2022.14 Potted

Something of a confession, for those who’ve never visited to see the evidence first-hand.

When I get around to having them painted,
my nails tend to glisten red or black (or both)
and it’s a useful trope, a kind of anti-camouflage,
a timely warning, implication of mortification:
Here Lies Death.
You think I’m exaggerating? Listen…

It’s long been the case; the gentlest
of curses, but my windowsills are
perpetual hearses, bearing the bare,
brown corpses of the best of intentions,
forever bereft of the correct attention.

Too much water, not enough, these hot,
dry hands are too rough for all but the
hardiest of desert dwellers, and even then,
my aloe’s in a state of semi-permanent aestivation.
And don’t talk to me about the basil,
banished into mush in three straight days.

But while my presence promises dissolution
within shared walls, my garden’s in thrall to
vivacity, immune to my capacity for damage.
My leave-it-be policy summons up greenness
from even the meanest of cracks, patches of
ecstatic colour flourishing everywhere.

And this miniature wilderness shelters examples
of things I understand better: blessed with
independence and a lack of inimical chemicals,
the animal kingdom gambols among the
swaying fronds, fond of the opportunities
offered by the hedge’s shelter, the nodding grasses.

Give me your huddled masses of the
mammalian clades – I can nurse most hot-blooded
creatures into health from a shaky start;
soothing voice and steady, unflinching fingers
will take the domesticated and feral and welcome
both into a low stress mess of affection and good food.

(I’ve never tested this on reptiles or birds, so this
might not apply to every vertebrate.
And though it’s been 44 years since I
last killed a fish with kindness,
I just don’t trust this particular skill
doesn’t still linger in my possession.)

All of this, is, of course, a long-winded way
to say: thanks for the implication of domestic bliss
but the lesson to take away is this:
never send me a gift of a houseplant –
no, not even mint – unless you’re hellbent
on killing it. In which case, give it here!

Image from "Create a Potted Micro-Meadow With Ian Hodgson" via Lobster & Swan

I just went to get a sandwich in the middle of an Allographic Write-In, looked out of my window, and a poem started happening, which was tricky, because I had no means to write it down. I’m amazing this much of it emerged intact. These are all true tales, incidentally.

2022.3 Charm

I seem to have written a paean to the Allographic philosophy of #NoSelfDiss in the wake of another They//Us workshop prompt.

From Discovering Skye, by Jonathan MacDonald, pg 69 (thanks, Crow!).

“It is said that the MacCrimmons possessed a silver chanter which was presented to them by a fairy woman… [after coming across young Patrick MacCrimmon piping alone in a slightly self-destructive huff by the riverside] ‘I will let you choose from three gifts – the power to sail a boat so you can sail the seven seas and become the wealthiest man in your clan; or strength in battle so that the ravens of the Dun can be satisfied with the blood of your enemies; or a gift for piping so that your music will lure the birds from the trees and give peace to wounded men and pain-worn women…’”

My whole life I’ve been a broken mimic,
dripping with the need to reflect,
echo everything in my domain.

My fingers fumble, humbling beauty,
polluting the ways of nature,
grating on the nerves of the world.

I cannot capture what I want,
taunted with the ordinary,
taught that my net worth is just the cost of twine.

My mind is tangled in the dewed prisms of sunrise,
blithe with its slippery prettiness,
blessed with perfect curls of mist.

It keeps resisting me. Halting and faltering,
I have rendered the ecstasy of existence
into nothing but a handful of sand.

And she says: stop trying, these things come with time,
but I’m spurred by a burr of bitterness
to hiss: not good enough.

She sighs. And a part of me, frightened, chides myself for
openly despising the opinions of the Sidhe
(a really swift path to ruin, if they choose it).

But she just listens, offers gifts,
and I glimpse a future that is Not-This,
glistening, buoyed by a belief from beyond my ponderings.

Because in years to come her promise is fulfilled;
a thing to pass down the ages,
a way to sway the doubt from clouded minds.

You’ll find it’s not the silver that’s enchanted,
but the clasping fingers that fling caution to the wind,
bringing beauty to the ears and inner eyes.

And I’ve been blessed, all right,
brightened by a loving sleight of hand that
captured all my fears and said: make art of this.

See there’s no artifice in listening to every step,
each one begetting more, each landmark
only half the story.

Glory’s less important than the challenge of the
next peak, and the next,
of hefting new-found strength against the heights.

But mind you never seek to keep the art
held fast against whoever strives behind you.
Use your keys to keep the gates from closing.

No-one sensible would seek to say
the fae ain’t listening still, the hollow hills
all ringing with the echoes of your actions.

