Friday Fictioneers: Prison

She bought an orchid every year, on the 16th December: it was the day she retired and her colleagues had thought she needed something beautiful to look at. It stood in her window, looking down at the people passing by, some rushing, frowning, to work, others struggling with shopping bags, children snapping at their heels. The orchid noted the seasons too, the failing light and snow on the windowsill, then the soft light that made the petals glow. Since the illness, she couldn’t manage the stairs and every new orchid reminded her of her slow withdrawal, quietly forgotten.

Photo credit: Roger Bultot

Friday Fictioneers

Friday Fictioneers: Arches

The room curves into itself, soaring up and then swooping down, over and over again, repeating itself like a lyric: a restatement made in white. The floor slopes steeply, cold grey slates making footsteps echo into the distance, thin in the silence. The arches open into a large room hung with paintings: it’s peaceful and calm in here, a place where a person can rest and drink in the beauty of the brushstrokes. It used to be a monastery, the passageway daily swept clean with the hems of monk’s robes, coarse and brown and heavy with prayer.

Photo credit: Dale Rogerson

Friday Fictioneers

Shades of Grey

A cold, grey day and the clouds threatening rain and barring the sun. The city was quiet, sobered by the heavy skies weighing on the rooftops, and the people went about their business dully, fogged by the haze that shut them in and wouldn’t let them speak. The birds felt the sense of despair as they sat on the wire, watching the mechanical movements of the humans as they ate, worked, slept and died. Wings fluttered slowly, as if trying them out for the first time, but the birds were reluctant to move, made immobile by the gloomy oppression above.

Photo credit: Roger Bultot

Friday Fictioneers

Barbed Wire

Your barbs pierce my flesh,

I bleed slowly, love draining into emptiness.

Every drop is a memory, every memory another hurt until I feel no more.

I staunch my wounds: they are not for show.

I nurture each one, claiming them as prize in the battle for my heart.

A war fought hard and long, a victory taken with pain and fear

as I tear myself from the steel talons of your love, blood rusting red.

I climbed your fences, hands and feet pierced at every step,

into a life free from the prison of your tenderness.

Photo credit: Madison Woods

Friday Fictioneers

The prompt said ‘historical fiction’  – I was trying to write something about the Battle of Towton (the bloodiest of England’s Wars of the Roses) but this came instead.

NaPoWriMo Day 21: Bardolph

The prompt for today is to write a poem from the point of view of a minor character from a fairy tale or myth. I ignored that part and instead wrote this from Bardolph’s point of view, a minor character in Shakespeare’s Henry V – he is an old friend of Henry’s, but he is a common drunk and a thief. After being caught looting the French towns, against the orders of the King, Henry orders him to be hanged.

We were friends, brothers, fighters.

I trusted you, was ready to give my life for you

but you let me down, you bastard

and took mine instead.

Now I hang here: twisting, turning, choking

as the foul French air rushes from my lungs.

And you standing there, passing judgement

on one who once was your own.

One who laughed, loved, drank, fought with you,

fought for you.

No forgiveness, no mercy, no justice,

the King’s word is law.

Your law, your will to have me dead and buried,

rotting here in this filthy foreign earth.

You have killed me Harry, though never laying a finger on my skin.

 

 

 

NaPoWriMo Day 15: Triad

Seeing as it’s day 15, the prompt was to write about doubles. But all I could see was triples (though ‘double’ is in there, so kind of counts.

Me, myself and I,

single, double, triplicate.

Ourselves alone

together we run free,

unencumbered by the baggage of others.

We are each other, joined thrice at the hip,

whole in our separateness.

The holy trinity of us

mind, body and soul,

both triptych and triad.

The three faces of eve united

in defence of our self.

 

Paper

My name is Cai Lun and I was born over one thousand years ago. My first years were filled with pain and misery: I was castrated, my future manhood removed while I screamed, so I could be trusted at court with the Empress, whom I adored. I worked hard, became important in the Palace – especially when I helped remove the slut that had pretensions to my mistress’s throne. After my queen died I became the confidante and support of another, though my heart was never hers. They tell me I assisted in the greatest invention the world has ever seen.

Cai Lun wiki

Friday Fictioneers

Photo credit: Ken Bonham

NaPoWriMo Day 11: Ocean

The prompt for today is to closely describe and object or place and then end with an abstract line. The ocean is my favourite place to spend time so here is my tribute.

Blue, shading into blue, blue on blue.

The foamy swell, white and soft, drops like tears down the wave,

Needles of light dance on the surface, crystal-bright and glorious.

Salt smell, lemon-sharp, clean in the morning sun,

The sand golden, washed by waves, hiding treasures in millions of grains.

The pitch and toss, the endless roars and whispers,

The tide drawn like a desperate lover to the moon’s pull.

The waves sigh as they break, dissolving into nothing and becoming everything.

Everything comes back to where it started, there are no endings.

NaPoWriMo Day 8: Spring Flowers

The prompt today is flowers so here is my free verse based on some wonderful gardens I visited recently – The Lost Gardens of Heligan, Cornwall.

Bluebells, nodding merrily in the sunshine

Amid daffodils, loud and bright in their yellowness.

Sky like a watercolour, washed clean with rain.

 

Buds appear, soft and sticky on the boughs

And primroses, lifting their faces to the hazy morning light.

Stone walls warm with sun: the first scent of apples.

 

Petals softer than skin welcome the touch of bees.

Blackbirds calling, joyful in their song.

The garden exhales, trembling the newly-green grass.

 

 

NaPoWriMo Day 5: Seeds

The prompt today was to use the names of seeds to inspire you…

Crimson tassels drip

Over fresh green leaves bending

Where love lies bleeding

NaPoWriMo