tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34143984037718344362024-03-07T23:14:38.165-08:00Laura likes peasBits and bobs of creative writing...Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18129831062058014718noreply@blogger.comBlogger46125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3414398403771834436.post-41605887343309636592013-05-11T14:17:00.000-07:002013-05-11T14:17:09.028-07:00She said it first<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
I liked you first but<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
She said it first and<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
The rules of friendship demanded<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
I keep quiet.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
I’m not even sure how much<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
I really did, or you really did like me.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
You joked we should get married<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
And I jokingly agreed,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Over 3am tea, and your cigarette smoke – see?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
You smoke, I don’t, <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
We live in different cities;<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
How would it even work?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
A week later, I can’t even remember<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Your face. Just the colour<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Of your hoodie, a vague memory<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Of your smile. Just<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
A flirtation. Just<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
A moment. No big deal. But still<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
I wanted to decide that for myself,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
And she said it first.<o:p></o:p></div>
Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18129831062058014718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3414398403771834436.post-30693452477373429582013-04-30T12:51:00.001-07:002013-04-30T12:52:57.707-07:00Dancers<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
He must have danced with a dozen different girls that night,
at least; plucking them from the obscurity of the crowd (or group – the
venue was really too small for a crowd) and spinning them out into the limelight of those
few metres he’d claimed for his dance floor.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
The band was playing jazz, and swing, in several languages
and styles, and he leapt and twirled and spun and ducked in response. And the
girls did too, all seemingly transformed in his hands – as if each had been his
partner for years, not minutes.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Some he kept for a few songs, others just one. Some he spoke
to, others twirled in enigmatic silence. Some got smiles, others just his
full-on eyes. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
All looked happy, relaxed, vital. Even watching, I felt
myself wrapped in his spell, fascinated by each swirling sequence, unfolding
too fast for my mind to match – so only my eyes could keep pace, no space for
thoughts.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
At first I wondered if they minded, the girls – being picked
up and discarded like that. But they didn’t seem to (not that I could know),
and he did it all so gracefully, with such apparent purity of intent.<br />
<br />
By which I mean, he didn’t seem to be looking for anyone in
particular (though there were those few he spoke to, danced with longer, even
followed briefly back to their corners – and once I heard him respond, “Oui, je
suis français, bien sûr”). He seemed mainly to just love dancing – no, more than that, to have it in his bones.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
To judge him, or demand he behave any differently, seemed
beside the point. He was simply doing what he had to; how could he not dance,
and how could he dance with just one, or two, when he had enough energy,
more than enough, to transform the entire room?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Anna, my Anna, was one of those girls. She wasn’t mine, of
course; I loved her, but she didn’t know. Or maybe she did, but it’d be another
year before I told her, and then three weeks more before she decided, in her
own sweet time, to end my suspense.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
I feel like saying it broke my heart to watch her dance with
him. And in a way that’s how it felt, but not how you think. Not because (or not just because) I
was jealous. It’s more that she looked so perfect – I mean they did,
together. So complete. And so utterly strange to me. As though I was fully
seeing this person I thought I knew so well, and she was someone else entirely.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
The singer’s voice was all husky and teasing; I forget the
song. They smiled, a little, and danced very lightly, spinning round and
through each other’s arms without pause. Then he pulled her in close, and they
jived playfully back and forth. So easy! As if they’d known each other half
their lives!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
The song ended, they bowed, he slipped away and she turned
with glazed eyes, towards me. She smiled vaguely, but I don’t think she could
see anybody just then. I reached reflexively, for something – my drink, empty.
And I blinked, dazed too.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
I left early, so I don’t know if he did eventually settle on
one perfect partner. I never really asked her, either, how it felt, to be
danced with like that. I mean, it sort of came up – the night, the place – in
conversation a few times. But I kept the reference cursory. Anxiety, I suppose,
my own insecurity making me unwilling to hear her answer, to see her eyes light
up, in memory.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
But again, this isn’t quite (just) jealousy. I think I’m
also scared of destroying my own memory, or blowing away the dreamdust I’ve
gathered around it. It’d be too harsh, too cruel, to have it all levelled out
to the mundane. I’d rather keep the poetry, the magic, even if I maybe know
it’s of my own.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18129831062058014718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3414398403771834436.post-22398029899648739142013-01-22T13:56:00.001-08:002013-01-22T13:56:35.653-08:00Already over<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
In isolation she seemed – not perfect, he wasn’t that naïve –
but, well, a positive romantic prospect. A promising investment of his time.
(Why was it that, despite having deliberately avoided any career choices that
would put him at risk of becoming even remotely ‘corporate’, his thoughts had
suddenly taken on the aspect of an investors’ board meeting?)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Viewed in the context of her life though – her friends,
daily routine, ‘hobbies’ and so forth – he immediately saw how it would end:
not well for him (or for her, perhaps, but his main concern here was for
himself).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It was all too similar, too much like repetition – not of
his last relationship, but the one before that. He’d heard somewhere, or read,
that life is a series of challenges that repeat continuously until we learn to
deal with each one. If so, he didn’t feel at all confident about handling this
particular challenge any better than he had five or so years ago.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Largely, no doubt, because he wasn’t at all sure where the
problem lay. Or, that is to say, he knew most, if not all, of it lay somewhere
inside him – and you can hardly be expected to be objective and analytical
about something which is part of your own self, can you?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Even if he couldn’t pin down the problem, however, he could
see, all too clearly, how it would play out. Not in any dramatic, or even
really externally observable way, but almost entirely below the surface, beneath
the hidden anxieties of face, chest, breath.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Terminating at the end of a reasonably long, apparently
happy (most of all, somewhere in the middle – they’d have one great summer
together, which they’d never be able to recapture, leaving both ultimately
doubting their recollection of those months) relationship, with a prolonged,
painful, confusing break-up.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He knew that if he tried to retrace this to its roots, he’d
arrive right back here, at this moment, where he’d first felt himself
withdrawing – self-preservation, that’s what it was – while at the same time powerless
to sever the reflex that left him reaching out, grasping, towards her.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This despite knowing (and here he indulged himself in a
little self-aggrandisement, rather tragic, he thought; there’s pathos, at
least) that they’d never fully combine. Even in those blissful few moments when
they’d succeed in convincing one another, and themselves, of their utter
devotion, even then, he knew – and would know, deep down – it was already over.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
(It should be noted, they’d only at this stage been on three
or four dates. And he hadn’t exactly met her friends or observed her ‘in the
context of her life’. But he had clicked through a lot of photos on Facebook.)<o:p></o:p></div>
Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18129831062058014718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3414398403771834436.post-60363069740394452792012-11-19T13:55:00.001-08:002013-01-22T13:24:51.567-08:00Oh!<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b>Oh!<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
“Oh!” she said, and
stopped.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
The sound repeating
over <o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
and over in her head,</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
much louder than she’d
actually said it: Oh.</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
The picture still in
her hand, showing him and the ex-girlfriend</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
who she’d never seen,
or heard described – yet somehow, she knew<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
not a friend, or
cousin, or any other ex, she knew<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
and that ‘Oh’<br />
struck right to
her core,</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
because she knew,
too,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
that he’d been right (not
that<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
he’d ever said this,
or could) <o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
– that this was<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
so clearly, the kind
of love she’d never had,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
with him, or anyone –<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
never would, perhaps,
she thought<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
(but this really was an
afterthought,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
a conscious attempt
to redirect, reassert <o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
her own claim on
happiness).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Because what had
really been expressed in that ‘Oh’<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
was just sadness.</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
They should be
together, she thought (she knew),</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
and why oh why oh why
did they ever<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
split up.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
(Which she knew, too,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
he’d spent roughly the last two years asking himself,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
including the three
months or so she’d known him.)</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Still staring,
sensing how self-destructive this was,</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
but unable to escape<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
that picture, which
she knew she’d never escape –<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
the look in their
eyes, their faces, laughter, smiles,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
all somehow combining
to suggest such perfect</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
togetherness.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent;">(Like children
accepting all innocent</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
that the world is
benign.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
It cut straight into
her, cut her breath, stopped her voice, left that ‘Oh’<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
hanging, repeating inside her mind,</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
long after she’d left
the room,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
left him,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
all behind.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />
<br />Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18129831062058014718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3414398403771834436.post-77965100224695109232012-10-29T12:58:00.000-07:002012-10-29T12:59:19.699-07:00Parties<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b style="background-color: transparent;">Goodbye</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent;">They’d only just met, and he was moving away.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent;">It was just one of those things.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Their circles of friends had only recently overlapped sufficiently, and he’d had this opportunity, which he couldn’t really – and so on.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
So they were saying goodbye, without knowing what they’d be missing, if anything.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
“Another one that got away,” she thought, a little drunk, a little wistful, filing him away in some mental space, to be taken out and contemplated at a later date.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
The party was ending. She got up from where she’d slumped (how bohemian) on the floor, between piles of books and CDs – his things, half packed.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
“It’s been good,” and “I’ll be back, I’m sure”, and a hug, close, lingering, somehow satisfying, but still not solving anything (it seemed to say lots of things, but how many, she wondered, were her own invention?) and that, was that.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent;"><b>The Strand</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent;">At 47 he’d never looked better, but neither of them knew it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent;">He avoided thinking about age, if he could, and she – well, she’d only just met him, and she hadn’t really thought too much about how he looked, either now or before.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent;">She asked what he did, and for some reason he just said, obscurely, “I work on the Strand.” And for some reason, she just nodded and smiled, as if that was an answer.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent;">Her eyes drifted but her smile stayed, and they moved on through the conventional round of first-meeting questions.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent;">But afterwards, she came back to that phrase, and thought, how strange. What a strange thing to say, and why didn’t I ask what he meant? I suppose, she concluded, I didn’t really care.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent;"><b>Parties</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent;">She seemed to go to a lot of parties. At least, she had a lot of stories that started, ‘I met this person at a party…’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
And she laughed a lot, more than most people, but she didn’t seem happy. Even when she was laughing she seemed somehow sad – especially when she was laughing, perhaps.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent;">He realised she’d never looked him full in the eyes, or at least that was the impression she gave. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent;">As if her eyes, and her mind, were always somewhere else, even in the middle of laughing, or telling one of these stories about the people she met at all these parties.</span></div>
<div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<!--EndFragment-->Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18129831062058014718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3414398403771834436.post-61601184559784793632012-08-20T12:36:00.003-07:002012-10-29T13:02:38.182-07:00<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b>He bought, she bought<o:p></o:p></b><br />
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>-1-</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><br /></b></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
He’d bought a small sailing boat, the word went round,
prompting little malicious ripples of gossip.</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent;">Big enough for four, apparently.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
(The word ‘apparently’ took on a particularly important role
in these discussions, spoken with a special emphasis, as if to imply something
worthy of suspicion, ridicule, contempt – any number of responses in fact.
Hence its usefulness.)<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
There was some degree of speculation as to the source of
funding for this purchase.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
“Apparently,” they said, “It’s not even his money. It’s
hers. From her last marriage. Or from when her parents died.”<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Others were more concerned with the possibility of select
couples being invited down for a weekend on the boat (or yacht, as some now
said), which was, after all, big enough for four at the very least.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
But Mrs Matthews, who lived close enough to know, said they
could’ve hardly been out on it themselves, as they seemed to be at home every
weekend.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
As far as she’d noticed, at any rate. Of course she had
better things to do than spy on her neighbours.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent;"><b>-2-</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
She’s bought one of those dry shampoos, the kind that are
supposed to clean your hair just by spraying it on or something.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
He’s not sure how long it’s been there, on the shelf by the
sink, but now that he’s noticed it he’s remembered something.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
He remembers her calling it ‘one-night-stand shampoo’.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
