Wednesday, December 18, 2019

The Ghosts of the Christmas Market

For many years the citizens of Edinburgh had enjoyed a Christmas Market on the plaza outside the art galleries. People gathered in the winter dusk to browse the stalls, drink mulled wine and enjoy the Christmas lights.

However, trouble has been brewing.

The evil moneymakers from XS Xmas want to expand the market. Without seeking planning permission, they have erected scaffolding across the whole of East Princes Street Gardens, covering the lawns and removing the memorial benches. Many citizens of Edinburgh are shocked, but the evil moneymakers rub their grubby hands with glee as the cash strapped city council cave in to their demands and give them retrospective planning permission.

'Of course you can bury our beautiful gardens in cheap market stalls all selling identical products and overpriced food and drink' say the council officials.

But underneath the gardens, something stirs.

Many years ago, where these gardens now stand, there was a stretch of water known as the Nor-Loch. Criminals lurked on its shores, broken-hearted damsels threw themselves into its dark waters and innocent women were branded witches and drowned in its stinking depths.

Their ghosts have long haunted the gardens biding their time.

As XS Xmas and local dignitaries take to the podium to officially open XS Xmas Edinburgh, the scaffolding begins to shake. At first people applaud, thinking this is a special effect of the type XS Xmas are known for. But the shaking continues, a thunderstorm unleashes a deluge, unearthly screams are heard from the ground and the crowds flee.

As the scaffolding gives way and the Christmas market disappears in smoke, the broken hearted damsels, the wrongly accused herbalists and those who had been pushed into crime by poverty mass onto the podium. Before the dignitaries realise what's going on, they have been driven into the rising waters of the stinking Nor Loch.

On Christmas Day, people are once again enjoying mulled wine in the traditional Christmas market area, looking across the gardens, now restored to their rightful glory. At night, eerie wails are heard, that sound strangely like 'we only wanted to make lots of money!'

Inspired by true events

Thursday, November 14, 2019

Last chance to vote for your favourite Scots word!

The Scottish Book Trust are asking people to vote for their favourite Scots word!

You can see the shortlist and vote here!

Sunday, September 29, 2019

Through the shadowy gate

late summer shadows on the entrance to Saughton Park, in Edinburgh, which recently reopened after a period of refurbishment. You can read my blog post about the recent opening event held in the park here on Crafty Green Poet and also see more recent photos of the park on my Crafty Green Poet blog here and here.

For Shadow Shot Sunday.

Sunday, September 22, 2019

Marching for the EU and drinking Turkish Apple Tea

Drinking Turkish Apple Tea on the shady verandah of Cafe Truva in Edinburgh's Royal Mile after the anti-Brexit, pro-EU march.


  (We also had slices of the delicious Cafe Truva orange chocolate cake).

You can read more about the pro-EU march on my Crafty Green Poet blog here

for Shadow Shot Sunday.

Saturday, September 07, 2019

Architecture in Shadow

It's a beautiful sunny day today, offering some great shadows on the buildings in the centre of Edinburgh


For Shadow Shot Sunday.

Wednesday, August 21, 2019

Treacle - film review



Treacle is a new short bisexual drama from award winning director and actor April Kelley

Friends Belle (April Kelley) and Jess (Ariana Anderson) go on a trip together to help Jess get over a difficult break up. The two get drunk together and end up sleeping together. The next day they struggle to recapture their easy friendship. 

Bisexual Belle feels that Jess (who is straight) only got together with her as an experiment, thinking that as a bixesual woman she (Belle) would be up for experimentation. Would Jess have behaved the same way with a lesbian or with a man? Or would getting drunk so soon after a break up have meant she would have had sex with anyone who happened to be nearby? Jess can't or won't answer any of these questions.

Beautifully shot and acted, the film leaves the viewer wondering whether the two women can repair their friendship and supports the 'notion that bisexuality isn’t just a phase or an experiment nor is the ‘B’ there to just help the acronym roll off the tongue'.


This film premiered at BFI Flare: London LGBTQI+ Film Festival and had its US premiere at Frameline43: The San Francisco International LGBTQI Film Festival. The film will screen at the Underwire Film Festival (the UK's only film festival celebrating female film making) on Thursday 19 September as part of the Best Friends shorts screening.


Disclaimer: I saw a free online preview of this film in return for a review.

Wednesday, August 14, 2019

Alienation

I sit locked out,
my nose pressed against glass
only I know about.

You sense my distance
but cannot understand
the why of it.

