Find
Your bliss;
Channel your
Inner godliness;
25% off inspiration;
Sale ends this Sunday.

I rest my head on her shoulder,
The shoulder of the earth;
Cradled in her warmth,
Caught by shifting currents,
Cleansed by ****-frost’s pervasive bite;
Tutored by seasons’ changes.

Musing to myself that she has faith in me,
That I have something to offer her;
Negotiating with my intellect,
Letting my imagination run wild,
Enough to entertain the idea that
I am capable of something more than this.

'Actually, my friend in Taranaki makes the stars. I combine them with my own elements and string them into garlands,' wrote Makery. There was an element of apology about her words. As if she’d been rumbled. As if someone had confirmed the voice of self-doubt that whispered in her ear, 'Who do you think you are, calling yourself an artisan?'

Stringing things together is applied artistry - whether it be words, Scandi-style stars, or fairytale mushrooms threaded on candy coloured twine. We are all hunter-gatherers who construct our creations from discovered elements. Some transmute received knowledge into constructed knowledge. Others beachcomb lexica for found syncretic treasures. All aspire to contribute to the infinite compendium of human self-expression, to create something which says, 'This is who I am.' With the silent addendum, 'I hope you like it.'

I want to fall into myself - to leave should’s, must’s,
and need to be’s scattered inconsequentially in my wake.

I want to dive deeply - to loosen my shoulders,
relax my arms, and slacken my griping fingers.

I want to uncoil my imagination - to revel in a crystal night sky,
a cool breeze, and a pink moon rising.

I want to meet the nomad - solitary, suspended in a sky-borne
playa, and blazing a trail to infinity.

If you place me on a pedestal,
I can’t help but disappoint you;
For no one is infallible,
No one survives unbroken,
No one remains unchanged.

When it all turns to custard,
Who do you blame?
Me for letting you down,
Or yourself for doing the same,
By expecting too much of me.

Spin,
Mister
Fisherman,
Throw me a line;
A fluttering lure of burnished vowel chimes

Bait, braid and bailor - snap, swivel and fly;
Dub well your quill,
Hook me low,
Run me
High

Love travels sideways,
Down dark alleys,
Along winding country lanes;

Arrives late,
Hesitates too long,
Leaves early;

A journey to take,
A destination unmapped,
An invitation to linger when we least expect it.

Louis: ‘There’s something about shooting that makes a man feel fully alive.’
Anne: ‘Unlike the birds I suppose.’
Louis: ‘They’re born to be shot, my dear. Like rabbits...and poets.’

At this time of year,
it seems that everyone
is looking for a piece of blue sky
with a little bit of green;

Among the frazzle and the dazzle,
the trash and the tinsel,
a piece of themselves
that they misplaced;

Down the back of the sofa,
back in the day
when blue sky grew on trees
and green summers were forever.

‘How quaint,’ remarked Mistress Hora as she turned the afternoon on its head, ‘that you would consider time to be a linear construct.’

‘Positively post-historic,’ agreed Master O’Clock, nodding his head in perfect synchrony with the orchestra that played inside his ear. Today was Waltzday (or so he had named it), an interminable reminder that atomic metronomes particularly those of Viennese manufacture were not to be trifled with.

‘Be assured, my dears, that this fancy is a passing one and exists only as a fleeting extemporaneous distraction,’ our Mistress continued. The first year students breathed a collective sigh of relief. ‘Now, I want no clumping, no running ahead, and NO helical improvisation. When yesterday’s fish and chips come wrapped in tomorrow’s newspaper it gives our school a most unfortunate reputation.’ The class chortled as one. ‘Most importantly, please remember to take your pocket guide.’

I reached for my bedraggled copy of The Theory of Chronometrical Fluidity: Compressed Edition and wrung the pages out. I had failed badly at applied clepsydrics and my cousin Widget wasn’t letting me forget it. From behind the glass, I spotted her playing a furtive game of Gregorian and by the look on her face February was winning. I blew her a lemniscate to grab her attention. She scowled, looked up from her losing streak and giggled when she saw me spiralling in her direction. ‘Good luck,’ she spiralled back.

