For me, penning poems is to writing novels what
eating chocolate is to eating everything else;
utterly necessary but I don't get to do it every day.
Scroll down for poetry additions
*credits: Aesthetica 2024 creative writing award (for short fiction - Birdie); Law of Consequences (2024, anthology); Misfit Mirror (anthology, 2008); Complexities of Life (anthology); Perceptions in Poetry (anthology, 2004)
Winner: Curtis Brown Creative poetry prize 2022
Mantra
11.10 am: i am a runaway wife
I iron your shirts, and air the rooms
of whisky, cigars, my life’s blood.
3.10 pm: i am a runaway wife
My suitcase glares
obese with dreams, virgin jeans and socks
photos of my peach-faced boys
Mother’s bequeathed ring
the costume watch I stole last spring.
5.03 pm: i am a runaway wife
I check the bedroom for things to abandon:
chequered scarves with pasts to match
tights with unwelcome ladders
used to climb my thighs
your bloody body, stiff on the bed
i fantasize.
5.50 pm: i am a runaway wife
The front door clunks, dead on time
my reflex smile appears
yet, still, you heave your crimson rage
into the bedroom
onto the bed
into me.
Through vodka armour i acquiesce
to your sweat and spit and slithering.
10.10 am: i am a runaway wife
My mobile sings:
the station taxi has arrived.
I shall fly in a hot air balloon
climb a mountain in noon sunshine
sleep on a bed of gentleness…
but then there’s a bang and a slap!
I turn, to discover
the mail, just the mail
11.10 am: i am a runaway wife
My guilty ticket flutters
in the train conductor’s hand
he hesitates
clips the wing.
Spring leaves on trees speed past.
***
A humble offering on the 40th anniversary of John Betjemen's death:
Thank you, Mr Betjemen
A simple man (of human unpretentiousness) -
who wore his trousers out his welly leg
and belted with a tie
and fastened by string a button-hungry raincoat,
looked out off the Cornish shore
darkened of door by row upon row of invading tourist caravans
parading, as mercenaries await the cry to charge -
remarked, relieved, 'They can't build on the sea.'
A blog piece i wrote for the wonderful Litopia (link below)
Over Achievers
Over achievers rarely herald from untroubled upbringings.
Being born to a mother with low confidence in her own abilities wouldn’t have been so bad, had she managed an ounce of confidence in her own children.
Such is life. The poor woman was bullied by her father. He, in turn, had been emotionally wrecked by the Nazis. My sister and I were the flotsam on their shore.
Not that a lack of parental chutzpah is necessarily a bad thing. My best friend assures me that kids with difficult upbringings are more interesting, more creative. Maybe we are.
I used to assume my passion for writing was based on, (i) a boundless imagination and, (ii) a natural propensity for making shit up. I now realise that writing fiction began as my way of helping that belittled girl hidden inside me. Making her feel whole. And that all my ‘over achievements’ (gaining three degrees and a black belt in martial arts; holding down three jobs while I bought up two children; becoming a midwife at forty-two; learning to write well, to name a few) were similarly motivated.
But here I am, banging on about the fact that my life got me where I was going. Doesn’t everyone’s? What’s so special about mine?
Nothing. Everything. Both. Depends on your perspective.
Yes, we’re scurrying ants, overcrowding our world. Arrogant about our place in the universe. But we’re also giants who can think outside our own present, our own planet, our own realities.
Somewhere in all that, I’m trying to fill the boots of a grown woman using black squiggles on a page. It isn’t the greatest thing anyone has ever done. It doesn’t trump motherhood or the love I have for those closest to me. But.
It fills my heart and mind. Whilst doing this strange and wonderous activity, not only do my troubles diminish. I truly love it. I take more pleasure in it than a million rooms filled with gold could ever afford me.
May you find that thing that makes you you. That thing you’ve been striving towards all your life (knowingly or not). And a word to the wise: when you find it. Don’t let go.
Grow it. Nurture it. Share it.
In 2024 - if you don't already -and this is especially for commuters to dreary offices... would you like to feel as happy as these unrepresentative, happy people from the template page look? Then, my gift to you, a poem what i wrote many years ago which is still, sadly, apt. Think about it. Breaking free... (Perceptions In Poetry, 2004, Edited by Mark Lane)
Drink! Thirsty fish
Bakerloo tube sweat torments
trickles and runs down
into damp crevices.
As the tube doors eerily slide
the casket gasps like a cod, drowning.
And in a while, we’ll all be
desk-bound, sloshing around
The City Bowl.
In spite of our hearts,
we swing from handles
grasping abstinence from life.
We dare not relinquish our hold
dare not quench our dehydrated souls
with life’s symphonic currency
that aches to course like river rapids
through our damned veins.
Yet, as Nature decrees
free juices seep
from beneath tongue flesh
that lizard dances
anticipating the last glass on the platform
before the final train departs.
