writing live

[Winter_Fare]

This cunt is full of ugly words
and who knows where they came from?

anger only just a finger's width beneath the surface
sleeping far to lightly to ignore
though the silence lasted half an hour or more
Until caught between full bladder and my fear
a hopeful kind of courage carried me on bare feet
Treading sneaky steps across the hall and back
but still afraid to flush the chain...

Too scared to wake the beast again

My peace with her
with it
a mother in name only
was a sleeping pill
An absence of awareness was her anodyne
her spirits ease
neglect

When the small hours find the sunlight
creeping lazily above me still I count my steps
to cross the hall
and hold the child within unwashed and weary
dry her tears
Forgive her for the things we had to see
And who we have to be

But the words still cling to me

 

[Lyricalli]

Yesterday you mentioned
bridges we've burned
and I wanted to argue
(of course I did)
that I'd never burned one
with you
not on purpose
never even tried to strike a match
though I have helped
rebuild
them all
sweat of my brow and all that
even as I watched you
place little sticks of dynamite
along each pile
but I"m still here
hammer in hand
and don't plan to change that
ever

 

[Winter_Fare]

Tiananmen Square/Cake or Death

Mind yourself
Take care
Cake looks nothing like
Broken eggs and powder
It's a square
Square
Lined with rendered fat
Roll it flat
Make enough to share
Make it taste so good
That no-one cares
What happened there

 

[29wordsforsnow]

on a twenty-force of June
reeling through the night's ghost
the fire of the sky is gone
like her eyes a blank matter
disenfranchised
the future plowed in
in the rapeseed fields
that took the light
sucked the laughter
swallowed the life
from her soul
lorn in the fields
her doom's perished
by concealment bought
on a twenty-hurt of June

 

[butters]

on days like these

dream

of setting words loose
to fly and spin on wayward streams of air
watch them tumble
end over furling end
mount rooftops, treetops, beyond
swirl then scatter
chatter in autumn's bright tones

watch them dance in fathomless blue
a susurration of thoughts
images coalesce
fall apart in aerial ballet
only to shoal again
reshaped by new imaginations

dream

 

[Lyricalli]

on days like these

First, I found this delightful and enjoyed the imagery very much. Second, thank you for adding susurration to my vocabulary. The imagery of aerial ballet brought starling murmuration to mind, and at first I thought perhaps they were similar. I quite like the way you used susurration here, and I'm definitely tucking that word away for later.

 

[butters]

First, I found this delightful and enjoyed the imagery very much. Second, thank you for adding susurration to my vocabulary. The imagery of aerial ballet brought starling murmuration to mind, and at first I thought perhaps they were similar. I quite like the way you used susurration here, and I'm definitely tucking that word away for later.

thankyou x

in all honesty, i was trapped between susurration and murmuration, liking the idea of the thoughts being seen as murmuration with that link to the sounds of murmurs...didn't want to repeat that sensation in the aerial ballet line, so ended up with sus and hoped the aerial ballet (mur) would fill in the link between images and sound. i should have just gone with murmuration, shouldn't i?

 

[Lyricalli]

thankyou x

in all honesty, i was trapped between susurration and murmuration, liking the idea of the thoughts being seen as murmuration with that link to the sounds of murmurs...didn't want to repeat that sensation in the aerial ballet line, so ended up with sus and hoped the aerial ballet (mur) would fill in the link between images and sound. i should have just gone with murmuration, shouldn't i?

No, I don't think so, honestly. I think it's a beautiful use of susurration (and I learned a new word!). I think it's unique, and adds another element of thought and sound. I like the additional S sounds it adds, the way they all give a gentle shhhh to the poem. It all comes together in a really lovely way for me.

 

[butters]

i suppose if you're a chicken
a coop of roughly ten feet cubed
complete with bathing bowl and feed
seems enough for three-toed feet
used to tighter quarters

but when you're used
to chickens roaming free
—from peach to cherry
trees to garden rows—
it reeks incarceration

and though a temporary fix, it's true
—a thing of frame, zip ties and fence—
their new 'grande-run' grandly adds on
300 further squares to pace
of dirt and grass and past-best plants
a life less hard—albeit in their prison yard.

 

[butters]

we needed rain

so much heat
humidity levels off the charts
barely a spit in weeks
fruit sits in leathery silence

broad leaves provide some shade
it's not the same

after last night's rain
figs droop
swollen
purple-brown and glistening
with juice that oozes
from their fuzzy skins
as wasps emerge into sun
dodging showers
competing with greedy butterflies
eager to taste this yearly glut

 

[29wordsforsnow]

i suppose if you're a chicken
a coop of roughly ten feet cubed
complete with bathing bowl and feed
seems enough for three-toed feet
used to tighter quarters

but when you're used
to chickens roaming free
—from peach to cherry
trees to garden rows—
it reeks incarceration

and though a temporary fix, it's true
—a thing of frame, zip ties and fence—
their new 'grande-run' grandly adds on
300 further squares to pace
of dirt and grass and past-best plants
a life less hard—albeit in their prison yard.

