A little look back

Prompt: Tell us your life story in 30 words.

Thoughts before creating:

Shipwrecked me – emotions I did not want from memories I keep at arms length…

Tell us your life story in 30 words…

If only it were that simple. Condensing 64 years into 30 words, one for each two years.

I have struggled with this and it is no one’s fault but my own.

The Creation:

I cannot tell this particular story in thirty words:
 
Widnes son
words blind dreamer
 
owa’ Barry’s the clever one
 
I bobbed in his wake
a school somnambulist                            dreamed my first poem at twelve
 
until till I.C.I.                                                  bad poet for many years
                                                                        
cold reality
woke me up
 
a tradesman?
a fitter...forever?
 
NOT ME
 
my parents thought me puddled
giving up a good job for this
 
but I threw myself in                                                   started to get the hang of it 
and I swam                                                                   got serious
and Marjons opened my mind
and I met my wife
 
then Somerset by accident
I had intended to return to the North
 
Comm. Ed to social services
seconded social work student                                                 still writing
to hostel manager to network manager
 
father once
then twice
and two years later 
widower                                                                                     it kept me sane
 
LOST
 
no career trajectory now
poor paul 
 
LOST
 
wrong time                                                                                  Fire River Poets
wrong woman
wrong marriage
 
a hell I fought my way out of                                                     and I wrote
 
slow rebuild                                                                     First book: Burning Music
amazing children 
through all this I held their horizons open                          
you can be anything
 
right time                                                                            
right woman                                                            
 
I met my third wife                                                                    
happiness 
two children at university
redundancy                                                                       
twenty four years services
shown the door
resulting bitterness
 
scuffled                                                                                Juncture 25
                                                                                            Blessed By Magpies
 
then back to Marjons
student support
 
a poet in Torquay nearing his retirement...

Thoughts/notes post creation:

I make it 50 lines but don’t believe me dyscalculia makes numbers interesting and has gotten worse as I’ve got older.
 
There you have it.
 
Phew! 
 
That was difficult.
 
Two areas I did not want to revisit my first wife’s death, though I think I have come to terms with that twenty six 
years on, and the bad second marriage. I have difficulty believing she was not a bad person. 
When I think of her at all.
 
I have to say this was the most difficult prompt I’ve ever had, and I know that I made it so.
 
I almost gave you 30 poems but I thought that was cheating.

Prompt: You are the storm.

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The creation:

Coming soon…

Prompt: Picture prompt – And in the movement how does it feel?

The creation:

Notes/thoughts:

Prompt: What would it feel like to scream until your lungs have no air?

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The creation:

I wander up higher

Until I feel far from the ground below.

Reaching out blindly 

I think about then

The transparency of us

The derelict building we hid our grief 

The taste of desolation, it’s rotting… it’s putrid in the back of my throat.

The stench of air unwritten.

I feel my saliva fall from my chin

vanity evanescence’s 

Muscles twitch

Skin itch

I blame the madness on the constant

The merry-go-round that stinks of old vomit and foolish fun

ashes under my feet, cravings contort the sky is barren

winter is haunting summer and spring

I wander alone 

My breath a whisper 

An Echoing stranger

I meant to say I miss you

But I scream ‘I miss me more’ 

Prompt: What have you always wanted to tell someone?

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The creation:

Did I ever hurt you when 

I lay in your arms

Did I ever hurt you when

I made you laugh again and again

Did I ever hurt you when

They forced me to hate you

Did I ever hurt you when 

You cheated again and again 

Why was it easy to break me

All I did was be honest I never played the game

What did you gain from this

I never told anyone about it, I never played the game – accept half the blame 

Did I ever hurt you when

You gave me that flower

Did I ever hurt you when

I’d listen and not ever judge

Did I ever hurt you when

You kissed me without permission

Did I ever hurt you when 

You just blamed it all on me 

Why was it easy to break me

All I did was be honest and I never played the game

What did you gain from this

Shut up and realise that you’re not perfect too 

Shut up and see that I was part of you

And I never played the game 

Accept half the blame

Notes:

Opened this one and it opened up an old wound. When I was younger and a teacher was very unfair to me. Would love some justice there but instead I’ll be creative. 

