NaPoWriMo #6 - So many birds, and all of them oblivious.

So many birds, and all of them oblivious

Dinosaur feet. And what if their own evolution spoke?
What could it say? It would have the voice of a goose,

perhaps, or softly softly pigeon. How about this one,
where the swan is set against the backdrop of a frozen lake.

Beautiful, but what is speaking? The ice, this time?
The broken bottle? The cold webbed toes of a royal white bird

tired of swimming? Or is it me, in all of them,
and my awkward frame or too-quick summing-up.

So many birds, and all of them oblivious,
and all of them just sitting there, or swimming.

NaPoWriMo #5 - Poetry as possession

Poetry as possession

I carry them with me, these beasts
of magic. There is only room for six:
we all have our favourites. Possession
is overstatement and there is no guarantee;

they change with the moods of things
with the state of the weather
with however it is they conceal themselves
when my back is turned.

There is no leaving them behind now
they’re in from the cold, balled up in my pocket
where they click together like marbles
with the swing of my walk.

NaPoWriMo #4 - At the edge of outerspace

At the edge of outerspace

Pulling 5 Gs in the upper troposphere
he reminds himself how easy it would be,
how flimsy this all is, to punch a hole
straight through to outerspace.

No-one would notice at first except
all the greenest tips of the tallest trees
would start to flutter, break free and travel upwards
towards the hole. Soon clothes from drying lines
and paper waste would gust up too, and whole plants
with their root foundations waving.
Eventually, with one last gasp
of the escaping oxygen, our own bodies
drifting up and out, we’d look down
at a barren world in wonder
of what kept us there so long.

NaPoWriMo #3 - Grilled hamster feet

Grilled hamster feet

I used to lie awake with worry of what to save
if the house caught fire: a whole cage
plus hamster or armfuls of possessions

- warm clothes, some shoes, a painting of a horse;
photograph albums, novels to read,
sketchbook; my favourite duvet cover - instead.

Indecision and consequence. I might sleep
by the time the fear has faded enough to ignore
but my dreams are of grilled hamster feet,

the blackened stripes of hot metal bars scored deep.
And all the saved things hugged close in the night outside,
the smell of singed fur drifting through the heat.

NaPoWriMo #2 - Realtime Weather Processor

Realtime Weather Processor

And so it has finally come to this:
a sudden sense of freedom from the wind in my hair.

My eyes water with the gust of it but here I am
on my way; runny-nosed and full of courage,

volumes of air all on my side. My skirt
is a contradiction of directions

but today everything travels with me,
even the storm-heavy clouds.

NaPoWriMo #1 - Way Out

Way out

They say he comes from California, a head of
close-cropped hair and a passion for the novae
of the Milky Way. Trapped in his own perspective
with his eyes to the stars, they say he is immovable
and compromise-free, the sparkle of desire on his skin.

Looking up from my own head glue I catch sight
of him glistening out of context, eyes down. There is a moment:
denial but no way out. They say a lot of things about us
but it just boils down to love: he loves everybody
and me. We are sky-bound on my trust that it’s enough.

Flexing my writing muscles...

.. with another reworking from Catalogue 25. All in the name of practice!



Upon the movable earth

It's the hole in the road that does it,
makes him test the ground at rest.
It seems firm like before but he can no longer know

the impact of his weight or the weight
of the sky. He clings to the fence that holds
him back from falling in; pulls slowly on the reigns

his mum holds with one clenched fist.
A revelation like this takes time to settle. It will be years
before he remembers the fury of his own ignorance;

how he cast it off with the tethers
which no longer held sway tied to anything
upon the movable earth.