For it’s a fact that generosity begets more wealth,
and every day the music grows,
we only, every one of us, get richer still.

Image (“a romanticised Victorian era depiction of a MacCrimmon piper”) from the Wikipedia article about the clan

Weirdly, I’ve not yet been able to find any reference to this version of the myth anywhere online. The closest talk of a fairy woman or a mysterious stranger helping a weeping boy feeling himself not up to a big competition for the title of MacLeod official piper where he’d been subbed in at the last minute, so I’m not sure where MacDonald got this one from (let alone his startling use of symbolism whereon the fae maiden brings out the chanter from under her apron!). And the tenor of the tale changed a little when I discovered that the clan still hold competitions for the best piper to claim the silver chanter – but they must only play the old tunes, written by clan ancestors…

2021.9 Impington

This is where I stopped before,
left leg trembling, hip socket whingeing.
“I, er, just need to sit for a bit.”
No need to tell him this was the furthest
I’d walked in months,
running the gauntlet of fears
known and unknown,
just to leave my house.

And now, solo, I’m crouched on this
misshapen heap of concrete,
luminous with several types of safety
(and the vasodilatation of the seriously unfit),
having spent the last 15 minutes
waiting for the 20 minute timer
to signal my retreat,
too fast for my own good,
It seems.

Birdsong twines with cut grass,
conversation courts a
cutting engine of some kind,
the Busway hisses with tires
large and small,
and some offshoot of the A14
grumbles with an unaccustomed
rush hour.

Normalcy sidles closer.
I am gross with inactivity,
this venture exceptional
where it used to be my daily
(later check reveals it’s half as far),
waiting for my cycling muscles
to grudgingly unwind
where they used to fly me,
prompted to this pass
as an excuse for poetry,
too conscientious for my own good.

Before I opened these notes
a dog trotted by,
good boy,
vest emblazoned with Best Friend,
tended by a man carrying his
every possession,
sleeping bag a flag
as he moved a well-worn groove
to semi-rural safety, off-track.
I no longer carry cash.
He never asked.
We nodded.

Soft drops dance on this screen
As the manual saw picks up
Its master’s cough
And I remind myself I’ve always liked
the glottal taste of rain,
trained myself to enjoy its
caress as a blessing through
many years spent second-guessing
Welsh weather,
too stubborn for my own good,
too good at making virtue of necessity.

But it’s time to go home:
to boxes
and still air
and silence.
I won’t mind it
this time, creaking to my feet.
Besides: I’ve always worn a mask
For this.

The prompt for today was to take a walk and write about it. I cheated and cycled.

The Busway, Impington. Bicycle poet’s own.

2021.1 Home Made

What with one thing and another, I'm making a slow start to NaPoWriMo this year. Howbeit, I thought I'd follow my own prompts, at least to start, so here's the first, from the Lemons prompt:

It starts slowly;
dawn over a pitted landscape,
a drape drawing into
puckered lines,
nothing Puckish, just a rough
reflex, gene-deep.

“Too much?”
“Er…”
“Spit it out…” Too close.

Coaster sought, you set the glass down,
frown flickering between
Polite and
Concerned and
Uncomfortable and
English (so English).

“It’s very… refreshing…”
you venture.
A sigh.
“Fine, I’ll add more sugar…”
“Um, thank you…”
“Next time just say!”

A long spoon, the
accusation of condensation
trickling onto twitching fingers,
the drifting clumps of
grumpy addition,
all clatter against convention,
conversation’s gape glittering
in the pause.

“So. Lovely weather.”
“Yes. Lovely.”

2020.17 Ere Am I, Incredible

This one is very much a work in progress…

I’m mired in it,
Stuck down where the
Clean can’t reach me,
Because I am, by every
Definition of the Catholic Church,
A sinner, unrepentant as hell.

And yet. While I freely confess
Without regret the masturbation,
Homosexuality, heresy,
Apostasy, and missing mass;
Attracted polyamorously,
Proliferate in profanity,
I battle with the Big Seven daily.

It’s like anything else:
Everything in balance, a
Measure of functional imperfection.
Essentially: sadness is the sane response to tragedy,
Depression is a weight on the world.
Lust is a natural drive to reproduction,
Pleasure, intimacy,
But a terrible central tenet.
We crave nourishment,
Covet comfort,
Have built ourselves a social system
That spins on this
Philosophy of worthiness-in-possession,
And so some sins have greater penalties,
It seems to me,
Knee-deep in the fashion of each era.

An it harm not others, do what thou wilt
Say some, others:
Do What Thou Wilt shall be the whole of the law
Still more a complex set of instructions,
Proliferating sin into the central condition,
Saddling each newborn with a burden
Bereft of innocence.
How original.

