It’s a new year, and in the spirit of 2022, the speculative fiction prompt is back! On the first of each month there will be a new image for writers to use to inspire work. We accept all styles of writing, be that a poem, a short story, of a chapter for a novel. This prompt was originally the brainchild of D Wallace Peach over at Myths of the Mirror. Writing and Works took over 2019 and it went on hiatus at the start of the pandemic.
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You and your dim accuracy,
head lolled loose
eyes whitened and widened
till the pupils blink out.
Words come clipped,
ransomed love letters
read 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 stone
the heat slipping over you
without warming.
In the well shade you sit
while I sink deeper, darker
for the waterline.
Come up spitting dust
and excuses.
Shoulder a shallow cloak
of indifference,
already the hem unpicked
by those grasping hands
always tapping
rapping
at the weakest point.
Feel them at my temples
tonight, tomorrow, today,
at the weakest point
always 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.
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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.
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.
Carol J Forrester - Writing and Works 
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