nevering

yellowed

2012-02-03T09:28:00.000Z

*

Once there was a figure who grew out of his pencil smudges. He made a brave move toward a torn margin. The paper was soft and warm, yellowed. When someone found him at the back of the book, he had somehow managed to curl and blossom, his head caught between words. No one could remember his maker, they were long gone and he liked it that way.

pending, borrowed, loved

2012-02-02T09:40:00.000Z

*

Unfinished drawings.
Eccentric recluses. Pottery by the dead.

A crown of nice places on a map.
A shrug of poor clothes.

Red thread stitches on a bird wing.
Emerging hats. Spoons aglow.

A burnished cheek.
Many tiny fistfuls of moss.

Hold

2012-02-01T12:07:00.000Z

*

Hold your tongue.
Feel breathless now the ice.

Dreamers tell of little packages
tied with ice ribbons.

I will paint a wide white painting
to hang above the cluttered bed.

I push the slick of not-quite-done-yet,
snowdrops still flowering.

working from home

2012-01-31T14:09:00.000Z

*

Writing with the radio on,
your son between the clouds
whistling his bright watery tune.

Writing with the radio on,
my daughter as a city of eyes
glossing over spelling errors.

to be right

2012-01-30T14:57:00.000Z

*

I do not agree with everything you say
but I give you the answers
you want because I like to be right.

In this tilt of the ocean, or a painting of,
impasto waves are moving away
and your mouth is open.

Anthropology made you go to the mountains,
you sat amongst women
who told only good stories of themselves.

In this weather, or a painting of,
the rain is not an etching material but fire
dashing between us.

growing up

2012-01-28T10:23:00.001Z

*

'What can one do but try?' Aunt Nora says as she stretches to place a bird feeder in the old apple tree. Her neice stands behind as if ready to catch. It is not easy for Aunt Nora to reach up, with her bent bones and her hands always dangling. Aunt Nora wears layers of floral aprons and fluffy pink slippers that she now calls her gardening shoes because they are comfortable, they have rubber soles and are just fine for trudging up and down the lawn.

'They don't come like they used to, you know...' Aunt Nora says. She is looking up at Grace with her face lit by a little wintry sun. Grace gets ready for Aunt Nora's Dickie Bird speech. 'When I was a baby my father took one look at me and said I had a hooked nose like a bird and that was it, he called me his little Dickie Bird. And with my hair cut so severely by mother oh..... but you've heard this so many times before....'

Grace wants to plant a kiss on her aunt's forehead. She wants to hold her a little, for she knows this will be the last time she sees her. No sadness. The old lady with clothes pegs in her apron pockets, the old one with dark eyes and too many stories, she will always be here. Grace is leaving. It's nothing anyone can change.

'I shall miss you dear,' Aunt Nora says looking at Grace with seriousness. 'But to be honest, life goes on.' She pads away, toward the broken-windowed greenhouse, stops to kick a length of watering hose from the path that leads to the rusted greenhouse door. 'Come and see my sweet peas all growing up, up so fast.' And she laughs.

shisha

2012-01-27T15:11:00.001Z

*

the middle music
gathers a skirt of song
and all the while crow-circles

like shisha mirrors
present the sun
as she flays in winter

art school

2012-01-26T21:18:00.001Z

*

tip-toe
between the papery blues

so you did not go to art school
your eyes are splendidly awake

outside is not new york
the radio is talking Picasso

here's the advantage -
hands of smudge and silver

relics

2012-01-25T10:22:00.001Z

Poems dipped in wax.

Hands gripping jewels.

These are things of relics

who eat gold for breakfast.

this dark rain

2012-01-24T10:21:00.003Z

*

this dark rain
bottle-necked

a pall for the bird song
a palsy of torn wishes

a handful of darkest rain
smudging the boundaries

she says: dearly,
everything has its sinking point

from roof to wire
the trip line of soft minds

the splayed legs of a pigeon
slipping in puddles

to you now huddled
waiting for the next

stone

2012-01-22T20:58:00.003Z

*

talking loudly to yourself
of the apricot stone on the pink plate
of the mysterious slink of colour
that may or may not remain

is the secret stone or satin?
can you bite it, stroke it, love?

something else scribbling your name
in the right hand corner
of the damp wrong painting

daughter

2012-01-21T13:36:00.000Z

*

they named the baby: daughter. she was small and round, and propped up amongst cushions had a Buddha look. the cat and the baby would sit together watching oversized raindrops trickle down the window. it was impossible not to want daughter to stay like this always, so still, composed, inwardly happy. the parents fed her mashed versions of their rich food. daughter's hair became red then dark. when it was time to crawl she stayed still. she sat in her baby version of the lotus position. the cat brushed itself against the baby and the baby rocked a little and sang their song. daughter's mother tied a ribbon in her hair but when she looked again the ribbon was gone. daughter would sit and watch the seasons and grow a little, very little. she was plump, still, with tepid skin. one day daughter would run, she would tear down stairs, fall in a river, climb more than one mountain. these were her still days before the rush.

the add-on

2012-01-20T13:07:00.001Z

this writing follows on from the first part here: http://neveringpoetry.blogspot.com/2012/01/old-days.html

2.

There is a little add-on kitchen, it used to be a meat safe or a very cool larder. The woman walks from the main kitchen into the add-on. She wears velvet slippers now the house is closed up. When the house is open to the public she wears flat rubber soled shoes to make her look like a housekeeper. There are keys hanging from her waist, on a long length of red ribbon. She fills the cheap plastic kettle and looks inside the tiny fridge hoping to be surprised.

Some of the rooms in this house have a certain feel to them, and this one has it. It is like someone is observing but there are no windows. The strip light flickers erratically. And she feels cold and stupid, even when the radio is on. If she turns her back toward the main kitchen, she can feel it, like a tall weight of not someone exactly. Time: tall and wide and breathing heavily.

The woman is named Barbara. Not a week goes by without someone suggesting this is an old-fashioned name for such a young woman. She does not think her self young, but compared to most visitors she is. No one calls her anything but Barbara, though some have tried Barb, or even the impossible Babs, which just makes her shake her head and never talk to them again.

The add-on kitchen has no stove, just a microwave oven and scant space for preparing food. Just as well Barbara prefers sandwiches or cold salads. She is a vegan but this is not relevant to her job here, except that people, friends, often wonder how she can put up with living with so many stuffed animals or birds. There are a total of seventeen in this house, if one is to count a head as an animal and Barbara does. Antelope, polar bear, badger, fox, two stoats, ostrich, pea hen, three mice, six deer, something that looks like a dog but might be a wolf no one is sure. She does not have pet names for any of them. She does not have a pet name for her own, living dog. He is simply Dog.

If Barbara could have one wish, house-related wish, it would be not to have this add-on kitchen but to somehow manage without. To her, the cold little cupboard of a room is necessary, but ultimately spoils the fun of living in an old old house. And for some reason this kitchen always gets more spiderwebs than anywhere else. It gives her the creeps, yes, and she would like it to be sealed up and forgotten, like the cupboard on the first floor landing.

final works

2012-01-19T10:03:00.000Z

finally
having lost the ochre and burnt yellow
the tiny splayed sea

breathes lower

makes a boat sighing take ages to land

reminds you of Turner
or someone pretending to be

glowing, glowering,
mixing Prussian blue

just to see how the red will end

your dreams

2012-01-18T14:48:00.000Z

your dreams are altercating,

re-grouping

they no longer

want jar-sized

they are now snow and feather

and warm

they are now important

and boastful and parents to themselves

they are now dividing Greek gods

into possibilities

they are now clustered like dark buildings

at the end of a street

measuring

2012-01-17T14:31:00.001Z

The door is a little ajar. She steps up and into the smart old house.

'Where is everyone?' she whispers and the whisper comes back to her like a returning bird. The hall is vast and there is no one about, just a parcel on the sideboard and hats, so many hats on the coat rack. And little boots, all lined up. She did not know they had children. But why should she, that's not her job, though it surprises her a little that with children they would want silk curtains. So, some people, they don't mind the cleaning bill.

But who are they? These people she does not know who make their home smell faintly of onions and wine and dogs. Are there dogs somewhere?

'Hello? Hello?' she says loudly now, her voice ringing out, hits the tiled floor, bounces up into the chandelier.

And then it is that she looks up and sees everyone is hiding on the ceiling, or they have at least stored their shadows up there.

There is a large painting on the wall, in a gilt frame, one of those actual proper oils. It is a portrait of a large woman wearing huge feathers as if part ostrich. Perhaps she is or was a grandmother of the family. Someone with wealth and chunky jewellery.

'Hello?' she says. 'I've come to measure for the curtains. You called me.'

Give it ten more seconds. But she has ordered the silk in the fleshy salmon colour the lady on the telephone was so insistent.

'The door was open,' she calls out. 'And now I am leaving already.'

decorum

2012-01-16T21:12:00.000Z

decorum

*

there you were this morning
like blue velvet and silver buttons

walking through the whole house
trying to find the frost pockets

your laws of decorum
always so playful

thinking not of yourself
but little headdresses of cambric

and the fine line of stitches
at the back of the stairs

sparse, spare

2012-01-15T19:19:00.001Z

*

sparse winter blossoms from the tree outside. tall stems shoved in vase and jar. pale, the colour of eye-whites. and in their room, a woman stands by the window waiting for the one and only sunday bus. it is late, but as it arrives the driver switches on the light and looks up, yes, looks and in his spare moment before leaving, waves.

winter song

2012-01-14T18:59:00.002Z

*

The song seemed pale grey. It sang itself to sleep and woke in a funnel of stone and river. The woman sat at the table playing solitaire, listening to the song, waiting for its question. The lull and flow, the cindery end.

how we see you

2012-01-13T10:15:00.000Z

*

we think you should paint it over, or paint over it,
after all the sky is seldom the way you see.
No one is jealous of you, only the light above your head.

