Return of the King

Images : The Guardian

Return of the King
We loved you :
we did not lose faith
for over half a millennium
despite the calumnies
of history's arselicking bullies,
their ridiculous, superstitious lies
and self- seeking hypocrises.

We watched on screen
as they brushed away
the dirty centuries
from your abused bones,
winced at the pain
you must have overcome
to stand as straight
as your honesty,
anger rekindled
at the emotional pain
your enemies devised.

We wept afresh for all the grief
your short life held,
so much blood
treachery death and exile
filled your childhood eyes,
it taught you to value
justice, fairness, forgiveness
compassion for the powerless;
your grave at last exposed
by some random miracle
amidst the amused incongruity
of a council office car park
tingled the spine of history.

We smiled at the silly jokes
even shared some wit
through social media
certain your reconstructed lips
twitched at the corners too;
Your face, rebuilt by art and science,
revolves; we gaze in wonder.

Your time so brief, yet immortal
you rise above your blackened reputation
you rise like the Scapegoat
you rise like the Sun (of York).
Somehow, ineffable love endures
in the sadness
through the violence
in the heroic tragedy
of humiliations inflicted by cowards
usurpers and lesser men
on the fallen King.

They failed.

Loyalte me lie.

Interiors within interiors

I gave up trying to poem this today and thought I would just tell the story anyway and work on a poem perspective another time. It is absolutely true. - the backstory is that the old Manor Farm House in the village was sold a few months ago and new people moved in. I have spoken to them in the lane and in the pub etc and in the course of a chat was invited for coffe last Thursday. The mansion is one of 2 remaining manor houses in the village, but this one dates back to 1624, is mainly early 19th century though and has been immaculately restored inside to regency style proportions and decor. The other mansion is a wreck, thoroughly architecturally abused but remains mysteriously behind its screen of trees like Sleeping Beauty's castle. This was the first time I have been in the Manor (Which was a a large farm house once upon a time- the farm buildings and barns etc have been converted into rather nice homes in the last 20 years or so.

Anyway, here is the 'stick it all down and sort it out later' story.

Interiors within interiors

February light strikes sharp and incisive through Georgian glass panes in the sash windows, slashes Sarah's artwork on the easel.Inside a Yorkshire pub by gas lamp she explains). I think it has a Rembrandt-ish quality. The sun shafts slide from her cornfield hair, pool on cold marble floor-tiles, interiors within interiors, Like a Dutch painting by de Hooch.

Polite talk on sofas in a room with freesia and lilies in vases. Shy connections developing, building bricks of new friendships. Sarah and Henry are architects Sarah's perspectives contradict expected sterotypes.

Suddenly she leaps to her feet. 'See here, where we keep the DVDs? It was once was a priest hole. A tunnel led under the lane over to the church,'She led me through a gap without a door in a corner of the room. It exited into another room, a step down. A small sash window looked out onto a narrow path bounded by a hedge on the lane side of the house, the north east corner of the building. I thought it unlikely but kept my own counsel. There are tales of tunnels in the village, but the purpose is indeterminate- smugglers, catholics, who knows.I do not think this was an area where the Roman Catholic faith held much following.

'Do you feel ghosts? Are you a person sensitive to the supernatural' she asks as if offering me more coffee or commenting on the weather. I shrug, 'sometimes' I venture warily. 'Let's see if you can guess which are the haunted rooms.The lady who lived here before wouldn't go in them.' Her face holds mischief. 'I am abouut as sensitive as a lump of concrete.' She says, 'I never feel anything at all'.'

Child-like, ,she patters through high -ceilinged elegance, and pauses in a cosy snug. She asks if I feel anything here. I reckon that the room had a lower floor level at one time.She is surprised, says she was told there had been a cellar once but it was not there any more, or they could not find it, maybe it had been filled in. I had heard that at one time this building had been the farm house with a cottage attached for the mother in law, and then it had reverted back to being a large house. I asked if this was part of the cottage. It was. 'The haunted rooms are over these,' she says, 'shall we go up?' I nod. she says, 'I am going to disorientate you. Follow me.'

