#amwriting 184a

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"Who is this," asked Diana, eyeing the grinning stranger with suspicion.

"Non binary, eh? She's nice," Saul, caught himself mid-sentence, "he... it... sorry, do you have a preferred pronoun?"

"Get out," she growled, pulling her grubby housecoat tighter.

Raj found himself in somewhat of a bind. He gestured to Diana that he had the situation under control. He had not seen his cousin in years. Not since a family holiday in his teens. He had disliked him then. An he disliked him even more now that he was standing in his sitting room confirming every snippet of news that had percolated through the family with the past week.

"May I?" asked Saul, gesturing towards the sofa. Raj nodded. In pique Diana declared that she would make tea and made a flamboyantly noisy exit from the room. Saul made a great display of making himself at home. He spread his arms along the back of the sofa, "do you mind if I?"

"This isn't that sort of house."

"Isn't it anything goes?"

"No drugs," said Raj, firmly.

Saul nodded sagely, moved his hand away from the inside pocket of his jacket - all the while surveying the room. He drummed his fingers on his knee, continued to nod his head, then sucked his teeth, "You used to..."

Raj cut him short, "not anymore."

"Messes with the hormones eh?" grinned Saul, tilting his head toward the kitchen. "My you are a sly dog. Getting her to dress in traditional costume to send those pictures to auntie. A wise move, I must say, old boy. And such bad luck to be struck down with flu for my sisters wedding. Leaving the women to look at her picture, and make educated guesses if our children would have blue or green eyes. It wasn't cricket. Not that some of us aren't followers of the limited-over game."

"What do you want?" repeated Raj, his voice deeper, his tone more deliberate; bordering on menacing.

"I'm here for the sixth international conference on Men's Rights," Saul declared, proudly: before adding, "well I am for visa purposes. But between you, me and the family, I'm here because my father and two brothers are in jail, and we need money."

Raj crossed to the door, made the briefest of small talk with Diana to see if she was alright, then made a very weak excuse that he almost was embarassed to say before closing the door. "in jail for what?" he asked, turning back to his cousin.

"Oh the usual thing. Taz's wife claims he raped her. You know the usual thing."

"Did he?"

"Of course not. Her family want to dispute the dowry, and her father wants... well, God knows what he wants. He's got himself involved in politics, and is trying to get himself in with some NGO that's paving the way for a big contract. You don't need to know the details. The long and the short of it is that we are stuck unless the girl remembers she wasn't raped, or we come up with a million dollars to make this go away."

"Can't you go to the police."

Saul laughed, "the money is for the police. How do you think things work in India?" This time he took the wrap of cocaine from his pocket, "why don't we have some fun. I bought this stuff from a friend of ours in Southall. I thought she might like it. Wasn't your wife a raver? Or was that another lie, on your non-family facebook account?"

Diana entered with a tray of tea in mugs, and a plate of biscuits. Seeing the wrap of drugs on the table somewhat lightened her mood. This was quickly deflated when Raj, by way of changing the subject from the situation in Mumbai, explained that Saul had come for a Men's Rights Conference.

"Those fascists," Diana spat.

"We are not all like that," smiled Saul, opening the wrap, "some us can spell hetro-normative. And some of us even know what it means."

#amwriting #fiction #flashfiction #fantasy The Horse Lords

Barghal lay the three berries on the table beside a small brazier. They glowed in the heat of the charcoal. Within the shadow of the moving flame Gegli fancied she saw herself as is when alone beneath the winding sky.

The old man took an earthen-ware bottle, no bigger than a thimble, from his bag, pulled the stopper with his teeth and sprinkled silver dust into the flame.

"Tell me what you see child," he said, tapping the cork back into the neck with his index finger.

Nothing happened. Gegli felt only the heat sear at her cheek-bones and brow. Then suddenly the flame flashed into an intense white light. Blindly Gegli gasped, as the light worked through her mind cleansing her; like bathing.

"Tell me what you see," repeated Barghal.

Gegli steadied herself, placing her fingertips on the table as she sought the safety of the corporeal world. "Trees," she said.

"You lie."

"Milk."

"Go on."