Prompt: The smallest bravest thing…

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The creation:

Notes/thoughts:

This prompt made me feel warm inside, almost nostalgic, even for the present. Pretty much immediately I knew I wouldn’t be able to whittle it down to one thing, and used it as an opportunity to delve into a whole range of circumstances and explore my perception of where bravery lies throughout all I know. It reminded me of all of the humble but mighty building blocks of our existence and experience, spanning multiple contexts. Perhaps we forget how brave even the tiniest of things we have mastered could be perceived… is an acknowledgement of this, of our lowkey grandeur, a stepping stone to enhanced self love?

Prompt: Picture prompt – you are here:

The Creation:

Notes/Thoughts:

My first instinct was that I was in the photograph itself, namely as the campfire, instead of behind the viewfinder of the camera. Often I think about the fascinating grandeur of fire, imagining if it could teleport spontaneously – huge infernos displacing suddenly from somewhere inside a lighter 300 miles away. Fire is so powerful – from the way its domestication revolutionised our history, to the destruction it can cause. The essentials of balance. Intoxicating to stare at – perhaps the most accessible form of visual magic? I feel baffled that fire as a form, wherever it exists, is identical. Once it comes into fruition, fire is fire. The element is born and consumes the space. Perhaps that’s why it feels so ancient and precious to sit around the campfire, to stare into the flames. It is an eternal window into every place it has ever visited. My lack of indecision about where to place my focus when looking at the photograph is perhaps testament to the potency of fire. I felt instantly excited to become fire through my words and explore that space. Perhaps in the future I’d like to extend this concept into a short story.

A scan of ash:

Prompt: You can hear rain…

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The creation:

Notes:

Prompt: You’ve just arrived. It’s all new. Where are you and how does it feel?

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The Creation:

The stunning views stretched for miles as they bumbled along the bumpy roads, each field lay like a tapestry on either side, tinged with multiple variations of green. As they moved around the windy bends, Violet saw something ahead of her, to her surprise, Joanna pulled into the side of the road next to it and said: “Father said I should show you this”. 

Violet looked out of the window at the white mill, the building stood tall at about 25 feet. Its glorious sails stayed silent in the spring stillness. 

​”Where are we?” Violet asked. 

“Allerton, this is a rather famous mill” Joanna spoke with pride. 

“What’s it used for?” Violet asked walking closer to it and looking up. The beautiful building seemed to lay barren and statuesque, like an adult in a room full of naughty children. It seemed to have engulfed memories and worn its injuries with broken glass and litter. 

“It WAS a working mill. But was used as a Home Guard during the war” Joanna walked closer to the building and touched the walls. 

“It’s really beautiful,” Violet said leaning over and touching the white stone. “No one ever talks about the war anymore, don’t you think?” Violet said quietly almost like she was talking to herself.

​”It’s not a subject people feel ready to talk about”, Joanna suggested picking up a dandelion and blowing it into the air.  

“No, but don’t you think we should talk about it. I mean it happened. It hurt. We survived…”

​”Yes, but many did not” Joanna bit and Violet sensed that Joanna wanted quiet from her. The windmill looked out over rolling fields, a perfect landmark for travellers to find in the dark.  

“Come on,” Joanna told Violet reaching for her hand. Violet took it, their fingers entwined for a second and Joanna let go like she had been hit with a stone. Violet stiffened with rejection and followed Joanna reluctantly towards the door. Using her elbow, Joanna pushed hard against the wood until it moaned and opened. She grinned as Violet looked on with astonishment. 

“Are we going to rob houses?” Violet asked with a concerned look on her face. 

They walked inside the mill; the ceilings low on their head made it feel claustrophobic. They climbed the stone steps all the way up until they could go no further. Upon coming across a broken bottle on the top step, Joanna put her hand up to stop Violet in her tracks and used her foot to move the glass out of the way for her. Violet felt her cheeks crimson and she nodded a thank you. Joanna held her hand out for Violet to hold as she pushed up into the loft area, together they stepped towards the window and looked out. The view was mesmerising, it was as if God had taken everything from the Earth and then resuscitated it, gently placing everything down with perfection so that all of the organisms were buzzing with harmony and grace. Joanna looked over at Violet and saw the smile on her face reach her ears. Violet felt Joanna look at her and in the pit of her stomach, she felt the most delicious jolt of something she had never experienced before.

Notes:

I was immediately transported to this part of a chapter I wrote for a book I am in the middle of writing. It just made me think of this moment.

Prompt: If you were to forget everything you had ever known what would the world look like?