We think shaking is your way of walking,
and if trees could talk you would remain silent.
Your understanding is the taste of lemon and dusty.

We think hopeless things that don't laugh together,
and know that you know every bird is a spy,
violets grow at the back of your throat.

We think the burning caramel smell is divine,
the closed museum has eyes for you.
Also, you would be trigger happy if you tried.

We think the tall women look best on paper
because they are our tender old-fashioned thoughts.
We know the way whales do if they could.

We think the light can be burnished between three to four,
the understairs cupboard leads to ruins.
Elsewhere dressing up is the new staying in.

We think mice are sugary
and oh your hair has a lusty glow.

We think you are special.

undercoat

2012-01-12T12:28:00.000Z

*

'All it needs is a pink undercoat,' she said. He was confused by all the colours, the buckets and sheets. Was it really possible to paint a rainbow in the winter?

optimist

2012-01-11T14:56:00.002Z

*

After a few days she saw him more as paper than skin, a little greener than bone, sharper than blunt scissors but not sharp enough. She would try to resist the temptation to change him. Spring could come any day soon. They would go bluebell spotting. He might be good at picnics.

Golden Time

2012-01-10T15:06:00.001Z

All the children have been very good, so now they can have Golden Time. The teacher bangs her gong and the little boys laugh, but the girls are serious because they are all determined to be into the playhouse first. There has been a rumour going about that Miss Haven has put real china in the cupboards, and fairy cakes, really tiny but real, are actually now cooking in the oven.

Miss Haven tells everyone they will just have to simmer down else there will be no Golden Time. The milk in bottles is waiting outside in the sun. The little Asian boy with a handkerchief top-knot is looking earnestly outside, knowing that he must be super-fast or else he won't get to be Spiderman. First one to touch the tree, that's the rule.

'Golden time,' the red-haired girl whispers as she sits with legs out on the carpet and picks at her knee scab, for this is her chosen project for today. 'Easy now girl, just a little bit more and the surgery will be done.' She is not a human child, she is a horse who has a poorly knee. Nobody knows she is horse, for at least half her waking life. No one need know.

Outside, in the sandpit, two boys are drawing with sticks. They won't let anyone near. They are saying: this is our space, and no one is allowed castles today. What they are doing does not feel especially Golden. Infact, deep down, they know it's pants to be like this. Maybe this is just for today and then they will let sandcastles happen again.

In the playhouse, three girls and a boy are pretending the new china is simply delicious. Another girl watches them, aghast, angry she might hit someone. They are all so silly. The boy is very good at pretending to sip his tea with a little finger extended. Everything about this is wrong and she wants to be at home, with nan and the really hot kettle.

Miss Haven puts her feet up. The small black boy that started yesterday is wearing the doctor's dress-up coat. He says he wants to check her teeth. She tips her head back. She can feel blood rushing into her ears. He is poking his fingers right into her mouth and breathing fast. Perhaps this is not such a good idea. She should be keeping an eye on things. There's an awful lot of noise coming from Puzzle Corner. But sitting up suddenly might startled him, and up until now he's been so timid.

The milk is warming in the sun. Soon it will be lunch time. In the next door classroom, the older children with Miss Dixon are learning their four times tables. 'Until we all get them right!' Miss Dixon's class don't get Golden Time. It's just for the little ones. The older children feel bitter about this, but nothing can be done. This is the way things are done here. This is the way things are likely to always be.

visionary

2012-01-09T14:25:00.002Z

*

She says she sees:
not just the cobwebs, the little chinks.

She says: I remember before when.
And some of the other things.

She sits quietly for days.

There is a host, she says, but I don't know what it means.
Do you mean ghost? they ask but she does not.

She, in blue, in grey, with her knees bleeding,
pushed in the snow,

because elsewhere she is
being adored, candle lit,

that is why her throat is dry,

that is the reason she must keep awake.

with

2012-01-08T16:40:00.002Z

*what shall we dowith the first and the alwayswith the blue painted chairwith the harvest in winterwith the long ago dreamwith the broken moneywith the rain that is too muchwith the story you lostwith this little cold winged-thingwith this borrowed memory

Merriweather

2012-01-07T12:38:00.001Z

*

They called the baby Merriweather, because she was found on a bright January morning. Later people would ask her if she was named after a pub or policeman. They were the nurses, in their bright blue uniforms, all taking turns to hold the mystery little one. Merriweather with her grey feathery hair. They put a cap on the baby before the television cameras arrived at the maternity ward.

Usually, the hospital official said, we choose a name like Susan or Jane. Perhaps there should be a re-think. None of the nurses agreed. And when the small baby started to babble and cough out little clouds of love the nurses cooed. She was fine and they did not want anyone too boring to claim her. It would be better all round if Nurse Bennett, who had been looking to adopt, did actually adopt Merriweather.

And Merriweather grew and grew. So quickly it was impossible. She was a cloud, she was rain, snow, sun. She would float and fly and come back again. She was her own silver lining.

as a bird

2012-01-06T20:19:00.002Z

She stopped reading and looked out of the window.

There were birds clinging to a tree, needing time between exhausting hours. The arrival, the tension, departure. Everyone in every story was really just a bird. Not just a bird but herself as a bird.

She slept for a moment. She opened the window and took a photograph. The birds were swirling about, waiting for her.

the old days

2012-01-05T14:46:00.000Z

The house is eighteenth century, painted dark. It is sometimes open to paying visitors. It makes people slip back into themselves, their past lives.

The woman tenant has an exhausted air, as if just being here is intense activity. She takes tea by the fire. Little light for decent lace work. Instead, a puzzle of shadows. A blanket, a dog too idle to yelp at her poems.

All about the ghosts of centuries and unpolished candle sticks.

A window taped with brittle paper strips.

Outside in the gardens, a man slowly raking litter thinks of home across the city: new television, the broken heater. He will cook kippers for tea like it's the old days as he remembers them.

dancer

2012-01-04T14:09:00.001Z

**

Oops I danced, he said, the chair suddenly across the room. The woman checked the space on her wrist where her watch might be. The man was afraid now, unsteady. He held his arms as if they were wings. Do it again, she said, only slower and for longer, as if you really want to meet me.

poem - Out of Print

2012-01-03T19:06:00.002Z

***

Out of Print

She finds many others, but not his.
She remembers a twitch of his pen,
the smallest notebook, she remembers
brief conversation
pressed like flowers.

*

He had the small triumph
now the quiet blank winter.
Stories like snow in the wrong city.
I will write for another year only,
he writes.

handwriting

2012-01-02T16:51:00.003Z

**

the handwriting in an unsent letter
spoils and spills
lacks sufficient crosses to the t's.

a lock of hair written not attached

a stamp not licked

a name asked for, a hair grip
the scent of violets

a tiny cut out heart

sender address blacked out
neat thick paper
a pencil cryptic thing

perhaps they lived in hotels
as a way of finding stationery

a pink tinge
due to lack of sunlight

and all the photos missing

short fiction - Steve

2012-01-01T09:41:00.000Z

++++

Steve

Mrs Cardew is again at the front door, hecan hear from the kitchen, knows their neighbour is there talking with Adele.The older neighbour is once again apologizing for the Christmas card. Adele isgracious and using the breathy voice she puts on when trying to be patient. Noreally Mrs Cardew there is no need to be upset still, if you think he lookslike a Steve that's not a problem, really.

Russell sits in the kitchen because heknows Mrs Cardew would rather not have to face him, give the face to faceapology. She is obviously crushed by her mistake, he imagines she has not sleptbut has paced up and down in her patterned slippers. They have heard their neighbourpacing above. Adele says, sometimes it is if Mrs Cardew is dancing rather thanpacing.

When the card got pushed through theirletter box and Adele opened it, she had said: oh dear Mrs Cardew knows you’recalled Russell, surely. Then later, on receiving a card from them Mrs Cardewhad come downstairs to apologise. She said: really he does not look like aRussell, he’s always been a Steve to me.

So that night he had done the inspectingthing in the bathroom mirror, as best as he could because the mirror onlyallowed so much to be seen. He looked with the cabinet doors opened and angled,noted the thinning hair at the sides but not the top of his head, not as far ashe could tell. What the hell was that about? All his family, his father,brothers, had full heads of hair.

I am Steve, he told himself dismally on thetrain to work the next morning. I am a Steve and that’s what she sees. Being aSteve, he did not know why it hurt, what the problem was. There it was, justthe mistake made so easily. Misidentification.

Why Mrs Cardew’s opinion matters to him somuch, he does not know. Any consideration would be pointless. And he is notgoing to ask Adele if she thinks he looked like a Steve. He knows a trap there.Adele would infuriate him by not minding about it, or anything else for thatmatter. Preferring to get back to her game of online scrabble, or talking toher sister in New Zealand. She would tell her sister all about it, but only ifhe was not in the room.

So once again Mrs Cardew is now apologizingand this time giving a replacement Christmas card, on New Year’s Day. Too late,the holidays are all over, silly woman, he seethes. He has always taken pridein never calling a woman silly, his mother a feminist, he feels crushed byguilt. But still he knows Mrs Cardew is a silly, silly woman.

