I’m delighted to have two sonnets on poetryparc today!
Author: T E Taylor
Starlina (II)
A little while ago I posted the first part of J. Johnson Smith’s short story, Starlina: https://timwordsblog.wordpress.com/2024/04/07/starlina/. Here’s the second part – one more to follow.
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He remembered that day. A ‘clean-cut’ young woman arrived at his door. It was the knock that aroused his attention. It was firm, hard. Only a few knocks but an urgency about it which increased his surprise when he opened the door. There was this demure young woman, girl really, looking intently at him. He remembered smiling, trying to recognise her. But it was no-one he knew. He does now, of course! And he now remembers she had a scar on the back of her hand, between knuckle and wrist, because she had reached out to rest her hand on his arm as she thanked him. He remembered her as looking like a serious young woman.
She had asked, ‘What day is it? What year?’ He thought it odd but gave the answer. She thanked him and walked away. He said she was wearing a creamy, heavy-looking blouse. A skirt, possibly suede and little brown boots. He watched her walk down the path and turn into the road.
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Verbal report: She was a mess. Her hair was just a bird’s nest, like she never brushed or combed it. I doubt she even pulled her fingers through it, it looked so untidy. She looked clean enough despite her hair. Well, she didn’t smell! Her eyes were all smiley! They were mid-brown but you could see…….. amber flecks. Would that be it? They sort of sparkled, probably from the sun.
But I was a bit shocked, dazed because I had just been knocked over. They tried to steal my hold-all. Swore at me. Said they’d smash my face, kill me. Three of ‘em. I was just crawled in a ball, clutchin’ me bag, too scared to move or shout. I would’ve let go but it had me life in it. They laughing bastards were just aimin to kill me. I swear.
I heard some sort of noise, a shout, and they just stopped. One of ‘em said ‘Go!’ And they ran off.
I reckoned it was a copper. But it was her. She helped me up. Helped put me bits back in the bag.
What was she wearing’? Shirt? Skirt? I think. Shoes? No. Brown boots, up to her knees. That soft, browny leather. You know?
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Yeah, we gave her a ride. One of the lads did. It was the big bikes she fancied most. Hung around one day. Loitering, you’d say, if you was a rozzer! We kept her in chat. Eye’d her up, you know. Couple of us bought her beers. In the middle of the day, said she was full of beer and had to have a piss.
Joss and Steely showed her where the lavs were, offered to give her a hand, like. Steely said she smiled at him but shut the door on ‘im. He listened while she let go. In the middle she coo’ed out to him, asked for a ride on his bike. It’s a big ‘bluebird’, double-barrelled, you know? He reckoned she was offering so said he could pillion him.
They came out. She was hanging on his arm, pulling him to his bike. We all cheered him on. She was smiling like a leopard. Big teeth, big eyes. Really up for it! He put a Shoei on, she refused, laughed and tossed it to me. Engine running, she just leapt behind him, tapped his bonce and they were off like a rocket. You could see her lean right into him then she raised both arms, like a bloody ballerina! Why she didn’t come off, I don’t know.
And they didn’t come back. Just biked off.
What was she wearing? Tight leather pants and boots. They looked soft but guess they were strong. Her butt looked good, anyway. Some sort of leather jacket, suede. I do remember her eyes seemed to be the same colour of her hair. Freaky hair-dye I suppose.
pic: P Flannagan. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0
Saltwater
Today I am very pleased to host here a piece of flash fiction by Sarah Lowes, writer and sometime performer – and a fellow member of Holmfirth Writers’ Group.
Saltwater
Lying here, floating on my back, I have two choices. I can open my eyes and see the immense blue of the sky or close them and look at the dark red warmth behind my eyelids. Sometimes I do both, one after the other, just for the contrast. I can never make up my mind which is best – that overarching blue that looks like it goes on for ever or the red warmth that feels safe and calm.
I don’t move a muscle, other than the way the gentle bobbing of the waves moves my limbs from time to time. I just lie here and surrender to the embrace of the ocean. This turquoise water holds me up like a piece of fruit in a nearly set jelly. I lie here, just being.
That’s the latest thing, isn’t it, mindfulness? I’ve got a real talent for it – no regretting the past or worrying about the future, just now. It’s so easy for me that I can’t imagine why it’s hard for anyone else – now is so sunny and warm and pleasant, why think of other things?
The heat of the sun is so healing and it fills my whole body until I feel light and clean. I feel so loved, so forgiven. Tears of relief trickle down my face – saltwater flowing into saltwater. And salt is so cleansing, isn’t it? Had a tooth out? Swill your mouth out with saltwater. It purifies and washes everything away.