I don't take a lot of disorientating at all, ' I replied and trotted obediently after her, trying to take in the fabulous building as we went. .

Her green shod feet flash on polished floorboards, original wide ones. We run the grand staircase, down back stairs, up again, through bedrooms, bathrooms, dressing rooms, libraries, landings, and unspecified spaces with white painted floorboards. All appears to flow, in a kind of open plan, as I do not have the impression of corridors. At length, Sarah opens a little door where three stairways meet. It is a very small L shaped room, smooth plaster painted in magnolia, sash window looking over the lane to the church.

In my head a door slams, a child's locked -in distress seizes my senses, my eyes are sore, my throat tight with despair. I feel I can make no more sound, yet there is also an aura of acceptance, peace and security. I push the door closed, look from the window to the churchyard.

Sarah is watching me 'what? what?' she looks as if she will tear a reply from my soul.

I tell her. She pales, her eyes dark pools of indigo.

'This was the nursery. That wall,' she knocks her knuckles on magnolia plaster and produuces a hollow souund, 'is recent,' We go into the next room where dimity print covers a pretty iron frame couch beds. 'In 1853, three Feaster children died of diphtheria or smallpox in here within weeks of each other. They are buried in the family plot exactly where you gazed, but the goosebumps- howEVER could you know- there was a hatch up ther into a small attic room, now plastered over, behind which was a child's punishment chair. They used to puut children up in such places in chairs like that when they had been naughty.'

I did not know about any of this. It seemed , however, as it all should be. Those who lived live on in another plane of dimension, sometimes we see through the chinks in the screen.

'Another coffee and chocolate Leibnitz?'

'Mmm yes please.'

Somewhere, in the house

the ghost children played

hide and seek.

I knew Sarah heard them too.

Red Sunset 16-4-3010

The sunset was supposed to be red and dramatic because of the volcanic ash, but it wasn't much differnt from usual.

Japanese Weeping Cherry

This Japanese weeping cherry
can be Ortonesque
Should I, with a little click
Of my mouse
Intensify its colours, soften the focus
Highlight this , fade out that?

Allen says any twat can photoshop
Or drag and drop a shadow
digital wizardry is not photography
when correction of exposure
takes a split second after the fact
real photographic imaging
is done in dark-rooms
with concoctions of art and science
And hit and miss excitement
After hours of work.

Carla says to reproduce
Natural lines on a computer
(As in the Japanese Weeping Cherry)
Is cheating. Any amount of tweaks
To the Japanese Weeping Cherry
Do not improve the interpretation
Of its beauty and form.
The multi layered cubist effect
Of HDR by photomatrix
Or pontillistic mousing is not art
Art is sweated and hurts
Art is allowed to be ham fisted
(but not good art- see what I mean?)


Maybe it takes a poet
Not a photo to show
the soul of the Japanese Weeping Cherry
Expose the dramatic tension
of erupting flowers
The colour of knife wounds
Across a scarred sky at sunset
waxy, like the dribble of candles.

Nik says just tell them this
If they want to know
Japanese bloody Weeping Cherry
Forget the photo
Plant one on the veranda
Open the eyes and breathe
In it.





Home thoughts from abroad

For Mum
one year after we said goodbye for the last time.




When a dozen daisies
upturned their faces
to eggshell skies
and the sun
warmed your back
enough to shed
your winter twinset
your eyes danced
like teeming pools
you drank the scented breeze
like a parched anemone gulps soft rain
i could see your spirit wriggle
splash like a blue tit in a bird bath.

Dad bought you a brooch
One year in some desert place
bright enamelled freesias;
another more temperate time
stems of fragrant blooms
packed in cool cotton- wool
from Guernsey
as if you were still
In love.