Russell thinks for a moment about leavingthe kitchen, walking the very short distance to the front door where Adele standsin her dressing gown with a towel round her wet hair, because it is earlyafternoon on New Year’s Day and they are just about up. Mrs Cardew is there, inher coat and with her handbag, though she only lives in the flat above. Perhapsshe is on her way out to a whist drive. On New Year’s Day? Who knows.

Perhaps he might surprise the women bymaking a sudden invitation to Mrs Cardew, ‘You must come in, let’s have tea, wecan get the scrabble board out. Adele likes playing scrabble.’

He thinks not.

toward a new year

2011-12-29T19:20:00.003Z

I've been re-designing this blog a little..... in anticipation of posting more frequently in 2012... My aim is to post 'something every day', whether poem notes, a short story, words about a painting or photograph, an old letter, a book review, a list, a novella, or something else.

For now: a small poem with moving toward the new year in mind....

*

Purple anemones shed a grey
dust. She sweeps it tenderly,
sorry for the flowers,
their shambolic end.

Come the new year
there will be hyacinths
their scent a blanket.

Come the new year
she will push seeds into
tubes of soil.

Moving the vase by the curtain.
Her head sun-faded
nodding at the window.
Pretty objects making teeth.

Winter Solstice poems

2011-12-21T21:38:00.003Z

In the small cathedral of your hands
the choir
singing in their sleep,
all warm in red wool.

*

honesty seeds
rattling their quiet song

and

tiny pale pink

the bird's heart
in winter -
plump against cold

*

early to late
rain collected
in the borrowed rust

of trees.

*

don't look in the shed -
the wasps are sleeping in their
papery palace

and only the winter
can keep them asleep

*

your faded velvet name
desires snow

receives only
a feast of rain

*****

FEATURED POET - Amy E Thompson

2011-12-18T06:45:00.002Z

Featured Poet - Amy E Thompson

birdbath or Pensieve?

I start to put my face in

then reconsider

***

concrete birdbath

open for business--

snowmelt

***

early afternoon--

winter shadows

stretch across the snow

***

Amy writes: I live in the Midwest United States, where for the past 15 years I have been a wife, homemaker, and mother to two beautiful children. Now that the kids are older, I find myself with more desire to explore writing and other creative pursuits, such as photography, embroidery, and papier mache. I blog at whisperings of trees.

I think I have always been a poet, even before I wrote my first poem. I see poetry as a way of seeing, a way of being present in the moment, which is why I am primarily drawn to haiku.

thank you to Amy and all the poets who have shared their work at nevering during 2011.

FEATURED POET - FARAH WILLEM

2011-12-08T12:16:00.001Z

FEATURED POET - FARAH WILLEM

The bud of the stars take icy. thorns

All duration seemed to concentrate at the end
This little flower. Incarnation. All duration
For a flawless moment, on the threshold of silence,
Clouds. From milk that promise metamorphosis.
Your fingers in the ultimate blue to imagine the containers,
These angels collected in ephemeral postcards
Face of uncertainty. There is fury and fervor. One sometimes
In the other. What does it tell you that dream to borrow the stool
To pluck the bud of the stars if they take icy thorns ?
What might your feverish hands to melt the unattainable ?

All levels of your pupils can do nothing against the regrets forthcoming.

The world becomes transparent to the one who understands the universe
Faced with the disparity of Nothingness. From invisibility grows this poppy flower
But who can hear it ? Skin disappears, only to the roots.
Hair and nail glazes carry an heat of infinitude.
Before support it. Pull the rope until you understand the weight of the cycle.
Hope, that these birds are exposed against a blind obsession.
There was no impatience in them. Because escape is the result of a tear.
The azur is only an envelope, your mind a melting pot that I could not
Perpetuated. I can only close our eyes and just guess and
The smell of violets on your broken spine and that of your veins around
White walls. Remember that child also sing lullabies
By believing that the world is a fable. Before the tragedy. How many years
Damaged, how many detours. I think we can go to the end of suffering.

I remember a game of marbles and agates on the tar,
From a Siamese cat porcelain and your necklaces junk.
But most of all, the cry in the crown issued by a young flower
When tears. And that handsome face becoming a shadow of a breath.

___ Eleven years forever [March 29.11.11] 11.04

***

Farah's translation from her orginal French text. Farah is a poet and artist based in Paris France. To view more of her work you may like to visit her Flickr photostream at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/strombe/

Thank you Farah for giving permission to share your work here at nevering.

Wrapping

2011-12-06T18:52:00.001Z

new one for my seasonal series...

Wrap

Paper that has long slept in a box.

What features do I hear in the folds and creases?

Saved but torn, edges that soften.

Warm and alone.

The tiny wrinkles of years ago.

Tacky strips of tape, holding a strand of hair.

Smooth across the width

of the bed as I wrap another.

Folding, tucking, making a dream shape.

This one for you, theshape of a boat,

the shape of sleep

edging toward morning.

Do not rip until….

FEATURED POET - Steve D. Hammond

2011-11-30T10:51:00.001Z

The Nouveau Bohemian Getting Ready In The Morning.(Linoleum Cut) by Steve D. Hammond

The Nouveau Bohemian Getting Ready In The Morning

She has style and grace.
Along with a truck load of cash.
She doesn't show off in her money,
but she knows its there.
She will buy you dinner,
as long as you can offer her up a stimulating conversation.
She seems like a saint in disguise.
She helps out many people,
without really giving it much of a thought,
She is an angel,
but she likes to be alone.
She says the freedom of the world is what gives her pleasure.
What about me I'm a man?
she smiles and says,
Well,
Men grow on trees,
and after all,
Im a Nouveau Bohemian.

****
Steve D. Hammond is a poet and artist living in Michigan USA. To see more of his artwork and writing you can visit his Flickr photostream here

You Will Be

2011-11-29T14:35:00.001Z

starting today, moving toward the end of the year and the Winter Solstice - Yule - Christmas.... a series of poems inspired by..... I'll hope to post one or two every so often....

You Will Be

You will be the donkey, just you

and must wear bright mittens on your four feet.

Yes this is going to be a journey and a half.

Mostly starlit, arocky passage,

nothing to say but everywhere to go.

You will be the sheep, just you

yes in this version there’s just the one looking

out for her shepherd, though he should be

looking for you, don’t be confused.

Don’t let the bright stars dazzle you,

think of them as leaders, glowering.

You will be the owl, just you

and such a lonely night it shall be without

much to say, with no one to call upon,

and all the stars elsewhere you’ll see,

with just the chinks and cracks of moonlit

otherness, a swift chill in the trees.

You will be the cat, just you

and despite the mice and with no chorus.

This will be your moment to creep in to it,

softly, the way cats just appear.

Leaving nothing astray, no footprint in ice,

you’ll steal aside before the dawn.

You will be the ox, just you

the warmth at the back, the steam of animal.

How lowly will you lie, when it is the moment,

how you will hush as the night continues?

There will be straw and eyes and blood;

hands will press into your heart for warmth.

Something Else

2011-11-21T13:55:00.001Z

****

Something Else

The woman standing by the large window
is winding a measuring tape tightly around two fingers,
tighter now, until all the numbers are hidden.

She looks out to see a dog-walker, the dog a leggy one,
some kind of dane and she knows the name: Kitty.
The owner is a thinning man who always says hi
in the way well-spoken people say it,
as if they are speaking a foreign language,
because what they really want to say is: good day to you,
or please bugger off out of my way. Leave me alone,
just look away now and don't look back.

The woman likes the feel of the tape around her fingers
and wonders if this is wrong, or like the dog
should she just obediently follow instructions,
turn from the window now,
do something else.

*

To Begin

2011-11-19T16:26:00.001Z

***

To Begin

Early, a walk in leaves.
There's a rush of brittle noise and magpies.
The shabby end of autumn with a green woodpecker
making himself known in the tops of trees.
And the mushrooms are getting leggy, and run down.
Only things holding up are For Sale signs.

The tiny house with bad windows is still empty,
gaudy geraniums removed from the porch.
Lace curtains gone too, all old lady signifiers.
Someone will come and do it up, add and reform,
put a satellite dish on the back.

At the start of this year I had thought of taking
just a photograph each day, something in the street.
Like this loose nest of frayed string,
zen-like in a driveway. Or this damp glove.
Or these feathers caught in the hideaway hedge.
I pull them free and put them in my bag.

Of course I could begin something like a daily project
any day. Whether it be pictures or taking things.
Just say: this is the first day of. And begin.
There's a strength in that.
To begin with hope.

Andy Rojas

2011-10-19T19:01:00.000+01:00

FEATURED POET ------- ANDY ROJAS

STREET’S END

But nothing does, of course:
the avocado sofa in the weeds

will keep some time, a whaling ship
of corduroy and springs

sea-struck, side-split, gutted
on a beach of motor oil and gravel,

the world itself now sunk,
ripped open by a storm,

its few survivors mustering
what dignity catastrophe can spare --

the arms of laundry posts
barnacled with rust

but open still, the calcinated shell
of a pine dresser gray with age

but still willing to hold
the secrets of earthworms.

A skeletal Ford.
Its vaguely human form.

WHAT VAJELLO CALLS NOTRE DAME BRIDGE

will not let him cross in peace,
its stones breaking into chatter
like parrots, the smell of eucalyptus

seeping from the ice
as if it were summer, Lima,
ten years earlier, as if Vallejo

were not already Vallejo:
lush greenery of bronze
on the cathedral, the market

alive with peppers, coffee beads,
fried octopus on a vendor’s cart,
Europe still a budding orchid,

the prize of a florist’s stand, white
as the Madonna’s marble throat,
moist as a sponge dipped in vinegar.