"I can't. I see nothing. Only the spirits of this place returning."

"Very good," Barghal said, softly, "you show promise. Now let us see together, so I will know if you lie. If you do it will be so much the worse for you."

Gegli shuddered, knowing Barghal worse than any warrior, knowing he knew more than simple death.

Barghal took the first eye moist between his fingers and cast it into the burning embers. "Look child," his voice seductive with hidden knowledge, "let us see what secrets this berry holds."

Gegli furrowed her brow, willing herself to see more than the shriveling brain cord, the glazing shine of the crust, the fear of mirrored darkness.

"See girl," commanded Barghal, before changing his to tone with an invitation to, "see, don't think."

In that moment of the berry imploding, when Gegli succumbed to the light of the sun, she saw a man's sandalled feet, the hem of his purple gown, the carpet of the woods, and the vagueness of singing voices.

Without asking, Barghal took up the second eye. "She was a sacrifice," he explained, "a woman pure and shamed." Gegli nodded. "Watch again."

This berry was not so whole, longer gone, wetter and filmy. The vision it gave was brief: a Sar man, tall, blonde, full-bearded with braided hair hanging in plaits. His smile curved in sneer. Across the broken bridge of his nose was carved a ditch-like scar from an axe.

"That is Neb," said Gegli, "the man who came as emissary to m father."

"You learn fast," commented Barghal, and then noting a smug expression begin to spread on Gegli's lips he snapped, "do not be prideful girl, or I will carve the whore mark upon you cheeks."

Instantly the mask of pleasure dropped from her face.

The last eye was the freshest, taken from the woman hung from the oak tree.

When asked this time, Gegli hesitated, swallowed twice, "my uncle," she whispered.

amwriting #poem #poetry #skecthbook stones

Skimming stones, it's pleasant today, river
bright dancing, each
stone drawing a rainbow haze. And over
on the far bank in the shadow of beech
and willow a trout breaks the surface
with a fin. My son doesn't notice this.
he is far to busy, trying a new trick,
or so he says. But really it is face
saving. Claiming whole manner of chance hits
on a dead log, as proof he has the grip

doesn't throw like a girl.Only a girl
would complain at
this, and so rather than

#amwriting #poem #poetry #sketchbook stones

Skimming stones, and easily getting three
or fours, drawing rainbows, occasionally
bouncing seven before smacking the tree
bent drinking like some wizened cow. My son
has less success. As for the other one
he has given up completely. He runs
about the shore, prefers lobbing bricks

#amwriting #poem #poetry #sketchbook scales

I think I have a kind of pain, too numb
and pinch away

.....

Frankie went out to the street.
Late again, so would you with a quarter
of whisky.

......

That Wednesday, with summer still sweating
I was late.

....

I think I have a kind of pain, again
it came before.
The alder in the cutting

.......

Whenever I see an alder on a cutting
Whenever I see alder from the train
I always think
that would fit the theme

.......

 Whenever; when coming into a station
or braking from
a tunnel, the alder grabs attention.
Hardly the stuff of ballad or song
that. Nut then weddings at a distance seem
equally bland, equall fleeting, as when
trying to explain why you are teasing
your son for throwing like a girl.

......

Skimming stones, down by the glinting river
I turn and snap
'stop throwing like a girl, you will never
do anything unless you mean it.'

........

She was on the edge of the story
argy bargy

......

At distance, the wedding passed like alder

......

But then weddings at a distance seem
equally bland
equally fleeting as trying.

.........

cold stone steps
from the now defunct

The wedding passed like
the wedding passed alder

#amwriting #poem #poetry #plath #heptonstall Sylvia Vists

Sylvia Visits

My children, hot from the sun and dragged
around, perhaps having fun, do not see
why we have come to this walled pen of graves.
Nor why I tramp the trampled grass, a ragged
path between the plots and stones glance reading
the waiting names: all strange, all unknown, save
a few that have their story carved in brief.
And out beyond, lies a landscape, soft, steep,
and green. Relief
comes quietly here. Noiselessly as seeds