I have a complex relationship with sin,
Preferring a general definition:
Deliberately diverting energy against what is healthy,
An excess of going your own way
Into what you know, at every level
Is self-evidently
Wrong.

Of course, Pratchett said that it begins
With treating people like things,
A man whose own rage,
Righteous and otherwise,
Strides pages and stages
And mazes of minds,
Winding tight around some aspects
And not others – fans frantic
At the pick’n’mix banquet of this
Fantastic philosophy.

That’s a side-bar, naturally,
And I’m not sure it matters;
Frankly, I’m having my own battles
With gravity and entropy,
The only flightpath I can see
Being through the dark door
I’ve had the keys for since
Before I was born.

It’s the fifth one
(according to Wikipedia)
Which is giving me these
Congenital difficulties.
When does determined tip into
Stubborn?
Where does passionate advocacy
Snap into anger?
How does a howl of righteous
Ire get mired in the offence of wrath?

Because I’m tarred and feathered,
This sin’s heft in every expression
Because when patience failed,
Rage got me through,
Hoist my arse and told me what to do,
Because I knew already, and all I needed
Was one final straw for kindling,
Kindness and self-effacement dwindling
When considering
That someone else’s sinning
Had me treated like a thing.

And that’s all well and good,
Or would be if it could discern when
What looks like injustice
Is just chaos
When, instead of wielding a mace
And wading in it should pace itself,
Drip-feed fuel to a banked fire
Driving the underlying hum of:
Come on, you’ve got this
(instead of torching the place
and staying to make faces
at those attempting to flee).

I’ve long since decided that
The world can be divided into
Two groups:
Those who nodded when Banner said:
“That’s the secret – I’m always angry,”
And those who shook their heads.
If rage is built into your DNA
It’s hard to know what to say to
Those who maintain:
Just chill, as if it were so easy,
Who’ll never know how much better
Fire is than freezing.

Image source: Dies Irae (Day of Wrath) by Vera Klimova via Artmajeur

2020.12 Wild Ride

This was going to be something completely different, so I’ll have to write that one another time, because I put on my “Wordless Writing Mix” and, instead, this turned up (I’m fine…). The first part of said mix can be found here.

You are dropping, the pre-beat skitter of sensation
Making you weightless.
The anticipation crests, dips, hints at
Its own resolution, rhythm insinuating itself
Until it thuds through you.
And you realise: you knew it all along.

You’ve heard it before, know where the
Hiss like a gentle ripple of feather against the
Inner skin of your forearms starts,
Each separate drum pattern like a different
Fingertip tapping, insistent,
Shimmering in your nerve endings.

This next bit drifts, earthily ethereal,
And you don’t care that this makes
Precisely zero sense to anyone else
It’s your track, your experience,
Your associations, the thud
Underpinning the drift

This music hails you,
Reins you in and sets you free,
Fleet, repetitive, wordless,
And everything you need it to be,
Summoning forests and starscapes and
Those times you danced until 6am.

It, too, bids you farewell, blended into the next
By a master whose choices speak the language
Of Everything In Its Right Place,
Fingers crooked to beckon a deeper layer:
The book you haven’t finished writing yet,
Pages of historical imagery glittering between these notes.

It blocked out sound when you couldn’t make your own;
Wordless, it was the voice of controlled insanity,
The hallucination pinned in pages
And pages, and pages of people you’ll never meet
More real than anyone you ever will, sometimes,
Heroes and bullies and victims and saviours, some of them the same.

The darker layers ground you in the nighttime scrambles
The gambles with gravity made by people
You can never hope to be, given life by your keyboard;
And surely they’re bored, waiting for you to
Tell them what’s next, stop them from endlessly
Teetering on the precipice of the call to descent.

While you eddy in self-recrimination,
The music swirls to an end, no resolution met
Except the resolution to resolve.
Your foot describes revolutions beneath your desk,
Pent in the need for tactility other this virtual frisson;
The lesson still eludes you, like the almost-words you hear.

Kyrie Eleison? Is that it? Or something less sacred,
More profound, grounding the liminal in the reminder
That humans colluded in this acoustic miracle where you
Sough across the cosmos, in tune and out of sync
With your inspiration, metamorphosing the metaphysical
Into the metatextual, with a staggering lack of shame.

And maybe that’s all that’s needed: a sharing,
And you’re getting good at sharing without touching, aren’t you,
Breathing separate air and yet resonating across the distances.
As Above, So Below, you learned that theory far too long ago,
Feeling the void at your core thrum, somehow,
In recognition of the thing the music sings about.