****

Andy Rojas is a poet and muscian living in the US. To find out more about Andy and his work visit his own poetry site at: http://teoppoet.wordpress.com

new poem

2011-10-14T13:26:00.003+01:00

a new poem (perhaps in progress)

Knowing You Come OutWith The Sun

Morning well-lit.

A woman walks into the colour

of wet plaster.

The painter sets up a cloud trap,

pulls the tarpaulin, cracks the ochre.

Many horse chestnuts have no centre.

All these acorns are easily replaced.

Here’s one final flower in the sun,

twirling back as if it knows you.

The scratch of magpies on the roof,

they know you too, the growing shadow.

Your bent back Sunday,

your aching Monday.

Helen Dann

2011-10-12T11:34:00.002+01:00

Featured Poet ---- Helen Dann

Helen Dann
two poems

ANOTHER VERMEER

How long must I sit here being serene

while my children howl

for the breast and the bread?

You'veplaced me

where thesun will blind me

if I lookup,

so I stareat the piece of lace

someone elsemade;

a woman withclever fingers

and time onher hands.

You say youwill let me leave

when thelight dims,

and myshadow lengthens.

Your smallnoises irritate me

and I feelsick.

My eleventhchild is growing.

The light isbeginning to recede.

****

LIFEIN PROGRESS

Black letters against a white ground:

Bitter words scrawled across the page.

A life in progress. A heart pulped.

Careful phrases gave glimpses of your life

But I knew one puff and it would be gone.

A silver ghost. Delicate as the fairies

The breeze plucks from dandelion clocks.

Now, your words have gone.

Nothing remains but a teasing handful,

Hints of what I’m missing.

You’re living your life without me now,

Your words locked in your heart,

The key around your neck on red ribbon.

Are you smiling? Did you cry?

I miss you, of course, but that’s life.

I must drift on without you, let you go.

You were always like smoke,

Magical and ghostly as a genie.

I hope your bones mend, I hope your heart

Is big enough. Perhaps we’ll meet one day

And find the right words, and meaningfulsilence.

****

Helen lives in Worcester with her husband and two children. She has
published several volumes of poetry, the most recent of which is 'The
Family Romance' (Indigo Dreams). An Open University student, she hopes
to graduate in 2013 with a BA in Humanities with Art History. Her
website can be found at http://www.helenkitson.com/

Juliet Wilson

2011-10-05T13:21:00.001+01:00

---Featured Poet---

Today I begin a series of sharing work by other poets.... I hope to make this a regular event....

Juliet Wilson
two poems

Unblinded

Once, you heard space as soundscape,

felt distance stretch to the clouds,

smelt the leaves change from green to red,

touched to interpret shape.

Now the newly seen is mystery

a confusion of beauty -

too much miracle.

Eyes closed, you read the Braille

of your lover’s face,

feel her breath on your skin.

Her heartbeat in the dark.

Stolen Fields

She remembers when these streets were fields

That stretched almost as far as her eyes could see

And slipped away to the beach.

Now she hangs her washing on a sad patch of grass

Where once she chased butterflies and lay in meadow flowers

Watching birds fly past.

She watches her sons play football on a concrete road

Laid on the fields where her brothers played ball

When they were very small.

She knows that the bulldozers have now returned

To dig up the small field behind the school

And make another street.

But if she half closes her eyes and sits without moving

She can still hear the birds and grasshoppers

Alive in the ghostly fields.

*******

note: 'Unblinded' originally published in chapbook Unthinkable Skies

Bio: Juliet Wilson is an Edinburgh based writer, adult education tutor and conservation volunteer. She blogs at Crafty Green Poet and edits an online poetry journal, Bolts of Silk . Her poetry pamphlet Unthinkable Skies was published in 2010. She has collaborated with musicians and a film-maker on versions of some of her poems.

poem & photos

2011-09-27T14:36:00.003+01:00

Sleeping Prince

In this dream I am attempting to cut the brambles
with a pair of borrowed scissors.

You are the sleeping prince again.
Unseen. Unheard. A photograph pinned to a cloud.

The scissors shape-shift in my hands
And I can’t get them to meet my fingers to work.

As I fight my hands I doubt the work of it,
drop the scissors into the dark.

No one will mind.
I’ll get another pair.

photos and poem

2011-09-18T13:31:00.002+01:00

papery dahlias

***

Creatures We Have Made

They last forever
if you let them
always stay in the just before we could
and fade fade fade

and many tiny spiders
inside their hearts
you would rather not know about

****

poems elsewhere

2011-09-07T13:26:00.003+01:00

I am delighted to be a featured poet over at teoppoet

there will be three new poems of mine published

starting with There Is a Secret Shortly After This One

thanks always for reading

a sepia photograph of a woman with large hair

2011-09-03T14:15:00.002+01:00

*

Attempting to remember why
she wrote 'antler' across her faded face.

Because the profile is aware of itself as a shushing noise
against the dark drab velvet of that time.

Her selfness separated itself from the city.
It grew naive antlers. It loved itself for them.

The noise between was something to be reckoned with,
like a balloon being rubbed in her large hair.

She grew up and out, tree and harder.
Everything made senseless music.

She had her photograph taken by a tall thin man
who called her madam and insisted on polishing her shoes.

The sepia trickled from her mouth
and like blood dried dark.

Standing meant knocking a chandelier,
getting tustled, making a fist.

She was elicit and stooping,
and needed to be living.

At the window now and then,
the soft sway of a cloud stuck to herself.

*

The Cloud Visitor Must Be Polite Like Anyone Else

2011-08-11T22:02:00.001+01:00

The Cloud visitor must be polite
like anyone else, though no one is expected.
You sit with your elbows hovering over the table
as we eat the pale food in your honour.

*

It's very quiet.
The white paint peels to reveal white.
Underneath we know there is a deeper pink, but
no need to say or even think of it now.
Go on and slowly knead the cloud of water
between your arms as you sleep.
I am circling a thread above your tired head,
as all good girls do.

*

It's very white and underneath the sleep
there are arms circling.
Hold this thread for me and slowly
knead yourself toward my legs, my deeper thinking.
You want the pink but there is nothing of it.
Be quiet whilst I breathe for you.

Deer, Dare, Dear

2011-07-10T12:37:00.004+01:00

Deer

She laid the plastic toy deer in the snow, took one hundred photographs. Nothing will happen, he said. She was exhausted and feverish. Everything in the forest looked the same. It was only a matter of time before the lights carved trees, the hunters.

That night he twisted wire coat hangers to make antler shadows on the cabin walls. She watched impassively, a little taste of blood in her mouth.

Dare

Such a pretty if musty room. Pink flamingos on the curtains. A wonderful view of the family estate, stags on the horizon. The gardener with a heavy wheelbarrow, something in a black sack.

This is hardly a dare, she said, untying the shoelaces on her broken suitcase. The curtains were hideous but if she shut her eyes she might feel safe.

Dear

Summer morning bonfire. Paper and bindweed flowers, shrinking together. A strong white smoke, prodding at brambles, the toes of his boots blackened.

She leant down to pick a clothes peg from the overgrown lawn. A snippet of warm paper: dear

Brittle as a dead butterfly.

She slipped it into her bra.

*

Birthplace, Residence, Occupation

2011-07-09T12:52:00.004+01:00

Birthplace

He was from Paris and Preston. How can that be, where were you born? she asked. His hand was already in his pocket. He took out a dark razor shell, sat it on his palm. It opened a little. She leant closer as if it might start to play music, or she might at last be able to hear the sea.

*

Residence

She loved the light and how it made patterns at the top of the stairs. That was the big reason, if they needed one. She liked the way fronds – that was what they called them yes? – grew in a pot on the windowsill. The diction spoken when he and only he was home. These things kept her here. Nothing to do with memories. She really had little connection with the past these days.

Oh and the baby liked the songs she made up for him.

*

Occupation

There was a pale gap on the wall, a painting had been taken down for restoration. It was his job to mind this space. No photos, film, loud yobs. It’s just you and me then he said to it. Unlike the others he would cope, not start seeing things.

*

Poly

2011-07-08T14:01:00.003+01:00

Poly

The rain settles on his beard.

He holds a small potted plant. Polysomething, he says and hands it over. She feels she knows what he means. Everyone wants a boyfriend with a ginger beard.

Soon the yellow flowers appear. She takes a photograph before eating. They taste peppery.

*

He shows her a photograph of himself as a child, dressed as a princess. I really loved those slippers, he says. Later she draws a sketch of the boy in pink. She puts a finger on the chin of the beardless child and sighs.

*

Another one of those dreams where she is trying to explain the logic of dreams. It is unicorn hour. They are waiting by a disused rail track. A butterfly with his bearded face. When he stamps on it they laugh like the old days.

*

Fox Feeder & Trophy

2011-07-07T11:48:00.002+01:00

Fox Feeder

Fox polaroids. He looked at her pin board and knew she was feeding them. This is bad, he thought, dangerous. He saw her watching a fox pissing into the roses, the steam. She seemed happy.

He wished she was more interested in moths, like before. The dying ones getting zapped by the blue killer lamp. They would sit together for hours watching. Oh yes, oh no, it is, oh yes yes yes.

They had something then.