You filled the house
with narcissi and irises
you loved blue and yellow
hummed about your housewife chores
and recited Browning
because you had been scorched
by the flaming tropical sun
And the English spring
gave you back your youth
and life.

They had brushed your hair
a hundred strokes
it spread on the pillow
a cloud of apple blossom
in a Kentish orchard
your hands soft as petals
did not want to let go
of mine
your face expectant
as an April pansy.

Coastal Erosion 2 -Pill boxes

Pill -Boxes


Pill boxes, crash to the beach
from the receding cliff-line
tired of watching, waiting
for the waves to bring the invader .
Barnacles conspire with seaweed
to camouflage the concrete blocks
A secret last bastion
against the relentless hunger
of the sea .


They march along the sands
Where once a chain of beacons
Spread news from point to port
and red-cheeked harvesters
reaped a sea of yellow corn;
Where church bells rang the changes
announcing life and death
and calling men to succour
sailors wrecked upon the rocks below.

You walk the strand
On bubbling cockles
And ammonite fossils
Your feet over printing
Those of dinosaurs.

Last Supper

I doubt the mouse
poised on hind legs
sniffing Easter morning air
in dribbling sunshine
to nibble at a thistle
thought about anything at all
never mind Judas kisses
sins of man and resurrection of the dead
or whether he had been a good mouse
the concept of paraquat poisoning
would not have been on his mind
as he staggered a few mouse steps
keeled over and expired

I doubt the mouse
cared that I cared
About his immortality
more than I probably should
have done.

Ophelia in the frogspawn

Primordial quickenings bubble
breeze stirs glaucous potage
April rain disturbs surface tension
sunlight and weed shift patterns
Bring her into brief watery focus
her face watches the willow break
Through a frogspawn lens.

Catkins

Salix caprea at Murton Park York 4th April 2010



We called it pussy willow
Considered in our hamlet
unlucky to cut , incarcerate indoors
before Palm Sunday


We laid the branches
in the path of the donkey
bearing the triumphant man-child
grinning to his Passion
through the village street.
Hosanna.

On the riverbank a she-cat yowls
for her doomed kittens
destined to drown
in the swollen brook.

Salix weeps
droops its whips into the stream
life-lines for dying innocents
their spirits reborn in furry
earthly forms clinging.

Snow in town January 2010

Come in Number 2 your time is up

It is one of those real Autumns we get every few yers or so this year. The leaves stay on the trees in time long enough to glow like Girl Guide pennies cleaned in vinegar, instead of being ripped off by grey winds before the chance of an Indian summer of glorious opulence cheers a depressed middle age. Spidery sun trickles through the beeches like Earl Grey, the way Nab used to like it when she was alive (weak, no milk, no sugar ) and splashes in the residual pools of last night’s rain showers. The days shorten prettily at each end now gathering all back to the earth. Somewhere over on yonder hill a migrant goose stops on the journey south. It’s cry carries on the sharpening morning air ‘All -aboard -what’s -coming- aboard-all- aboard- what’s -coming -aboard'. A Shoal of startled seagulls shifts against the red-brown till, flash now silver, now white, torn between the plough and some unknown terror. A signal cannon booms at the railway station, signifying something unimportant masquerading as something significant. He consigns it to one of his parallel worlds, laying out the lines meticulously.

He blinks, stares , trying to make sense of an incongruity. A silver number 2, or is it a 5, difficult to tell soars above the town and over the red pantiles of the rooftops below. Carried on air currents it makes a break for open country, the ridge beyond the trees, beyond the fields. So purposefully does it fly, he wonders if it has an independent power source after all. Who would send up a remote controlled number 2? Why? He scanned the sky for another number, but number 2 was alone. Some things did not become clear even with explanation. He had found that information was better distorted by imagination anyway. It was better not to tell any of the others about that.. He had tried once and found his voice faltering away to a nervous giggle when it met the wall of their incomprehension and derision. Mad. Fondly enough they said it, but sometimes it hurt a bit. Madness ran in the family, so it was always whispered when he was a child. They called it all madness then, not much store set by which particular brand of madness it might have been Now it had as many names as you can fit into the most flamboyant of spirograph Venn diagram petals.

