Argent

Sometimes it’s the smell of lilies and the look of them boxed on her kitchen floor. Sometimes it’s the fluster of silk on her wooden stairs, how people busy themselves around her as she sits. Now and again it’s the smell of nail varnish, sharp and clean, almost fruity, cutting through her day. Quite often it’s the thought of her mug of tea to her right, going cold as women fuss. One kneels down…

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Some Kind of Angel

The woman’s dress, it almost brushed the floor. The cold stone in the cathedral and all I could see was the fabric to my left as she sat there. The golden swirls, maybe paisley, maybe African, I’ll never know.  And to the right of her ochre and viridian I sat quiet and tried to regain myself.  And she helped us when her language wasn’t ours, when our battered tourist phrase book didn’t…

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Glittering (Underland #4)

And it makes me wonder what I’d say, if I could say all the things in my head, if I could give you all the images and moments, all the feelings, thoughts and words. And if I could shape them, if I could form them out of the mist rolling in by your door, would you hold them, would you take them in your arms and keep them close? I move as if unhindered by time, the mist rolls in, softening me,…

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Stepping Stone

You know how this goes. We start with the bed sheets, I’d call them plum, or maybe more of a claret, too dark for my liking either way. Tiny windows framing fields, an old phone box that works. White cotton blouse with pintucks, sunhat with a pale blue ribbon, of course  Park up by the toilets opposite Rick Stein’s. Every shop with large buckets of netted shells, so many little brittle housings…

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Thirty

Her mother’s best table cloth, the awkward smile over chicken salad or was it ham? Churchyard trees smelt of Radox, pine crumbled in her hand.  Closed restaurant, tattered menu through the window reflected them. The lager soaked pub carpet, did she mention modern art, and lost her train of thought? The Mason’s Arms, the slight hill by the Job Centre. In Brueton Park the aviary was empty, a…

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Make the Links - Weather Bird (Rag)

Following myself along is sometimes confusing. I do get lost at times. I start out down by the river by the ancient bridge. I wonder how I’m connected to the woman in the photo from 1905, with her skirt brushing the pavements. I jump-cut, I fly. But I know how I’m connected to the woman in 1962, sipping strong tea, exhausted and her brand new warm pink baby has a heavy head, it makes her arm…

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Reverb (Not Right Now - Right Now)

1. Right. Fine. I’ll just look at the sky then, I’ll just notice how the may tree berries echo the salmon shade of clouds. Soft charcoal trees on the Ridgeway where I used to walk. I know, I know – someone made it February. What can I do?  2. Pale lime and almost moss green of the parsley into soft lemon, fading now. Bright spots of chrome, diamonds on my tap, underneath uncertain cloud.…

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27 Million Degrees Fahrenheit

Back in November 1895 someone was feeling the warmth of their new born baby. Someone whose name I do not know. And I wonder if she watched the sun come up like I do, if she saw the edge of a winter’s sky bleed into the day. Soft, quiet bleeding like the pulsing that bought my grandmother into the world. And I wonder about this woman I never knew, did she look up into the velvet sky, streaked…

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Pockets (Underland #3)

I’m called to stand on my doorstep, I’m almost outside. I need to feel the cold air bite my skin, the wind whip my hair, the rain brush the pavements as I feel my way to you. There’s something about the blackout of early evening something pulling at me to leave the house, escape the four walls that surround me. And the rain shines the pavements as I puddle jump, rushing, a sense of hurrying to…

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Blanket (Underland #2)

Still in her chair approaching year end and she wanted to be his blanket. Hours peeled across the day, time was moving though she wasn’t. She appeared to have put herself on pause. It was a limbo where she breathed in and out. She remembered the shape of this place from many years ago, from a time when all she could do was process thoughts. And she thought about his blanket. Maybe that was all…

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Bright Red Beautiful Balloon

And then she knew just what to do, she would come here. Here, to reach him, here, in the place that only they knew. She breathed out and slowed down and wished for him to do the same. The balloon was exquisite. It beamed out light even on the darkest days and she would pull down the red ribbon by which it was tethered and bring it close up to her face. She looked inside. And all of their…

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Murmuration

And just like that, her head scattered across the fields. Wings battered into wings and feathers drifted down to nestle in the hedgerows underneath. It was as though no decibels came before her, or after her, as though she, herself, created all disturbance on the air, that her thoughts created sound waves through the universe. The fields shook under the force of her birds in flight. The sky…

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Bud

So you know how it goes. Clean page, the brightness burrowing into me. And I find myself here, holding Rose’s hand and encouraging her into the light. She’s not that old you know, just a child really though with everything that’s going on around her she feels much older now. She’s not shy, though she seems to be. Between you and me she’s afraid but keep it to yourselves. She’s battling with so…

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Viaje en el Tiempo #3

The sun, still burning hydrogen into helium at a rate I can’t imagine, does its thing, causes shadows up my old walls. I should get up but the flickerings come and go. Flitting branches fade in and out like the ripples of indigo silk on the high windows back in Rome. I’ll stay in the restaurant a while, the terracotta tiles under my tired feet, I’ll rest there now, taste their wine in that air,…

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Viaje en el Tiempo #2

I don’t mind that the night is here, blowing through my letterbox or that the trees are tousled and distressed. I’m safe inside. And deeper still, inside my mind I’m casting shadows on white concrete, with linen draping off me in the heat. Saturation turned to full, in the welcomed citrus hues outside Matisse’s house, the shuttered windows winking at me, telling me that everything will be…

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Viaje en el Tiempo #1

If I look out beyond the may tree to some stranger’s brick wall, I cannot see the cement. I see only crowds, the tourists jostling, clamouring and if I stop resisting the leaden sky, the solid stratus that holds me down, then maybe I’ll go back there. Maybe I’ll be in Barcelona, maybe my feet will push the pavement in the hubbub under their gaudy Gaudi ways. Maybe that’s what I’ll do, under this…

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Verdant

Lilies grew out of the scar on my tummy, daring, irreverent and girlish. They flung their arms wide; they didn’t care. Lisianthus burst up and out, willowy, confident, pretty and they knew it. They waved at the lilies who nodded in respect. Painted ladies and red admirals fluttered from the same places where the flesh had bled, their damp tissue paper wings felt cool against the air. Meconium…

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