The emptiness shouts in layers, the kind of colourful
You only find in camouflage, and still the tunes press on,
Unstoppable as guilt; as loud as your sleepless companions:
A formless sense of failure, and the fear of being found a fake.
Never tell me all artists feel the same way –
They’re delusional in their inadequacies, I am not.

And now even the intimacy made by the use of second person
Is broken; as inconsistent, in the end, as the internal rhymes,
The six-line stanzas, the clattering stabs at insight.

And it feels like cheating to end this on a neat highlight,
Next best thing to happy ending,
When the best you can hope for, playlist on loop
Is to hold out for your favourite track coming back again,
Fast-forwarding where it’s needlessly uncomfortable,
And binge on comfort, purge the words,
Binge on comfort, purge the words,
Binge on comfort, purge the words, hope the scourge
Of self flagellation cleanses wounds that can start to mend.

And if not? You can always press play again,
Submerge.
Fade to rainbows.

This image was the first thing that turned up on the image search list when using the search term “Glittering Void”. It’s apparently a still from this completely soundless video.

2020.6 Sins of Omission

I am not:
• Baking my own bread
• Remembering to clap for the NHS
• Setting up a new enterprise
• Exercising

I am not:
• Learning how to knit
• Sitting daily in meditative contemplation
• Abating my binge-rewatching sessions
• Exercising

I am not:
• Polishing the floor
• Forging a new neighbourhood spirit
• Lifting my tits on the regular
• Exercising

I am not:
• Spring cleaning
• Defragging my hard drive
• Writing a magnum… anything…
• Exercising

I am not:
• Reorganising my bookshelves
• Delving the depths of old mistakes
• Making the most of all the opportunities in existence
• Exercising

I am not:
• Brewing my own beer
• Re-roofing the garden sheds
• Heading to bed nightly at an advisable time
• Exercising

I am not:
• Rediscovering photography
• Weaving my own bamboo pants
• Gathering nettles for nutritious recipes
• Exercising

I am not:
• Finding fresh new ways to make my brain develop
• Devoting my existence to my accidental pet
• Getting any more fluent in Welsh
• Exercising

I am not:
• Particularly clean
• Lean or green
• Meaningfully occupied at all times
• Exercising

I am not:
• Coaching my (imaginary) children
• Mending any of my ways
• Persuading anyone successfully to finish Will-writing
• Exercising

I am still not:
• Drinking any alcohol
• Hopping off any of my other wagons
• Flagging neighbours as Undesirables
• Exercising

I am still:
• Writing poems (slowly)
• Socialist (to an increasing degree)
• Feeling love and that maybe I can thrive
• Alive

Illustration of Lazarus at the rich man's gate by Fyodor Bronnikov, 1886
Source: Wikiart

2020.1 Luxury

We are searching for candles
Drawers are rifled and rejected,
Corners inspected,
Best guesses anyone’s for the making.
Maybe this is not the time
But shining is important, so we dig quicker.

We are searching for candles,
For the first of two birthdays
Ticked off in swift succession,
Successfully silent, cardless
Except for, in each instance,
A different, solitary, stubborn gifter.

We are searching for candles
Tiny, delicate, beckoning heavy breaths,
A gesture against this… situation,
The one we stopped naming –
Another small wall against the sign
On every site, the flash panels dimmed.

We are searching for candles
And I neglect to mention the job lot
Bought before anyone else could get them,
Seeing in myself the excesses rendered
By a different childhood, remembering
Water shortages and powercuts the others dodged.

We are searching for candles
And the big ones – tucked into a corner
Of my tiny study, sturdy, quarantine
Against panic and not yet welcome,
A bet placed against ever needing them –
Weigh, plain and ponderous on my drifting mind.

We are searching for candles
We don’t have forty-five
(If we have any
(We must have some – I’ve met me))
And, even if we did, there would be
More wax than cake, more flame than flavour.

We are searching for candles
Three people who want to sing forth brightness,
Post positivity,
Eager to confirm that this is unique,
Frantic for fripperies,
Scintillating colours to cover reality.

We find the candles
Stuffed among the cloth napkins,
A full drawer that no-one ever moves,
Choosing to eschew using something
That smacks of pretension,
Trousseau to impossible parenthood.