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The Creation:

I awoke with a start and an end and a strange sensation bubbling in my stomach. I had been sinking into a dream of a great river emptying. Every drop was returning to the sky. My hands screamed as they shrank, whilst memories  of 10,000 years of progress disappeared like wisps of smoke on the wind. Although I remained locked to the fixed point of the present, the future had altered it’s course and was no longer flooding ceaselessly towards me. I was being cast backwards down the tide of time, observing as the present moment of a moment ago un-happened, drifted away from me and un-became a speck on the horizon. I was swallowed up, pulled home into the nothing, every moment returning once again, returning and returning endlessly, forgetting and forgetting until there was no separation any more between the present and the future, between this thing and that thing, between one being or another, between the stars and the planets, all separation un-separating, all of everything returning to a single strand of light in an infinite darkness, a great re-merging between my Self and the universe. Landing in the warm glow of the primordial soup, I awoke.

It had been a very strange dream. I observed my hand. A smile appeared in the centre of my palm, parted it’s lips and sung in falsetto: ‘Before I learnt to forget what I am I was here in the place where there is no separation. I have forgotten how to differentiate my hand from my arm and myself from another and a planet from the cosmos. We began as a oneness, we began at the centre of all creation.’

Perhaps I had not awoken after all. Come to think of it, my room did look rather different. In fact I was not in a room at all; to even conceive of the idea of a room now seemed impossible. I was in an indescribable state which was also a place which was also a time, which I could most accurately describe as a vortex of colour. Colours and shapes. There were no objects, no places or people. Only a ceaselessly shifting vortex of colour, sound and sensation that danced for me, in me and through me. To be quite precise I think I would say that I was the vortex, or rather it was me, or even better it was everything, or everything was it. There was no me in separation to anything else here. It was the only thing, and it is the infinite ‘thing’.

I attempted to observe my hand. I felt a flash of pink and the dancing shapes swirl through me. The high resonance of the falsetto vibrated from my innards. ‘Learn to forget and you shall see the world for what it is. One great dancing vortex of colour. Remember to learn to forget.’

In the centre of the vortex there was a no-thing. This no-thing was in my centre (for the vortex was me, or rather I was it, or rather I was everything, or rather everything was everything) and it was the fixed point of the present around which everything swirls and whirls. In this no-thing separation is inconceivable- no-thing can not be separated. I observed the no-thing. There was no progress here. Or conflict, or prejudice, or consumption, or judgement, or envy, or hatred . There was no separation. With no separation comes no difference.

Remembering that at the source there is no difference, I danced. Everything danced. Everything was dancing, always. Everything I had learnt had made me forget to see it that way. I needed to forget what I had learnt in order to remember to forget. To dance in the space of nothing. To see everything dancing, all at once.

Entering the nothing, I forgot again and again and again. Until there was nothing to forget. And no need to remember.

I observed the universal hand as it sang from the soul ‘In my beginning and my end there will be no-thing. Awake now and remember to forget separateness. I sing my song through you as you sing yours through me. Awake now and remember to forget again.’

I woke up and remembered nothing.

Notes/Free writing:

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Prompt: Explore freedom in any artform.

Freedom -Video Creation:

Freedom drawing:

Freedom music:

Freedom writing:

Prompt: Part 1: Write a letter to a stranger. Part 2: Reply to the letter.

Prompt: You are tears.

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Prompt: Go to your bookshelf. Pick a book completely at random. Go to page 43. Use this page as inspiration.

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Prompt: This starting sentence is your prompt: The wind touched my neck and I turned…

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The wind touched my neck and I turned; the beautiful frost still bit the end of each naked twig. Leaving it vulnerable to nature’s teeth.  The smell of pine whizzed up my nose. It reminded me of Christmas. Maybe even a specific Christmas. Yes. When I went to see the family in The North Shore. I smiled at the memory, breathing in it. 

I kept walking through the woodland, my mind racing with thoughts, coming and going out like broken waves. Each one felt different. I thought about when we would all be huddled around the dinner table, as mom delivered food in abundance. Delicious hams and transfat delights all somehow gloriously forgivable. I thought about the conversations, wine induced political debates. Some of us so liberal that we didn’t know how to listen, and some so far right that it scared me. Fuck, it scared me so much.  I never knew my brother had such strong opinions. But then I so did I. But they were so desperately opposite that it felt like whoever we talked about anything seemingly important it was like trying to build a puzzle from the beginning, but realising that half way through you didn’t have all the parts. We just couldn’t make it work. 