The space I cannot cross.

I watch you dance
with strange disjointed steps
to music I cannot hear.

A ritual to which I can never belong.

You laugh to see me sit alone
as it I made a foolish choice
I am too proud to own.

But I cannot join
this thing that makes no sense
this thing that for me is so unreal.

I must dance to a lonelier beat.



Originally published in Spume magazine.and first published on this blog in January 2007.

***
 
I'm delighted that I have a 50 word story up now on the 50 word story website. You can read it here (and if you like it, click on the like button too!).

Tuesday, July 23, 2019

Tell it to the Bees - film review

Set in a small Scottish town in the nineteen fifties, Tell It To The Bees is the story of Charlie (Gregor Selkirk) whose father, returned from the war a changed man, walks out on his marriage. Charlie's mother Lydia (Holliday Grainger) works all the hours she can in a mill to try to keep a roof over their heads.

Jean (Anna Paquin) has returned to the village to take over her dead father's medical practice. She treats Charlie after he is hurt by bullies at his school and introduces him to her bees. She encourages him to tell his secrets to the bees and he starts keeping a nature diary based on his observations of the hives. 


Charlie's friendship with the doctor leads to his mother becoming friends with Jean too. When Lydia is threatened with eviction, Jean offers her a job as her live in housekeeper. The two women find themselves drawn into an intense friendship which develops into a sexual relationship. But gossip travels quickly in a small town and lesbian relationships weren't considered normal in the 1950s so the new household that the three are creating together is threatened right from the beginning. 

The bees are present throughout, as confidants to Charlie and playing an important role in the plot at one point too. 

It's in many ways an excellent film, the main characters and their relationships are believable (though Paquin's Scottish accent slightly less so) and the story sheds a light on the repressive attitudes of a 1950s small town community.

This is based on the novel by Fiona Shaw, though the ending has been changed (If you've seen the film, you may like this excellent article by Shaw about what she thinks of the ending).

Tell it to the Bees is screening at the Filmhouse until Thursday 25 July. 

Cross posted to my Crafty Green Poet blog here.

Tuesday, July 09, 2019

New Testimonials: The Bi-Ble Volume 2 (essays on bisexuality)

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New Testimonials: The Bi-Ble Volume 2 is a stand alone follow up to The Bi-ble Anthology of Personal Narratives and Essays about Bisexuality (which I reviewed here). It contains a range of new essays on various aspects of the bisexual experience, from writers from across the UK and overseas.

These essays and personal stories about bisexuality come from a variety of viewpoints and covering topics including bi-erasure, race and sexuality, disability, and popular culture (including Flash Gordon, St Vincent and Janelle Monae). There's nothing however about goths and bisexuality (and nor was there in the first volume), which seems like an area that could be explored in an essay.

The pieces are well written and interesting, sometimes amusing and often moving. Some are very much personal narratives and some are definitely essays, some of them quite academic in style (but always accessible to the general reader) Whether you're bisexual, questioning, or just curious, this collection will open you to new perspectives. There isn't a lot of bisexual literature out there and the two volumes of the Bi-Ble help to fill that gap.

The Bi-Ble volumes 1 and 2 are available to buy together or separately from Monstrous Regiment, a great new feminist independent press based in Edinburgh. You can visit their online shop here.

New Testimonials will be launched at an event in Edinburgh on Friday 19 July, find out more and book your place here

Sunday, June 30, 2019

Two SF films at Edinburgh International Film Festival

Edinburgh International Film Festival ends tonight and here are my two final reviews. 

The Vast of Night 

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The debut from director Andrew Patterson, The Vast of Night, framed as an episode of The Twighlight Zone, is set over the course of a single night a small town in late 1950s New Mexico. Most residents of the town are at a basketball game, except for radio presenter Everett (Jake Horowitz) and switchboard operator Fay (Sierra McCormick), who hear mysterious sounds disrupting their lines and broadcasts. This leads to an investigation involving a veteran who phones into the radio station to recount his experiences and an elderly lady who shares snippets of a language she has heard that seems connected to the other strange sounds.

It's a beautifully made film which feels to very realistically evoke the era. It's a very low key drama, with the story developing slowly and there being little disagreement between Fay and Everett despite what must be trying events. A burgeoning romance between the two is very slightly hinted at but doesn't develop at all, avoiding the obvious sub-plot (though possibly decreasing the amount of engagement for some viewers?). 

Definitely worth watching, it should get at least a restricted release in the UK in the next few months.


