From this prompt about the Enigma Variations -- although as ever not directly from that... I came the long way around.
A blue star rises, and who of us can say
out by the horizon, electric blue ink
a sky uniquely annotated dawning
its own way and who of us can say
what a day like this may mean
one pale, bluish star, low in the brightening sky
I watch you stir your tea I watch
you watch my eyes we're drawing nearer
covertly, through a fall of hair
a blue star might rise unprecedented
just there in its own way on a day
with the horizon not so far away
you tie your hair back firmly with a string
out by the horizon
I greet you properly, a public display
what passes as normal, we're unaliened
and our funny ways strange no more
a blue star rises and all unmanned,
unwomanned, freshly peopled...
we walk out hands held
into the new world, bravely
2017-04-03
NaPoWriMo - 2017 - April 3rd - Did you grow up in a literary family?
The official NaPoWriMo prompt for today links to this interview, in which the first question asked is:
Did you grow up in a literary family?
Mother was entirely fictional. So dad had
various girlfriends and some of them, pitying us,
would sometimes read out extracts from her life.
My sister and I would argue about who was
the protagonist. She always thought it her while I,
uncertain, dithered over people met that day.
My uncle lost his appendix, and later on the plot,
eventually misplacing all the contents pages
for his mind, his life, and his wife: Aunty Peggy...
who lived, we thought, for forty years in the mad attics
with the first Mrs Rochester, and a portrait
of Doreen Grey -- now into her second childhood.
The old die old, the good die good and, they hope, well
and all my pages grow sepia at the edges
while my spine stiffens and small print blurs.
My sister failed to become the villain, married badly;
tried again, with a book-shopkeeper's son called Sid,
and now swells well with a kid and a sequel to come
and what have I done. It seems I am the focus
character after all and I hope I haven't bored
my readership along the way. Did I grow up
in a literary family? Well actually
I haven't literally grown up at all.
Did you grow up in a literary family?
Mother was entirely fictional. So dad had
various girlfriends and some of them, pitying us,
would sometimes read out extracts from her life.
My sister and I would argue about who was
the protagonist. She always thought it her while I,
uncertain, dithered over people met that day.
My uncle lost his appendix, and later on the plot,
eventually misplacing all the contents pages
for his mind, his life, and his wife: Aunty Peggy...
who lived, we thought, for forty years in the mad attics
with the first Mrs Rochester, and a portrait
of Doreen Grey -- now into her second childhood.
The old die old, the good die good and, they hope, well
and all my pages grow sepia at the edges
while my spine stiffens and small print blurs.
My sister failed to become the villain, married badly;
tried again, with a book-shopkeeper's son called Sid,
and now swells well with a kid and a sequel to come
and what have I done. It seems I am the focus
character after all and I hope I haven't bored
my readership along the way. Did I grow up
in a literary family? Well actually
I haven't literally grown up at all.
2017-04-02
NaPoWriMo - 2017 - April 2nd - There's a certain formalism in these things
There's a certain formalism in these things
When she is willing, or even keen, she strips
the flowers from her hat and scatters them
upon the treacherous back step. For him
he'll try to get her attention, by reading, silent,
in the outside loo. There's other things they do:
she smokes a cigarette -- some hours before
and far away -- which weaves faint smoke smell through
her hair; he moves her chair an inch, no more;
she wears that old torn dress, that still a bit
reeks of sweat and other fluids. He picks fights
over small things. She invites him to fuck off,
cordially. Eventually they will both hit
upon the same room, mood and time, and minks
would blush. Usually ten minutes is enough.
When she is willing, or even keen, she strips
the flowers from her hat and scatters them
upon the treacherous back step. For him
he'll try to get her attention, by reading, silent,
in the outside loo. There's other things they do:
she smokes a cigarette -- some hours before
and far away -- which weaves faint smoke smell through
her hair; he moves her chair an inch, no more;
she wears that old torn dress, that still a bit
reeks of sweat and other fluids. He picks fights
over small things. She invites him to fuck off,
cordially. Eventually they will both hit
upon the same room, mood and time, and minks
would blush. Usually ten minutes is enough.
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