There must have been an advert on TV for it, and she’d said
that. In a tone suggesting scorn.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
He’d made some noise in response and she’d said, “That’s
what it’s for – it’s for when you stay out all night without planning to.”<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Funny really, because at the time he wouldn’t have really
said he was paying much attention, but now he can remember it clear as anything.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
And there it is, her one-night-stand shampoo, in their
bathroom.<br />
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent;"><b>-3-</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
He’d bought me a bar of chocolate, one of those big ones
you’re supposed to share.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
We’d had this silly thing before, sort of like a bet, and he’d
ended up promising to buy me an ice cream, so then he turned up with the
chocolate instead.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I’m not sure why it was so awful. I’ve never had a bad date
before. He just kept asking all these questions, which I guess is what you’re
supposed to do on a date, you ask questions, but I just wasn’t in the right
mood or something.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
So I think I told him to stop interrogating me, and he got
offended, and that was it really. We had a few drinks and I sort of wanted us
to click, but it just ended up feeling like an argument, even though it wasn’t.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I felt awful today. I ate the chocolate all in one go. That
did help, a bit.<br />
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent;"><b>-4-</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
She’d bought him a grain of sand with his name written onto
it, in tiny, spidery writing. <o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
It was inside a small, clear pendant, part of a necklace,
and (she told him proudly, like a child) she’d chosen the beads that went on
either side herself.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
He smiled mechanically, and said some of the polite things
you’re supposed to say when you get a present.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
But inside he was thinking: Bright red beads. She’s chosen
bright red beads. I never wear red; I don’t have a single red thing. Why is she
so pleased?<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
He held it up to his chest so she could see how it looked,
then curled it meticulously back into its box, and put it away in a drawer.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
The next time he took it out, several years later, he
realised with relief that the hollowness and strange anger he’d felt at the
time had faded. <o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Also, it seemed somehow to have broken; the metal piece
fastening the pendant to the string had come loose.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
He wondered if she’d noticed he’d never worn it. If she had,
she’d never said.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18129831062058014718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3414398403771834436.post-39434569210990771582012-08-07T01:28:00.002-07:002013-04-30T12:54:13.162-07:00He went to Madrid... And I didn't<div style="text-align: center;">
Waking up with a wail</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
In my heart:</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
He left me.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
He went to Madrid</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
And he chose someone else.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Why are mornings the worst time of day?</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
In fact at first, I’m OK.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I’ve slept, at least, no terrible dreams,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Then gradually it sinks in.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Rejection, regret;</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Should I have said yes?</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Would things have been different?</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
...Most of the time, I’m actually fine.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
But if he ever reads this,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
He’ll think I’m obsessed</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
With a stranger I felt close to</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Who asked me to go to Madrid</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
And I didn’t.</div>
Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18129831062058014718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3414398403771834436.post-22811075659969996342012-08-07T01:27:00.000-07:002013-04-30T12:54:57.337-07:00Pillow talk<div style="text-align: center;">
I’d lounge around</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
On your lower lip,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Climb to the tip</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Of your nose</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
And skip</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
To the middle-brow summit,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Make the return trip</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Over the curved ground</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Of your cheek</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Then sneak,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Tickle-footed,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
To your ear</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Where I’d whisper</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
So softly</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
You’d have no idea</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
That I was ever</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Even</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Here.</div>
<br />
You can also read this at <a href="http://www.middlebrowmagazine.co.uk/home/?p=1124">Middlebrow magazine</a>.Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18129831062058014718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3414398403771834436.post-77444266543087277352012-07-28T10:03:00.000-07:002013-04-30T12:59:01.341-07:00Flash fiction!(To see the missing numbers scoot over to <a href="http://www.middlebrowmagazine.co.uk/home/?p=4233">Middlebrow Magazine</a>...)<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="border-image: initial; border-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<b>One</b></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
May didn’t seem to believe in time. Not that she’d have put it like that, if you asked her. Likely she’d have looked at you with that eye-brow raised, lip slightly curled kind of face on her, before getting on with what she was doing.<br />
<br />
She was always doing something.<br />
<br />
When I say she didn’t believe in time, I suppose what I really mean is that she only believed in the present. She never seemed to think about the future, or at least I never heard her mention it –except for maybe what she planned on doing with the potatoes when she’d finished digging them, or what time she’d bring the chickens in.<br />
<br />
And when she spoke about the past – only ever if someone else brought it up – it was with a kind of detached humour, as though she was reciting a story that really belonged to someone else, to amuse a child.</div>
</div>
<div style="border-image: initial; border-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
She always made me feel like a child, thinking back.</div>
</div>
<div style="border-image: initial; border-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="border-image: initial; border-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><b>Seven</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: white;">There was this church near where she lived – you had to go past it on the train to get there. It was just an ordinary little church, like most villages have, but it had this big cross outside, all lit up in neon.</span></div>
</div>
<div style="border-image: initial; border-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
It was always there, but I could never get used to it. Some days it just looked odd, other days I think it reminded me of a scene from one of those low-budget horror films… Not that I really watch them.</div>
</div>
<div style="border-image: initial; border-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
Anyway, next to the church was an allotment, and that always looked wrong to me as well. I think because I expected it to be a graveyard, and it did sort of look like one if you just glanced at it. But then you realised the things coming out of the ground weren’t gravestones, they were little sheds and fences.</div>
</div>
<div style="border-image: initial; border-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
Maybe there was a graveyard on the other side of the church, I don’t know.</div>
</div>
Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18129831062058014718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3414398403771834436.post-53016740482367568322011-10-24T07:17:00.001-07:002012-07-28T10:09:38.991-07:00Another story, about knitting<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;"><b>Casting on</b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;">Sue held up the scarf, eyeing it critically from top to bottom. It was much wider at one end than the other, with several bumpy patches and some loose holes hanging off one edge. Definitely the worst scarf I’ve ever seen, she decided. And smiled.</span><br />