We light the candles,
Nine in total,
Sing, hold breaths,
And wish,
And wish,
And wish…

2019.4 Ghost Tour

“Will you cover for me?” I’m helpless, delving into a set of well-worn expressions, shunning the stutter he beckons, projecting: Yeah, I reckon. “Listen,” he says, “I owe you one.” At this point, more like twenty, a reckoning that’s chasing propriety into an early grave. A new voice: “Step lively,” says Greg, head a conspiracy tilt past the fire hatch and we scurry, him stubbing, me shrugging, Greg’s gaze a spinning speculation I nudge from him. “Madame’s on the march,” he confides. I sigh. “No closer to the prize?” My turn to roll my eyes, grab regulation headgear, unprop the door while trawling for witticisms. Zilch. “There’s always next time.” “Sure, love. Sure.” We watch as he darts ahead.

Tip-toeing upstage,
We are mismatched murderers
Longing for a break.


Over to our old friend the random line generator for inspiration for this not-very-strict haibun, Words generated were: cover, march, listen, tip, upstage, point, chase, ghosts.

2019.3 Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrows

She’s been told, over and over:
It’s easier to regret something you have done
Than something you haven’t.
She’s thinking, in particular, today,
Of the near misses.

The declarations of affection a breath away,
The errant gust tucked behind her teeth.
Likewise the cutting insult,
The coup de grâce to a parasitic union,
Forever spiralling on staircases.

She thinks of the last-minute turns
Not taken.
Country lanes still ravelled.
The road that’s more than familiar,
The route engrained in synapses,
Waking and sleeping, unrested,
Until all she can do is visit and
Revisit – shopping list of the
Undone accompanying the miles.

The house unbought, the home unmade,
Its neighbourhood now a maze of gentrification and
Soaring investment potential.
The hand untaken, the
Toe-tucked farewell,
Breaths pluming, backlit for all time in
Green, amber, red, beep, beep, beep…

She is thinking of the monuments unvisited
Today. She should be thinking of
Everything else. Everyone else.
She is thinking, instead, of skin untouched,
Lips untasted, breath unshared,
Knows how Too Late feels in the
Monthly crossing-off, the floodplain tedium.

She is thinking about the
“Actually”s unsung, clutched in her gullet:
Actually, don’t touch that
Actually, that’s not his name
Actually, that’s racist
Actually, she wants you to leave her alone
Actually, I want you to leave me alone
Actually, I want you to leave
Actually, I want you

She is thinking how close
Habit is to fear,
How she inhabits a groove laid out
By so many – too many –
Before her.
Whether or not this is her path,
She’s knee deep in other people’s
Straight and narrow.
It will take a miracle.
It will take a more than careless conflagration.

She finds herself hoping, for once,
The words spilling fresh from her lips,
Hearing them for the first time in years
Of repetition, no longer smooth.
Ave Maria, gratia plena,
Mundus tecum.
Benedicta tua. Benedicta tua.
Benedicta tua.


Fragments of this haunted me all evening. It’s been a funny sort of day.

2018.10 Here be Unicorns (or: my 40s are a lot better than my 20s)

Ladies and gentlemen (and every other particular), strap yourselves in for what some call the ride from Hell; the deceptively exclusive:

Bisexual Bagatelle 

Our choose your own adventure starts with you -
A newly-sundered miss
Who’s strayed into the Hetero Zone
And now finds yourself cut adrift.
Misanthropy beckons, but you’ve reckoned without
The healing power of friendship
(and the unending source of solace that is:
The Internet.)

Let’s site this in context:
2004, another door slammed in your face,
And, having been placed in the category of
“Failed Lesbian” (true story)
Our heroine is keen to reboard the
Train to Lapland (if you know what we mean)
Strapping yourself into a magical capsule
To bounce around the board that we call
GayDarGirls
(other products available, your mileage may vary, your peace of mind may be at risk if you don’t keep up repayments into the Bank of Bliss.)

Cite your preference,
Sit this psychometric test,
Bless yourself with a unique username.
No, not that one.
No. Not that one either.
Adding 69 to the end
Will garner you no friends
And besides: someone else already did.

Bingo! You’re appellated!
Now, reach out! It’s easy!
But don’t forget to pay attention
To geographical preferences
And sexual preferences
And romantic preferences
And hair preferences (that’s length, style, colour, and body… oops)
And musical preferences
And fitness preferences
And bodyshape preferences
(though “no fatties” (really) is less important than the far more common “no drama”)
And smoking preferences
And pet preferences
And kink preferences
And hint: preferences may change over time.
And this is 14 years ago (almost to the day!)
So no chance to say that
You’re starting to feel unreasonably constrained
By the Exclusive OR of female or male…

What’s this?
No bisexuals
Okay. Next…

Lesbians only
Okay.

No bi’s.
Fine. Bye.

No bisexuals - no offence
I wish you’d get off the fence…

No non-lesbians
I GET IT!