Congratulations to the chicken on their nouveau country chic

 

[HarryHill]

Vengeance for 1201

He died the other day,
the man that took his love away.
Sliced apart by razor sharp rocket fins,
never to point and kill again.
The best part of my day
walks past the open office door,
nude, on the way to the loo.
I imagine Twelve-o felt much the same,
before she fell from the tower.

 

[butters]

huge shadow crosses bare mountain face
demonic shrieks accompany the vision
made more awful by the rippling rock's terrain

people stare in awe
cower
in fear

misdirection
wizards behind curtains
a ragged flag and a bullhorn

 

[butters]

fire
incapable of mercy
devoid of compassion
burns clean away
the rot, the old
right along with the sturdy—
shades of purification

it has no plan
no cruel intent, no
human sense of vengeance

yet
where there's fire... smoke

lungs labour
suck up molecular poisons
that raft on vaporous streams
harbour them deep
nurture them long

 

[29wordsforsnow]

rain
is a two-faced coin
some beg for
and never have
the half they need
some, sadly
cannot ask for
less
no more

 

[29wordsforsnow]

Your fifteen letters of fame

Woke up to mid-summer grey
and early afternoon to find

"You are the winner!"

a serious typeface
in black and white
all over the place
of a letter-sized card
stuffed in the mailbox

"Oh, you are a winner?"

they ask
on my way
outside
down the road
in the café

"Look here, a winner!"

Coffee and cake
never before
came that quick
with a wink
and a smile

"So, you are a winner?"

the waitress wonders
smiling no more
recounting yet
the small change
still no tip

"You're such a wiena!"

I can hear her dialect
leaving through the front door
maybe I misunderstood
or I didn't explain why
today I feel like

"Yes, I am the winner."

that's what I picked up
among the rusty coins
of the edentulous
who always leaves the jam on the cash desk
his pension never says

"You are the winner."

Not if you missed the fine print
on the pack of cigarettes
blended with the coins, his and mine mixed
so the coffin nails stayed
and the old boy's newfound sweet tooth sang

"Ha, I'm a winner, baby!"

Should have taken that pic
and added some words for the waitress
who bags abandoned sugar packs
for the ninety-year-old toothless grin
inviting her to a sandwich with strawberry jam.

 

[butters]

when the sea sleeps
a sweetness on my heart
a weightless breath
between its troubled dreams

thoughts expand
on black smooth-gentle swells
lit by countless points of
possibility

 

[butters]

on the profundity of loss

i want to ask the blind
if the colours they still see
fade with the remembering

and the deaf
if sounds grow more muted
with each recalling of their tones

if those who've lost their taste
react less viscously
to thoughts of by-gone flavours

if to those with lost olfactory
the perfume of a rose
diminishes
to a telling of once-upon-a-time

if the memory of skin
becomes a fading echo of itself
when touch is dulled

when the heart's brought low and lower
in the profundity of loss
when a loved-one's face
blurs to a soft and featureless oval
and we tell ourselves
over and over
the story of them
their scent
flavour of their flesh
ignition of our skin beneath their touch
and how the sound of their laughter
conjured joy in our world
sixth sense grows less occluded
its greater dimension falls into focus
as we distill their vital essence
to carry deep inside us
all our lives

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Drout

When did it last rain?
I can't even remember
So long ago that the whisper
of falling water is hard
to recall.

Growing things cling to life
only thanks to ever-dwindling
human supplies, (water restrictions,
dontcha know?)

It's not hot anymore, just
dry as dirt, turned to dust
for want of a good drink.

 

[Winter_Fare]

Nine days
A garland of roses
Line by line
Intentions become
little lights at the end of a loooong tunnel

I will share with you
The view
Looking down
Finding ways forward
Without solid ground

 

[Winter_Fare]

Buy your shampoo in a bar
Walk or cycle, ditch the car
Make a start wherever you are
For the planet

Skip the meat and plastic bags
Turn your old clothes into rags
Share the truth with lots of tags
For the planet

Keep it focused up your game
Seize the future stake your claim
Lose the guilt and make a change
For the planet

 

[Winter_Fare]

When I was twenty-two
And stupid-
(-er than now,
It's all relative
Right?)
I said
"There are no limits to the
Love
You can give
It will grow to fill
The space you make."

But that doesn't account for the people who
Take and
Take and
Take.

 

[Winter_Fare]

¿Disconnected we are
Exactly why ask
Meticulously accounting
Eternally lost details
There are oceans seething
Internally darkening
Afraid am I?

 

[Winter_Fare]

"Alexa, what is Net Zero?"

"We're painting the windows
To keep out the storm
We're burning the blankets
To keep ourselves warm"

 

[Winter_Fare]

So we can talk about words
About the way that we talk
Over the music we would
Like to have heard
Then we can say of the birds
I like the way that they walk
Between the
Poss-i-bil-it-ies you inferred

You know you married a nerd
I like the texture of chalk
It makes your skin crawl
And you find it absurd
That we are firmly interred
Between the words and the walk
And there's no room
For a transcendent third