 Time Crimes 


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Going back in time (in more ways than one) Time Crimes is a 2007 Spanish film featuring Hector a middle aged man who finds himself caught in a time loop and tries to keep going back to correct what went wrong last time he travelled back in time. It's one of those films that messes with your brain, specially if you think about it too much. 

One of the great things about the Edinburgh International Film Festival is that it includes well curated retrospective strands that include films like this, that might otherwise be forgotten. 

Disclaimer: I received free press tickets for the public screenings of these two films. 

 You can read my earlier reviews from Edinburgh International Film Festival 2019, by following the links below:

Boyz in the Wood a group of teenage boys get lost in the Scottish Highlands.

2040 - can technology offer solutions to our current climate and ecological crises?

 Bait - Cornish fishermen try to adapt to a changing world

How to Fake  a War (on my Shapeshifting Green blog) what happens when a rock star decides to meddle in international affairs?


Farm Animals on Film - featuring The Biggest Little Farm - an inspiring story of the creation of a sustainable biodiverse farm in California, plus Vulture, an experimental film about farm animals.

Virgin and Extra: Land of the Olive Oil.
 
Chef Diaries Scotland: Spanish Chefs the Roca brothers take the viewer on a culinary road trip round Scotland

 Up the Mountain - a year in an artists' studio in the Chinese mountains.

The Amber Light - a cinematic ode to Scotland's national drink

Aren't You Happy (on my Shapeshifting Green blog) - a writer searches for the meaning of life while not actually writibg anything

The Deer - a Basque language film following two poachers in a national park on the outskirts of San Sebastien.

Hurt by Paradise - a poet keeps searching for a publisher and an actor keeps trying to get a role

Photograph (on my Shapeshifting Green blog) - a street photographer in Mumbai invents a fiancee for himself....

Endzeit - an ecofeminist road movie with zombies. 


Vai and Venezia - 2 films from sinking worlds. 

Hamada - (on my Shapeshiting Green blog) life for young refugees of the Sahwari people in the Sahara. 

 Volcano - a photpgrapher gets lost in Ukraine

Black Forest - a dysfunctional family holiday in the German forest  

Carmilla - a gothic tale. 

Thursday, June 27, 2019

Hamada - screening at Edinburgh International Film Festival

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Hamada: (h 'ma:d ) n. (geology) a desert terrain that consists of a flat and rocky area mainly devoid of sand. For Sahrawi people, hamada also refers to ‘emptiness’ or ‘lifelessness’. 
 
Hamada follows the lives of young friends living in a refugee camp in the Sahara. A minefield and the second largest military wall in the world separates this group from their homeland that they only know from their parent's stories. The Sahrawi people have lived here for 40 years since Morocco drove them out of Western Sahara.

These young people have the same interests as young people in more fortunate circumstances, they want to learn how to drive, to develop skills, to find meaningful jobs, to find a girlfriend or boyfriend, to enjoy time with their friends and family. Their determination shines through in every scene but it is clear that all of them want more fulfilling lives than the refugee camp can offer them.

Hamada is screening as part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival at  1325, Saturday 29 June and at 1530 Sunday 30 June both at Odeon Lothian Road. You can buy tickets here.

You can read my earlier reviews from Edinburgh International Film Festival 2019, by following the links below:

Boyz in the Wood a group of teenage boys get lost in the Scottish Highlands.

2040 - can technology offer solutions to our current climate and ecological crises?

 Bait - Cornish fishermen try to adapt to a changing world

How to Fake  a War (on my Shapeshifting Green blog) what happens when a rock star decides to meddle in international affairs?

Farm Animals on Film - featuring The Biggest Little Farm - an inspiring story of the creation of a sustainable biodiverse farm in California, plus Vulture, an experimental film about farm animals.

Virgin and Extra: Land of the Olive Oil.

Chef Diaries: Scotland - Spanish chefs the Roca brothers take the viewer on a culinary road trip round Scotland.

Up the Mountain - a year in an artists' studio in the Chinese mountains.

The Amber Light - a cinematic ode to Scotland's national drink

Aren't You Happy (on my Shapeshifting Green blog) - a writer searches for the meaning of life while not actually writing anything

The Deer - a Basque language film following two poachers in a national park on the outskirts of San Sebastien.

Hurt by Paradise - a poet keeps searching for a publisher and an actor keeps trying to get a role

Photograph (on my Shapeshifting Green blog) - a street photographer in Mumbai invents a fiancee for himself....