Wombyn only
Give me strength…

And then we’re bounced to
The other end of the spectrum -
The seemingly unending stream of people
Keen for you to enhance their lives
By joining them.
Both of them.
In their marital bed.
Their copy-and-paste charm
Seems harmless and direct
And yet you can’t help but wonder
Whether you’re ever going to be other then the glue
To someone else’s imperfections,
The gold chasing to their cracked vase
Your body the album-pressed memory
Kept from the grandchildren,
Banished to attic dust,
A one-time dare.

And yet.
And yet you’re tempted.
So you don’t answer no.
Not yet.
Don’t scrawl your own Ctrl-V, fleet and meaningless.
Not. Yet.
Because you’re no stranger to polyamory
But you do want to notch that stick
With My First Threesome.
And it would be so easy…

But you play it cool,
Keep switching up text dialects -
Butch enough without being brutal,
Funny enough without being futile,
Deep enough without the drama,
Real enough to balance your karma,
Carting your dreams between
This weave of half-truths,
Bemusement,
New acronyms,
Apparently ancient profile pictures,
And women with interesting issues.
And husbands.
And children.
And cats.
And bad habits.
And a real failure to grasp basic grammar
And the realisation that you are a snob
A hypocrite
And desperate,
And you’d best get back to better
Masturbation techniques at this rate
Except your toys all bear memories
Of him.
And her.
And them.

And unending despair is
Leavened only by the ping!
Of notifications,
A good half of which are
Angry men bent on negging
Your HTML, of all things, and
Showering you with dick pics
Which you hadn’t expected to pick up on a
Queer dating site, for shite’s sake.

Time to close some profiles.
Time to block some pricks.
Time to pick and choose.
Time to get back your diurnal rhythms.
Time to sew the schisms of your soul.
Time to dole out some peace,
Pay the fees for qualified counselling
Instead of rendering yourself down
For literally faceless strangers.

Time to admit:
You are not ready to date again yet.
Time to admit:
You need sleep more than you need sex right now.
Time to admit:
It’s fine to be alone for a while.
Time to admit:
You’re more than someone’s ex.

And now you’ve anecdotes,
And a list of narrow escapes,
And new ways to say no,
And are no longer hopeless,
And have at least one new friend as a result,
And know that you are not alone,
And that you’re more than just some mythical creature,
And that treating yourself well is the opposite of weakness.

Lean into the calm curves of self-acceptance
And smile.
A day is coming when you’ll stop bouncing
And start to weave your own path
Between extremes.

(And, in the meantime: there’s always erotic fanfic and fingers.
Always.)

2017.29 - The Beginning Is Always Today

We are greeted by the voices of women
And the visions of women
We step into a forest of arms held wide
And fists held high.

We enter a riot of colours
All the shades of defiance
All the textures of acceptance
All the shapes of love.

We are told to be bold
We are granted permission
We listen and we are heard
We watch and we are seen.

Here are the dreamers of worlds
And the builders of dreams
Here are the wall-shakers
Here are the bringers of light

We have encoded resistance
Into an insistence to be heard
And we have changed the shape of conversations
In the realisation of worth.

And by one man’s metric,
We are nasty. A degeneration of
Our one true station of servility;
Civilisation’s demise in four syllables.

Sad.

Listen: if the tower must be dismantled,
Brick by brick, to be rebuilt as kilns
And hospitals, and libraries,
And bridges, so be it.

If the walls must be torn down,
Again, we’ll lift our busy fingers
And strong hearts to the task,
Talking all the while.

And we will break silence with song,
And fear with laughter,
And dark grey fences with pinks and browns,
With violets, whites, and greens.

And we will plant flowers on your
Place of rest, and remember.
And we will walk on,
Dancing into the dawn.


We’re very near the end of the month, which is exciting (and, if I’m honest, somewhat relieving, and also sort of sad: I’ll have to make up my own excuses to write poems…). The last Sunday of every month is usually Allographic’s open mic, but this month we’re teaming up with Nasty Women Cambridge to help them celebrate the end of their exhibition in aid of Corona House (housing single, homeless women with a Cambridge connection), Cambridge Women’s Aid (providing dedicated and specialist services to women and children affected by domestic abuse), and Cambridge Rape Crisis Centre (offering support to women and girls who have experienced rape, childhood sexual abuse or any other form of sexual violence).

What’s that got to do with this poem? Well, glad you asked. I went to see their exhibition on text art resistance, and came away with my brain buzzing and my heart dancing, as I was pretty sure I would. I wanted to write something for the exhibition. And that’s definitely how the poem starts, but it becomes more about the general Nasty Women movement and I am so looking forward to performing this to a bunch of other footstomping, outspoken, resistant, Nasty People of all genders on Sunday evening. The title comes from one of the pieces which, in turn, is a quote from one of my literary heroes, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Boom.