Sometimes, I sense a disturbance in the depths; it’s barely there but my body detects it. It’s something that divers call “the washing machine”, where different currents collide far below the surface, fathoms deep. But then it’s gone, and I float on as before, letting the ocean take me wherever it likes.
I once read that we know more about the surface of the moon than about the depths of the sea. Inky, black depths – not like these transparent, green waves that lull me with their gentle movements. This is what it must be like in the womb – floating in warm water, rocked softly back and forth. No wonder it feels so familiar and comforting.
For some reason, I feel such a strong need to be comforted, soothed. Just acknowledging that makes a sob catch in my throat…and then the moment passes.
The past, if there is one, is behind a locked door, a heavy steel one, sealed like the door of a safe. Nothing gets in or out without the combination. The friendly waves have carried those numbers out to sea and washed them away, the soggy paper disintegrating entirely. All gone.
The ocean buoys me up and I lie here, floating in perfect love. Very faintly, a long way away, I hear the sound of voices, the scratching of a pen on a prescription pad and the rattle of a trolley, but only in the distance. And that’s where it will stay, I will make sure of it. Only now is real.
Contact – senlowes@icloud.com
pic: Cbusram. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0
Starlina
Today I’m very pleased to host this intriguing story from J. Johnson Smith. There may be more to come …
Stari (Starlina)
My little daughter came rushing over to me, a bubbly smile and literally a skip in her step. Both hands cupped together, pressed to her stomach as if carrying something precious and fragile.
Yes, my heart sank a little with the expectation of being presented with a fallen chick, a broken mouse or maybe just an innocent worm that I would be expected to charm back to health.
I squatted to greet her, eye to eye. She pushed out her hands, still cupped, bursting with happiness, face flushing with delight. She bumped and snuggled into me, twisted round and leant precariously on my knee. We balanced. I asked her what was so fragile that she had found.
‘Half a dragon’s egg!’ And she uncupped her hands.
Flat on her tiny palm was, indeed, what looked like half a chicken’s egg, I suppose a large one.
It was liver-red with a few small dimples where crystals had once been. I stroked the offered egg with one finger. It was warm from her hands. It was stone, half a stone. A beautiful, shell-like stone.
‘Look!’ She gasped in her excitement and turned it over.
The curve of the egg nestling perfectly in her palm a perfectly smooth surface revealed. With her index finger she delicately traced the sharp oval edge and continued circling from the edge to the centre. The movement of her finger, shadow and sun causing the small white quartz splashes to react to the changing shades. There were several blotches in an arc.
‘That’s beautiful,’ I said, honestly. I could feel her pleasure almost as though it were mine.
It was only a few seconds, we squatted, rocked together. Me hugging Stari in her delight.
‘Look at my dragon!’ And she moved her tiny finger to uncover the white, imperfect design of a dragon embedded in the metamorphic rock. To her little girl it was perfect. To her loving mother it was a moment of pride at her daughter’s pleasure in such a find.
‘I must keep her safe,’ she spoke decisively, copying her mother’s voice, ‘ She can live on my shelf until she’s grown.’ At that she wriggled away. She walked away carrying her precious egg.
I watched Stari march down the track towards home. Rubbed my palms in the dust as I stayed low, now kneeling in the dirt. ‘Earth, keep her safe!’ I heard myself mutter. Then I roused, moved onto my haunches and pushed myself up, watching my daughter steadfastly walk away.
The stone-egg was on her shelf where the sun could pass over and catch the sun. I never touched it. Unspoken, Stari would dust it. It was her treasure
I once asked if she had given the egg a name. It was called ‘Starlina’ she had said.
‘That’s your name. Stari is short for Starlina.’ I said.
‘She’s me.’ She said, casually.
The little girl grew from a freckled six year-old to a young, restless woman. I remember it well. Those years when mother and daughter grew together. I hope she learnt from me, I trust she did.
For when we grew apart I recognised myself, how alone I was, how hard to find myself.
That day, I knew she had gone. That I may never see her again. All I have left is memory, those little trinkets she left behind. The box of small, shiny pebbles from the stream. The feather from the hawk she found, so long ago. Those dry leaves stacked like paper on the shelf and beside them the dragon’s egg. With its empty dent where the tiny dragon used to be.
****
(David) J Johnson Smith borrows his writing name from his great grandfather. JJS, now ‘retired,’ worked for Longman for many years and then a mixture of other publishers. He currently lives near Letchworth and writes/edits his ‘poetryparc’ blog. His poetry and reviews have been published in a small number of print books and online journals, but two novels (Connections, and Veronique) and two poetry collections (‘A Journalist’s Checklist’, and ‘Scrim’) are still collecting dust, along with short stories and a short radio play. He is a member of the Poetry Society and The John Clare Society, as well as a regular participant of Poetry ID.
pic: Roger Culos: Licensed under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Old School
Time to post a poem of my own on here, I think.
