National Poetry Day 2020

 

A poem for National Poetry Day

Silver Bells

 

Silver bells, shiny, reflective

hang scattered in the tree branches

 

The old tree lights have fused

once too many times, no spares now

 

The shops have been devoid of anything

Christmassy since October

 

But she has her silver bells

and when they catch the sunlight

 

refracted light crisscrosses the room

as dust motes go dancing by

 

All she needs are her silver bells

and by candle light she can pretend

 

pretend that life is normal

that Christmas is like all the others

 

Outside the birds go about their business

winter tight in on itself

 

Oblivious of rationing and restrictions

earth waits the winter out

 

And she has her silver bells

and will wait the winter out too.

©Heather Walker 2020

A Poem for Mothering Sunday

Still in draft form as it was only written a short while ago. However you are able to celebrate Mother's Day I hope there are good things in it.

Mother’s Day

There could be no touching,

no hugs, no kisses.

I’d brought cake and flowers,

handed them through the window.

We laughed about it,

talked about after.

We agreed to Skype later,

blew kisses from a distance.

I left her in dad’s hands,

the safest hands she could have.

New year, new beginnings

The first colour in the garden

This year I intend to do things differently and that means writing will be taking a back seat. It's been coming for a while, the winding down process, but I have to admit that right now the passion for writing is not as strong.

Having said that, I did write a Christmas ghost story. I think this was inspired by reading some in Jeanette Winterson's book about Christmas. That was a jolly good book, by the way. I wrote my story in one go and edited it over the next two days. It now sits on my laptop waiting for the right place to send it.

My poetry challenge moves on and I'm now in week 37. I had a period where I was stuck and asked my Facebook friends for some random words. Two friends came through and I've ended up with a love story poem involving a tandem and a poem about the Australian bush fires, the latter I share with you at the end of this post.

On the climate subject I am reading Extinction Rebellion's Handbook. I knew they were organised just from being around them in London last year, but I never realised just how much thought and planning goes into everything. I bet not many know that at their safe zones they feed anyone who needs food - commuters, homeless, even the police. There is a lot of sympathy from those who have to intervene due to their job. I think before people slag them off for being a nuisance they should read this book. I think they will be surprised.

I have no courses booked this year, which has come as a great shock to my friends! I aim to walk more, visit places, read lots and experience new things. Last year was a particularly tense one and I'm looking to see which way the wind blows this year, go with what seems right and be a bit more impulsive. I feel I might be on a new path, or maybe its just a break from the usual I need. I am, as they say, going with the flow!

The Design Museum, Kensington High Street.
Went to see Moving to Mars exhibition here with my techie son
who made it more interesting because he could answer my questions!

Tip of the Iceberg

And still there were doubters and deniers

as the inferno licked at walls of houses,

destroying everything before it.

Some said it was normal, just a blip

in the season. This was Australia, after all.

And as the fires raged through the bush,

smoke could be seen from space

edging towards New Zealand,

while masked people walked the city

of toxic fumes, praying for rain.

Fires swept people towards the coast

where they waited for boats

to take them to safety,

while ninety-five per cent of Koalas

perished. Bodies of Australia’s

wildlife lay scattered by roadsides,

charred and scarred.

And unbelievers still deny

as the world carries on

imploding around them

in floods and wildfires.

The tip of the iceberg

is melting.

Read all about it! Poem published today in The People's Friend

Today I went down to WHSmith and got my hands on The People's Friend Special 162 and found my poem inside. Exciting, or what?

Back in April I submitted four poems to them as I'd heard they were looking for new poets. They have a particular format to adhere to and I was thrilled when I received an email letting me know that they wanted to publish one of my poems and were interested in others I'd sent. I was numb with excitement. I then had to sit on this because as they say 'don't count your chickens until they hatch.' I was terrified something would go wrong but I have to say they have been efficient and soon I had a contract and a date when my poem would be published. Even so, the wait has been agonising. Finally, today is the day!

Even before this one was published I was emailed about the second poem they wanted to publish. I have no idea when that will be but I've been paid for both. I can't remember the last time I was ever paid for a poem.....it's way back in the depths of time.

