Sunday Self Portrait

I remember when Sunday was a hollow day. Lonely. That was when the rest of the week was so vibrant with people and life….that in contrast it felt empty. I didn’t know how to fill it. Now, every day is Sunday. And I love it.

Addiction

Have I mentioned ‘I am not a silent poet’ webzine? Maybe…..it’s worth checking out…and seeing if some of your poems are a fit…if you are a submitter….or if you like that kind of  writing as a reader. This is one of my poems that went up on the site a few months ago. I’m on with a project…art/writing….so it came up today:

Addiction

Clouds lower, proving the curves of sky in broad strokes.
Sea should soothe, its enviable power override the black dog
bounding towards me. I watch sprite shadows scamper

along sea walls, see him hook twin trout wriggling
on the end of taut lines, reeling them in, hugging
their slippery bodies.  I no longer lust after him;

my addiction to unreality, found at the bottom of wine bottles,
gives me extra layers of skin as he flays them.
We’re angry as gulls squabbling over ham baked by the sun.

Angelica

Today I have a poem up on Atrium Poetry. I would highly recommend reading and submitting work to this fabulous online magazine….

Angelica

The Inheritance of Loss afforded him
opportunity to leave her. The Other Hand
was saved for us, shaped how she raised us.
Intimacy meant getting close enough
to have our blocks knocked off. The Great Beast
was tucked behind curtains or under blankets.
Slaughterhouse fueled my nightmares; her
choosing from curtains of meat at Snapes’s
while I gazed at meringues next door in Burton’s.
Topped with angelica, I knew they were reserved
for The Most Beautiful Woman in Town.

Karen Little trained as a dancer and a fine artist. She is widely published as a poet in the UK and further afield.

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The Writer’s cafe

This is a great online magazine to read (for free) and submit to. A different theme each month. I have four poems in this issue:
https://thewriterscafemagazine.wordpress.com/2018/05/16/the-writers-cafe-magazine-issue-8-corridors-and-passageways/

 

Books, Dog bed, Trailer carpet and Nylobone

For sale: two signed copies of Filled with Ghosts, (Book 1, Spanish Spectres series)…Eight signed copies of Ghosts Treading Water (Book 3 Spanish Spectres series)
Not for sale: my copy of Ghost Train Leaving (Book 2, Spanish Spectres series….unsigned), dog bed, Nylobone and Trailer carpet. Cardboard to be recycled.

Progress to Date

Sixty-four poems remain in the folder I’ve confidently sharpie-penned ‘1st Collection’
It has found a title, which I’m keeping under wraps. Five or six poems are hanging on by the skin of their teeth and will probably be weeded out during the next ruthless round of decision making. I have been very ruthless to date: many a ‘favourite’ has been unceremoniously dumped because it isn’t what this particular book is about. Discovering what the book is about is a big step for me, as I’ve not thought about it while writing individual poems. I’ve never looked at them as a group before and wondered what my obsessions are outside the confines of the poem I’ve been working on. I realise that isn’t how it is for many writers: they write to a theme when working towards a collection. But it hadn’t occurred to me I was……..

I’ve been Thinking (unedited)

I’ve been thinking how discovering one tiny thing, one obvious to anyone who has done it all before, can make a huge difference. Yesterday I had several files of poems (the physical kind, in poly-pockets. I like things physical) lurking, filed by date, 2012 to the present. I submit poems quite frequently, so the published ones are all highlighted so I don’t send them elsewhere; I note down where and when published, because that’s useful. But, now I’m getting a collection together, (it already has a home, so it’s a matter of deciding the order, chucking out or grabbing back others if I realise they don’t work together.)

So, the small but mind blowing  discovery? Collate the poems like a book. Have them face each other, find where they are happy to partner up with another poem. So damn obvious, but what a difference it’s made 🙂

Shaping Dreams

 

At the tidal point where ripples run like dominoes
from sea left to sea right, memory offers up decades
of misunderstandings, trying to make things right,
managing to never be right. Reality pounds in my ears
leaving no room for imagination, the crest before anything
happens is the only time our power seems matched.
There’s no turning back, no gentle retreat to look forward to,
just being plucked like a bruised whelk from its shell.
I learn my lesson over and over again, but every wave
is a little different, shifting grains into distinct patterns,
hitting new rhythms, shuffling another set of broken dreams
to fold in on themselves.

First published on: I am not a Silent Poet, 2017

Stream of Consciousness Unedited

Sitting on her doorstep, the neighbour is forming traps out of rusty wire and baiting them with something that  appears to be potato peelings, but could be a more tempting lure. I see the twisting, the pliars busily snapping. I imagine the blood reddening her fingers, the tetanus jab she didn’t have; her shying away from contact with anyone ‘in authority’ makes that inevitable. Her dog, a Golden Labrador, bred to respond, is quietened by a slap of her hands. My dogs are noisy and neurotic, silenced by the promise of treats. I keep coercion close at hand, in a jar.
For days at a time they’re the only living creatures I talk to; they’re easy to understand, uncomplicated, ready to forgive without bearing grudges. The neighbour isn’t so transparent. Whatever it was that turned her against me after the first couple of months, she isn’t letting on.

 

 

 

 

I Know

I Know
That every new notch in my rifle will be
underrated until I arrive, dead. I will never
court fame, never manage to gather people
round me in crowds, on or off line. I know

that I love wine, and it helps in the short term.
I know I won’t self-destruct, because it would have
happened by now. I know I have friends, unenvious,
coping with my dissociation, an incredible son
who has seen me lie down in traffic, and try to
get him to do the same.

I know that as soon as I get well enough, I will
be dragged back into a system that will make me ill.
I know that everything has already happened, and that
this won’t be believed. My planet is ruled by me. You
rule your planet. I don’t find that hard to conceive.

I know that the derelict is as important as the famous,
that celebrity is nothing, and that generous friends,
family and animals are worth more than anything.

First published on The Stare’s Nest, 2015