Old School
In the yard, where I would spin round
until I fell over, where the dust
of a million conkers filled in the cracks,
they walk round with zimmer frames
or sit in their wheelchairs under thick tartan blankets.
Were they never let out, then,
those miscreant kids, like Richard O’Keefe
who peed in a classroom?
Did detentions mount up
till the school turned into a borstal
a prison, an old people’s home?
Do they still go back to their rooms
and scribble out words that no one will read?
“I will not talk back to the staff,
I will not talk back to the staff …”
pic: Kim Traynor. Licensed under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en
Death March
Today I’m delighted to host a poem by fellow Meltham (and Holmfirth) writer Jan Huntley.
Death March
A life of cruelty and lies lay waste behind.
Before the road turns to ruts and rubble.
We are bound and bleed, starved and blind.
We head to a place of no good; just struggle and trouble.
Tripped by potholes worn deep and hollow.
Captives trip, falter fall and stumble.
Above the path steep , air rare, our breath shallow.
like the past our courage begins to crumble.
Wolf-eyes scan, glitter, hungry and yellow
Hear now how close the wail of the wolf,
With knife’s-sharp yap summons shadows to follow.
Moonshine reveals us too close to the gulf .
Wary, the eyes of the walking dead,
for wherever another’s foot is placed,
one of us stumbled while one steps ahead.
There’s no way back for our tracks to retrace.
The pack turns as one and briefly makes
a sideways glance – that’s all it takes.
Then disappears at the top of the climb
Would we vanish too or be saved just in time?
pic: Eric Welby. Licensed under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/
Launch of ‘Thrift’
Today I’m delighted to host two poems from Alison Lock’s new collection, Thrift, themed on the healing power of nature and shortly to be published by Palewell Press. Alison will be launching Thrift at the Carlile Institute in Meltham on Sunday 24 March at 4pm. I’ll be there – looking forward to it!
Thrift
She is running, skipping towards the granite headland
where a mighty fall of rock
is the only boundary between land and ocean
– a child running far ahead, her hair
as gold as a cornfield, anorak the blue of sea.
She is at the edge of the cliff
with the dwellers of the sea-slopes
– bird’s-foot-trefoil, sea campion, squill.
Wavering heads catch her eye. They look so fragile
– but they are the tough ones, resisting
the Atlantic winds that gather the salt-spray,
sweep along the cliffs, scouring
all in their wake, leaving only the hardiest
– stonecrop, sea-spurrey, vetch.
The path is narrow, she is an only child
of nine years of age, alone, and yet
wanting to be more alone, for the world
to be her and cliff and sky, to be surrounded
by sea pinks, buffeted
by the elements, cradled in thrift.
Melting Iceberg
It’s no good looking
at a shooting star
with a fly trapped in your eye. You hear
the yawn above the skin tide
mewling and popping like a calved whale
while you spell out the words:
mastodon, sabre-toothed tiger, giant bear.
But this is mammoth, humungous, too
enormous to contemplate – at times
quiet, sometimes mute. You stare
through the classroom window, watch
dust as white space slides
from frame to frame.
Thrift grows out of a ‘communing in slow grief’ for the Earth and its vanishing creatures – an experience as painful as any personal bereavement. The collection’s poems are grouped into three sections: Rue, Thrift and Sage – herbal names that lead readers on a spiritual journey from despair through learning to be more frugal and sustainable to a new wisdom and potentially more hopeful future. The collection is available for pre-order on the Palewell Press website.
Complete Twerks
Today it’s a great pleasure to host a poem by Mary Lister, from her new book, Complete Twerks, which she is launching at Nowhere Cafe, Norridge Bottom, Holmfirth on Wednesday March 27th at 6.00 to 8.30pm. As Mary tells us:
The Scream is a poem that almost wrote itself after asking myself, what on earth was he screaming about. in Munch’s ‘Scream’…
The Scream (Nordic Noir)
I was the man who posed for ‘the Scream’.
You see, I had just dropped my silver cigarette case
down through the wooden slats of the pier
and seen it sink…with all my new Russian cigarellos inside.
It was a Christening present from my Great Aunt Ulrika,
engraved with my name.
“Hold that pose!” called a voice.
I had my hands up to my mouth
as I’d shouted a rather bad expletive.
“Would you mind staying in exactly that position,
while I sketch you quickly? Munch’s the name.”
“Are you a diver…a swimmer of any sort?” I asked hopefully.
But he already had his sketchbook out,
and did a few swift strokes – of his brush.
“That’s perfect!” he said. “The essence of Expressionism.
‘Existential Angst’ you could say. But that will come later.
It’s the perfect encapsulation of the zeitgeist
of our tortured modern age.” He said.