He pushes them all away into their own trench where they belong , he had come up here alone this morning to get away from them all, spend rare time in his own redoubt watching the world stand still

‘Come-in-number-two-come-in-number-two your time is up up up’ The rooks , stirred like tea leaves in an unstrained cup spin around St Nicholas’s steeple squawking indignantly.

Working in t' Mill

Reading and researching into the woolen textile industry in Aireborough , and the history or Aireborough, West Riding of Yorkshire, and people who lived there at the moment. Looking for information on William, Jonathan, Caleb and Joseph Peate I came across this

http://www.cs.arizona.edu/patterns/weaving/periodicals/tm3_12.pdf

I think somewhere there is a one line reference to Jonathan Peate, but the rest of the journal is fascinating as a peek into a corner of world social and industrial history.

Coastal Erosion

Where I am currently living is about as far from the sea that it is possible to get in the UK. Well maybe not quite that far, but certainly equidistant from East and West coast and North and South just does not come into it. In fact, given a map of mainland Britain (England Wales and Scotland), I live about as near the centre as the eye can judge. It is a very controversial subject, the exact geographical centre of Britain- so many 'what abouts', 'counting this, counting thats' , define centre exactly, so I don't even know why I mentioned it at all really. The point being that since going to the Isle of Wight and Pompey and back to childhood memories of afternoons spent by the seaside, I had not realised how much I miss the sea. Probably like everything else I had just pushed it all away because there was nothing I could do to change circumstances of where I had washed up. You just accept the way things are and get on with it, because that is how it is.

Suddenly, with all that has been happening over the last two or three months though , it has become do-able. I mean, it always was do-able, but the motivation to get on and do it arrived suddenly one day like an exotic weed blooming in the cabbage patch. The decision can and has been taken to sell up and move. Not only that, but the actual broad location of where to move to in order to tick the emotional and practical boxes has been made. What remains is the research into an area that I have never previously been to and know very little about.

Actually I am , and always have been useless at geography. Geology fascinates me but I am broadly ignorant about it beyond the basic general knowledge. The area I am intending to move to is a very geographically and geologically relevent area, as it is a place which is rapidly disappearing into the sea. The Holderness coastline is the most rapidly eroding coastline in Europe- up to 3 metres a year. So to buy a house in what used to be called something -or- other- by- the- Sea could well become in the lifetime of my retirement project, Something-or-Other-In -the-Sea. No wonder the property is cheap- no wonder you get your dream house for your money and change as well, but judge it just right and as old age and infirmity catch up, at least the distance to walk to the beach will decrease accordingly.

There is something incredibly romantic, to me, about lost villages. Hotels are forever dropping over cliffs- one in which my brother worked for a while on the Isle of Wight slid into the sea one dark and stormy night. Fortunately he wasn't in it at the time. That's sort of a bit of passing interest, but somehow the thought of a church disappearing and tumbling down into the briny is sort of apocalyptic. The more I have read into this, and coastal erosion and the shifting outline of this island fortress is becoming something of an obsession at the moment, the more churches I see that have gone kerplunk. I imagine Stephen King's Langiloos, or invisible mouths biting chunks out of the clifftop roads and paths, eating and munching away at the substance of civilisation itself. Well maybe not quite, but the odd caravan site and pill box and coast road anyway.