<br />
<div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
Just a first attempt after all, and she’d almost certainly improved as she went along. She’d pop down to the shop later and get some more wool – chunkier this time, so it would be faster. The next one would be good enough to wear. Or at least to hang up in the hallway.</div>
<div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
Then she’d try something different. Gloves maybe, or a hat, and she’d like to make herself a cardigan – nothing too fancy, just something warm and snuggly. ‘Oh thanks,’ she’d say, ‘Do you like it? I made it myself.’ Then there’d be Christmas presents, birthdays, christenings. Who did she know with small children?</div>
<div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
Going into the kitchen, her eye caught on the picture of her mum by the phone. She smiled again, but this time with a frown. For the first time it occurred to her that having the picture there was strangely appropriate – or inappropriate. Mum must have circled round the telephone like I am now, she thought. Trying not to look at it, or think about what news it might bring.</div>
<div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
She’d been ten when they got the diagnosis, eleven when Mum died – or ‘lost her battle’ as people said, in magazines at least. So she should have been old enough to understand, really. Old enough to know better, to realize that cancer wasn’t contagious, and that she couldn’t somehow catch it from talking about her mum, or behaving like her. At any rate, her dad had thought she was old enough to have a serious talk about how these things did work, by which he meant the statistical risks of history repeating.</div>
<div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
‘I don’t want it to be something we can’t talk about,’ he’d said. ‘All this doesn’t mean you’re definitely going to get breast cancer. But it won’t help to ignore it, or pretend it’s not a possibility.’ For Sue though, ignoring it was exactly what she felt like doing. She hated going to the doctors, hated going bra shopping for her newly developing breasts, and hated herself for the sense of resentment she felt.</div>
<div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
Mainly, of course, she just missed her mum. And it was natural, surely, that it was painful to be reminded of her. But alongside the pain was a twinge of fear. Over the years she’d found ways to cope, to remember her mum in happier ways, to enter a lingerie department without feelings of panic. It was only last year, when Dad had suggested she might want to take Mum’s old knitting things, that she’d realized how much she was still holding onto. She’d practically shouted at him, as if he’d said something totally inappropriate, and he’d ended up taking it all to a charity shop.</div>
<div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
When she’d found the lump, she hadn’t felt scared. Well, she had, but also something else – relief? After all those years of waiting and worrying, she was ready to face her demons. All the rest of the day, and the next, she felt fine, pleased with herself for staying so calm – until she got back from seeing the doctor.</div>
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She’d put the kettle on, and then – what? What was she going to do now? Three days she had to fill (‘We’ll call you on Thursday with the results,’ they’d said) but how? She didn’t have the stomach for cooking, walking seemed too lonely, shopping would feel pointless, and she just knew she wouldn’t be able to concentrate on a book. But then her gaze fell on the chunky hardback Beginners Guide to Knitting that Diane had given her, for a birthday. ‘It’s very trendy these days, knitting,’ she’d laughed, ‘I’ve got a feeling you’ll be good at it.’</div>
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Well, she wasn’t exactly good. Not so far, anyway. But it had been the ideal way to fill the time. Calming, meditative, but absorbing enough to stop her going mad. Satisfying too, seeing the rows build up – even if the end result wasn’t exactly perfect. Not yet. She understood now why her mum had spent that last year filling the house with quilts and knitted cushions, inundating everyone with scarves, gloves, hats, jumpers.</div>
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Maybe this is what they call closure, she thought, making herself smile again as she imagined herself saying the words in a corny American accent. And she picked up one of the needles, holding it up like a spear. She narrowed her eyes, aiming at the phone, and this time laughed out loud. Maybe I am going mad after all, she thought, but in a good way.</div>
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You can also read this here: <a href="http://www.middlebrowmagazine.co.uk/home/?p=3176" style="background-color: white;">http://www.middlebrowmagazine.co.uk/home/?p=3176</a></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18129831062058014718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3414398403771834436.post-69234250730525701552011-09-30T06:39:00.000-07:002012-01-01T09:54:55.618-08:00A longer story<div class="MsoNormal"><b>‘Howard’</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">They do it on purpose, Howard thinks. Women. They know how these things get stuck in our heads. Unremarkable at the time, we barely even notice, but somehow they turn into cast-iron memories, fencing us in from our own futures. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">‘Good moaning,’ Kate would’ve said about this time (for no real reason, they’d never watched ‘Allo ‘Allo together), rolling over to bring her hands up to his chest. At which he would’ve grunted, and then smiled – because he couldn’t not smile when she was looking at him like that.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Then she’d wriggle free, sliding – no, jumping, bounding (how was she always so instantly awake?) – out of her side of the bed. She’d be wearing just a t-shirt and knickers. And some days she’d go straight into the kitchen like that, and he’d hear her padding about and humming as she put the kettle on to make coffee.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And now he can’t wake up without hearing her, can’t stop himself most days from reaching out an arm to feel the space where she used to sleep. Eventually, he’ll drag himself up (definitely no bounding) and slump into the kitchen in t-shirt and boxers – a shabby parody of her, lovely her.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">He doesn’t allow himself to put the television on, or sit on the sofa – too much for his still sleep-hungry body to resist. Instead he sits hunched over a bowl of Rice Krispies (snap, crackle, pop!), breathing in the smell of his own stale sweat, waiting for his laptop to warm up. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">He’ll check his emails (even though his phone would’ve bleeped if he’d got any), browse a few news sites. At some point he’ll look down to check his watch, realise he hasn’t put it on yet, and notice his coffee’s gone cold, again. Howard can never seem to finish a mug of coffee these days. He read somewhere recently that drinking coffee can prevent depression (on the same day he read that David Croft, creator of ‘Allo ‘Allo and other classics of British sit-com, had died.) Does it work backwards, he wonders – does feeling depressed impair your ability to drink coffee?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Who’s he kidding anyway? That ‘good moaning’ scenario occurred what, three, four times in the whole two years they were together? Most days it wasn’t like that at all. He’s not really sure what most days were like, to be honest. But that’s the way it works – now she’s gone and he’s stuck with this memory that’s taken over and is somehow stopping him from finishing his coffees.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">He’s actually not even called Howard. More likely David or Anthony. Or Paul. Something ordinary like that. Howard just seems to suit the kind of character he is at the moment. You know the type. Philip Seymour Hoffman might play him in a film: slightly overweight, pasty, obsessive and a bit creepy, too often seen sitting around in his underwear.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And Kate (meaning: pure maiden) – a nice, ordinary name that suggests what a nice, ordinary kind of girl she is. Not Allegra or Charlene or Belinda (meaning: immortal beauty). Nothing too unusual or exotic, it wouldn’t fit.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The coffee though, a nice detail, definitely keep that in. Maybe it could be a recurrent motif. Or even the central motif: we follow Howard/ David’s story through a series of scenes based around coffee drinking…</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">‘I asked for a cappuccino,’ Howard (or David?) says.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">‘I know,’ says Paul, still hovering over him with two tall glasses of something that isn’t cappuccino. ‘But I got you a frappuccino. Mocha light. They’re really good. Plus, it’ll cool you down.’</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Paul’s always doing weird stuff like this, Howard thinks (let’s stick with Howard, we’ve got to know him now). He’s always so <i>eager</i> about things. That’s probably why Howard likes him. He’s not sure about the frappuccino though. Would Kate have liked it? He can’t remember coming to a Starbucks with her, but he thinks she would’ve stuck to a cappuccino most of the time.