Salt stiffened, her wings don’t liftexcept pinwheeling featherscaught helter-skelter by sea breeze,sun bleached and lichen lined.Watches for the hands rising,faces breaking among shallows,hope and desperation.She sings for them.Caged in her cove, she sings.
You and your dim accuracy,head lolled loose eyes whitened and widenedtill the pupils blink out.Words come clipped,ransomed love lettersread like shopping lists,or obituaries. Call this a grey life,the air sucked clear your mouth a pursed funnel,but I am the culprit. Found the bruises of your hands,like marble sponge,cold as stonethe heat slipping over youwithout warming. In the well shade you sitwhile I sink deeper, darkerfor the waterline.Come up spitting dustand excuses.Shoulder a shallow cloakof indifference,already the hem unpickedby those grasping handsalways tappingrappingat the weakest point. Feel them at my templestonight, tomorrow, today,at the weakest pointalways tapping away. Ah, I’m really hoping I got this right. The five Samuel Greenberg charms that I used for my response are as follows: dim accuracy / grey life / marble sponge / the well shade / shallow cloak. I tried to emulate Greenberg’s abstract style (though not quite as drastically as he employs the abstract).
If you look under the ‘poetry’ tag on the WordPress reader, you’ll find more posts than you can shake a stick at. (Or read in a lifetime if I’m honest.) A lot of it is personal poetry, and if you start reading through it, a lot of it uses the same sort of language and the same sort of imagery. Anyone who has written poetry knows that when you start out it’s very easy to write poems designed to ‘sound poetic’. The subject of your poem can quite often get lost in the writing of it. Finding your voice is the most important, and the most difficult part of being a writer. No one picks up a pen for the first time and magically finds it. Part of the way I found my own voice was through poetry workshops and lectures. So for those of you who are interested I thought I’d share one of the writing exercises I’ve scoffed at, and then found quite useful, in the past. Find an object immediately to your …
Gutted and skinned, the rabbit seemed tiny. It was too young, but the other snares were empty, and night crept upon them before Gart could hunt the woods. Devlin boned the little creature, and carved it up into rough chunks. Enough so that there would be a piece or two each in the stew. Gart watched him across the fire and when he stood, Devlin called another of the men to watch the pot. Away from camp, Gart’s tracks faded, along with the sound of voices. ‘You’re improving,’ said Gart, his lean form rising from a crouch just inches away. He snaked a hand inside Devlin’s collar and brought the younger man closer. ‘I will make you moan like an autumn wind high in the lonesome treetops,’ he whispered, his grip tightening. ‘After,’ Devlin promised. ‘Ever after,’ said Gart. ‘From tonight, until the end.’ Lillian has selected two lines from Carl Sandburg’s Jazz Fantasia for the writers at the pub to chose between tonight. I went with the first option “moan like an autumn wind …
I tried swearing at the garden pond, to see if I could goad a water witch into dredging herself up at at ’em with enough pissed off vengeance to take at least one body down. I wasn’t decided on who I wanted, squealing in her webbed, wet grip. Half-thought if she came I’d go, grab her right back with both hands, test to see if she tasted stagnant, or like spring water breaking free after centuries underground.
For a while I wondered if my grandmother was magic. You see she would talk about the night she spent near Culloden. How my grandfather slept on sound, and she was tossed through dreams of screaming men. The English and their guns, against the all those clansmen, come to die. For a while I believe she’d walked the battle in her dreams. The tartans, like welsh (for a while) were outlawed to break that spirit. Make them less like them, and more like us. Then they only rise against themselves. The English are very good at making adversaries of themselves. When a friend shows me her family tartan, there was a plucking sort of feeling. An ache for a history only half understood, and twice removed. I could find it, put it on, but somehow I doubt I would fit. Not enough of the right stuff in me, to tie me into the pattern. Made me wonder how much of myself I can claim. The loch waters rose and I saw my own face there …
With a smile steeped in pomegranate wine you laughed, tipped your head back, closed your eyes against the sun painted in place in a sky that never greyed, unlike me who seemed to leech all colour from our Elysium, so perfect in the way it held you, in the way it caught me like a trap.
Tomorrow has taken to pressing up against the windows, fingers splayed on the glazing, eyes big like old iron lamps swinging in the wind this way, then that. Where can you hide in this glass house of yours, with the statues you carved out of all the words swallowed instead of spoken and choked up behind closed doors, with tomorrow still pressed up against the windows. And what do you say to the policeman with the kind eyes who takes a statement, writes down eyes like old iron lamps, and promises that they will look into it while tomorrow is still pressed up against the windows. Tonight we’re being asked to think about the days of the week with our poems, and I’ve wandered a little off topic with mine by focusing in on the idea of tomorrow. While you’re here, I just thought I’d mention that my poetry collection ‘It’s All In The Blood’ is available to buy through Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com. It’s a self-published venture and a project that I’m incredibly proud …
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.
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 creative in whatever way suits you best. Please keep entries PG as this is open to all. (i.e no erotica) The prompt is open from the first of the month to the end of the month. Use pingbacks to link up to the prompt or leave a link in the comments section. Whichever you prefer. I try to at least read every entry in the prompt and I’d love to encourage anyone taking part to try and check some of the other entries if they can. As always, re-tweets, re-blogs, and …
