is here in full force. Leaves are on the turn, England has turned grey and rainy (well even more so than usually) and everywhere you look people are prepping for Halloween (or in some cases Christmas). This is the second month that I’ve had the honour of hosting the Speculative Fiction Prompt and hopefully this month’s image inspires as much as last month’s. If you want to read the stories for last month then you can check them out at the September Speculative Fiction Prompt. The guidelines for those of you who are new are as follows: Speculative Fiction: a genre of fiction that encompasses works in which the setting is other than the real world, involving supernatural, futuristic, or other imagined elements. [Oxford Dictionary] Use the image below to write a story, poem, perhaps even a script. There are no rules about form or style. If you would like to create a piece of art in response that is also welcome. This prompt is about being artistic and …
You with your oak bark hands planted on the bank just before the hill drop to what is now town. I could see worlds still turning in your memory, as if the clock stopped in a hundred different places. I even recognise a few of the people caught here in this last place of green before the concrete and brick. It is a cruelty to take you from this bank above town. It is crueller still to take all this away. My mother thinks I should try to write some less heavy poems, and I have been trying, but they all seem to twist into the shadows.
These palm clutched coins too precious for parting, but needs must.
I’m very English sometimes, apologising to the stranger staggering by, shoulder swung into mine, sorry caught in the air with the dust cloud he trails. So I’ll repeat in case repetition makes up for distance, for an inability to find fire until much later on when I am a city or more away and still thinking about bone and muscle and a sharp snap of ‘move now!’ No please.
I braided a basket of my fingers, in case I was required to catch you if you fell from any sort of height or perhaps needed a boost to reach a shelf or a step on a ladder I could hold once I’d unwoven these hands to grip the rungs better if you eventually decide to climb.
The outcrop was low and Emile had to crouch for it to work as a windbreaker. Crouching made her thighs burn, but so did walking, and crouching in a low crag meant she could almost feel her face again. She unhooked the water-skin from her belt and weighted it in her hand. Tried to judge how much she would need to get her down the the mountain. More than she had. She put it back and swallowed her thirst. Ignored the wind stripped skeletons propped against the same crag, one holding onto the withered trunk of a sapling to stunted to reach beyond two foot. She closed her eyes to the wedding bands. These memories were left here with the trees, broken, dead, or dying. Emile stamped her feet and braced herself. She was not going to join them. She’d promised herself more. I’ve been trying to turn my attention back to my novel Darkened Daughter, and in doing so I’ve been working on some new characters to incorporate to the redraft. Yesterday I played …
These wings don’t go far, or high much. They rustle the leaves in the hedge when summer sits about, the branches when summer has flit south. There is something to be said for roots over wings. For a spot to return to each time, when it’s warm or cold and I don’t want to go far or high very much.