While I've been struggling with self doubt in my writing this has been a light in that dark tunnel. Maybe  I'll pour myself a wee drink tonight to celebrate.

National Poetry Day - A prose poem to celebrate the autumn of life

HAPPY NATIONAL POETRY DAY!

Enjoy your poetry whether you are reading it, writing it or performing it. Here's one of mine. Rather apt for the time of year.

Autumn Years

These are the autumn days, shorter, yet more colourful than the sum total of spring and summer with their languid headiness of new love and hopeless romance. Love now runs deep, an earthiness beyond the ache of wanting. It is solid, freeing, wise with experience, yet not without its adventures!

My days come in flames of reds and orange when all my fruits are multiplied and come into season. Their juicy sweetness runs in my veins. I look back at those growing years. Am I wiser? I’m certainly older. So I grab the sunny days by the scruff, bathing in vibrant yellows, greens, browns and gold, and there is the scent guiding me home – wood smoke trailing to the sky. But I’m not ready yet.

I love the misty mornings, the mellow tones clouded in white. Then the sun bursts through and the trees are glory crowned. I waste no time; daylight hours are shorter, there’s a nip in the air. I walk through fallen leaves; gather shiny conkers, fir cones. The shedding will soon be over and I am not done yet. There will be dark, sunless days, cold winds through old bones, but I have no time for teary regrets. While there is colour in my days you’ll find me walking under the sun, the juice of autumn fruits staining my lips.

A winter poem

Winter Beach

Only the hardy come,

the locals with dogs,

small children skipping,

never feeling the cold.

The well washed sand

knows every imprint,

salt strokes each outline,

tide turns in soft fold.

The wind picks up pace

screams in from the north

rucking up sea spray,

spilling stories of old.

And as night comes early

the rain sets in,

battering the coastline

as the storm takes hold.

©Heather Walker

National Poetry Day

HAPPY NATIONAL POETRY DAY

Here is a little poem to celebrate:

Orbit

Somewhere

someone

is looking at the moon

in a star flung sky

while I see it slide

into the blue dawn

and fade.

A seasonal haiku

A haiku:

Alien shadows,

Air sharpening winter tools;

October’s entrance.

(So what happened to not writing poetry again?!)

Poetry challenges and in between writing

My latest writing project is almost totally consuming me right now. Words are flowing and I like what I'm seeing. This means that when I've finished this post all ideas will cease and I'll go into a black hole! (Oh, I hope not)

Poetry really has taken a back seat. I'm still reading it - just finished a back edition of Brittle Star which contains fiction and poetry and I really enjoyed it. I must re-new my subscription as I want to read more.

At the moment poetry is something to do to amuse myself between breaks in the fiction writing. I'm not ready for the serious stuff yet. Instead I set myself little poetry challenges, mainly what I call random words poetry. Pick a few words at random from anything - cereal packet, third word on the first line of a book, a form, an advert, anything, then use the words to write a poem. Strange things happen when I do this and I know I've spoken about it before. I love this method because of the subjects that appear out of nowhere. The poems don't always work and I suppose I could edit them and no one would know I'd cheated with the words or whatever. Sometimes I do go back months later and edit the work into something better and if necessary take out those word restrictions (is a poem ever finished?)

This is one I wrote recently using this method. I adapted the words slightly, especially 'allergy' but I'm sure with more time I could have done something better and stuck to my original form of the word. But these poems I write quickly. I had one false start and then I was in. Some time ago I mentioned another method - a sort of time challenge. I don't strictly keep to a time restriction but as I said I do prefer not to think too deeply about these. They come out of my head and onto the laptop fairly quickly. I might edit slightly but there is no big revision. Do you have methods you use to get the creative words flowing? Do tell.

By the way, the title came first with this and then I picked the words - tough!