I sat on the ground, the soil hard from remains of winter burdens. I took my boots off and rubbed my feet for a second, enjoying the moment of peace. I’d been walking for two days, through Gifford Pinchot National Forest, in Washington state. I’d never really stayed in one place for long. My need for new images I think came from my father. He had been in the navy and moved from England to Canada before any of us kids were born. He had always said to me “don’t ever do anything you don’t wanna do”, and so I never did. I never got the office job, I never stayed still, I never worried about taxes and accounts, because it wasn’t what I wanted to do. My brother jimmy, he did the opposite. I don’t think I ever saw him without a glass of whisky in his hand. I don’t think I could imagine him and his wife smiling with their eyes during their annual holiday card. Sure, they would smile, making sure all of the family knew about their new Lexus, or that they had all gone camping under the stars in the summer. My brother had sadness dripping from every single pore. If you could see his heart it would be in six separate parts, hollowed out. He wasn’t always so sad. I know that. 

I put my boots back on and started walking up the sloping woodland. Wrapped up in my water proofs, I wandered with pensive precision through the mass wilderness until I reached the opening, in front of me were views so far reaching that it didn’t even look real. The echoes of bird song broke the sky, the greens and red and whites like hand stitched quilts made for the valley offering sanctuary below. I called myself an explorer, that was my JOB, to explore. Letting my beard have a mind of its own on my face, I ate what I found in the forest, knowing the difference between deadly and edible, I took the berries from my pocket, placed them in my out and gently chewed them. My body ached with movement but there was a blissful feeling with each step into the unknown. Governments in Canada and America talk about freedom like they own it, as though by getting up and putting on a suit every day you are buying your freedom. I knew freedom didn’t cost a thing. Jimmy, my brother disagreed. The last time we saw each other he said something. We both said some things. It was my father funeral. He had been 65 and it was only 28 days ago.  I stopped against a tree and felt my gut ache like someone had kicked it with lead boots on. I took a huge breath in and held my hand to my face. Thinking about my father. Dressed in his navy uniform. Always so neat, no crease. His neck twisted by the belt, his body swinging in the silence of all our grief. My mom had found him. A letter next to his empty glass that still smelt of Jamaican dark rum, ‘I love you all. I’m free’.

I stood still against the creaking tree and moved closer to the edge of the canyon. My brother’s words repeated in my head “you did this. You and your fucking freedom”. His sad eyes like dead stars. My stomach ached again, the inedible berries starting to work, I moved closer to the edge, and closer. I felt the wind hitting me hard, coming fast, slamming against my face like slaps, Christmas, all that talk, dads laughter, my mother’s kindness, the lights from the tree, the smell of pine, the wind felt like it was going through me, inside me, my brothers words, my brothers words, my brothers words, and then everything went dark. 

Prompt: Part 1: What is your earliest memory of colour? Part 2: Use this Colour in your creation.

I thought about my early memories and could remember the bamboo wall paper of my parents flat when I was 2 or 3 years old, in Worthing West Sussex. Then I remembered the removal van’s electronic Tail Lift when we moved from that flat, to a bigger house around the corner.  The removal van had panda branding.  Panda’s & Bamboo!  Weird… Both images in my mind were blue, maybe a faded blue. 

I’ve been using salt dough recently, my grandma taught me how to make it when I was a kid.  It’s a cheaper and a more DIY version of clay, it doesn’t half dry your hands out though.  I decided I would make a blue panda tile, like a kitchen or bathroom tile, I like tiles.  I started making it but I could tell early on that it was absolute poo.  I got distracted and made a selection of sushi instead. I guess I rebelled against the brief.  That’s ok though?

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Prompt: You’ve Just Met Someone…

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Prompt: They broke your heart…

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Prompt: You are a fly on the wall listening to a private conversation. What do you hear?

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Prompt: Split a poem and finish whichever half you want.

Creation:

Crystal Palace Blues

unexpectedly an iguanodon

take in its botched anatomy

how it sadly sheds its concrete skin

nothing that ever lived looked like this

truly it is a terrible lizard

The original poem before it was split:

A car with one headlight,

the near side,

fitful, flickering at best.

Unexpectedly butterfingered when it came to love,

dyspraxic even,

he dropped hearts.

Women remained an irrelevance to him,

men fared no better,

a human solvent

he sundered ties expediently,

so the path of his life was strewn with debris,

disgruntled ex-lovers,

metaphorical corpses with too real knives in their backs.