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">New scene: Elizabeth (who also works with Howard) has brought Howard a coffee. She frowns and sucks in her lips a bit as she concentrates on delivering it safely to the coaster on his desk.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">‘There you go.’</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">‘Thanks Elizabeth,’ Howard says, trying to load the words with the right emphasis so that she knows he really means it.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">‘We’re onto the UHT stuff I’m afraid.’</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">‘No worries.’</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Howard makes a mental note to pop out and buy a big carton of milk later. And some biscuits, or cake. He feels like making people smile today, like reaching out his arms and shouting ‘Hey, I appreciate you! Even if we hardly ever speak, and you don’t really know who I am, I still want you to know I appreciate what we share just by being together, every day, in this building. Thanks for being around, and smiling at me sometimes in the corridor, and wearing nice perfumes, and not swearing at me or keying my car or making my life more difficult.’ </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Hopefully at least some of that will come across through an open box and a cheerful note – ‘Help yourselves everyone!’ – with a smiley face drawn underneath. I’ll go to M&S, Howard decides, get something really nice. Kate used to go there, or had at least once, when they had people round.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Next scene: Howard is collecting a new suit (he’s in good shape, he’s lost weight). He’s early – they haven’t quite finished making the adjustments yet – so he goes for a coffee. There’s a mother next to him, with a baby in a pushchair and a little girl, just old enough to toddle round the table on her own. The little girl is called Kate, or Katie (not a big coincidence, not a coincidence at all really, it's a common name).</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">‘Katie,’ sings the mother, in a voice that hasn’t had enough sleep. ‘Kaaaa-tie. Do you want some sandwich?’<br />
<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Katie is picked up and fed part of a sandwich. Her little brother moans and waves his arms around a bit. The mother gives him a piece of bread. Howard is fascinated by the way Katie seems to eat using her whole face. She scrunches up her nose and eyes with each chew – she’s stuffed in far too much. The mother looks across and he remembers his coffee, going cold again.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And now the reader is starting to wonder where all this is going. The story seems to have got stuck on its own motif. How many coffees are we going to watch Howard drink, or not drink? </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Possible endings. Howard finally watches an episode of ‘Allo ‘Allo, which is, after all, still pretty funny. And now when he wakes up he smiles, because he’s not thinking about Kate but about René and Crabtree and the rest. He even considers saying ‘good moaning’ to people at work, but decides against it. He’s not that keen on people who go round quoting TV shows, and anyway, they might not get it.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Kate comes round and asks if she can have the coffee maker, because she bought it, and he doesn’t really like coffee anyway – she was always pouring away barely touched, cold coffee when they were together. Howard is surprised. He thinks about it and after a while says no, he’d rather keep the coffee maker, it comes in handy when people visit and anyway he’s fairly sure he does like coffee. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Howard opens a coffee shop. He calls it ‘Howard’s’ and puts up a poster explaining that coffee can help prevent depression. He smiles a lot and people like going there because he smiles a lot and because he does ‘Allo ‘Allo impressions which they don’t always understand but which make them chuckle anyway. And he chops up the sandwiches really nice and small for the children. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Or, maybe we should leave Howard with little-girl Katie and her scrunched up face. Except he finishes his coffee (too depressing, too dark, that ‘going cold again’), and doesn’t even remember to worry about whether he’s finished it or not.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div>Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18129831062058014718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3414398403771834436.post-49931087388158311632011-09-06T03:07:00.000-07:002012-01-01T09:53:39.564-08:00Very short stories<div class="MsoNormal">1.</div><div class="MsoNormal">Michaela and Dan were expecting a baby girl. Dan wanted to name her Holly. Michaela refused flat out to consider this. She was vague about her reasons, but if she’d really thought about it she would have realized she somehow connected the name with one of Dan’s past relationships. Michaela suggested Anna. Dan gently but resolutely resisted (no real reason, but if he couldn’t have his first choice then neither should she: that’s what it came to). They settled on Kate in the end, a few days before she was due. It was a compromise name; neither of them had strong feelings about it either way.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">2. </div><div class="MsoNormal">‘Kate! Turn it down a bit please. You know you could always join us down here for a change. We’re watching a film. It’s got Hugh Grant in, and that actress… Well, if you get bored. I don’t like thinking of you up here on your own.’</div><div class="MsoNormal">‘No luck?’</div><div class="MsoNormal">‘Nope. She’s a teenager. Budge up. What did I miss?’</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">3.</div><div class="MsoNormal">Oh, I could have crossed then. Oh well, I’ll just wait for the green man. Is it changing? I can’t see the other lights from here. Battery’s gone on my iPod again. What’s that man saying? Something about Jesus I think. He needs a better microphone or something, the sound’s all muffled on that one. Not that anyone’s listening anyway.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">4. </div><div class="MsoNormal">‘You didn’t kiss me goodbye this morning.’</div><div class="MsoNormal">‘Hmm?’</div><div class="MsoNormal">‘You just left. I was awake.’</div><div class="MsoNormal">‘I did, didn’t I? I kissed you on the forehead.’</div><div class="MsoNormal">‘I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure.’</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">5.</div><div class="MsoNormal">Vouchers, receipts, about ten different store cards. What’s this? Oh, that ticket to Keats’ house Robin gave me. I never did use it. Valid for a year, and it’s already half a year out of date. Where did all that time go? It’s on Hampstead Heath I think, the house. Not the kind of thing I’d do on my own really. I liked the idea of it at the time. But the Romantics depress me. Put it in the recycling pile. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">6.</div><div class="MsoNormal">When Sue was 60 she got a cat. She’d always wanted a dog really, but it wouldn’t be fair to leave it all day, and what with retirement looking less and less likely each year… It’d be nice to have a dog to take walking though. She caught herself enviously eyeing other people’s glossy spaniels and shaggy collies, with a twinge of guilt. Where was that from? It wasn’t as if she was actually planning to steal one or anything. Maybe it was to do with craving something different, a different life. She didn’t do that; she believed in appreciating what she had, and she was good at it. So, in the end, she got the cat.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">7. </div><div class="MsoNormal">'There's this woman I remember, when I was at university. She was always in the park, every day, sat on the same bench. And she had these huge rolls of paper, that she used to draw on.'</div><div class="MsoNormal">'What was she drawing? People?'</div><div class="MsoNormal">'No, just trees I think. She was pretty old. And I just remember her always wearing green, this big green coat and green wellies and a green hat.'</div><div class="MsoNormal">'Didn't you ever speak to her?'</div><div class="MsoNormal">'No, I just used to run past her. I used to go jogging every day then. I saw her in the town once, walking home I guess. She had all these bags with her, full of the rolls of paper, and she was talking to someone. She seemed like one of those people who knows lots of people. I used to think, that looks like a nice way to spend old age, just drawing trees.'</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18129831062058014718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3414398403771834436.post-46349609542579671362011-07-31T13:32:00.000-07:002012-08-07T01:25:53.354-07:00Moving out<strong>Last morning</strong><br />
<br />
It's not the clouds<br />
That make the shapes,<br />
I think, it's our minds, and<br />
<br />
I don't want to leave.<br />
I like living here.<br />
I'll miss this, <br />
Waking to the instant calm of water, <br />
The gentle rustle of trees<br />
<br />
(I can't work out what kind),<br />
The one closest to me<br />
A patchwork<br />
In shades of grey, <br />
<br />
Bark peeling away and healing<br />
Around old scars. <br />
Three strong arms<br />
Reach far beyond <br />
<br />
My third-floor window.<br />
And if I look straight up<br />
The newest leaves <br />
Are waving.Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18129831062058014718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3414398403771834436.post-51768617918429270882011-07-25T10:35:00.001-07:002012-08-07T01:33:29.836-07:00Seat reservations<strong>Seat reservations</strong><br />