2017.27 - Meet Me In Marigolds

The post-it note has a smiley face
And it’s a race between emotions -
Notionally: pleasure, beckoned by
The sight of your handwriting,
The way you fail to dot your every i
“There’s nothing else it could be!”
My smile stretches, sly and sweet.

Next: anticipation, a wave of adrenalin
Spiking through the morning fugue
With images of rising to the challenge,
Followed swiftly by the warm reward.

And then: contention bells in my head
Dread lurching to the fore:
For all the sweetness of imagination
There’s more, broadening the view of
Victory to see us… where?

Are we in a field of fleshy flowers,
A barely-veiled metaphor dotting us
With pollen?
Hardly.
You’re not hardy or hearty,
Usually eschewing outdoor pursuits,
Pressing your suit in more… suitable locations

Okay. Maybe we meet wreathed in blossoms,
Top-heavy under some local post,
In-joke harking back to spy movies
And classified ads and brown paper-wrapped
Nasty habits in seaside retreats…?
Better.
But still not there yet.
Betting on landmarks seems foolhardy
In a city thronging with history.

This is a brutal test of my affections.

Next I consider: who am I missing?
Is this the name of one of your many associates?
Am I to approach a list of barely-retained
Strangers to say “hey, is my… um… there today?”
Stumbling and mumbling over names and titles
Bright with embarrassment and everything
We’ve never said?
You’re off your head, babe,
Hey, maybe we should call it a day?
This pressure’s getting heavy.

And then it hits me and I
Dip my head, grin, slip to the sink,
Rummage in its undercarriage and
Come up golden.

Snap.

This is going to be one dirty weekend.


Six-and-a-half years ago, a poet named Tim Clare upped the ante on his annual poem-writing challenge, and set the stage to write 101 poems in a day. He asked for suggestions, and I ventured the title of this piece. He did it proud! I’m now the kind of person who runs poetry workshops, it turns out, and, when I’m faced with people who’ve done my standard prompt for a poem (“Lemons”, if you’re interested), I tell them: “Pick a book off the shelf and open it at a random page. That or you could try ’Meet Me in Marigolds’.” They never take me up on that, sadly. I thought it was time I put my stanzas where my stylus is. Or something. Anyway, this is what happens when I’m being fussy about other people’s prompts - random story poems.

2017.23 - Text

She writes
A titration of dipthongs
And longing,
Belonging nowhere but
Cupped in the liminal
Giving up normalcy
To eke out impressions of
The ineffable.

It is a bargain she struck
To summon fortune from necessity,
A tincture of grace
To face down the inevitable,
Ebbing energy
While she dances in the dark
Harking back to all the promise made:
A lady of enviable potential
Eddying now.

Tell me how this is better!
She howls on the bad days,
The aching nights,
Bites back tears and
Fears of the Reaper:
The cheapness she will show
Blown like dust,
Unremembered.
Unremarkable.

She is dizzy
In the grip of herself and,
Absolutely at the plummet’s nadir,
Hears herself say gently:
“Remember the connections made,
The way they breed more,
Warming the world with fractal acts
Of passion,
Hands held, however briefly,
Leaching us of loneliness?

“Remember.

“Remember generosity’s
Tender reach.

“Remember the greyness,
The taste of a battened-down life.

“Remember the incomparable colours
Of love with all senses stretched.

“Remember.”

She does.
She dusts down darkness,
Sparks flying
From drying eyes.

It’s time to write.

2017.1 - DK Oblivion

He strides up to take the spotlight
Bedecked in the essence
Of everything he’s ever heard,
And burdened with glorious purpose.

He starts bold, stance strong, voice clear:
“Dear Geography teacher...” he preaches,
Reaching for shared disappointments,
Anointing himself the mouthpiece of youth.

Soothsayer, truthspeaker,
A peak of platitudes and gratitude
Screwed to the sticking point of
Oxygen-stealing line lengths.

Depth! Regret! Insight!
The clarity of distance!
The angst of yesterday!
The way it fits so neatly into three minutes.

In the circle of his usual,
Mutually exclusive demographic
He telegraphs his copy-and-paste
Graces to clicks and roars.

But here, in the open,
He chokes on the silence
Reflecting the abyss that beckons his
Dissolution, resolution wavering...

Hey! No! Raise the volume,
Boom across an abruptly unclipped mic,
Dive free of constraint into the teeth
Of these zombies

Homage is lacking, blank eyes merely polite
What kind of witchcraft is this?
Hisses and shrieks of feedback greet his
Inevitable momentum across the speakers.