Here you go then:

My random words: slim, allergy, hot, July, Indexed, Brighton, Terrace, Bug

Parrot on a door

A sleek, slim squawker

in green plumage; a poster

blu-tacked to the door,

double indexed

in Birds of the World,

now in houses and flying free

as far afield as Stockholm

and Brighton,

and a terrace near you

and on this hot July day

of midges, mosquitoes

and other bugs

the curved billed,

claw footed parrot

has had an allergic reaction

to the blu-tack and come

adrift from the door,

shedding its feathers.

This is what I'm doing

I have been obsessively writing over the last two weeks. I have gone back to an earlier project and aim to finish it by the end of summer, hopefully. More on that at a future time.

This lunchtime I actually wrote a short poem. It's been some time since I did that as poetry has taken a back seat lately. It's just a wee little thing:

Untitled

I seek the light place
where sun streams,
warming skin,
bringing life to flesh and bone.
Blood bubbles and flows
as I unravel, stretch like a cat,
settle like a lizard, heating up.


I have subscribed to two magazines to get an insight into what is being written and published in the small press, getting to know new writers. Bare Fiction is one, Brittle Star is the other. I have to admit that to save money I opted for the online version of Bare Fiction. This could be a mistake as I tend to forget about them and find the next issue comes along and I've not read the last. I much prefer something to hold and take with me, to snuggle up with. But I must make the effort.

Brittle Star arrived this morning. I love it's size. I could stick it in my handbag. I've already started reading it. It contains fiction, poetry and articles and I like what I see.

I've subscribed to a couple of blogs too, but the biggest thing I've done lately is to book a place at the Winchester Writer's Festival in June. I've wanted to go along for years, but it is only in the last year that I have started writing fiction again, so it didn't seem worth it before. There was little for poets. Of course in September was the fantastic inaugural Winchester Poetry Festival which I attended. I'm pleased to say that is back for this year. Anyway, I decided that this was the year to try the Writer's Festival. Am I ready, I ask myself. Hopefully. I've booked two workshops and a full programme of talks. I have also taken the step of booking two one-to-ones (very scary). The first is with an agent, the second with a poet. I am now frantically putting together a synopsis for my first novel (still in editing mode) and a covering letter. I've had to research both as I've never done them before. These things have to be submitted before the festival. I also have to submit a poem in advance. All this is new to me and I am, to say the least, very nervous.

If you are going to the festival too, let me know.

Finally, I have found a competition for my piece of writing that has so far fallen between the categories, due to its word count. The Penny Dreadful is running a Novella competition (open for entries on 1st June). I shall be submitting!

See you next time.

A poem about mice

Just to amuse myself I wrote this poem this morning. It's based on something that happened a few years ago.

Catching Mice

Seconds after lights out,

I hear the trap drop.

The buggers are in!

I creep downstairs,

pick up the long grey

plastic trap, feel the weight,

feel the movement.

I open the pet carrier,

empty the trap.

So fast, so small.

I shut the lid.

Settle, I say,

I’ve left you food.

The mouse looks back.

Our eyes meet. It knows.

By morning there are three

in the carrier. I ignore them,

but they need not plead,

they already have my measure.

I walk to the wasteland,

open the lid, set them free.

They scuttle through grass

and brambles. No thanks.

No looking back.

At least they are together.

Next day

I have caught

one lonely mouse.

I take it to the waste ground,

my soppy, worn heart strings

plucked by a rodent;

my sorrow dwells

on the aloneness

of this tiny furry being.

I wish it well.

My husband seals up the hole

in the kitchen,

no more little night entries,

no dropping door

as blackness fills the house.

I think of the wasteland

and wonder if mice have GPS.

Inspired!

Today fired up by what a couple of friends said about my poetry I entered six poems into Chapbook competition. Meanwhile you can find my commended poem here (scroll to the bottom!)

Excuse the short post - got to go and sort dinner!

I'm in an e-book!

My poem Night Feasting is now published in the Anthology Spooky Tales and available on Kindle from Amazon. The link is here.
Also great to be published along side my friend Lynda Bullock.

Where do poems come from?

Working draft

I'm sure I've spoken about where poems come from before but something happened this morning which made me think about it again and to share it with you.