<br />
I am self-enclosed,<br />-contained, -sufficient; this is<br />A somehow pleasing pretence<br />For an afternoon spent<br />On a train to London Euston<br />In the company of strangers.<br />
<br />
Unknown faces,<br />Solitary, mainly, gaze<br />Headphoned and mobile-phoned<br />Through windows,<br />Eye each other vaguely,<br />Muse on other lives, played out<br />In other places.<br />
<br />
That pair of shoes,<br />His hairstyle,<br />Her tone of voice,<br />My secret smile,<br />Each reserved space seems momentarily to belong<br />To an individual, distinct<br />Self-contained Someone.<br />
<br />
Also published at <a href="http://www.middlebrowmagazine.co.uk/home/?p=2492" target="_blank">Middlebrow Magazine</a>.Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18129831062058014718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3414398403771834436.post-6125601609282217122011-07-23T12:20:00.000-07:002012-07-28T10:12:37.875-07:00Running<b>Running</b><br />
<br />
Running:<br />
The feeling of having<br />
Strong legs,<br />
Deep breath<br />
And a reason<br />
To keep going.Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18129831062058014718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3414398403771834436.post-75861610013538333952011-07-23T12:18:00.000-07:002013-05-11T14:23:10.487-07:00Saying goodbye<b>Saying goodbye</b><br />
<br />
Saying goodbye<br />
Makes part of me inside<br />
Go blind.<br />
<br />
All week I knew this was coming:<br />
I've been slowly turning<br />
Away, busy humming<br />
To stop myself looking<br />
<br />
At the door I've sealed off<br />
Somewhere in my mind.<br />
On one side, there are feelings.<br />
I'm not dealing<br />
With those; I'm smiling <br />
A false smile, thinking<br />
<br />
False thoughts<br />
That can't stop<br />
Or settle anywhere,<br />
Until I open the door and<br />
<br />
You're not there.<br />
<br />Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18129831062058014718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3414398403771834436.post-89965777933932709522011-06-26T11:21:00.000-07:002012-07-28T10:12:06.465-07:00In defence of the spoken word<h6 class="uiStreamMessage" data-ft="{"type":1}">
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I love poetry. I really do. I like reading it, writing it, studying it, hearing it. But, in common with most people I know, I’m still more likely to curl up with a novel than a poetry collection.</div>
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So I was interested to read an article in the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/may/21/poetry-puzzles-john-fuller" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #333333; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Guardian last month</a> addressing this issue. While fiction has never really had to struggle, says poet John Fuller, poetry has seen its audience drop ‘like plague victims’ in the last century.</div>
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So far, so much nodding in agreement from me. But Fuller’s next sentence had me doing a double take – or the modern equivalent. You could almost hear my thumb screech to a halt, before hastily scrolling back up the screen of my phone.<br />What was the offending phrase? No more than a throw-away comment, actually in parentheses, but it was this very offhandedness that surprised me: ‘There are occasionally revivals that don’t seem to matter very much (stand-up poetry perhaps)…’ With that, Fuller moved swiftly on to outline his idea of focusing on ‘poetry puzzles’, leaving me puzzling over the casualness with which he could dismiss ‘stand-up poetry’ as unimportant.</div>
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Fuller doesn’t offer an explanation, and as Niall O’Sullivan (who runs the Poetry Society’s weekly <a href="http://www.poetrysociety.org.uk/content/cafe/events/" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #333333; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Poetry Unplugged</a>) argues, it’s probably not worth taking his comments too seriously: ‘Fuller has a book to sell and is therefore trying to drum up a response… I’m not even sure what he means by “stand-up poetry”. Live poetry in general? Spoken word? Slam poetry? Comic poetry or poetry by stand-up comedians?’</div>
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Nonetheless, this dismissal of ‘stand-up poetry’ got me thinking. What is stand-up poetry? Is it different to written (or sitting-down) poetry? Why does it ‘matter’?</div>
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While Fuller doesn’t explain his comment, it seems stand-up poetry simply doesn’t fit in with his own ideas about the proper route to poetic enjoyment. Based on the belief that poetry ‘requires thinking’, he paints a picture of a reader off on an academic adventure, teasing out each allusion and ‘puzzle’ through hours of arduous but ultimately rewarding research.<br />Again, I’m all for this kind of pleasure. I love sitting in libraries surrounded by books, the thrill of coming up with a new interpretation or theory. But I’m not convinced this is the best way to broaden poetry’s appeal, or indeed the only way to enjoy a poem.</div>
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Performance poet <a href="http://raymondantrobus.blogspot.com/" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #333333; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Raymond Antrobus</a> is keen to dispel the myth that poetry belongs only in the classroom, or that only Oxford dons have the right to pronounce on what it is or what it should be. He is appalled to find himself approached after shows by university students who say they had no idea poetry could ‘live in the voice of today’.</div>
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‘There is a definite demand for more interaction with quality and accessible poetry,’ Antrobus says, ‘and accessible shouldn’t mean simplistic… but it helps if it’s simple and therefore relatable.’ He recalls sitting in a pub with friend <a href="http://www.applesandsnakes.org/page/84/Simon+Mole/187" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #333333; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Simon Mole</a> after the latter had completed his sell-out spoken word show last year. ‘It was just brilliant… afterwards all these locals, students, regular folk with day jobs were all singing and laughing and talking about the show. Simon tapped me on the shoulder, pointed at them and said “now these are the people I’m trying to reach with my work.” That was a truly inspiring moment for me.’</div>
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O’Sullivan takes a similar view: ‘Live poetry is often the first point of contact with the general public. From hip-hop inspired spoken word events to boozy, bawdy Soho literary salons, live poetry meets its audience at the genuine cultural meeting points – pubs, cafes, theatres, galleries, festivals, music venues…’</div>
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As well as being an access point for wider audiences, he says, stand-up is also a much more accessible route for budding poets. ‘Poets that come from cultures that seem invisible to the poetical establishment will often converge at spoken word or live poetry gatherings. Booking a venue and putting on a show is a much more immediate outlet than starting your own publisher and seeking mainstream distribution.’</div>
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Russell Thompson, London coordinator for <a href="http://www.applesandsnakes.org/" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #333333; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Apples and Snakes</a>, agrees that performance can make poetry seem more accessible and relevant: ‘It touches a lot of people, makes them consider things differently – by which I mean it can promote quirky, askance views – not necessarily revolutionising an entire worldview.’ And, he adds, there’s certainly no requirement that all stand-up poems be about iPhones and trainers.</div>
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Indeed, in my experience the main feature of ‘stand-up poetry’ is diversity – of subject matter, form and presentation. The website for <a href="http://www.bangsaidthegun.com/" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #333333; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Bang Said the Gun</a>, one of London’s regular spoken word nights, advertises itself as ‘stand-up poetry for those who don’t like poetry, especially the stuff about thwarted love and daffodils’. This is a snappy way of attracting people who are turned off by poetry’s reputation as a highbrow, airy-fairy, pretentious kind of art form. But in fact, there is room for ‘thwarted love and daffodils’ – as well as for political tirades, rambling narratives, comedy sketches, lyrical refrains, poetry films… There is overlap with drama, stand-up comedy, story-telling, cinema, hip hop and other music genres.</div>
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And surely this eclecticism is positive. If poetry is to compete with fiction, or any other art form, it needs to be available in just as many different varieties and packagings. After all, what everyone – including Fuller – seems to agree on is that poetry is essentially entertainment, and can only really ‘matter’ insofar as it achieves this. Pleasure is a matter of personal preference. So where you get your kicks is purely individual choice, whether it’s from the nether regions of an annotated edition of the collected works of T. S. Eliot, or from a YouTube film of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkrRiOKeayc" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #333333; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Luke Wright</a> rhyming about growing up in Colchester (‘where very little culture-stirs’).</div>
