ANOTHER SOMETHING THAT IS NOT PROSE...

Here's another something inspired by the latest post at 52 - It's worth taking a look at their prompts, for they are so full and so thoughtful and so stimulating. I don't know if this is a 'poyem' what I have produced, but it's certainly different from what I normally do and I enjoyed doing it. And now I gift it to you - whoever you are.

SHE HOLDS MY HEART IN HER HANDS

A song thrush nest

in the cup of her two hands

plaited grass and sticks

mud made spit wet and spat

lined with feathers

golden threads of hair

and the softest words.

And, ‘Put it down,’ I said,

kissing her neck,

touching her breasts,

plump and warm as doves.

And, ‘Please,’ I said, and

‘Please,’ again, and again,

‘Please,' and, 'put it down.’

Then eggs in her nest

small and round and two

sky blue and bright

henspeckled and flecked

with flakes of black

like soot or the flung

flight of crows far off.

And I held her to me

stick thin or broom handles

a rattle in her every

burr-saw breath

as brittle as glass

or the frosted webs of spiders

sharp as all corners.

Chicks one day

and hunger that must be fed

flies with crinkle paper wings

and worms pink as insides

and last year’s berries

till another day feathers flapping

testing what air might be.

Small as nothing when

I touch her, if I dare,

and she does not know me,

like trees do not know

the lover who cuts his name

into the body of bark

and cuts it deep.

Now the birds are all

fledged and flown

nothing left

nothing at all, but

an empty nest and

the sound of birdsong

when it is gone.

SOMETHING THAT IS NOT...

I have said before that I do not write poetry, and I don't. Except today I wrote my second poem of this year. I stumbled upon a site that provides writing prompts and it says it wants to inspire a poem a week for a whole year and so there's a new prompt every seven days. Here's the site HERE and it's called 52.

And today you are encouraged to look anew at something that you have that is just everyday and ordinary. And I wrote this:

NOT TO BE WONDERED AT

In my hands a drip of amber

as big as a jewel

gold like honey nested in a spoon -

and caught in that amber swollen drop

a silver spindled spider

perfect and still new.

Years I marvelled

that spiders could be pretty

felt the reverential weight

of time and felt

a breathless wonder

at the easy cheat

of death

I paid the man in the shop

for Baltic amber

Jurate’s mermaid tears

but a recent exhibition took

my amber from me

too perfect, inviting scrutiny

plastic it probably is

no more or less

and the spider nearer in time

as near as spiders in my bathroom are

Held in my hand a trinket now

like diamonds that are really glass

or fool’s gold which is no gold at all

the wonder reduced

to a cheap trick

and the man in the shop

he did not smile

or give the game away

to me, a timeless fool.

BESPOKEN (iii)

Ok, so the crowd-funding for this project did not quite make its target and that is a shame but it is something that can happen - even if the project is as nice and as interesting and as rich as this one promises to be. Nevertheless, the team behind this are progressing with the plan and I am very glad that they are.

Up on their blog are lots of writing prompts and other QI type bits of information well worth the read. I'm dipping in from time to time, just a toe in the water, but the water's lovely. I have responded to some of the prompts, too, because that's what I do. And Helen Limon, who seems to be the chair of the group, says she likes my pieces and will pin them up somewhere so more can see them. So, that'll be nice.

Till then, here's something that is a response to one of the prompts. I hope you like it (the prompt linked to the last line from an Emily Dickinson poem… see here):

WEAR THE BLUE COTTON

Too special and he’ll think me over keen and maybe think me easy. I lay the silk dress aside, soft and slippy and pink. It will do another day, a day when he has me won or I have him, a day when there’s no need more for games. A plainer dress today, perhaps. I’ll choose the blue cotton. And flat shoes and a yellow scarf and my coat, and all wrapped up like a present.

It is just a drink after work. That’s what he said. Threw it out there like it was nothing. If you like, he said. If you’re not doing anything. If you have the time.

‘Yes, I’d like that,’ I said, before he took it back.

I remember one day up at the lake, a long ago day, and the sky was a clear unspoiled blue and the day was new and the air so still that nothing moved. That’s how it is fixed in memory and all the trees at the lake edge in splendid clothes and perfect. And I stripped off, and Mark stripped off, too, and we were laughing and a little shy and a little bold. And Mark threw himself into the water and shrieking like it hurt; but I was more uncertain. I dipped a toe in and felt the biting chill, sharp as glass or knives, and I laughed and dressed again.

Mark, sleek as a seal or otter, and he swam away from me, out into the centre of the lake. And the water was as black as ink or oil and broken only where he was, and a bird cried out somewhere, a shrill warning cry that was near and far off in the same instant. And I lay back on the shore, with my coat collar turned up, and I might have slept for my eyes closed and the sun was on me and I was smiling.

‘A drink, yes, I’d like that.’

There’s been no one since Mark – the wet mermaid Mark, his hair matted like wool when they pulled him dripping from the water and his skin so pale and so white, like graveyard stone or snow, and his eyes closed as though he only slept. No one since then and that’s been almost five years and maybe that is time enough for being alone.

And now a boy at work called Carl and he has offered to take me for a drink, if I like, if I am not doing anything, if I have the time, and it is only a drink and maybe that is all that it is, so I will wear the blue cotton today, and flat shoes, and a yellow scarf and my coat fastened chin to knee. And maybe I shall pin a trinket on the coat lapel, just in case he does not notice.