Of course, I now know that the Yorkshire Wolds were creating in the ice ages by glacial action and chalk rockbeds laid down, and the Holderness coast line form Flamborough Head down to Spurn Point is made up of till which is being washed away systematically and has been for millions of years. It is the way of things, although the accelerartion of the process in teh 20th and 21st century is probably down to man made rather than natural factors. Interestingly enough, man's attempts to rectify and to protect the coast (and property thereon) tend to result in a right cock up. At Mappleton for example, were they have built groynes to trap the longshire drift so that the sediment and sand acan build up to form a protective beach for the waves to break on rather than attacking the soft clay of the cliffs and undermining them. It worked, for Mappleton. Unfortunately , South of Mappleton the problem became even worse and the beaches narrower and the erosion greater because, well Mappleton had bagged all the sand and it could be deposited further down.

For full explanation see HERE

So why on earth do I want to live somewhere that is likely to be buffeted by coastal storms and that I may have difficulty getting insurance on , that I can stress out every time there is a high tide? Even if it is my dream house in my dream plot, what on earth is possessing me to take this sort of risk with money and with well being and mental stability?

I don't know. Maybe I am sick of being sensible. Maybe I see it as a metaphor for the last quarter of my life. What actually is the point in playing safe and investing wisely, when one can felt the salt sting on one's cheeks and feel the stirring fear and exhilaration of the edge of the cliff at a time of life when it doesn't really matter any more?

Well, I know that when my friends and family find out what I am doing there is going to be an equivalent storm, and the waves of disapproval and plain hostility will tower high above me. I don't care. He will care, because he does think of the opinion of others- or maybe he thinks of their feelings more than I do. They will tell me how I am throwing everything I have worked for away for it to drop over a cliff, and that I will lose money 'investing' in a house on a clifftop. (or actually a mile or so away from it, but they won't see it that way because they have no imagination) He can't wait though. He is bubbling with anticipation. He likes being between the wolf and the abyss, although he wouldn't admit it. Know what? I think I do too, although I would never have guessed.

Isle of Wight Seascapes

Bombers' Moon

Some images from the Wings and Wheels event at Elvington Air Field May 8-10th 2009

Bird

Took this photo today while waiting at traffic lights in Leeds- obviously it had to be taken quickly before the lights changed, so didn't have much time to zoom in.

NaPoMo week 1

PART ONE
The Apprentice


0-The Fool at the rising

at the rising

you sit half cross-legged
pluck a desultory mandolin
the wind chases mist
in the reeds
carries the notes
across rat bitten allotments
the sun rises at my back
it is time to begin
my bundle is light
my feet, confident, skip
the cliff path
never miss a step


don't look down
don't look down
and you won't see the harpies
zig zagging the abyss
they brushed
your shoulder yesterday
pushed you into tomorrow
the dog barked them away
showed them the black
of his inner lips
curled his tongue
rapturously
around morning ragas

chrysanthemums flame
against an astrakhan sky
above the city called Pandemonium
the spires float, dream
of white clouds
while at their base bodies
squirm in filthy gutters
spit on their hands
and grin and bare
yellow teeth

I, The Fool, carry the lily
faithfully back to you
keep it safe from
marauding griffons
bees visit
trade their wisdom
for yellow dust
thirsty, I sip
from the golden cup
tired, I lay me down
and sleep in haystacks


at journey's end I lean
against the gates of dawn
place the flower
in your hair.


******************************
1-Snake Oil



In the time of the sickness
I left you spreadeagled
under the scarecrow on the hill
shaved smooth naked
androgynous
wrapped in shadow and red flannel
a spell scratched
on the erogenous side of your arm


the Dream Seller posed
at the stage door
Vaudeville matinee idol
hand on hip
eyed up the crowd
of admirers
played them like a fakir
with a dozen cobras to charm
he waved his silver topped cane
at the stars
threw coins stamped
with lemniscates
into the gutter, the urchins
kicked and squabbled
mesmerised, I caught
the silver cigarette case
he tossed to me.


in the pit
the snakes writhed
in figures of eight
weaving a cloth of lies
in perpetual motion
for fire eaters
and sword swallowers


What shall we be
tomorrow and tomorrow?
the ouroboros encircles
our world

I brought you back a magnolia flower chalice
brimmed with lost innocence
pentacles
and snake oil
by way
of a cure.