*

Trophy

She is trying to explain on the phone.
The tears are sliding down and across, filling her ears.
I waited three days for you to take the fox corpse,
she says. And then you or someone throw it in a skip.
And before you say one word more do not say vermin.
I will have none of this, you understand, you are
ruining my life.

She watches the spot, but time after time someone
comes along and takes the flowers.
She has no will to confront any more.
All she can think of is how glad she is
she had a knife that night and had the courage
to slice the foot and take it home.

Now and then she opens the freezer
and checks the sandwich box.
The little foot is stiff and darker.
I have never had so much strength in my life,
she tells it. And with you, I shall always.

*

The Feather Back & Fable

2011-07-06T15:28:00.004+01:00

*

The Feather Back

He turns the woman around and plucks the last feather with sharp little teeth. Ah that feels so much better now, she says. And she flexes her shoulders and rotates her hips a little before looking to him for the feather back. For the feather is non-negotiable. But he’s chewing something and not surreptitiously. Well what a surprise, she says, and walks calmly away.

*

Fable

A bird flew for many days over many hills to a far-off land. When it arrived it found nothing at all: no twig, no leaf, no cloud. Nothing except for a small child with a toothless grin. His teeth had been extracted, made into a necklace, tied around the boy’s neck. The exhausted bird felt sorry for itself and for the land, but not for the child who at least had something to hold on to. The child said to the bird: fly home bird. But the bird was so tired and there was no food for it, so it settled between the boy’s thighs and the boy stroked the feathers until they all fell softly around.

Tiny Horse

2011-07-05T15:25:00.000+01:00

Tiny Horse

The woman holds a tiny horse. It stands upon her palm. Quite particular this one, the horse wove from hair, very dark, her hair which does not make it obedient. She knows better than to set it on the table. It might try a gallop, fall at the first hurdle.

When she closes her hand she feels the horse tremble and toughen into the feel of a peach kernel. And it really seems to like being hard and different. But when she opens her hand there it is again, a horse, picture book perfect. A horse that spits the tiniest apple seeds. A horse with a whistle in its teeth and a quiver-silk mane. How pretty this horse of mine, the woman thinks, and keeps it nameless. She keeps it for herself.

Bee-Shaped

2011-07-04T14:50:00.000+01:00

*

Bee-Shaped

A woman is detailing gruesome abuse of bees. Coincidentally, a cigarette burn bee-shaped in the hotel curtains. Her voice in a jar. Now to the way larger spider webs turn bronze. Like brown-wrapped packages. A certain irresistible work, smoothing hair on their legs. Your guessed at expiry dates. Tea-stained. Tasting honey on tapers. The flowers are frail and smell of sleep. Some of us tell our stinging tales. A cloying nostalgia. Push your fingers through the bee and out to nowhere.

nevering july - begins tomorrow

2011-07-03T07:08:00.000+01:00

every so often I like to write a series of posts here - it has been a while - a long while

but next week things will be different

I aim to post something new each day beginning Monday 4th for a week or so....

new writing and new sketches

I invite your responses - written as perhaps re-mixes of the original post, a link to a drawing or other artwork, any thoughts and ideas you may have

(note: any spam or otherwise will be treated to the filter)

fiction

2011-06-21T14:04:00.000+01:00

Collecting Clouds

She has arranged a table of lilac things. Her naked cold skin, adamant because it is summer. Lights a candle inside. A bruise on her hip from leaning against the kitchen sink, drawer.

He is from France and bakes very flat flans with mystery fruits. Everything about him makes her laugh, except his gritty smile. Seven years younger, he will be good until the end of summer

When she was a tiny girl she collected a cloud each Summer Solstice. Her parents were proud hippies and encouraged this. She placed a jar on a windowsill and watched it for the many long days to come, until a yellowish bloom took over. Then she would tip the contents down the sink, let the tap run for a very long time, watched the swirl of painterly colour.

Cleaned her teeth to be sure it was gone.

He has never heard of Summer Solstice.

She cracks open long beans from the garden. The tendrils are a pretty menace. She likes the crack sound, raw taste.

When the phone rings they go into the garden. A crow above makes disgruntled noise. Attempts to make a bonfire but the wood is damp. He lights newspapers. The papery flames scare insects. She tells him to hold the flames away from himself. Like a wing. Like he is a burning man. Photographs are taken.

A cat with a gash across its face. It stops to watch the bits of flaming paper. Smells the acrid smoke.

She fills her jar.

Violet Goodenough

2011-06-06T14:43:00.000+01:00

Violet Goodenough is my newest zine. Exploring the inner world and dreams of a timeless 'lady painter'. This sequence of prose-poems or poetic fictions comes printed on ivory paper with a hand-stitch detailed cover.

extract:

She draws on brown paper. It is cheap and plentiful. Like stinging nettles, she writes in her diary. Apparently one can make paper from stingers.

She sits with a hand feeling her head. The system of softness as a shock to the system. She remembers how it is to draw a princess in a swarm of bees.

A thrill. A fairytale passion.

A first limited edition of 100 copies. Each signed.

To purchase a copy for $7 please visit my shop here

notes from last summer

2011-05-26T14:39:00.000+01:00

notes from last summer

I.

Rain collected in jars.
Things wrapped in wrappings.
String that takes all the dye.
Offerings on the window sill.

Watch the rain as it needs you.
It makes careful scratches into
the solar plexus of today.

When the ragged ribbons
look much prettier why wait?
Begin writing in clouds. Begin.
Harvest spiders might beat you.

Leave your coat in a tree.
You left it in a tree all summer.
It stayed for a while last summer.
Things stayed put.

Earlier, I sat at a paint-splattered desk
writing old letters to nobody.
Hogarth said to be patient,
I wrote, but I don't know why.

flash fiction just for a change

2011-05-12T12:36:00.000+01:00

Needles and Pins

A woman makes lavish dresses but only for herself.

The dressed are hung on the wall and never worn. Visitors admire her curious finery but no one knows how sloppily they are stitched. Big loose stitches and random gathers. Somehow the dresses look perfect. Only the woman knows their truth.

The woman meets a very handsome younger man. She resists him for a long time. Shocked by his interest in her, she invites him to dinner. He tells her he is a tailor, his father a tinker, his mother a spy. The woman laughs, they laugh together. Nothing seems all that serious. He is dressed with a frivolous flower in his button hole. He has a nowhere accent. He has very gentle, soft hands. She has the hands of someone who washes dishes all day, though she works in an office.

Seriously though, he says, and they kiss.

After dinner he asks to try on one of the dresses. Try this one or that one - himself.

Really the dresses are very delicate, she explains.

All the same, he slips off his smart suit and takes a long silky gown, attempts to step inside. She does not protest but is enchanted by the sight of him, the robust young male shape moving in fine chiffon and flimsy layers. She holds her breath.

He walks up and down the room. She watches him, his taut figure caught in silk, tanned skin appearing in holes. So the dress unravels, a little here and there. He continues to walk about and the dress becomes a slip of its former self. He stops and a rag falls away.

And all the dresses on the walls shiver and begin to unstitch themselves.

The woman does not know where to look. She is surprised to feel rather numb. Her heart is pierced like a pin cushion. The man is laughing now. Yes her heart is like a fist of sand, punctured with needles and pins.

A Blossoming

2011-04-28T09:50:00.000+01:00

A Blossoming

This year the blossom is heavy.
The forecast is for steady showers.
The petals fall quick, quick.
And all the birds sing of a new reign,
with pedestrian hearts, with feathers casting
no shadow.

And the blossom shudders
in a jerky kind of dim animation
like someone has cut it all out;
It will let us do anything.
We eat and sleep the blossom dream.

Carnivals happen in lonely streets.
The trees are quaking in their own mysteries.
A film is made of how blossom replaces itself,
each night, so many pale moths rising.

Something is wrong with this
is it the trees themselves that whisper?
but no one really minds for now,
no. No one worries at all.

Clay

2011-03-24T11:47:00.000Z

Clay

If you sit still long enough
you will understand we're never really stopping.
Everything inside me churns and escalates,
makes a pattern of tight blanket stitches.

Even if the light takes my angles
and makes them sweeter than porcelain
no-one is really fooled,
they turn their own head because they can.

I know a woman who breathes too much
and one day she will die, holding herself.
Her mouth is better than mine
but lacks the will to shut up.

I can sing anything in my head,
so long as fingers are pressed into me.
I do not need more than these simple things:
a shape of almost human, a dampened smile.

at dawn I whisper....

2011-03-15T11:15:00.000Z

a sample of words in blue and yellow
improvised stitch
*

at dawn I whisper into my pale hands

no prayer but knowing the meticulous

errors I will make today

helping myself to a little too much

blue sky...... whilst the birds sing in

yellow yellow yellow

so my hands can touch you again

I will go from here to there

some stories need you others wither

regardless..... you are no stranger

to me than the next strange beast....

*

see the stitch work larger

Tales

2011-02-10T14:46:00.000Z

Tales

*

a long, long time ago
when most of the world was young
you sat alone counting raindrops

you were idle
and wished for
fallen trees to make themselves tall again

and again.
Once upon a time
that kind of thing could happen,

the science of magnetism
in hoops and laces
became a blur of tell-tale.

A person can be
her own supper dish
and laugh at the gritty girls,

she might forget everything
in the darksome depths of a forest
but who would know?

A lad named Jack
might rescue her with numb skin
and a brilliant gap in his teeth.

They might live happily ever after.

Remember

2011-01-13T13:15:00.000Z

It has been a while since I posted here. A Happy New Year to you... I hope to post as often as the poems allow during 2011....