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And this page/stage dichotomy is largely tongue-in-cheek. In fact, it’s difficult to make such a neat distinction. To do so, Antrobus says, is ‘unhealthy, unnecessary and egotistical’, generally driven by an attempt to prove one’s own superiority. Thompson suggests that in broad terms, spoken word poetry may include more rhyme and ‘in-your-face rhythm’ while poetry for the page may have more layers of meaning, able to withstand repeated readings but he warns that the distinction is a nebulous one. Meanwhile, O’Sullivan points to the many published poets who started out as performers – including Forward Prize nominees <a href="http://www.timturnbull.co.uk/" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #333333; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Tim Turnbull</a> and <a href="http://www.donutpress.co.uk/index.php?authors&id=9" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #333333; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Tim Wells</a> – and those from a more traditionally academic background who are also incredible entertainers, such as <a href="http://www.saltpublishing.com/writers/profile.php?recordID=209912" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #333333; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Luke Kennard</a>, <a href="http://www.daljitnagra.com/" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #333333; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Daljit Nagra</a> and <a href="http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoet.do?poetId=230" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #333333; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Hugo Williams.</a></div>
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So it’s tempting to ignore Fuller’s casual dismissal of stand-up poetry as meaningless, not really referring to a distinct entity separable from poetry in general. On the other hand, it represents the kind of dictatorially restrictive approach that leaves university students shocked to discover poetry living in ‘the voice of today’.</div>
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This is particularly important because poetry provides an especially powerful, authoritative voice, surrounded by a tradition that sees it as an elevated, almost revered form of communication. In the words of former US poet laureate Rita Dove, ‘poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful’. According to Salman Rushdie, ‘a poet’s work is to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep,’ while William Hazlitt called poetry ‘all that is worth remembering in life.’</div>
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A quick Google search brings up scores of such quotes. Whether or not you agree with them all, it’s clear that exclusion from poetry, as producer or consumer, is hugely disempowering. Or to put it another way, a few hours at a spoken word night such as <a href="http://www.richmix.org.uk/aandc_asjawdance.htm" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #333333; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Jawdance</a> leave no room for doubt about how empowering and powerful participation in poetic expression can be. ‘Stand-up’ equates to opening up this participation. It definitely matters.</div>
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You can also read this at <a href="http://www.middlebrowmagazine.co.uk/home/?p=2343">Middlebrow Magazine</a>, if you like.</div>
<!--EndFragment--></h6>Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18129831062058014718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3414398403771834436.post-66165175835285838812011-05-22T09:36:00.000-07:002012-11-19T13:50:34.692-08:00Ouch, sore eyes!Preamble, preamble, preamble... Essential Background Context for this poem: The Weather. <b><br />
</b><br />
<br />
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<b>Sunny intervals </b></div>
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<br /></div>
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Sunny intervals,</div>
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Said the BBC weather forecast,</div>
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Without giving a clue </div>
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To how long these would last,</div>
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Or what in between.</div>
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<br /></div>
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I suspected the weatherman</div>
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Not of lying, per se, </div>
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But of optimistic euphemism;</div>
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What he didn't want to say </div>
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<br /></div>
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Was, that kind of grey day</div>
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When the sky looks worn out</div>
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And it seems quite cold,</div>
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But it's not (nor hot either),</div>
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<br /></div>
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The rain will probably hold off</div>
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But the sun, truth told,</div>
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Can't really be bothered,</div>
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Though it may just pop out</div>
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In the intervals</div>
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<br /></div>
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(So schedule your loo breaks</div>
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For during the acts)</div>
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Though today, in fact,</div>
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'Sunny intervals' turned out </div>
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<br /></div>
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To be strong wind, intent</div>
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On filling my eyes</div>
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With sharp bits of nature</div>
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While the sky changed colour,</div>
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Unnoticed.</div>
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<br /></div>
22/5/11<br />
<br />Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18129831062058014718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3414398403771834436.post-62192236924898247092011-03-08T12:03:00.000-08:002012-11-19T13:52:12.473-08:00HAHAHAHA (moan moan moan)It's Shrove Tuesday. I've eaten lots of pancakes and frivolously decided to 'give up moaning for Lent'. So, in the spirit of getting it out of my system, here are some hitherto-repressed-from-the-public-eye Moany Depression Poems. (HAHAHAHA they shriek, we've been released.....)<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>The light evening sky</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
The light evening sky</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Said it was time for change.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
It lied.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
The trees were still bare,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
The air</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Was still cold,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I still</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Felt</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Shit.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
The prematurely lit</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Street lamp</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Glared at me</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Across the railway lines,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Like an unfriendly</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
(But honest) eye.</div>
<br />
I wrote that about this time of year, two years ago, at Teddington station.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Burnt out</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Friday night,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Ten to nine</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
And high time</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
To be home.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
No</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Second wind tonight;</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Feel my soul clenched tight</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Against anyone who comes between</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Me</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
And a deep, long sleep.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
19/11/10.</div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Sundays</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
About a quarter past four</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
She got around</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
To removing the mascara</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