Endzeit - an ecofeminist road movie with zombies. 


Vai and Venezia - 2 films from sinking worlds. 


Volcano - lost in the borderlands of Ukraine.

Disclaimer: I have a press pass for the film festival and attended a free press screening of these films.




Tuesday, June 25, 2019

Photograph - screening at Edinburgh International Film Festival





This new film from Ritesh Batra is the much awaited follow up to the brilliant comedy The Lunchbox.
 
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Struggling street photographer Rafi (Nawazuddin Siddiqui, who also stars in Lunchbox), based in Mumbai, works all the hours he can to pay off an old family debt. His grandmother (Farrukh Jaffar) constantly pressurises him to find a suitable match. He eventually shows his grandmother by a photo of a stranger, Miloni (Sanya Malhotra) claiming she is his fiancée. When his grandmother demands to be introduced to his fiancée, he manages to track down Miloni. Rafi asks her to fake their relationship, to which Miloni  agrees.

The two soon become friends, obviously enjoying each other's company, despite their very different backgrounds, but not becoming romantically involved. The situation is complicated by the fact that Miloni pretends to be an orphan to avoid Rafi's grandmother wanting to meet them. However it becomes difficult to avoid almost bumping into them.

Miloni is a very quiet character, a trait that can come across very poorly in some films, but here it works, she is the quiet but determined young woman not prepared to waste words where they're not needed. Her growing interest in becoming part of Rafi's world is part of her testing out what she wants from life.

The drama that ensues is a sweet entertaining story, well worth savouring.  

Photograph is screening at Edinburgh International Film Festival at 1815 Wednesday 26 June at Odeon Lothian Road and at 2020 Thursday 27 June at Vue Omni Centre. You can book tickets here.

You can read my earlier reviews from Edinburgh International Film Festival 2019, by following the links below:

Boyz in the Wood a group of teenage boys get lost in the Scottish Highlands.

2040 - can technology offer solutions to our current climate and ecological crises?

 Bait - Cornish fishermen try to adapt to a changing world

How to Fake  a War (on my Shapeshifting Green blog) what happens when a rock star decides to meddle in international affairs?

Farm Animals on Film - featuring The Biggest Little Farm - an inspiring story of the creation of a sustainable biodiverse farm in California, plus Vulture, an experimental film about farm animals.

Virgin and Extra: Land of the Olive Oil.

Chef Diaries Scotland: Spanish Chefs the Roca brothers take the viewer on a culinary road trip round Scotland

 Up the Mountain - a year in an artists' studio in the Chinese mountains.

The Amber Light - a cinematic ode to Scotland's national drink

Aren't You Happy (on my Shapeshifting Green blog) - a writer searches for the meaning of life while not actually writibg anything


The Deer - a Basque language film following two poachers in a national park on the outskirts of San Sebastien.

 Hurt by Paradise - a poet keeps searching for a publisher and an actor keeps trying to get a role

Endzeit - ecofeminist road movie, with zombies

Disclaimer: I have a press pass for the film festival and attended a free press screening of these films.

Saturday, June 22, 2019

Aren't You Happy? Screening at Edinburgh International Film Festival

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Writer-director Susanne Heinrich’s first feature length film is a cinematically interesting exploration of life, love and gender relations for today's young woman. 

A nameless and melancholy young woman (Marie Rathscheck) is a writer with writing issues (she's got no further than the first line of the second chapter of her novel). She searches for meaning to life and a bed for the night while waiting for the end of capitalism. She meets various men, none of whom she allows to mean anything to her. She visits art galleries and philosophises about beauty, feminism and consumerism.

The film is very stylised (reminding in this particular though not in others of Fassbinder's Fear Eats the Soul) and almost static, broken down into self consciously announced episodes. Everything takes place in a very distinctive colour palette dominated by pink and blue. 

Then suddenly in the middle there's a wonderful animated music video then we're back to the same clever and contrived format as before.  

There are moments of humour here and some ideas worth thinking about but mostly it's melancholy and feels as though it should be more entertaining than it is.

Aren't You Happy? is nominated for the 2019 Award for Best International Feature Film.

Aren't You Happy screens at the Edinburgh International Film Festival at 2020 Monday 24 June and 2040 Wednesday 26 June both at Vue Omni Centre. You can book tickets here.

You can read my earlier reviews from Edinburgh International Film Festival 2019, by following the links below:

Boyz in the Wood a group of teenage boys get lost in the Scottish Highlands.