falling, and as jumbled as the chatter
from the church fete.
I have come to find a poet who matters
too much to some, but not me - much. I rate
Ms Plath fine, but too wild and hidden, mad
in encouraged ways. A consumptive, drawn
to the sea but choking in fear of flood.
Why else climb up here, to lie? To seek sad
searchers for saints who celebrate and mourn:
votive pens, a flower button of wood

shines in the wind bleached air. Ownerless,
ash, grey bitch comes
toward us wagging full body - eel in grass:
lithe snake; something dying in the ebon
of eyes, which hang begging almost opal.
On light toes the dog dances for affection
while we shoo her and walk on, untouched, clean
away from the dangled tongue; bid 'go home'
to where she belongs. Not in perfection -
of this brochure ordered place. Where girls dream

for the unbearable romantic want
of resurrection. Scratched names, dirty nails,
the tapping silver trail of a single
tear that will salt the high pastures, dry the font
for babies yet unborn. For when God fails,
and men die, there will dry white petal
on summer bramble, the fly eye bubble
boil into yellow berry: bells ring still
for all troubles.
But no trumpet, and no brine touched hills.

#amwriting #poem #poetry #sketchbook sylvia again

Sylvia Visits

My children, hot from the sun and dragged
around, perhaps having fun, do not see
why we have come to this walled pen of graves.
Nor why I tramp the trampled grass, a ragged
path between the plots and stones glance reading
the waiting names: all strange, all unknown, save
a few that have their story carved in brief.
And out beyond, lies a landscape, soft, steep,
and green. Relief
comes quietly here. Noiselessly as seeds

falling, and as jumbled as the chatter
from the church fete.
I have come to find a poet who matters
too much to some, but not me - much. I rate
Ms Plath fine, but too wild and hidden, mad
in encouraged ways. A consumptive, drawn
to the sea but choking in fear of flood.
Why else climb up here, to lie? To seek sad
searchers for saints who celebrate and mourn:
votive pens, a flower button of wood

shines in the wind bleached air. Ownerless,
ash, grey bitch comes
toward us wagging full body - eel in grass:
lithe snake; something dying in the ebon
of eyes, which hang begging almost opal.
On light toes the dog dances for affection
while we shoo her and walk on, untouched, clean
away from the dangled tongue; bid 'go home'
to where she belongs. Not in perfection -
of this brochure ordered place. Where girls dream

for the unbearable romantic want
of resurrection. Scratched names, dirty nails,
the tapping silver trail of a single
tear that will salt the high pastures, dry the font
for babies yet unborn. For when God fails,
and men die, there will dry white petal
on summer bramble, the fly eye bubble
boil into yellow berry: bells ring still
for all troubles.
But no trumpet, and no brine touched hills.




 it's body eel
through grass: lithe snake. In search of affection
on light toes, begging leper, blackberry
eyes squeezed from dark to opal blue; peels
us away from this garden of perfection:
back through the iron gates. With all we carry.

#amwriting #poem #poetry #sylviaplath Sylvia Came to Visit

Sylvia Came to Visit

My children, hot from the sun and dragged
around, perhaps having fun, do not see
why we have come to this walled pen of graves.
Nor why I tramp the trampled grass, a ragged
path between the plots and stones, glance reading
the waiting names: all strange, all unknown, save
a few that have their story carved in brief.
And out beyond, lies a landscape, soft, steep
and green. Relief
comes quietly here. Noiselessly as seeds

falling, and as jumbled as the chatter
from the church fete.
I have come to find a poet who matters
to many, but not to me - much. I rate
Ms Plath good, but too wild and hidden, mad
in all the wrong ways. A consumptive, drawn
to the sea but choking in fear of flood.
Why else climb up here, to lie? To bring sad
searchers for saints to celebrate and mourn:
and offer tokens, like pens. Anger should

shine not dull, or roll like beads of sweat down
necks. Having not
found the grave. And children eager to go
find food, and play more games - then a grey dog
comes wagging toward us, it's body eel
through grass: lithe snake. In search of affection
on light toes, begging leper, blackberry
eyes squeezed from dark to opal blue; peels
us away from this garden of perfection:
back through the iron gates. With all we carry.