*

Remember

I remember the books
stacked on shelves like children waiting,
their sleek new spines.

I remember a warm blue day,
the endless wave of land,
the shape of it laconic, erstwhile, toy-shiny.

I remember almost being here,
the latch undone, clothes scrawled, your shoes
making a cosmic pattern.

I remember always the minty newness
of a plastic wish, the holiness
above the stairs, her wistful green.

I remember when yellow could be found,
as easily as rain. We wore, held and ate.
We yellowed ourselves for the love of it.

I remember before I was born,
the way time took hold of us,
the way I made you.

Winter Revisions

2010-12-09T16:26:00.000Z

Winter Revisions

This winter is a skinny little chap.
He eats his way through, all layers, to the heart.
And he follows, despite himself.

If I should care, find me in the snow. An iced-on wig, implacable.

And you have a certain way of flash and burn.
Here is a silver bird, it rings a bell.
Your lips are cracked gold, ‘tis the season.
Frost guts, the chinks.

*

In this dream I wear nothing but
a halterneck of breath clouds.
It is snowing again. The dark shape of a fox
rushing across a sheet of ice,
writing his name in scuffing cyrillic.

*

Despite the care for birds, some will crack.
Others will adopt monocles, chink away.
There will be guts of snow.
Elsewhere, in the heart of silver, children will grow wings,
sing songs of other cares.

*

A fox cannot write. He scuffs at his shape.
He rises in the neck of a dream.
I do not appear in this one. I have haltered,
scratched my name from this. I breathe only cyrillic.

*

Children are not birds.
I shall remember, fold them neatly, as maps, snow traps.
Frost is mostly harmless.
Frost is all lips and no layers.
I will eat your sorrow, says winter. I will ring your bell.

****

My poem 'Feathery Language' is now featured over at poetry blog Bolts of Silk

When Winter Arrives Suddenly As If Needing You

2010-11-30T14:38:00.001Z

*

When Winter Arrives Suddenly As If Needing You

This is the winter your child comes early -
he finds snow is elastic in his mouth,
makes terrific bubbles, balloons, birds.
You wake to find him nesting in your hair.
He is tiny now, growing smaller day by day.

And the next day is snow and the next.
Out in the blank of sudden love,
your child finds a tree and beneath it
the zipper to the heart of everything.
He watches his brothers come through a sweet dark.
They are white and furry around the eyes,
they sing like trained minstrels, dogs, bagpipes,
kettle drums, nightingales.

How to love so many tender hearts?
You make name labels and feed everyone berries.
They wear their grey snow like jackets.
You sit very still now, listen to it: winter’s
best empty advice, the slow drip of candles.

Nothing Else

2010-11-18T10:15:00.000Z

*

Nothing Else

Photographs have faded to desirable green.
The girl in the mirror has shuffled out of view.
I have my hair tied behind itself.
Lines around my mouth have yet to happen.
I know nothing else about myself.

Fear no bird, no rising tide, no brown envelope.
Safely, I hide at home between book stacks.
I forget how to knit, pull gently at stitches.
The formula for love is blank.
Tiny animals, not quite mice, live within breathing space.

The slow radio becomes a mumble.
There is spoken a recipe for making tasteless cakes.
They are important and futile, may contain owl feathers.

I look at the lines on my palms
meaning nothing more than ever.
I draw faces on my fingernails because I can.
It really is fine. There is no need to snow this winter.
I decide no more decisions.

Someone will reinvent my sleep.
It will have a scent of fallen leaves.
Dreams will fall into themselves,
irregular, shaped like baby fists.
I will whistle as I work.

Little Book of You

2010-11-02T14:02:00.000Z

Little Book of You

This is the little book of you. Slightly dog-eared, perhaps.
But it is you. It can have small teeth wearing lipstick.
It teaches itself to sleep at odd moments.
It can run away with you, but it has itching scars.
It knows staying apart and when to fall together.
How to ply secrets, the importance of.
Also how to wake birds and feed them to the morning.
It watches clouds like a bird of prey.
It has intrepid finger tips.
This book knows how to make a worm and feed it.
It wants to talk on a doll-sized telephone.
It has a vernacular to capture her, or it, or us.
If it has a whole body, it glowers with immense lust.
It can bake pies and tends wild flowers.

It is your book of you. Keep it, rub the covers:
gentle, gentle, gentle.

***
a 'found' poem of mine is featured over at Patti's inspiring blog: missouri bend paper works

The Moon at 2am

2010-10-22T14:41:00.000+01:00

*

The Moon at 2am

I struggled awake, moonlit
as if to paint portraits of pretty winter girls.
And then, in a moment of silence,
abandoned the characters in mind -
white chalk over their mouths,
sighed for their longing.

Someone thought of me and gasped.
There was a sheet pulled over a memory.
Little gaps came to happen,
dumbfounded, elegant as swans.

I remember writing a list,
white on white,
the very whisper of it.

The moon
a false witness,
pouring over
my body.

The Answers

2010-10-13T16:13:00.000+01:00

*

The Answers

Yes because you can sew the edges
if you really must.

Yes because the sweet little cup
you cling to, the bright glimpse you unravel,
is as real as you wish it.

No that happens also,
this frayed momentum,
a wave of sorrow in each wrinkled gown.

Yes because the trees tingle
as if made unholy, as if the sky is falling thinly.

No is a missing moment,
a way to lose your own tight thread.

No because that happens also, in a wave of wonder,
crows will bleed a strange maroon.

Yes I sing as a remedy for sleeplessness,
it makes no difference but helps time by.

No is yes, in this particular instance,
the way you loop yarn
around your thumbs.

Really there is no obvious between us.
Knowledge depends on the hip you wear it.

Yes there are pieces of glitter stuck within
each bright day of other people’s childhoods.

No, refraction has nothing more to do with habit.
Someone ought not to take my photograph.

Yes, the leaves will turn purple,
you can press them in your very favourite hands.

poem for an October ghost

2010-10-06T16:37:00.001+01:00

*

poem for an October ghost

Come into the room already,
walk your leaves in here -
flagrant spelling mistakes.

I see you’ve upgraded -
pearly tears now,
evolved long sleeves,
a new kind of silence.

Come and sit to fade against October.
The light holds your dress at arms length.

Here are your beautiful errors,
string-tied, gentle.
Little bound harvests.

I love your wrongness,
your inky warm nightcaps.

I scarcely know you
yet I paint you in anyway,
insistent whispers all over.
A downy skin.

Furtive, as if unwrapping flowers,
your hands and mine,
weave to make question marks.

Second Day of Autumn

2010-09-28T14:03:00.000+01:00

Second Day of Autumn

Between the hours, your lost grandmother
is sitting aside, weaving flowers
with brittle nettle leaves. As she
works her breath reaches out to you
as a ribbon, a stench of love.
There are tender stitches
that make our lives and then
the scratch of knowledge disassembles us.
Sorrows tug.

All at once, the small grey fur of your heart
makes a new rhythm, decides for romance.
Quicken yourself, put on your yellow coat,
tie a black scarf around your yellow hair.
Today has the stain and hopes of anything goes.
The air has that nip, anticipated.
It is satisfactory, almost without shame.

***
I am currently working on a new small artist book 'Tree Songs' with poems and photography/artwork.... hope to have it available in the near future - will let you know

from Concertina

2010-09-13T11:40:00.000+01:00

from Concertina

(a series of tiny poems - in progress)

Pale green branches
in dollish landscapes
bend tall grass concertina

*

our cloud children
make their inside outs
rabbitty and sunstruck

*

lists of faces to draw upon
so many twiggy moustaches
a strange decor of eyes

*

your location concertin'd
nomadic yet always here
the warm dented chair

*

taking risks
painting over old photographs
new faces emerge blind as flowers

*

perhaps the soft grey
makes you happy & afraid
I am always so

here and there - chapbook

2010-09-07T22:02:00.001+01:00

My new chapbook 'here and there' is now available in my mixed media art shop (apologies if you read my mixed media blog and know this already).

'here and there' began as a daily writing project here, at nevering, posting daily poem notes during May this year. Most of those notes have now been removed from the blog, as I have edited, reworked some of the poems. New poems have come about, I've worked on experimenting further with ideas. Working on putting together a chapbook of your own, editing quietly in moments between other projects is not exactly an easy process, but I got there and I am happy with this one.

To make this a truly handmade book, something individual, each cover has an original monoprint, stitched. So each cover is different. The booklet has hand sewn binding. This is a limited edition of 50.

Possibly a collaborative project with other poets may be next for me. More on that some time.

I shall post new poem notes here soon. Thanks always for your reading and feedback here.

fine rain clouds we have known

2010-08-25T19:34:00.000+01:00

Late summer rain forgets the details,

blackberry stains on skirts.

Beyond here, the clouds like corrugated roofs.

The roots of love are gently harvested,

wrapped in sacks and circles.

If you want mysteries, better make

them yourself. Find recipes in forgotten drawers.

Ladle words and label soup; it is that kind of weather,

over and over. Oh you are fine

in this grey light, the English are made for it.

Now the rain softens and the garden hangs low.

The fruits of this day will be crumpled,

neatly, almost at once forgiven.

Folding Your Arms Will Not Stop The Waves

2010-08-03T07:19:00.001+01:00

*

He can reflect anything so be careful.
I too have dipped my toe in the dark pool,
it felt like summer but wrong.
It still was alive and I was putting it back together
with just the nudge of my silly little flesh.