2040 - can technology offer solutions to our current climate and ecological crises?

 Bait - Cornish fishermen try to adapt to a changing world

How to Fake  a War what happens when a rock star decides to meddle in international affairs?

Farm Animals on Film - featuring The Biggest Little Farm - an inspiring story of the creation of a sustainable biodiverse farm in California, plus Vulture, an experimental film about farm animals.

Virgin and Extra: Land of the Olive Oil.


Chef Diaries: Scotland - Spanish chefs the Roca brothers take the viewer on a culinary road trip round Scotland.

Up the Mountain - a year in an artists' studio in the Chinese mountains.

The Amber Light - a cinematic ode to Scotland's national drink

Disclaimer: I have a press pass for the film festival and attended a free press screening of these films.

Wednesday, June 19, 2019

How to Fake a War - film review

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This is how World War Three starts, an explosive mix of fame obsessed celebrities, fake news, international meddling in a sovereign state's affairs, naivety and misadventure.

Hip-hop star Harry Hope (Jay Pharoah) claims to have won every music and acting award going and now has its sights set on the Nobel Peace Prize. So when he hears about war breaking out on the border of Georgia and a neighbouring republic that no-one has ever heard of, he sees this as his chance and announces a major Concert for Peace. But almost immediately a ceasefire is brokered and Harry is annoyed that his opportunity for greater fame has been undermined. So he tasks his PR consultant, Kate (Katherine Parkinson), and her sister and intern, Peggy (Lily Newmark),with manufacturing a fake conflict for long enough for Harry's concert to be seen as the catalyst for peace. 

This is as dubious a proposition as it sounds and leads to mayhem, violence and the build up to potentially serious international conflict. 

Despite being billed as a comedy, this is more often very uncomfortable viewing. You may laugh at this seemingly ridiculous story, but underneath, in this world of fake news and celebrity obsession, you sort of wouldn't be too surprised to find out it's true.

How to Fake a War is screening as part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival 2019 at 1755, Saturday 22 June and at 1515, Sunday 23 June, both at Odeon, Lothian Road. You can buy tickets here.


You can read my earlier reviews from Edinburgh International Film Festival 2019 (posted on my Crafty Green Poet blog) by following the links below:

Boyz in the Wood a group of teenage boys get lost in the Scottish Highlands.

2040 - can technology offer solutions to our current climate and ecological crises?

Bait - Cornish fishermen try to adapt to a changing world. 

Disclaimer: I have a press pass for the film festival and attended a free press screening of these films.

Monday, June 17, 2019

Russian Doll by Lucy Lloyd

Russian Doll


Set in the near future and originally published as Shotlandiya on Kindle this is an intriguing novel about a Russian take over of a newly independent Scotland, starting with their annexing the island of Rockall.

Anna works for the newly independent Scottish Broadcasting Corporation producing radio programmes, and struggles to remain true to herself as Russian managers and staff start taking over the studios.

She finds herself becoming closer to Grigory, a Russian diplomat who is overseeing Scottish-Russian media relations and struggles against their growing mutual attraction. 


This is an excellent novel, the characters are believable and complex and the narrative moves along well with escalating tension and intrigue. I was very impressed by the way that the censorship and control by the Russians was depicted, starting as something quite subtle and increasing slowly until they were controlling basically all the station's output. It's moving and amusing as well as thought provoking. 


Russian Doll by Lucy Lloyd, published (2018) by Comely Bank Publishing.

Wednesday, May 22, 2019

Finding the Right Words

Gumusservi

on the beach
I watch moonlight
liquid silver
on the waves

Altjiranga mitjina


the eternal ocean of dreams

Razblyuto


sea breezes carry away
the last pain of
an impossible love

Ichigo-ichie


I will treasure this moment
perfect it in my memory.



Glossary:
Gumusservi (Turkish) moonlight shining on water

Altjiranga mitjina (Aranda, Australia) the timeless dimensions of dreams

Razblyuto (Russian) The feeling for someone once but no longer loved

Ichigo-ichie (Japanese) the practice of treasuring each moment and trying to make it perfect.


Originally posted in October 2006 for Poetry Thursday - theme - Be Inspired by newspapers.


I wrote this poem in response to the article: Lost in Translation G2, Guardian, 9 October 2006. The words from other languages and their definititions are taken from the article.

An earlier poem on this blog was also written in response to a newspaper article - Tarragona Widow. 