Time’s up and he steps from the light,
Bright with sullen flames,
And waits for the explicit verdict,
The indications of his numbered worth.

On the way home he Tweets,
Greets reality with passive aggression,
Abetted by peers sneering of
The obvious ignorance of others.

Comforted and cozened he makes his way,
Braving disappointment with denial
Wild vows aimed anywhere but inwards,
Arcing further into solipsism.

The lesson of this is... complex
But, in essence: when you stop learning
You burn your bridges into a wider life
And I... am at least as guilty as the next poet.



This started life with another stanza (“This poseur supposes/ His notion momentous/ And shows off his woke ass/ Erroneously”) but then it went elsewhere in the putative build up to said stanza, so here’s what happened instead... And yes, I guess this is written to perform, and to purge, and probably makes sense if you’ve seen a slam or two...

2016.12 Trampoliniste

Another #poetrytogo commission, aided and abetted in the last stretch by @MyriamWordmaker and @AnaisBokanovsky:

Lovely girl, you bring light,
A delight in the arc of limbs
Flinging themselves with precision
Across the sky.

Tu éclaires - avant le sommeil
Les mots dansent,
En pages et dans
Ton esprit pétillant.

Childhood's fripperies are
Giving way, inch by inch
Aux dictionnaires, et au sens pratique,
Activities amid the trees.

Mais, dans la forêt,
Et dans tes rêves,
Never forget - love
Colours everything, mon coeur.

---

Another Poetry To Go commission, this time for a seven-year-old child of French and English parents who is very active, practical, and creative.

2015.19 - Half-day, April

Zephyrs seem to bless me;
Dress-down Friday
Flings me, beribboned into
My kind of sunshine.

There is nothing to fight.
Scents are gentle;
Sounds of city bustle
Blend together.

Everything's adventuring -
Crows and footballs,
Ants and bare arms,
Blossom, grass, guitars.

There's a holiday haze
To the town's fumes,
I'm being lured to lay my head,
Rest on this bench, regretless.

Junk is jaunty,
Garbage is art,
It's all part of the
Wide day's pattern.

We are flattered by
Wary, warm light,
The flight of cut grass,
And the season's first ice cream.

2015.9 - Revelation 2015

You're wondering why
My smile slips wider
Now young men's eyes
Slide from mine,
Minutely shaking heads.

You'll never guess.
It's all in the power of my
Totem creature, who strolled up
Last week: pleased to meetcha,
Calls himself the Don't Care Bear.

He wears comfortable socks,
Rocks the latest line
In careless smiles,
Whiles his time
Doing things he actually likes.

He spikes his own drinks,
Winks at the elderly,
Weds elegance with
Effortlessness,
Gets his kicks from "just enough".

It's tough shit if you want
To buck him, he knows
How to make his own luck,
Has no truck with truculence,
And gives precisely zero fucks.

Good in a ruck, he knows
When to to step up
And when to step on
Ominous as thunderheads,
He calls himself the Don't Care Bear.

And there's the final jest -
Best if you remember
That his love is strong, and
His heart is true, it's just that
He knows whom to give it to.

2015.5 - Gifts of Groaning

You are a taste in the throat,
A shape in the hands
Born of the ways
I waited for you,
Pulled through my palms
Like a star rope,
Sticky with expectations.

I cleave to, heave-ho
The mainbrace of our sailing weather
Uncertain if we're better together,
Shipwrecked,
Or a crystal split,
Calling us history, clever wrecks,
Wracked now by waves.

My mind now is heightened,
And I will call all the ways we spoke
Brave, or knavery,
Depending on the direction
Of the next fourteen seconds,
Because I don't want to be
A port in a storm,
Formed for idleness,
Repairs, and slow regrets.

_____________

Written as pretty much a atreawm of consciousness after reading Poppy's latest poem, so I've no idea what flavours she brewed there… Thanks, Poppy!

2015.2 - Riptide

We are in love
With our own misconduct
Running down corridors
Knocking on windows.

We are a fast and heady
Whirlwind of limbs
A tangle of notions
Flung to the fates.

We are bramble:
Sweet and scratchy,
A patchwork clan,
A gad-about-towning

Crown us and gown us
With the clouts of
Our own demise, but
We'll surprise you

A stumble tumbles
Into a dance move,
A suture for our
Brief frowns

You might surround us
But we'll astound you.
Don't try to trip us,
We'll only skip,
Hop, and jump,
Surfing our love
For this hurly-burly world.

________

The first two lines of this were taken from Spike Daely's poetry blog - https://spikedaeley.wordpress.com/ - go check it out!