If you look beyond yourself
you see there's been an ocean here all along.
How quaint. How we long for the dexterity of water,
a purr of flow and tide.
If there is a spark it is expert at fighting ink and leaves.
It disperses and folds like a cloud.

Elsewhere, the endless swirling breath of my son,
laughing.

Falling Down

2010-07-26T19:56:00.000+01:00

*

It is a tree in the moonlit dawn
that scares me.
The day is taken by branches,
each moment a leaf to be crushed.
What you see are phantoms with fruit.
You can laugh, but have you tasted the apples?

When I was a tiny girl we played inside the fallen
trees of the park and creepy man would watch us
crawling and getting lost inside the huge hollows.
Soon enough fire razed the place.

I remember the Dutch Elms
the smoldering stumps,
walking through the boarded up grounds
of our local stately home,
and the acrid stench of treated branches,
and kicking at balled newspaper pages.

Now twilight trips down
and the trees are sighing in the humid summer night
and tiny birds are fleetingly rare,
they too seem timid of the twig.

I’ve never feared climbing up
only falling down.

dream houses

2010-07-17T19:32:00.000+01:00

*

I loved them each
the dream houses,
nocturnal light in the afternoon.

Only paper and tape,
and I held one on my fingertips,
an entire building, complete,
all I could ever ask for,
could twirl it at angles

and I pin-pricked each window
but heard nothing on the stairs -

from room to room I travelled
sharing a dialogue
with a split-level quiet

and nothing happened for long
except the gentle fold of rain
filling the spaces
that wait for me still.

'here and there' project: update

2010-07-11T23:09:00.000+01:00

During May I wrote almost daily here, poems in progress, some more complete than others... My aim was to form some kind of small collection, perhaps a chapbook of poems...

Well after giving the poems a little breathing space, I went on to write several new poems in addition to the May notes. Some of these poems are 'remixes' or revisions, reinventions if you like.

I went ahead and began to design a handmade book that actually became a printed cover containing two small handmade books of poems... sounds ok but then I considered just how long it takes to make a single copy of this complex format.... a lovely idea, then, in theory but.... a learning experience..... when book design takes over from the poems it is time to re-think, perhaps.... And ultimately I want the focus to be on word.

I am giving this project more thought. There is no rush, no time frame imposed. I think ultimately I will make a simple book of poems and selection will be based on what I consider to be the best of them. So I hope to be offering something on paper but not right now. I feel writing the reinventions and developing ideas has been very worthwhile but more time and space is needed. What I may end up with is a selection of poems that have moved on greatly from where I started, or perhaps I will make a big curve back to the originals.

This is one of the reasons why I choose to self-publish some projects. I can re-think and revise, plus make a book that is the right shape for the poems, rather than the poems having to fit into the publishers set format.

Thanks for reading here
. I hope to post new poem notes next week.

Lanterns (remix)

2010-06-29T13:46:00.000+01:00

Lanterns

II. (remix)

The floating child made her own light.
It felt dark like anticipation,
fear or flight,
a cramped up little limbed being all flame,
she knew it could be better
to just let go

but how do you sleep now
when your dreams are full of sea and stars?

Can someone find you out in the black,
can you put yourself to bed
and not wake up until nakedness is holy?

Elsewhere, a woman is cutting out
the shape of a child to let it glow
against her own skin, like a memory.

Lanterns

2010-06-29T13:13:00.000+01:00

Lanterns

It was late and still too hot to sleep.
I lay naked on the bed with a fan blowing
and curtains open, but the air so still.
And then I saw the lanterns in the night sky

floating, rising higher. One and then another.

I got out of bed to look how close,
gliding lit sea creatures, as if rising on a thread
pulling diagonally upward.

Someone had lit and let them free, of course.
Someone who had not been thinking of me.
A party elsewhere, the match struck over and over,
the warm dazzle in other hands.

Lit like a nowhere child, fearlessly ascending,
each lantern followed no star but the night itself.

I watched them sail out of view,
all glow and silent laughter.

here and there : Introduction & 1.

2010-05-03T10:15:00.000+01:00

Starting today and for the rest of this month of May, I am going to attempt to write here daily. I'm working on a sequence of poems with the working title: 'here and there'. This title may very well change. These are NOT polished, complete poems but notebook writings.

At the end of May I will stop writing and go into editing mode, elsewhere, quietly alone. I may then put together (and it is a big 'may' at this stage), a revised, edited, version of the sequence as a small printed book. Perhaps with illustrations. Perhaps not.

As you can tell things are are wide open here, as perhaps I like them to be at the start of a project. However, I do have some starting points. I've been writing notes before now. I hope these may help a little, perhaps.

I've been thinking of how important 'in-between moments' are to me. It's in these in-between moments when you think 'this is nothing' that something extraordinary can slip in. Your mind is suddenly filled with rich imagery, or words pattern everything you see and you have to grab a pen. Quiet weirdness takes its turn. Not weird for the sake of, but an honest, revealing, playful 'unusualness'. You think back to other days elsewhere, slip between then and now. Perhaps into other lives. All of a sudden something about you is reflected back at you. You have always been and always will be you, despite where you are or what experience may do to you.

'The door was shut. I looked between'

--- Christina Rossetti 'Shut Out'

'I am not what I have nor what I do.
But what I was I am. I am even I.'

--- Christina Rossetti 'The Thread of Life'

'Swimming through dark, slow,
breaststroke-
not to startle
walls or chairs and
wake you-
I almost sundered the
full to the brim with moonlight
mirror'

---- Denise Levertov 'Love Poem'

*****

here and there

1.

Think back to other times elsewhere.
Maybe the girls are flighty.
Maybe they bloom and die in an afternoon.
They all have your smile and eyes.

Remembered as a breath,
a sigh with too much weight.

A wait of sighs,
borrowed skies.

2010-04-16T13:55:00.000+01:00

Understanding
a love poem

Understanding the shape
between your throat and collar
is exactly a true heart
to be kissed.

Understanding the nature
of words is to kiss them into shape.

Understanding the pretense.
In some other era the most Romantic thing
would be to let things wither beautifully.

Understanding one rainfall
growing inside another can make
a rainbow but only inside,
safe as houses.

Understanding nothing
is complete freedom.

Understanding the tilt of sleeping
is to reconcile breath with first memory.

Understanding your hands
are folded protectively only because
they are so agile and full of nothing,
so keen to touch my mouth.

Understanding courtly love
as archetypal memory
something to write essays about
over and over
like yearning caught in clouds of words.

Understanding the faces I see
are not nearly as beautiful as the faces they conceal.

Understanding eleven minutes past
is not a psychic message
just something you can train yourself
to recognise in crisis or temptation.

Understanding if you peel open a closed flower bud
it really can’t do itself up again.

Understanding a moment like this -
as it drifts between inner rooms -
a lonely ghost.

Understanding time
is opening doors and windows
in every place you’ve ever been
just to let in a little wavering light,
the chance memory,
an echo of your future self.

Song of Myself

2010-03-17T11:42:00.001Z

I was shown my body.
I admit I felt trepidation
but then I saw what was happening.
Last Autumn, my colours drifted,
now in Spring so many spindly shoots appearing.

I felt my body could be immense
and as strange as time.
It might just flower blue this year.
People could come and know me, after all.
I laughed at myself for such a selfish notion.

I remember the days of two legs and eyes
and hands. How I loved those hands.
I’d work parts of myself, pleasure upon pleasure,
listening to the song I made.
If I believed my stare could tilt the moon,
could coax the fire,
then I believed with all my husky heart.

*

I coax the blue song,
it is a pleasure to be flowering in the strange year.
People sometimes listen or feel trepidation.
I shall walk this way and show you
the landscape of my dreaming.
Here now see the laughing trees
somehow paint themselves
darker in the sun.

*

Work, you say, is a figment of nature.
It is something that happens outside the window.
There are listening flowers that pretend to shoot.
Everything about pleasure has you afraid.
Your heart is a thing that beats out of season.

Sepia

2010-02-10T13:35:00.000Z

Sepia

Shadows play across threadbare velvet.
Ivy scrawled on walls.
Tiny doves with glued wings.

The photographer’s black caped camera
waiting in hunched shadow.

There is the certain smell of wax and bodies.
A girl’s timid laughter, like a bell for sorrow.

The rain is slick and heavy against the window.
Breath against glass
seeking out a form, making a little o.

No one here.

*

The cameras are packed away.
There’s a war on, then another.
The room is locked up. Sometimes
a visitor can stand on the stairs and hear
a nervous adjustment of a smile,
or the careful ruffling of a parasol.

*

The building is pulled down.
Cameras auctioned.
Things get scattered.
Doves fly again. Children grow old quickly.
Faces fade, eyes blur.
People get out of place.

Much later, someone else will find a key.
It was there all this time.
A key to a trunk.
Layers and layers of sepia,
forever Autumn.

The rain falls across the city,
everything is a rush of dark and light.
A woman must get on.
It takes a few days to find time for them all;
the photographs wait patiently for her.
She looks at them with a shaking heart.
Her sisters. The laughter.
She finds herself again....
and another
and another.

(photo is from my own collection of vintage and antique photographs, please do not copy, thank you)

Attempting to photograph snowdrops

2010-01-29T13:06:00.000Z

Because this is not the fleeting season,
the snowdrop waits a while, holds its breath for the camera.

There is only a quiet way in to looking at this,
it speaks of perfection without a nod to vanity,

makes you forget the hope of Summer.
This is all you need right now, it says.