#amwriting #poem #poetry #sketchbook

The land rises more sharply here, treeless
folding and unfolding fields beyond walls
of grey granite, run to the far cresting
sky. But this pen of graves is pretty, all
neat rows and untrod grass.

............

This pen of graves is pretty. Working from
the granite wall, year on year, the lines move
a little forward. The names morph and smooth
with time, losing strangeness, and profession
to become something more, than less, with God.
These are family plots. Turned three and four times
to fit another in. Or add a war grave
to the foot.

............

A pretty sty of graves,

..........

swim walking like a wagging eel the dog comes
hang and begging, grey and white, blue eyed
death to welcome us.

will it rain today, or chill the grass to ash
white seeds that bend the stalks to brush
the grave of meaning.

#amwriting #poem #poetry #sketchbook visiting sylvia plaths grave

The hills rise more steeply here, harder rock
against the ice
that carved the sides of the drop. Tough stock
these gravestones mark. bleaching rain removes shine
within a year or two. Leaving the new
and the old the same. A blue-eyed grey dog
swims through the tramped paths wagging its walk
in welcome or distraction.

............

We didn't find it. Not that strange seeing
as she worked so
not to be found, but the view was worth being
in that place of stone and grass and bone.

 ......

I wasn't looking that hard, the view was
too nice - the sort
of place you want yourself when picking
through the brochure - wild contentment
in death. And just a hint of craggy saviour
in the form of an unowned blue-eyed
grey dog, distracting the searchers from the rabid
obsession of madness: and in my gravest voice
I warned the kids, I've got no money
so don't you dare bury me for falling asleep....
like poor Mary.
Then the dog licked my youngest's knee
and we went to buy pub burgers,
and dance the floss,
and note how steeply the land rises here.

#amwriting #poem #poetry #sketchbook poems for Heptonstall

 Fen

Ravens come: not in what we hear or read
but taste within
ourself unseen; mother smell, new baked bread,
a lorn of lemon cakes, too hot for thin
fingers resting on wire in sunlight.
How fat we should be were nostalgia real
and how toothlessly sweet. It bites as sharp
as the rasp of them that grip now so tight
and snarl at any who dare sin to feel
their past, your past; raven bargain's: smart

like spit...

Oh how I loved those Sunday walks
down lanes so lazy they made no bend,
when we would as a family talk
and say 'hello' to strangers and to friends.

Like spit we taste the past upon our tongue
and on our lips,
almost as an insult of that we long
to be. How seductive a story is
when the hero is someone facing hope
full in the face without our faults. Always
somewhere to go. Today birch shimmers
like children talking, the leaves catch the sun
and in the evenness of nothing says
watch the raven's eye, see how it glimmers

like spit....

At the level crossing gate when passing trains
made us wait, I reveled in the thunderous shake,
as I waved in the wake of skimming faces
and fought my sister to raise the latch.

 There were always magpies on the tar-papered roof
of the crossing keepers lean-to. Watching the line.
Watching for the carrion swept aside by the London train.
The birds were fat, and fierce enough to fight the rats
that riddled the sandy bank, that ran into the flat
infinity of fields and sky, that almost made the track
into a ladder. They paced their perch like grenadiers,
shimmered blue in the half-hopped turn, then eel black
and milk, as they cocked their head to watch again.
On the table by the filigree gate, lay carrots bunched
by rubber bands, with silk haired roots like puppet strings
and round their crown a purple taint, potatoes bearing
soily eyes, cabbages still wet with dew, and parchment
skinned yellow onions hardened by the late spring frost.
I would wish the birds good morning, and count them
hoping for a boy, and eye the sweating gooseberries
veined within their poly-bags. Always on a Wednesday
we made this occasional trip, sometimes on bicycles
but mostly on foot, to this whitewashed house on the edge
of the world. So plain it was, four windows and a door,
with a rose bush by the lean-to, and lavender in the borders.
But what kept my fingers crossed, in the eye-spy of the walk,
was that the whiskery woman who tended to the gates,
for tractors and the doctors car, would come out
to take the money, and from her apron pockets feed me
liquorice.

.............


