All posts tagged: blogging

The Madness of Inspiration

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It’s a sentence dropped in passing, just a side-note to the conversation, or a jotting blotted in the margin, only really half a thought.   Yet it opens the earth beneath you, hooks in under your fingernails, drags you to dimly lit, dusty corners, both imaginary and real.   It doesn’t care that no one wrote it, or if someone did then they lost it, or passed it into a safe place too good given the hindsight.   It’s dug a home in the meat of you. Demanded your eyes, you tongue, your head. Drew a line between now and then as translucent as spider silk.   Now you only have to find it. I’m working on a new poetry collection at the moment which I think I’ll probably name ‘Women, Water, and Witches’. The inspiration for it stems from the folklore surrounding women and water in Shropshire. This has led to me spending evenings researching Sea Witches, Jenny/Ginny Greenteeth, witch trials in Shropshire (there’s almost nothing in any source I’ve checked so far), then …

Night On The Ice #WeekendWritingPrompt

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Blue lipped kissed, laid your cheek on the ice and searched for a gap you would slip beneath.   Like hunting for pennies beneath kitchen counters, their copper wink bite so, so cold in your palm.   And a creaking below of sheets shifting, rising, a threat to throw you out into the wakeful night.   What you would give for stillness another side of the looking-glass. Thank you for stopping by, and if you enjoyed the poem above then you might enjoy my poetry collection ‘It’s All In The Blood’ which can be purchased from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com. It’s a self-published collection so I have to rely on readers buying and reviewing the book to help promote it, especially in places such as the USA. Thank you again for your time.  

New Year, New Decade, So What’s The Plan? #WeekendCoffeeShare

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A few years ago I decided that I wasn’t going to bother making New Year’s resolutions anymore. The fact was that whatever I ‘resolved’ to do, I always ended up feeling like I’d failed by year end. So instead I set myself a number of goals that I wanted to achieve at some point in the year, and then periodically I would sit down and review my progress towards those goals. This year I had a few things that I really wanted to achieve, number one on that list was publishing my poetry collection ‘It’s All In The Blood’. The collection launched in November and is now available to purchase through Amazon, so I’m counting that as goal achieved. It’s even had it’s first review: Quietly powerful, heartbreaking and uplifting at the same time I’m quite chuffed with that as far as reviews go. My other main goal for the year was to complete my AAT exams, and on the 19th December I found out I’d achieved 87% on my Personal Tax exam which means …

There Are Better Things I Could Have Used This Memory Space For #DVersePoets #PoeticsNight

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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.    

Set Course #DVersePoets #Quadrille

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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.)

October Speculative Fiction Prompt

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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 …

Metaphorically Speaking – #DVersePoets

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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.

When I Say English And Pretend I Don’t Mean Weak #DVersePoets #OpenLinkNight

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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.