A nod to a quiet glamour. Glamour as in the old meaning,
a magic, a certain rhythm to being. Seen and not.

Looking purely down into its own shadow,
knowingly, loving the season of frost,

clinging almost to something harder than roots can grapple,
a quiet life before Spring. Obliges with a quiver in chilly breeze.

So white it blurs. Splits the camera’s ability
to take a good shot but

we're going to do this together
before the sun goes in.

A Forest

2010-01-22T14:21:00.000Z

A Forest

My daughter wants a forest
so I’ll dream it for her, fearlessly.
For what is there to fear except the odd invasion
of fern, deer, nettle, fungi, stump, a rash of cyclamen, branches, more branches.

But before that I need to make the forest happen.
And that takes time, and breath and nights and nights
listening to owls circling as the forest ascends.

Saplings. That’s the word I’ve needed for days.
Green and bending toward the light, so optimistic
the very idea of being this new and with such a bright future
makes every bit of dirt worth it.

Strong roots,
that is why the sapling sways?
I think that’s it.

Listen to the forest sing:
keep weaving,
keep changing.

Her Dreams of Flying (remix)

2010-01-15T13:51:00.000Z

Don't go too close to the real edge.
Don't get tangled in your own strings.
Perhaps draw a map with many little dashes
that lead across the sky to a safe spot of twilight,
or draw yourself a spiral across an ocean,
or maybe just let go, parachute.

*

Luck has a dumb charm.
It gives you all kinds of false promises.
It can make little horses out of clouds.
It can make you forget the weather.
It can make you forget yourself.
It can make you forget what it is.

Her Dreams of Flying

2010-01-14T14:10:00.000Z

The sky felt giddy with her flying in it.
She flew into clouds like old friends,
hi higher higher high...

Transcending the everyday, if you like.
Oh so simply, a three-step program of feathers
and cardboard and string, and good luck a bonus.
Skimming the ticky-tacky down below.

She flew because of a grievance
she once had with angels - yeah
this will show 'em!

She flew to be alone
because loners love their own lonely medicine.

It seemed that flying could make you stop
thinking about yourself
for just a moment.

See just how tangled around
the edges the world really is.

mindmap

2010-01-13T13:28:00.000Z

a mindmap on poetry..... this is a monoprint drawing on paper that I made earlier today.... How I would make this would differ each time. Different words and connections, perhaps.

New poem notes tomorrow. Many thanks for all your thoughtful 'Winter Magi' comments. Much appreciated.

Winter Magi (a sequence: part three)

2009-12-24T08:05:00.000Z

Winter Magi (part three)

Write a list of all the iconography
your eyes have witnessed.
Write a name for your chosen saint.
Bind your heart with the tight twine of a prayer.
Give everything to a hopeless cause.

Attempt to light a fire in your heart.

*

They were looking for all things:
Joy and Light.

Instead the sea appeared,
an ocean of separation. In the dark of night
the sea turned in its own grave
and made the shape of a boat.
Gladly they closed their eyes and drifted
back and forth almost toward a star.
They knew it was important
to get to the part of the story
that fills the reader’s heart with gladness
but it seemed drifting with flotsam
and stars might be their destiny.

*

It seems like drifting
with flotsam and debris and stars and broken
dreams is our destiny.

Always it is the getting there.
Do not attempt to separate
yourself from stars and sea
but gladly shape your own joy,
for in this drifting world
destiny is something like flotsam
and no one cares for you.

*

Maybe there were three
giving jewels to the Jewel.
Three became many.
Three becoming infinity.

*

At the arrival
stars became blood and bone.
Everyone accepted the gifts of tomorrow,
however they may be performed.

It was enough
more than enough to stand in the snow
with hearts on fire.

*

If you long to know
keep longing
for longer than ever.

***

I wish you a very Happy Christmas and New Year..... I hope to share more with you in 2010

Winter Magi (a sequence: part two)

2009-12-19T22:47:00.000Z

Winter Magi
(part two)

The magi make secrets of themselves.
Theirs is a mystery small enough
for a simple jar, big and wide
as a star filled sky.

*

Myrrh is mine its bitter taste
on my fingers as I eat by candlelight.

It feels wrong to imagine.
There is a kind of longing in each flame tonight.
A kind of premonition.

*

It was such a fine day for travelling.
Only the trees knew how to be still.
Birds looked down at the snow and sang.
A hare wrapped its legs around itself
and dreamed of a Buddha. The baby man.
There were golden apples
waiting in the belly of the earth.

*
It is Winter Solstice.
We travellers sleep in a bough
of green memories.

*

They are self-made and born again
each Winter. Like all
my most favourite characters,
the magi insist they are rootless,
only imagined by children.
I hear the rush of a familiar story,
turn the page, find them gone.
Gone back to nowhere.

Return and wind on.
Keep the thread.
A certain tension.

*

(final part, part three, will be posted Christmas Eve.... many thanks)

Winter Magi (a serquence: part one)

2009-12-16T10:54:00.000Z

Winter Magi
(part one)

The Winter Magi are making tracks.
Snow burns feet like nothing else;
Summer fires are easier to walk.

They scrunch up their gowns
to walk over rivers,
hobble over borders.

Walking mindfully, knowing
sharp tips of snowdrops.

*

I walk past your guitar
and it gives a low burring echo
like a call for attention
in a temple
somewhere, elsewhere.

*
They walk
like bone birds
dressed in peacock feathers.

*

You are a wise child,
you with the the early diagnosis
of seasons and reasons.
You dream of a knowledge
so random, so star-lit,
yet to be dovetailed into our world.

*

They will give their possessions.
They have already donated their shoes to the roadside.
They will give the snow back to the snow.
They may make new hearts from ice.
They shall burn with the frost.

*

Glad of the snow, the Magi walk
and follow each low star of a dream.
They are the shape of doves
and make their wings with silence.

The smallest figure grasps his own hands
and sings to himself:
this is the temple,
here are the doors
and here are the....
but his fingers are iced together
as if sewn by saints.
I did not ask for this journey,
he feels now.

Those who do not ask, often get.
Jewels smudged with cold.
Snow gowns.

*****

Many thanks to you for all recent positive comments. I apologise for not replying to each one personally, but will read and visit sites over the next few weeks.

hello

2009-12-11T22:27:00.001Z

A brief hello and thank you for all the recent comments. Your positive words are much appreciated. I just wanted to say thanks and to also share the ideas behind this poetry blog, very briefly. This is a notebook of poetry notes, or notes toward poems - I am sharing here the process of ideas and playing with language. So there's repeating themes and a reinventing process, that you may have picked up on already. I'm happy to have new readers here, you are welcome. I'm not about to defend contemporary poetics, nor am I that interested in whether a poem is 'good' or 'not good' - I'll leave that for other blogs. I'm sharing here to give insight into how poems may evolve. Thank you and enjoy your weekend - new poem notes next week some time....

2009-12-08T14:10:00.000Z

Snake Bark

I find yet another list of plants
on a tatty envelope, one of those
wish-lists that never come into leaf:
Ivy, Hellebore, Galanthus, Jasmine....
and I’m back on a Winter walk,
dressed in a damp coat on a dark afternoon,
taking the winding path
with sweetest Viburnum in frosty air.
There’s a sharpness to the trees
and the snake bark is peeling with colour,
revealing of itself
part only of a secret knowledge,
a way of riddles and ritual.
If I take, surreptitiously, this tiny piece
of red brittle bark
and place it in my pocket
I may feel the earth stealing itself
like ice cracks,
an erratic hunger
for elsewhere.

Starling

2009-12-04T11:48:00.001Z

One lone starling pecking at frost.
Should he be here now?
I watch it. The sheen of it
and calculate how many broken rainbows
must get under each feather
to make him quite so shabby.

*

Take this rainbow and the sheen
of knowledge. Your breathless adoration
for tiny Jesus in waxy light. All the shabby
angels are wearing their starling feathers
for today is the broken one.

*

It is getting closer to the middle
and to the end.
Birds wear their feathers
as if angels might pluck them alive.
For this is Winter, the starling calls.
I am voiceless moon in 9am sky.
I am the chosen light.

*

Gather your Winter stories.
The starling children are flocking
with glinting lanterns setting fire to the moon.

*

Make a list of all the songs
you have not set alight this year.
Work out how it could be possible
to fly in one direction and then the other
simultaneously, splitting feathers.

Golden

2009-11-25T09:25:00.000Z

Golden

So I said to him: stand on the bed and look out, see
how thick the blanket of golden leaves
beneath the trees, watch the leaves falling.
He was wary. It’s been a long time
since I stood on anyone’s bed, he said.
And, what if, suppose I look out and don’t see
what you see. Suppose to me
the leaves are not golden. It’s been
a very long time, he said again,
smoothing the dull sepia of his
trousers, adjusting his impossibly
small spectacles. Look, I said,
just take my hand and we’ll stand
on the bed together. So
he held my hand and together
we stood up on the bed watching
and we kept on watching,
we watched as men with leaf blowers
came to clear the grass, and children
walked with a dog, a black dog
with a golden leaf in its tail. We watched
as frosty silent hours came
and the days became grey, whiter,
snow and endless grey again.
We watched the birds circling for Spring,
and the bare trees
shivering with delight.
We watched the trees begin again.

****
(Note: from today I am opening up the comments function for this blog. I've not had comments here for a while because I wanted to keep it as a shared notebook, but I understand from emails and comments elsewhere that people would like the opportunity to leave feedback.)