Miss Hora flexed her wrist and glanced at her temporal transponder. ‘You will be marked on cuneiformity, consistency, and rate of continuance. Now be off with you. Tempus fugit!’ With a flick of her bejangled fingers she opened the S.A.N.D. grates. I held my breath and jumped.

'Now, make sure you've sterilised those instruments well. I want no complications with this one,' I say to my rookie assistant.

I carefully lay out the gleaming stainless-steel blades and check that all is in order. We're waiting on a last minute ***** donation to complete the procedure and although the timing is unorthodox, I'm confident of success. The pleural resection should be reasonably straightforward. If anything, it's the closure that bothers me...and the possibility of problems further down the line.

From outside comes the sound of a vehicle screeching to a halt. Then the kitchen door bursts open. 'Mommy, Mommy, we got it! The last one.' My six-year old holds the bag of chicken giblets up triumphantly. I smile at my father as he appears with the rest of the Thanksgiving groceries and passes them to my son. 'Right, so who's going to help me stuff this bird?'

Susie Saviour is a Bond girl
From Weymouth-Turf-On-Sea
A swish, a sway; a fist, a fray
And home in time for tea.

She scuba dives for pleasure
Downdashious to her core,
But only when the flags are out
And never far from shore.

A beauty queen, a lisome lass,
A femme fatale, a flirt;
Serves martinis with a swizzle stick
This sweet assassin in a skirt.

Handcuffed politely to the bedpost of his inspiration,
he is optimistic that this time the limits
of self-imposed constraint will be breached, if not brutalised entirely.
~
‘Don Quixote’ - a whimper of metaphor;
‘DoN QuiXoTE’ - a rush of chiming vowels;
’DON QUIXOTE’ - a panic of ecstatic prosody.
~
Ignoring his aching wrists
and with imagination unfettered,
he reaches for paper and pen, and begins.

White nights, grey days,
Phosphorus and gin;
Graffiti-laden pavements,
Diamond rain and paraffin.

Chalk dust reveries,
Aerosols and spit;
Zero-hour freeways,
Magnetic parapets.

City high, city low,
Monoliths in drag;
Silent spaces, dwelling places,
A hoody and a bag.

Freestyle evangelists,
Salvation strikes a pose;
Train tracks, kitchen hacks,
The rapture and the snow.

Did you decide who I was before or after you spoke to me?

Did you decide to speak to me - or not - because of how I was dressed, what I looked like, my job, my education, my choice of beverage, my height, my accent, or my scintillating conversation with your plus one about the benefits of suburban parking spaces?

And who are you? Do you know? Are you sure? Did you dress yourself or did your date choose that sweater for you? Did you grow that ironic beard for her? Are you happy in your work, or just pretend to be to keep the peace? Did you miss taking up that scholarship because your family moved out of state?
Did someone ask you to hold their glass while they whipped to the loo? Do you slouch to compensate for those years of dance lessons which make you look too...straight? Are you trying to hide that southern twang? Do you talk ******* when conversing with strangers and tend to come across as a complete *****?

I thought so, go figure!

For each judges according to their truth;
And, accordingly, every truth affords a judgement.

My misgivings hide among the shadows,
In the tangle of long grass along the hedgerow
Between your wide open fields and my cultivated lawn.

Unspoken truths crowd out the spring bulbs,
Now snarled with weeds and thorned with blackberry,
The cobbled pathway which once linked my hope with your promise.

Will you meet me at the gate by the old sycamore tree?
If yes, then bring your dreams, untethered, and the dappled autumn sunshine,
I will bring my careful notions and the soft spring rain.

Prim roses and wild lilac; a velvet ash and sweet chestnuts,
Your gypsy summer, my redbud winter,
Our season, one garden.