But how he can talk,

silver haired, silver tongued

dangerous.

An iguana basking in the flash light glare.

The splitting of the poem:

A car with                               one headlight,

the near                                     near side,

fitful, flickering                                 at best.

Unexpectedly butterfingered    when it came to love,

dyspraxic                                                      even,

he dropped                                 dropped  hearts.

Women remained an               irrelevance to him,

men fared                                             no better,

a human                                                 solvent

he sundered                              ties expediently,

so the path of his              life was strewn with debris,

disgruntled                                        ex-lovers,

metaphorical corpses with too     real knives in their backs.

But how he                                            he  can talk,

silver haired,                                      silver tongued

dangerous.                                       Dangerous.

An iguana basking in                the flash light glare.

Split poem part 1:

A car with

the near

fitful flickering

unexpectedly butterfingered

dyspraxic

he dropped

women remained an

men fared

a human

he sundered

so the path of his

disgruntled

metaphorical corpses with too

but how he

silver haired

dangerous

an iguana basking in

an unexpectedly metaphorical iguana

butterfingered from all the marijuana

Split poem Part 2:

one headlight

near side

at best

when it came to love

even

dropped hearts

irrelevance to him

no better

solvent

ties expediently

life was strewn with debris

ex-lovers

real knives in their back

he can talk

silver tongued

dangerous

flash light glare

Notes:

This has been a challenging prompt. I decided to chose a poem I did not really like, one that had not worked that well. I then sliced it down the middle and that was when the problems started. Should I really just complete the lines? Would I not just remake a poem I was unhappy with? How precisely should I follow the prompt?

This is my literal response:

A car with the doors open

the nearside indicator’s

fitful flickering winds down the battery

unexpectedly butterfingered, self conscious,

he dropped his act.

Women remained a mystery,

men fared worse.

A human cold fish

he sundered all ties

and the trajectory of his life

came down to a big car

nowhere to go and no one to go with.

I liked the iguana possibly because it rhymed with marijuana and wrote doggerel.

I thought of something like I am The Walrus, a stream of consciousness but, honestly, did not think I was up to it.

Then the idea of an iguanodon, that led me to think about the crumbling dinosaurs at Crystal Palace, that led to something I’d read about the artist hosting a meal inside the dinosaur.

My daughter telling me she’d seen the sculptures recently also was floating around as was the news I’d recently read that they are in need of repair.

All of the above led to:

unexpectedly an iguanodon

all concrete and jumbled anatomy

the toad skin is cracking

this terrible lizard is well past its sell by date

This is a post about the meal: https://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/articles/the-victorian-dinner-inside-a-dinosaur/

I think I have stumble on something here that will repay exploring.

31^st December 1853

Robert Owen sits in the head

of the half built iguanodon

manages seven courses

toasts their Majesties and knows

nothing before was as good

as powerful or as wise or

capable of remaking this world in their image

I also turned the other half of the poem into this:

Dangerous

When it came to love

his life was all dropped hearts,

bitter ex-lovers,

each with a real knife in the back.

He was at his best, silver tongued,

appearing to care until he didn’t any more.

I think this sticks to the spirit of the original poem well. If there is a criticism it is that it is all tell and no show.

Prompt:

in poetry we dance

because its easier with words

to knit new rhythms

every time we speak them aloud

i side step the expected

to juxtapose an image

the significance of which

i hope will elude you

and remain just a sequence of letters

ink stains on a page

to which you lend your own history

such invisible connections

are the fleeting moments we inhabit

Notes:

In poetry we dance because its easier with words than rhythm to slide from a solid word and pass the at this point I realised I needed to write longhand, a screen is not my natural medium for poetry composition.

I had seen Abigail’s poem and the prompt had set me thinking about hive minds, the comprehension gap between life forms and Another Roadside Picnic, the book that inspired Tarkovsky’s Stalker, one of my favourite films. I was going down the line of incomprehensible bafflement or this hive mind that looks at one fo the humans through the eyes of the insect and ponders how much they look like their mother and describe her relationship to the hive mind. It would have probably been nothing like that when it was finished.

When I opened envelope 8 I was pleasantly surprised to find rather a splendid piece of [Chinese brush? And] ink work.

I started to get down my impressions on the screen but it never really works for me. I suppose I am too much of a digital immigrant.

This poem was difficult to end. I am still not sure that the end fits the body of the poem. If the poem is about the act of writing and the significance that the reader brings to it, which is what I drew from the image, then does the end work?

