fog lifts to show snow on hills
the folly’s columns are silhouette
clarity of view and thought
Beach night
The beach stones are thousand-year smooth, grey light grey when the clouds clear the moon, black as the night when the misting returns. The sky-black sea crashes foam white at its border. If there are voices, they are distant, both in place and time.
against the flow
the only person on the riverbank walking away from town
the only person with no dog or a rugby scarf
he holds his shopping bag tight and swinging slightly
See? I have a right to exist. I have every right to be here.
On the bridge
it has rained and rained on the hills upstream
the river flows deep, the colour of builder’s tea
beyond the last fields the sea waits
rain batters
rain batters roof tiles
the red shutters may not hold
my heart is not storm ready
but who is the one
but who is the one
who is the one who
is the final one
who is the only one
who
She was just back home
She was just back, just back home. After years away the world she had known looked different, and people looked at her differently. She had changed too, of course, you could see that in her eyes if she ever allowed you to look into them.
She was asleep and flinching in dreams when the window broke. The half brick hit the cot and glass showered across the room. She screamed and screamed as she picked glass from her baby’s face. Her father ran into the room, face pale, eyes wild. He saw blood on his grandson’s head.
She went to the funeral, of course she did. He was her father, her son’s grandfather. Dressed in black she stood next to her mother in the grey mist and rain. Together they raised their eyes to the sky and the rain mixed with their silent tears. Tomorrow they would move away, the woman, the girl and her boy, move far away from their home, move to a place where their past was not known, where the past did not shadow their lives.
First published on https://www.christopherfielden.com/writing-challenges/news-challenge.php 01 March 2019
sun arrows
sun arrows down from cloudless skies
winter wind bringing ice to skin
in the distance the hill burns
rye bread, mint tea
Come, I will offer you crumbs of sour bread.
Hold them
on your tongue;
your mouth fills.
How different the emptiness that fills your belly,
the emptiness in my heart
when you are not here.
After, we will drink mint together
or boiled water on ginger,
for heat
for spice
for the sweetest spark in your eye.
and time
and time and time and time
will catch us in its oily grasp
and hold us there unmoving
as people places memories all fade away