Brush between his teeth, he bossily rearranged
my arms to the side of my head
and did a few mad strokes in orange and red for a background.
“Wish I’d brought my grey and black paints!” he muttered.
I looked anxiously over the railings.
It was raining greyly, and the black water was uninviting.
“It was a cigarette case of great sentimental value!” I wailed.
“Exactly! Life’s a total bugger…Zeitgeist!”
He snapped his sketchbook shut and walked away
without even a thank you.
By that time I really was screaming.
As for the cigarette case,
I literally got ‘hung’ for it…in galleries.
….
Mary says of her collection:
My new book, ‘Complete Twerks’ is a collection, or kaleidoscope, of little stories in poetry , sketch form, or minisagas. Perfect loo-side reading, or for reading on public transport..or even, for Christmas presents I hope. It includes ‘Waiting for Godot Act 3,’ (spoiler alert: he arrives) ,Neolithic Tinder Dating (on ancient tablets), Post Apocalyptic Gin Club, and many more linguist or literary Twerks besides.
First Time in Heaven
Today I’m pleased to host a piece of flash fiction from fellow Holmfirth Writer Vincent Johnson.
First Time in Heaven (or ‘All in Love is Fair’?)
“Your first time?” she quizzes. He frowns, nonplussed.
“In Heaven?” she qualifies.
“Oh… yeah…. arrived yesterday.” Dazzled, he scans the fizzing mezzanines, crammed with leather-queen torsos and transvestites gyrating to Dancing Queen. Strobes and disco mirror-ball shafts spear the kaleidoscope smoke, laced with poppers.
“Hello, I’m Fran…” she smiles pertly, extending a crimson-nailed hand.
He kisses her fingers, feigning courtesy, “Dom at your service…. Love the dress!”
“Thanks, darling…,” She lights two Players, proffering one, whispering suggestively, “…and ‘Dom’ by nature?”
He laughs wickedly, “Well now, looking for a good spanking are you, Fran?”
She arches her plucked eyebrows in mock shock, “Do I look like that sort of girl?” then narrows her eyes. “Is that a Yorkshire accent?”
Turns out they both grew up in Leeds and are now both escaping the macho straitjacket of northern pubs, flat caps, and working men’s clubs. They retreat to chat in a quieter, low-lit alcove.
“Love your eyes too,” says Dom, “They remind me of Cher…. and it’s weird but…. I feel like I know you already Fran.” They kiss, passionately and long. Then they talk at length of Yorkshire seaside outings, and picnics in the Dales.
“So you’re married then?” asks Dom half rhetorically.
“Kind of… but in name only, and my wife didn’t have a clue about my transvestite life. I used to go to secret drag acts at the Hope and Anchor in Leeds. It was risky then…. still is, but at least for a few hours I felt I could be myself. In the end I couldn’t stand the double life, and I was a crap dad and even worse as a husband. My wife was really unhappy too, and so I had to leave.”
Dom looks up from his beer, “You left your kids?”
Fran’s bloodshot eyes glisten as she dabs her mascara. “Yep, walked out. Left a letter explaining as best I could, and I still send money, but she doesn’t know where….”
“…You selfish bastard! What about your children?” Dom cuts in, indignantly, rising to his feet.
“Oh God…” Fran sobs, “I’m sorry I haven’t got time for this…” staring into the dark.
Dom looks down in dawning horror, “My dad, Frank walked out on us when I was 7-years old. I still remember that day, and how miserable we all were, how frightened. Mum said she couldn’t explain things, but everything was going to be all right, and one day we’d understand. For years we all thought he’d come back. And now here we are, and I know why I know your voice…. I’ve got to go.”
In shocking synchronous recognition, Frank reaches across the table, spilling their beer, frantically grabbing Dom’s forearm, “Oh God it’s you, it’s you…. I’m sorry, I’m sorry Dominic? I’m such a failure….” Recoiling, Dom tears himself away, wanting to expunge that lingering, fag-riddled kiss, and shuddering with tears. He is desperate to escape a thudding fear of abandonment, and Cher singing All in Love is Fair.
Visit this Blog
It’s time to put out one of my periodical invitations for guest pieces to host on this blog. I welcome poems, flash fiction or novel extracts (up to about 500 words). If you’d like to visit, please e-mail me on tim.e.taylor@talk21.com.
It’s always good to provide a picture that can accompany your piece (n.b. WordPress displays them as a banner, so wide is better than tall) – it could be one of you, a book cover, or something that fits the subject of your piece.
And feel free to say a few words about yourself – and, if you wish, your piece. I prefer to avoid overtly promotional posts, but if you’ve got a book out or an event coming up, by all means tell us about it. I tend to start the post with a very short introduction in my own words.
pic: Ramesh NG. Licensed under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0
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