I think it needs to go away for some time and be looked at in several months.

Prompt: You are falling through the water until you touch the river bed. What is there?

Creation 1:

Confluence

There is a bike frame, on its side half buried in the ooze.

I have opened my eyes and the light from the surface makes the scene ripple. There are rocks and a fine layer of silt that my motion disturbs. It hangs like icing sugar in the water.

I know that I have to breathe, that I cannot stay down here for long, and the thought makes my chest ache.

Then there is the cold and a fear that hypothermia in water is a gentle death, but how does anyone really know? Can death ever be gentle? Perhaps some can. It would depend on how invested in this life you are.

I hit the river bed and push off towards the light. My clothes are heavy and my shoes feel as if they are made out of lead. The water is a set of currents I have to push through. I image the weave of the water holding me in place, at the bottom of the river.

I break the surface, gulp in air and wonder what has just happened?

The water is cold, flowing fast but the shore reachable, I think. I strike out for the boulders and the sand beyond. There is darkness under the trees. Silence save for the rushing water and my limbs slapping the surface.

Always the same and never the same twice.

I move through unique combinations. Split second relationships that tumble and roll over and are gone.

It is cold and the river shallows out enough to grab the rocks and drag myself on to the land. The sand clings to the wet cloth and my shoes hold more water than they ever kept out.

Where am I?

How did I arrive at this point?

I have no idea. Then a memory lazily moves through my mind. Trauma can make you forget. Some newspaper article about people unable to recall the moments before the crash. They remember getting into the car but nothing after that.

I do not even have that much. I can remember the water, the dappling light, the bicycle frame under the velvet silt. An urge to breathe and kicking for the world of air.

Nothing more.

How did I get here?

Where is here?

Why that solitary bike frame in this wilderness?

I stand on the bank and think I need to take off my clothes and air dry my skin.

The sun is past its zenith.

Creation 2:

as I slept

I lived underwater

not an uncommon dream

no longer pinned by gravity

but cast free like a bird in the sky

experiences the ease of flight

I swam through REM and

awoke with the sun

my body strangely weighted

beached in tangled sheets

Notes:

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This prompt was more difficult. I felt I was going off on a tangent.

Initially I let the words write themselves. I thought I could pick words/lines out of the paragraphs and make a poem but I was uneasy with the idea. I was focussed on the water, on what happens after I see a bike on the river bed. Part of me wanted a logical story, something that hits the ground running and is relentless. I cannot write like that.

I let the words unwind until they ran out. Then I closed the computer down and thought tomorrow will offer another avenue.

What was at the back of my mind was that I did not want to generate a list poem. They are overdone and just not me. There can be a grandeur to repetition but generally I don’t think they work.

As I cooked the evening meal the idea of breathing underwater popped into my head. I think it came from a Murray Head song from the 1980s, but I’ve just spent half an hour trawling through lyrics on line and I cannot find it. I’m sure it’s on Restless…

There was also another lyric from the same album about Venice and the sea coming up through holes in the square after midnight…

Terrible stuff really but you had to be there to enjoy it.

Anyway the idea of breathing underwater was zipping round my head.

This morning as I did Tai Chi it started to come together. Four rewrites later I had a poem. It was not the prompt you had given but I think it works.

Though I am left with the question why I could not look at the riverbed? The bike could have been the start of something urban but for some reason I spliced it with a river in the wilderness. I was thinking the Pacific north west, Oregon or somewhere like that.

It could have as easily been Widnes or Birdgwater and a bike would have fitted the location. I once saw a number of bikes in the silt by Bridgwater library when the river was low. It was as if this was the place where you slung your stolen bike into the river. A gift for a Celtic deity, long forgotten but with still enough clout to demand obeisance once in a while. Perhaps it was the tears of the bikes owners that were the real offering? The Celtic gods demanded much, especially as the Romans rampaged the country. Take the Lindow Man for example.

Would we have been better off without Christianity? If we had stayed with our Northern Gods and the Saxon Wyrd? I suspect so. But that is not the point of the prompt…

(Video to come)

What were we thinking when we wrote this prompt?

he holds up a mirror

tells me to look in the glass

left is right and I’m left handed

secure in my penmanship

even if I cannot read half of what I write

this could be the counter earth

always half a hidden orbit ahead

the other side of the sun

right is left and I favour the right now

so I’m looking for a second mirror

to make it all better again

hoping to avoid that infinity thing

left is right is left is right is

all too much for me

so I stare and stare

and normalise what I see

a man in a mirror

looking back at me

Notes:

I have to confess that this prompt was easier for me than some of the others.