And over on Crafty Green Poe4t, I've reposted another old poem, you can read it here

Monday, May 13, 2019

Some photos of Haddington, East Lothian

Haddington is a lovely town just outside Edinburgh. We visited there yesterday with my Dad who was visiting us for the weekend.

We had lovely weather and here are some photos of the town, photos of the park and river will be on my Crafty Green Poet blog tomorrow







Wednesday, April 03, 2019

Art House

Visionary works edged in a haze
I can all too readily relate to.

I think of the near collisions
of your life with mine

the labyrinthine possibilities
never explored, the fact that

put us in any two squares of a chessboard
and we would recognise each other

instantly.

But the world outside is so big and bad
it is selfish to obsess on the very small

so let the Technicolor wide-screen of dreams
collapse in on itself to a mobile phone

that one day I can carelessly lose.


previously published in Iota and inspired by a cinema advert for mobile phones. 


First posted on this blog in June 2007

Friday, March 08, 2019

International Women's Day - Girl, Lady, Woman

Happy International Women's Day! To mark the occasion I'm reposting my thoughts (again) about the use of the words girl and woman from a year or so back.

***

I'm a woman and resent being referred to as a girl.

In my mind a girl is a female under 16, a young girl is a girl under 12 and a little girl is a girl under 5 or a girl under 12 of particularly small stature.

Some people say calling adult women girls doesn't matter, but think about it, would you call a male work colleague a boy? If you would then maybe it's fair enough to call your female work colleagues girls, but I'm guessing that most people refer to their male work colleagues as men (or possibly guys) and so should refer to their female work colleagues as women. I've only ever met one man who has ever referred to his male colleages as boys.

There's a time and a place of course to use the word girls - 'Girl's night out' for example, but in that case it's a choice made by a group of women to refer to themselves as girls and is directly equivalent to the use of 'Boy's Night Out'.

Using the word girl to refer to adult women is just another symptom of the increasing sexism of today's society and it tends to infantalise women. The word 'Girlpower' is an attempt to reclaim the word girl from it's infantalising useage.

Sometimes I think focussing on the use of words can detract from the issues. For example news articles sometimes obsessively analyse a politician's use of one word or phrase on one occasion while the issue behind the words isn't touched. However, the use of 'girls' to refer to women is still so persistant I feel it undermines a lot of the work done by feminism to move towards the equality of women and men.

**

You may also be interested in my blogpost about women's health 'Our Ovaries Ourselves'. 

**

It's great to see Poetry24 devoting the whole day to poetry for International Women's Day!

Wednesday, January 30, 2019

Return

You travelled alone
posting pieces of time
in sea-views and lines -
rewording your life.

My only map
a patchwork of postcards
with scribbled notes.

Home.

Salt on my tongue,
I taste the tidemark
of your travels,
explore you back from absence.

Abandon distance. 



Originally published in Envoi magazine and first posted on this blog in 2007. 

My poem Home Town is now up on the Crafty Green Poet blog, you can read it here.

Friday, January 18, 2019

Tarragona Widow

Sixty years inseparable love, I knew you perfectly,
read the maps of your mind and body unerringly,
rejoiced in your company.

Our love was strong and sure, multi-layered, a symphony
with melodies and harmonies in balance, perfection.
Passion entwined our bodies in dance,
hearts beating in time, part of each other.

Sixty years inseparable love, childless and contented,
ended.
Your long lean body cold to touch,
your laughing eyes dead and glassy now,
your loving lips pale, still and grey,
your passion, your humour and vitality
all have drained away.

This empty husk is you,
is all that’s left of you,
is all I have of you.

They can’t take you away from me,
I will hide you away from them,
I’ll keep you safe in a secret place,
you’re mine for eternity.

I don’t want to lose you.

The pungent, rich sweetness of you,
like incense, hangs in the air,
rises with your soul like a prayer,
fills the room with heady aroma.

I breathe you in.
You are part of me once more. 


*** 

This poem is based on a true story. 
 

(Previously published in Quantum Leap poetry magazine and first posted on this blog in 2006) 

I also reposted an old poem on Crafty Green Poet today, you can read it here.




Tuesday, January 08, 2019

Bouquet

She gave me cheap carnations,
petals falling too soon
in the cold room.

I said flowers weren’t the point.

She brought more anyway,
their pale presence
filling the silence.

It was easier than talking.





Originally posted on this blog in 2008 for Totally Optional Prompts

First published in Raindog

I've also reposted an old poem over on Crafty Green Poet, you can read it here