****************************

3-The Oracle Unlove

Proserpine sprawled on a throne
of earwiggy railway sleepers
piled haphazardly
propped up her feet
on the spoked crescent moon
of a half buried bogey wheel
willow herb and bramble
screened the black hole
at her back
where the ghosts
condemned to dig
in perpetuam
disembowel hell

pro umquam quod umquam
amen

They closed the mine down
after the accident
lovers carved initials
of immortality on the pillars
of the trilithon
at the shaft entrance
Capitalists painted
No Trespassing
By Law
on the lintel
Danger Keep Out
(of Hades)
By Order of the Parish Council
and sundry concerned bodies.

i unknotted my spotted hanky
spread my treasures
on the ground
before her
pawed at her pomegranate
stained petticoats
that stank of worms
and begged for wisdom
and a quick fix
of experience.


she refused my pennies
but showed me her knickers
and said to return
when I was old enough
to know unlove.

.

You play Chopin
on the upright pianoforte
in the parlour
lost
in the cascade of notes
tumbling
towards the stream of unconsciousness


******************************

4-Auntie Frigg's Emporium

A Shakespearian morning
lungs belt joy
across a lusty dale
the traveller with Spring
and green enough to spare
rests upon a crooked stile
to admire the patchwork fields.

Auntie Frigg takes down the shutters
shakes out her apron
sets out baskets, brooms and lanterns
lamp oil, dolly tubs
and a canary
(yellow) in a cage; marbles, mallets
iron fire dogs, anything you'd ever want
and a million things you never
thought you would. She
places her chair (windsor wheel back)
in a sun patch on the cobbles
plonks down fleshy arse
with legs akimbo
sparks up a Capstan (full strength)
waits for passing trade.

Unaware, the traveller
succumbs to temptation
browses the cornucopia
of her wares
there is no escape
he must buy his way out
of her jealous embrace.








I brought you a bowl
of lustrous glass
golden as the evening sun
a carnival of rococo colour
you stack it high
plums, peaches, figs
pomegranates, melons
persimmon
I lick juice from your lips
slowly.

********************************


5- Blind Jack

At the sign of the Bush and Pole
the traveller drinks relief
finds knowledge
in the bottom of a jug of ale


he has learned
already
the empty chair
close by the fire
with the view
of the whole
establishment
is not for him
instead he waits
on a rocky barstool
feels all eyes
upon him sideways


towards dusk Blind Jack
assumes his throne
tankard and trencher
to hand, surveys
this corner of his fiefdom
accepts his tributes
gives his orders
hands out wages
to day labourers

the itinerant searcher
of self-knowledge
begs audience
of the blind man
who sees all
for the price
of a quart of wine
and a purse of flattery.








the willow dips fresh
whips into the stream
you roll up your trousers
pluck crayfish from the stony bed
I spread my blanket
upon the wild orchids
and laugh at your delight
in your pauper's lobster.




**********************************

6-Pussy's in the well

The peal of bells
lures the traveller
to the city gates
dismembered traitors
with long dead grins
claim him
the dog cocks his leg
pisses on history


the smell of ground coffee
lures him to a chantry
ablaze with coloured sunshafts
a babble of syllables
speak in tongues
lick at a gilded shrine
of some rich bastard
who bought salvation
with bricks and Prime

they light candles
drop coins
everything is for sale
loyalty to the highest bidder
the talk is of lost assets
banks that fail
he fears the rippling rug
for his life , his eyes
his mind, the stubby shadow
of his soul
joins the confessional queue
without hope of absolution




In Berkeley Castle
the screams were heard
for miles around, it's whispered
the people shut their ears
to the torture of another poor sod
with a poor choice of friends
and prayed for mercy
for a quick death to stop
the noise
it is not politic
to be deviant
not wise to see
(or hear or speak)

hide your face from the cameras
display your Daily Sport
your crumpled
News of the Screws
where it can be clearly seen
that you conform.