As soon as I read it I thought of a man holding a mirror. The the word mind games popped up.

I know that what ever I write will cast light on my process, which is the point of the prompt. Like the Rorschach Test I will see what I think is there.

I used to facilitate a poetry group, Juncture 25. We met twice a month and the second time was always to undertake a poetry workshop. I probably took responsibility for most of the sessions but tried not to dwell on the prompt before hand. I came to like the idea of writing something in a set time and I faced this prompt in exactly the same manner.

It’s strange but when I start to write I have the first line or two clear in my head and surrounding them a number of ideas. In this case I was thinking about an old 1960s science fiction film, Journey to the Far Side of the Sun [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064519/]. It is a very bad film. I think there are also a set of dodgy old science fiction/fantasy books by John Norman about the idea of a counter earth. I seem to remember reading the first back in the early 70s.

The other image that was floating about was the cover of Pink Floyd’s Ummagumma, not I hasten to add that I am a fan. But there is that mirror which is different in every reflection on the lp’s cover.

Those were the influences for the poem. The knack, though, is not to think but to write and let those images/ideas just swirl around your skull.

As a poem I think it works. I shall post it next Friday on my blog. Then it will go into a drawer for a couple of months. Then when I look at it again I will see the flaws more clearly.

I just found the line that prompted me to think about breathing under water. It is off Murray Head’s Restless – the track is Maybe Tomorrow and the line is As buildings roll by me, I dream of a life in the ocean- so there’s nothing about breathing underwater in it!

Not that it stopped me. I sometimes get lines because I hear the words of a song incorrectly.

Prompt: Sit in a public place (cafe/bar/restaurant) and listen to a conversation going on a round you.This conversation is your prompt to create.

Notes:

I went out this morning to collect the veg box from Jack, the greengrocer. I had not been out since Monday. There was a five person queue. I stood in the sun not speaking to anyone, no one was near enough for a conversation.

A food truck pulled up in front of the local shop. The woman driving asked whose was the car the truck was blocking in and no one knew. I watched her unload fragile boxes [and drop one], fascinated how she piled them onto the sack truck. It was a complex game of stacking with rules only she knew. Eventually, satisfied she had met the arcane requirements of the manual handling protocol, she tipped the truck back on its two wheels and pushed the booty inside the shop. The man in the cab meanwhile unloaded armfuls of food in bags and walked them inside after the driver.

They drove away as I was served. I gave Jack a paper with our address and my phone number on it. He asked if this was enough food for two vegetarians for a week. I assured him it was and thanked him.

On a concrete bench outside his shop I transferred the produce into a rucksack and a shopping bag, suddenly conscious of the amount of fresh food on display.  I thanked him again I told him I’d be back next Friday.

I walked into the convenience shop and the woman behind the till, who I had never seen before, shouted at me to stand outside and hadn’t I read the sign? Of course I had not.

So I waited until I could enter and bought spices and what tins there were for sale.

I then walked home, social distancing. Two people thanked me for standing aside on the narrow pavement.

As I crossed the road and entered my gate I could hear the birds sing.

We are living in a time of silence.

People are making extraordinary humane gestures all around us.

I give thanks.

I think I need to put this prompt aside for the duration.

Prompt: The Ritual of tea/coffee.

THE RITUAL of TEA

Choose a cup you like; that sings to you; one you can imagine fitting your hand; that will compliment the colour of the liquor

Use the best quality leaves you can afford; good tea will stand multiple infusions; inferior tea will lead to an inferior experience

Use fresh water every time

Do not overfill the kettle

Warm the pot

Add as much tea as you need

Wait the correct length of time; this will differ tea to tea

Pour into your cup

Look at the liquor, it has a beauty all its own, contemplate that beauty as you savour the brew and give thanks to God

Repeat as often as necessary

NOTES

When I saw the word Ritual on the envelope I thought of tea [I do not drink coffee]

Tea is one of life’s rituals, it needs to be done well, with time and respect but we have condensed it into a bag, favouring those blends which give a quick colour and strength to a cup.

I only drink loose green teas, I warm the pot and give the leaves due respect.

To a tea obsessed individual like me, this is an easy prompt.

I am going to do something different, I like the idea of a collage

PROMPT: Where am I?

WHERE AM I?