I was reading an article in acumen  79 by Dannie Abse entitled Poet in a White Coat when a line suddenly hit me and I stopped reading. The line was about the German poet Rainer Marie Rilke who 'related how he would worry about a piece of soap left behind in his hotel lest it become lonely!' Wow! I understood this.....because some years ago I wrote a poem about something similar! It is somewhere written in pen on a sheet of yellow paper, probably buried under magazines under the coffee table (see I even remember where it is....hopefully). Anyway, I was amazed someone else thought about these same strange things.

Having read the line I immediate had to write. So I left the article which I hadn't finished and grabbed my notebook. Just from that one line came the bones of a poem. And ta dah! I'm going to share it with you. Written very quickly with an even quicker edit this is how it is now. The last two lines took me the longest and were re-written several times. (I admit I edited a little more as I typed it up to show here. There is more still to do!)

Of Things Left Behind

The strand of hair on the dressing table,

a flake of skin on the bed sheet,

the lone banana meant for the lunch box,

a garden cutting going solo on the lawn.

The crumb brushed absently away,

the last square of chocolate in its foil,

the one cup draining in the kitchen,

the bulbous tear hanging from the tap.

The lone sock in the washing drum,

the book discarded now its read,

one flower in the dead heads,

a single item in the rubbish bin.

I wonder about the loneliness

of all those things left behind,

abandoned to the silence,

parted from others of their kind.

(©Heather Walker 2014)

When people know I write poetry they usually ask me two questions - what do I write? and have you had anything published?

Thinking about the last two poems I've written (before this morning's effort), one was written about something I observed while I was sitting in the garden and the other went right back to the time I was in my late teens doing something I didn't want to do and wishing! Why I went back to that time I don't even know. It was a stray thought. 

So, inspirations comes from everywhere. Something will happen, like the line I read this morning, and I will have to write. Next time it might be a picture, something overheard, music, an experience (mine or someone elses), a prompt from a book or workshop. I never know what my next poem will be about. I don't write only about nature or love. To me there is nothing off limits, even the most terrible things in life. Poetry can be comforting, funny, clever, disturbing and everything in between. If it causes a reaction in you, it is doing its job. Like art and music, writing is to be experienced, sometimes on many levels. It is also a personal thing and you will bring those experiences with you when you read.

Poem

Lost for words

Deadlines haunt,

dates rush at me

then pass.

Writing is sparse;

undisciplined words

run riot

with unformed sentences

across white paper,

refusing to stay.

The ruled page

stares back, fully formed,

neat and mocking.

Mindful Writing Day

My small stone:

Drizzle peppers the garden from a grey flung sheet.

Geraniums and Begonias pinprick red and pink hope.

http://www.writingourwayhome.com/small-stones/mindful-writing-day-1st-nov/

#wpad July challenge - A piece of my writing

A PIECE OF MY WRITING

I wrote this as part of The Poetry School online course in Villanelles.  The object of this exercise was to use enjambment.

I Cannot Play the Waiting Game

I cannot play the waiting game with you

while roads remain unchartered out of here,

for when the sun is shining cares are few.

I want excitement! Everything that’s new

is like a boat that’s meant for me to steer.

I cannot play the waiting game with you

when chances beckon, call and coax and woo.

I can’t hold back; my pulses race and cheer,

for when the sun is shining cares are few.

My heart begins to stir and that’s my cue;

then morning skies come creeping blue and clear.

I cannot play the waiting game with you.

Nor can I stay when all within my view

are rainbow wishes leading me from here,

for when the sun is shining cares are few.

I know that to myself I must be true

and wasted chances fill heart with fear.

I cannot play the waiting game with you,

for when the sun is shining cares are few.

What I Live For

WHAT I LIVE FOR - Satya said: 

Join me for the relaunch of my writing career under my new Buddhist name Satya Robyn Today, Friday the 10th of May, tell me what gets you up in the morning and share some writing or a photo or some art called ‘What I Live For’  http://www.satyarobyn.com/?p=154

This is the challenge!  In January I took part in writing Small Stones with Satya and hundreds of others on a dedicated Facebook page.  So here is my contribution for today.