Third Party
Please ignore my age, my receding hair,
beneath these teeth I'm debonair;
take my hand and I'll take you there
on a dirty weekend in Brighton

Across this partition my love has grown
whilst settling insurance claims by phone:
if not Brighton - Nice or Rome
would be the place for us.

You really are the sweetest thing
I'll rent an MG, wear threads and bling
and if the hotel has Karaoke I will not sing
Sweet Caroline - a song I know you hate.

Oh please Miss Munt ,Oh please Miss Munt
I will not to rhyme your name with pudendum
I know I am a terrible runt
but I promise to change my underpants.

Your centre parting, the top of your head,
your glimpsed camisole lace, my lust has fed.

You, in your headset, I dream of in bed
whilst sleeping with my wife.

......

Return
They used to hang bodies over the black-water creek;
picked bodies of picked men, their entrails pulled
by the birds in greedy jerks. The dead glass eyes watching
over and out to the waves and the clouds:
or with a twist of wind, or the collapse of a gull tugged neck,
those same dead eyes might turn back, to the landward
from which they came, a week or so before.

We step across to the sand, as through a rent veil
which locks out the sound of the marsh, and the traffic.
These riddled sands, caught between the turning tide
in expanse, hold only ourselves and the wind.
We do not look back, but sometimes down
to the dry, to the empty, to the occasional shell still sealed.
We do not look back, too tempted by the coldness of the sea.

On each ripple dies a star, combed clean as morning.

#amwriting #poem #poetry #sketckbook memory

Ravens come: not in what we hear or read
but taste within
ourself unseen; mother smell, new baked bread,
a lorn of lemon cakes, too hot for thin
fingers resting on wire in sunlight.
How fat we should be were nostalgia real
and how toothlessly sweet. It bites as sharp
as the rasp of them that grip now so tight
and snarl at any who dare sin to feel
their past, your past; raven bargain's: smart

like spit...

 Oh how I loved those Sunday walks
down lanes so lazy they made no bend,
when we would as a family talk
and say 'hello' to strangers and to friends.

Like spit we taste the past upon our tongue
and on our lips,
almost as an insult of that we long
to be. How seductive a story is
when the hero is someone facing hope
full in the face without our faults. Always
somewhere to go. Today birch shimmers
like children talking, the leaves catch the sun
and in the evenness of nothing says
watch the raven's eye, see how it glimmers

like spit....

At the level crossing gate when passing trains
made us wait, I reveled in the thunderous shake,
as I waved in the wake of skimming faces
and fought my sister to raise the latch.


Like spit, on the slapped cheek of forty years
in a marriage,
turned from oysters to dandelion blown tears
and fears to flown water. Dressed brocade
forever turning at waltz step. The fire
flushed and requited, shines more there, brightly
where the swan's clipped wing draws only kisses
after thunder. Long fluttered on a spire,
pulled from mountain's heart, runs the stoney
path, parched and sandy comes reminiscence

like spit....

#amwriting #poem #poetry #sketchbook fen prologue

Raven's come, not in what we hear or read
but see within
our hidden self unseen, New baked bread
leavens some to taste the nostaligics sin

..............

Raven's come not in what we hear or read
but see within
our hidden self unseen. New baked bread
leavens some to taste the nostalgic sin
of touching others swettly, crust tapped
to prove the hollow echo ready for
madelienes and lemon cakes.

.................

Raves come, not in what we hear or read
but seen within
ourself unseen: mother's smell, new baked bread
leavens some to taste old nostalgic sins;
blind as birds gaping, blood barel hidden,
they rise to see what they wish to eat
before choking in the agreement
that words do not ring like lemon cakes.

..................

Ravens come, not in what we hear or read
but taste within
ourself unseen: mother's smell, new baked bread,
a lorn of lemon cakes to hot for thin
fingers, resting on a wire in sunlight.
How fat we would be were nostalgia real
and how toothless

.................

Raven's come, not in what we hear or read
but taste within
ourself unseen: mother's smell, new baked bread,
a lorn of lemon cakes, too hot for thin
fingers, resting on a wire in sunlight.
How fat we would be were nostalgia real
and how tootless sweet. So lick the blue
from under your nails

in sunlight
How fat we would be were nostalgia real
and how toothlessly sweet. Almost as shapr
as the rasp of those, who hold the now tight
and snarl at any who sin and dare feel
their past, your past, the Raven's bargained smatt.