From the night before.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Now, she thought,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I must get out,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Get some daylight, and-</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Oh</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
It's already dark.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Sundays, she thought,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Are hard work.</div>
<br />
28/11/10.<br />
<br />
Now that wasn't actually so bad was it? (I am still sitting on the worst offenders...)Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18129831062058014718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3414398403771834436.post-39912138897624102812011-03-06T09:47:00.001-08:002013-04-30T13:04:15.465-07:00Bank Holiday Monday and A Family DebateAlso at <a href="http://www.middlebrowmagazine.co.uk/home/?p=1496#" target="_blank">Middlebrow magazine</a>.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.75em;">
<strong>Bank Holiday Monday</strong></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.75em;">
I have cleared away<br />
The Christmas decorations.<br />
I have made soup<br />
And written letters,<br />
Filed my nails<br />
And some bills,<br />
Deleted old emails.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.75em;">
I have been to the shops<br />
And the post box.<br />
I have hoovered and swept<br />
(With little effect).<br />
I have been jogging and stretched.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.75em;">
I have read a novel, in bed,<br />
Watched almost to the end<br />
Of Brideshead Revisited</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.75em;">
And I still<br />
Miss you.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.75em;">
<strong>A family debate</strong></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.75em;">
For Christmas,<br />
Grampy told us,<br />
He’d like a metal detector.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.75em;">
No one was quite sure why.<br />
Pushing ninety,<br />
He didn’t go far,<br />
Just down<br />
To the shops<br />
For the paper<br />
And a coffee at Costa,<br />
Sometimes to the doctor<br />
Or the M&S in town.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.75em;">
‘Where will you use it?’<br />
Asked Mum.<br />
He seemed stumped.<br />
‘Round the garden’,<br />
I suggested,</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.75em;">
To which he agreed<br />
And Granny chipped in,<br />
They’d once found<br />
(Or someone down the road<br />
Had), an old coin<br />
And (whispering) a finger bone.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.75em;">
Mum was unconvinced.<br />
‘I think,’ she said,<br />
‘I’d rather get you a new TV.<br />
You’ll get a better picture<br />
And more space<br />
With a flat-screen.’</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.75em;">
Grampy wasn’t beaten yet.<br />
‘It won’t detect metal though,<br />
Will it?’<br />
Mum had to admit<br />
It wouldn’t<br />
(But she bought it anyway)</div>
Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18129831062058014718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3414398403771834436.post-7299742590698897832011-02-26T03:50:00.000-08:002011-03-17T14:25:17.262-07:00PANIC! PANIC! and dread.Just back from travelling up and down England visiting family. I wrote this at the start of the week....<br />
<br />
<b>Packing</b><br />
<br />
I hate packing.<br />
It should be,<br />
If not relaxing,<br />
At least quite exciting,<br />
The preliminary activity<br />
To going away.<br />
<br />
But instead<br />
My head<br />
Fills with panic<br />
And dread.<br />
<br />
Which shoes,<br />
I muse,<br />
And what coat?<br />
Have I got<br />
Enough socks?<br />
The right tops?<br />
<br />
Will I be too hot<br />
Or too cold?<br />
Should I take new things<br />
Or old?<br />
How many pairs<br />
Of trousers will I wear?<br />
<br />
And I stare,<br />
Near despair,<br />
At my suitcase,<br />
Knowing that I'll choose<br />
The wrong things<br />
<br />
And that it won't<br />
Really matter, anyway.<br />
<br />
20/2/11.Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18129831062058014718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3414398403771834436.post-85932950757913087922011-02-14T10:03:00.000-08:002012-11-19T14:05:04.940-08:00Happy Valentine's Day!Here's one I wrote last year and have been saving... <b><br />
</b><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Romance</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I picture romance</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
As an invisible</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
(But shimmering) cord</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
That encircles, protects</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
And connects me </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
To some other</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
(Vague) figure,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Arming me</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Against mundane daily anxieties</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
(Mostly monetary, or social, or both),</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Empowering me </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
To smile suddenly</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
And say,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
'What do I care, anyway?'</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
As I secretly tug,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
To check</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
It's still there.</div>
<br />
1/11/2010.Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18129831062058014718noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3414398403771834436.post-31529718315410850722011-02-05T10:37:00.000-08:002012-11-19T14:05:37.141-08:00Melon!Just devoured half a cantaloupe in about 2 minutes flat. <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>92% water</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Don't look for integrity</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
In a melon;</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
They're tricky. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Slice them, dice them,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Scoop them out with a spoon.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Chop them into neat long strips</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
To hang dripping</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
From grinning</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Faces.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Dissolve yourself</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
In brightly coloured chunks;</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
All emptinesses.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
You shouldn't eat the seeds,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Apparently</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
(And, having bitten</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Too ardently,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I can also say,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Don't eat the skin.)</div>
<br />
<br />
5/2/11.<br />
<br />Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18129831062058014718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3414398403771834436.post-84645667891734628282011-01-24T12:11:00.000-08:002012-11-19T14:06:12.775-08:00Pre-birthday breakdown/ silly haiku poemYesterday I became 25! Which was nice. Had a lovely day out in Oxford - fresh food, yummy friends, bit of old air.<br />
<br />
Luckily I'd managed to get my annual birthday meltdown out of the way the day before ...<br />
<br />
<b>Turning 25</b><br />
<br />
Saying goodbye<br />
Felt stranger<br />
Than I'd thought it would.<br />
<br />
Nothing on my ipod<br />
Matched my mood,<br />
And I flicked through<br />
<br />
Tune after tune,<br />
Sitting on the rail replacement<br />
Bus service,<br />
<br />
Not sure where<br />
I was going<br />
Or how to call Phil,<br />
<br />
Since my phone battery<br />
Was dead<br />
And I didn't have change<br />
<br />
For the phone booth<br />
At Liverpool Street.<br />
Late to meet<br />
<br />
Phil's sister for the first time,<br />
Claustrophobic on the central line,<br />
Panicky on the northern,<br />
<br />
And tomorrow<br />
I'll be 25<br />
And I don't know what to do.<br />
<br />
That was FAR TOO GLOOMY and should have been REPRESSED. Quick quick, here is a silly poem featuring a bird and a worm:<br />
<br />
<b>Haiku</b><br />
<br />
'Haiku', mused the bird.<br />
'Bless you',<br />
Replied a passing worm,<br />
Who assumed<br />
That the bird had sinus problems.<br />
<br />
24/1/11Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18129831062058014718noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3414398403771834436.post-78703652977815409172011-01-17T12:46:00.000-08:002012-11-19T14:06:39.010-08:00Those pointy bits are not decorative<b>Ouch</b><br />
<br />
I'm not very good<br />
With plants,<br />
Which they seem to know<br />
In advance.<br />
<br />
As soon as I own them<br />
They start to wilt<br />
And die,<br />
Except for the cacti<br />
<br />
On my sill,<br />
Which, try as I will,<br />
Won't give in.<br />
Resilient, they reach<br />
<br />
For the sky, occasionally<br />
Surprising me,<br />
With a sharp, sudden<br />
Prick.<br />
<br />
17/1/11.Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18129831062058014718noreply@blogger.com0