I ran back to you
before the iron grille
slammed shut
and trapped the fingers
of my spirit in the mesh
you fed me bread
and honey
and sweet green tea
wrapped me in embroidered silk.

Empty Apartment

You get into a habit
of knowing the hours
the neighbours keep.


The Lithuanians left
moved on and I
still look for lights in blank
windows
but
no slippers wait on the floor
by the french doors
for their return
the waft of cigarette smoke
from their veranda
no longer pervades our hall
full bodied bass and treble
volume
vibrates our ornaments
from the shelves no more.

In the garage
where once thumped
exercise machines
and sculptured flesh and muscle
pumped and puffed
pushed weights and grunted
to the rhythmic breaking
of pain
barriers
silence settles damply.

The lonely wind
funnels deadletters
into the gutters
parodies the ice maiden's
roller- blades' grinding whir
the backstreet yawns
devoid of foreign cars
black as a sleeping cat
eyes closed tight
without the relentless blue
of Vlad's LED alarm
flash. flash. flash. flash.

NaNoWri Mo

Well there is is.
My badge for writing 61,000 + words of a novel in November. I have set myself until the challenge ends on the 30th of this month to lick it into a draft form to actually show it to friends and family, who may or may not read it, but it will make me feel better that I did it to entertain, which is the main reason I do anything.

I am sure much of it will irritate. It is a ripping yarn, part historical friction, part suspense and drama, part a tale of everyday folk who eat sandwiches and go for a slash every so often while being required to commit themselves to having their minds messed with by a crazy homosexual minor knight type of Guy in the thirteenth century experimenting with alchemy, cosmology and scientific theory advanced even for the twentieth century and who rejects the basic beliefs of the Medieval Western World. Only they don't actually know that is happening. They are worried it might be psychosis or God. Hopefully the everyday folk will get to have sex at some point instead of the reader just being expected to assume that they do. Didn't have time to work up to any good sex scenes. Maybe later on. One can't rush such things. Not unless the characters are suffering from crosscentruy hypnosis and act, well , out of character. But then the reader has to have an idea that he /she knows how the character should act before being shocked that they are acting out of character, otherwise it doesn't really work, does it. For me writing it, the scenes have to be practical enough to act out, and have to be able to withstand questioning devised by a mind of a nine year old. You see, they know that you can't go three days without a pee, and they know that if you have a scab, you will most certainly pick it, and when people see something nasty they often respond by chucking up their lunch.

Anyway, so now I have the winners badge for achieving the 50,000 words, I shall have to do all those other things I haven't done this month, and that I used the creative challenge to procrastinate from doing. It was quite weird. I did a load of things that I would not normally do in order to ut off sittin gdown to write, but I didn't do the things that I normally would have done. That is, I cleaned the tile grout in the bathroom, but I didn't write to my cousin and I didn't make my Christmas cards and gift tags, and there is fluff like tumble weed under the bed.

Hmmm. Maybe I might just start the sequel...

Sunday Afternoon Walk.

the stone frog
on the window sill opposite
sports a frozen snow hoodie
lopsided it dribbles
a toothless hobo grimace


sycamore and chestnut
toss in the wind
clutch at the air
desperate
dead hands with parchment skin
cling to chimneys
my gloves, the colour
of autumn
float on a copper sea
of fallen beech leaves

miles of dappled lane later
stained glass sun fails to set blaze
the hills behind the turbines
on Knabb Ridge
greyscale sky scuds in from the moor
first flakes blow
too soon to settle
melt like love in a hurry

trees, a little more bare than before
crowd, suck spaces closer together
hover twixt dusk and twilight
afternoon and evening
life and death
The chill exhilarates
inspires
I slip on a dead squirrel
fur blurred as bonfire smoke
an urban fox scuttles
through swept leaves
eyes like a luminous watch.