........

nothing not even

.......

Ravens come: not in what we hear or read
but taste within
ourself unseen; mother smell, new baked bread,
a lorn of lemon cakes, too hot for thin
fingers resting on wire in sunlight.
How fat we should be be were nostalgia real
and how toothlessly sweet. It bites as sharp
as the rasp of hem that grip now so tight
and snarl at any who dare sin to feel
their past, your past; raven bargain's: smart.

#amwriting #poem #poetry #sketchbook nostagia

When the raven comes, when a song heard
by chance provokes
a lane in winter, or lemon cakes: words
might come that poke a memory unwoken
still.But, whose life is it upon the page,
untainted by the cloying nostalgia
that sends so many running, crying ill
willed in fear. Simple I know. But age
and children often draw me to that era
when seeing with the eyes of youth would thrill

or sour at slights and joy, like imposters.
Everything comes
from ear to that eye inside that lingers
on what could we be, had we taken turns
upon forgotten paths. It is then, we
find the mocking voice of parents, not ours,

#amwriting #poem #poetry #sketchbook rabbits

Rabbit God
The sun sits high past the noontime, flat land,
new mown, ambles
away to the river; aside the end
field before the railway, flowered bramble
turns to plump berries. I lean on the stake
of the barbed wire fence and watch coneys.
He is two months younger than I; taller,
- more willing to fight the petty wars boys make -
though maybe my equal in strength. Lonely
for play, in the dying days, we seek fuller

fun than cycling, on which to build tales
of the summer
holiday.


We have just had a wheelie competition,
in the dust of the abandoned road,
which runs arrow straight over the crossing.
Our brown-berry legs,
in short trousers,
carry the scars of play,
in these dying days of the summer holiday.
He tells me to wait outside,
I kick stones:
he re-appears with the gun.
I am nervous.
He tells me it is fine,
that his parents won't mind.
And, anyway, they are both at work.
The gun is nearly as tall as me.
And as he pulls the trigger,
it nearly knocks him backwards:
though he says it is only a 4/10,
and he's fired bigger.
The rabbit looks shocked.
One moment it was chasing it's friend's tail
the next it is moving sideways,
then backwards
then looping into the air.
The field which moments earlier
had been dotted with grey dancing,
lies fallow and still
a sea of watching eyes.
It is larger than I imagine.
'A female,' he tells me, laughing,
squeezing the guts,
gushing out a yellow stream.
I tell him to stop,
sensing desecration,
but he says you have to do it.
He breaks the gun, and casually carries it on the hip
holding the now cleaned doe
by the ears.
The last time I was in this garden,
we used a catapult
to test the parachute of his Action Man.
And, I think of this
as he slits the rabbit from pelvis to neck.
The torn flesh and purple innards
force me to retreat to the corner of the house.
When I peer around the wall,
in response to his urging,
I see his fingers enter the cut,
hook the skin,
pull the hind legs back:
with a deft cracking of bones.
It comes off in one piece:
the skin from the meat,
like the sound of a wet sandcastle being turned out.

#amwriting #poem #poetry #sketchbook three days later

The wash of traffic, returning from the sea
seeps back before
the long sinking dusk setting evening free
to search for those who did not leave: the gory
drinking sunday crowd, the walkers in the park,
those who stay behind glass and pray it rains.

................

The cutlery, cast aside, reminds us
nearly parting
time. I pick at the scraps while you adjust
yourself. It is odd to watch and then see
you transform from the personal face
to the public. Suddenly, I must take care
not to smudge you, as I wash the grease
from the plates.

...............

#amwriting #poem #poetry Almost Love

Almost Love

The last busker cleans coins into a sock
as we, fresh fucked,
end the weekend by walking to the bus.
We hurry slowly, your heels catching
echoes in the empty street: as we rush
to fill the last minutes with everything
we forgot to say, or could not say,
our mouths filled to the fullest sigh
of touch. What different way we move
when gripped and pulled by almost love.