Feeling locked in

This one feels like a huge topic- where to start?

I am in a room in a house, reluctant to go outside save for food and the queues that result from this activity

Would usually start with the cosmic- milky way, spiral arm- but not today

Were am I?

In a state of tension

In the middle of a crisis- hell, I hope it’s the middle, not the overture

Were am I?

Torquay

Devon

England

Surrounded by water

Where am I?

In a room

In a house that has managed to stand for 150 yrs +

On a bent wood chair, who knows how old or who has sat on it before?

At a desk that came from a long stay hospital in Frome for people with intellectual impairments that closed in 1986, a desk that lived in my house then my mother-in-laws bungalow in Winscombe and then back in my old house in Taunton

Where am I?

In sequestration along with the majority of the nation

Self secluding in a hope of avoiding something that might not be good for my asthma

Caught up in the anxiety of a world shutting down

Where am I?

In my sixties

In a marriage

A father

A brother

A son-in-law

Tied to this net of relationships- welcoming the connections

Where am I?

In the middle of an art project deciding to answer this one out of character…

PROMPT: Where are they going?

Where are they going?

The sea mist is wetter than she would have imagined. It condenses on the bike and the fisherman’s jumper, she took from the shop, has a fine layer of moisture that the oiled wool is keeping at bay for now.

Her hands though are cold and the cord trousers heavier than when she started.

The headlight light isn’t up to much but she expected that. Middle century technology never cut the mustard.

She knows she will not be followed. Those who are left are too busy with the details to appreciate that you just have to let it all just go, fall away, disinvest, or it will hold you. The clutter of small details that clamour for your attention will suck you in and it’s not that you then miss the big picture, you just can’t see the seams, the blurred lines between the tangibles.

She knows as she cycles through the fog with the sea on her left and the flood defences on her right to let sensation wash over her and so she will find the path.

There are no better worlds. No perfect place just out of sight. There are an infinity possibilities. So give thanks and move on through the gloaming.

where are they going

sometimes the seams show

twilight for example

or a wet nights velvet reflection

on the slick road surface

she knows the gloaming well

and contours towards a place

no better or worse than here

Part 1: Write a letter to a stranger asking them a number of questions.

Torquay, Devon.

19 March 1948

Dear Sir,

I have been given your name by a friend of a friend who, I am led to believe, you were able to help some years ago. Mr Collingwood told me you had proven effective in keeping certain events from the newspapers, obviously he refrained from describing the nature of the service you performed.

Can you help me find someone who has not returned from the war?

I last heard from them in 1943 when they told me they would be unable to write for some time. Five years have gone by and I have received no word.

I need you to discover if they are still alive. If they are well and whole. I cannot rid my mind of the image of them in a hospital bed, overseas and alone. What can have kept them from returning?

The War Office has not replied to any of my letters. They have been sent back unopened. I enclose them in this package. Can you please research the details the of their service contained in the letters?

I need to know if they have been demobbed. I may be satisfied to discover they are living quietly somewhere, that they have a new life. Can you follow a trail so cold?

You will see there is a list of names and pre-war addresses. Can you talk to those seven people, the best friends of the missing and piece together their history?

Can you trace one missing person across a continent recovering from the chaos of five years of total war? Could you tell the truth from the lies that people will speak to hide their own guilt? Are you that strong?

Not knowing is worse than news of death. Will you help me lay this ghost down?

Yours

P. Tobin

Torquay, Devon.

Notes

Part 1

I think the black envelope set the scene.

I was thinking Victorian black edged mourning cards and what could I write as a series of questions in a letter.

Then I remembered a story my father had told about World War Two. He had been in Italy with the Polish Free Army, as part of the British Liaison Unit, and there had been an ex-journalist amongst them very skilful at bartering with the Italians. He could always trade soap for wine, rations for fresh food. This guy drove around the countryside on an Indian motorbike. He drank a lot and talked about his sister.

In the late 1940s the Sunday papers would carry pages of people wanting to contact old army pals or families wanting to locate men who had simply not come home. My father said he saw this man’s name once in a column in The News of The World and he had always wondered what happened to him.

This formed the basis for my letter, though to begin with it was more like a detective story.

I was thinking what would lead a human to undertake such a journey? Surely not $50 a day plus expenses? Do we have to have a connection to the lost? Or does the quest meet something in the quester’s own psyche, are they atoning for a past event?

Part 2: Open the letter and reply to it honestly.