What I live for/gets me out of bed:

My life revolves around books, writing and music and has since I can remember.  At 10 years old a teacher told my mum that I could write about anything! A surprise to me, but there you go.  Other’s opinions do affect me and  when I was at secondary school (which I hated) a teacher had a go at me for my writing and said ‘people don’t write like that/do those things’.  I knew she was wrong but I didn’t have the confidence to tell her and my self-esteem dropped (I was about 14 years old).  However, in my late teens I started writing again and haven’t stopped.  I began with stories, then songs, to poetry.  Now I write mainly poetry (which has been published in small press magazines) but still dabble in other writing (blogging included!).

Learning only became an obsession after I left school at 15.  I’d come to books late, joined my local library and discovered a huge new world and I’m still exploring!  Without a book to read I get restless.  I really do get withdrawal symptoms.

Music was my first love.  I grew up with it and as I’ve got older I have expanded my horizons.  There is nothing I would dismiss and my range is diverse.  Music has the ability to set moods, change them, give me energy, it helps me write sometimes and I love to sing, dance and when I have time, play guitar.  I even have tapes of songs I wrote when I was in my 20’s.

These three things make me happy.  I learn from them all and they give me so much pleasure. Maybe sometimes they are also my comfort blanket!

Books that ‘got me into reading’:

1. Gerald Durrell’s books
2. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.
3. The Borrowers

Writing -The first stories I wrote were based on science fiction.  I still find I veer in that direction but then I love sci-fi.  My poetry in those days all rhymed (that’s how it had to be wasn’t it!).  I wrote my first songs in my early teens (maybe earlier) – wrote down the lyrics and the melody was in my head!  Bought my first guitar at 18 and self-taught (still not great but it’s fun) and worked out how to record two tracks without a recording studio!  I still have my original guitar but when I reached 50 years old I treated myself to an electric! 

Music – the first record I bought/was given (vinyl 45) was The Locomotion by Little Eva.  I still have it along with all my other vinyl.  I listen to anything from classical to rock, trance and r&b.  My favourite song is God Only Knows by The Beach Boys.  I learnt to harmonize from them and the The Everly Brothers and these days I sing in a Community Choir.

 All these creative parts of me are important.  They have grown with me, have expressed my feelings, reassured me that I am not alone and have brought so much to my life that I cannot imagine my life without these creative outlets.  There is always something new to explore and to share.  I've literally just written what's below to express how I feel about all this.  Have a fantastic day everyone and go and indulge yourselves in what makes you get out of bed in the morning.

What I Live For

I live for the word
in book, or my head
for rhythm and music,
a tune or lines said.
I live for the sharing
of stories and song
imbed myself fully
in what's going on.
I live to express,
to learn and to grow
and the way that I do it
is all that I know.

 Another wonderful harmonious pair!

A poem about childhood

April 25th

(A prompt, I think from The Poetry Society, about childhood)

Don’t sit on the Chairs!

Mother was a stickler for tidiness

But children are not meant for that

She would upturn the cushions on chairs,

the settee as well, come to that.

But she did give us sheets for our tent house

Which we draped over seats not in use

And would run round the dining room table

Whenever we got to get loose.

We climbed on the arms of the furniture

Careful to not make much noise

But it’s difficult when you are playing

An Indian shooting cowboys.

When I think what my settee has suffered

With gymnastics and such from my boys

I wonder if Mother had something

About cushions not being toys!

*****

(Tomorrow I will be posting the remainder of April's poems all together because I will probably not be able to get to a computer after tomorrow.  It means that I can complete the challenge in advance!)

NaPoWriMo - day 24

April 24th

Life on Film

What was happening, well that could be me,

my life being played out on the big screen

with me in the lead role,

my family, those actors and actresses

with lines on cue, the accusations, the

pull yourself together,

the agony of desertion done in one take

and days roll quickly through the camera lens,

scenes race to a conclusion

in just two hours ten minutes.

Ah! but the DVD has the Directors cut,

those extra bits to revel in;

but I cannot edit out the bits I don’t like

I’ve tried but they return to haunt me,

constantly on repeat.