A Rainbow of Fire

Your Bobba embroidered that tablecloth with a rainbow of fire, showed the world she was more than just a simple country girl.

Years ago you gave it to your sister, thinking her the collector of heirlooms, thinking you – Lady of Zen – could live without a past.

Now, whether you like it or not, the ancestors have come to sit at your table, to bless the golden loaves, the goblets of wine.

Drops

* * *

We took hurried turns on the payphone in the communal hallway, our chit-chat punctuated with drips from the leaky bath upstairs.

I don’t remember who it was that pestered me to get off the damn phone or what it was I muttered under my breath as I hung up and walked away.

But I can still hear the sound behind me, loud as an explosion, and the chair smashed under the weight of all that plaster, all those drops of water, all that time.

* * *

On the Crossbar

* * *

I remember that morning in Long Beach,

sitting on the crossbar of my dad’s bike,

the two of us carried through time by the sun and the wind.

* * *

We Breathe Deep

The mist seeps down the mountain in the early morning.

We breathe deep, as the cold shakes sleep from our bones.

In the freshness of the air, I smell my grandparents’ house, lilies, bread.

Targets and teamwork: how to complete a daily writing challenge

I am THRILLED to be featured on the Write-Track blog, together with my writing buddy, the fabulous Christine Cochrane! Join us for a conversation about taking part in this year’s NaPoWriMo, including the challenges we faced and how we supported each other along the way. Plus: CARTOONS!

What keeps us going as writers? Staring alone at the blank page doesn’t always work; sometimes it’s about targets and teamwork. Christine Cochrane and Divyam Chaya Bernstein are two writers who recently completed the daily writing challenge NaPoWriMo. They tell us how they supported each other along the way.

Read the full article here: Targets and teamwork: how to complete a daily writing challenge

An Invitation

Will you join
the year long
rose and honey
initiation?

* * *

This week, I am exploring the 10 word poem. I called the first one A 10 word poem. I figured I better give this one a title!

A 10 word poem

My lips tingled
when I realised
we had fallen
silent.

Reaching Into Boxes

It takes time
to brush the spaces,
months between my teeth.

Truth is a small-headed brush
cleaning silently
through the night.

When I was a student
I could fit everything I owned
into these little indentations.

What happened?
I am not
a proper girl.

The thing I love most,
more than my clothes,
is my decay.

* * *

I wasn’t planning on writing any poems this week. I was on vacation from poem-writing after the month-long poetry party that was April. Also, I am moving house this week and knee deep in boxes. But poems love such moments!

Late at night, having just cleaned my teeth, I felt drawn to the split page technique I used for Dream Macaroni. (One of my favourite poems from this year’s NaPoWriMo.)  I love the strange atmosphere this technique creates – surreal and yet true.

Take an A4 piece of lined paper and fold it down the middle. Write a topic heading at the top of one side of the paper and then write a contrasting topic heading at the top of the other. For each of your headings, free-write as much as you can around the topic. Now unfold your piece of paper and read across from left to right. Can you make any sense? Now write a poem in which you connect two things which might, at first glance, seem very different or not connected at all.

— Helen Mort, from Poetry and the Brain.

Source: The Poetry School

The two subjects for this poem are – not surprisingly – dental hygiene and moving house.

The Flame

At the outer edge,
smoke.
At the centre,
void.

Even in a bright room
it pulls you
in.

This is a darkness
into which
I want to disappear.

I know this darkness;
I came from it
not so long ago.

That Question in Your Throat

I am thinking about the future
you invented
at the bottom of your coffee cup.

I am thinking about the dreams
given to you
by the mountain slavs.

I am thinking about the language
you created
to speak your secrets.

I am thinking about the dark stone
on the ocean floor
burrowing towards the light.

Don’t die with that question in your throat.

* * *

Today I used the same technique as I did for The Goose Girl. It was taught to me by Barbara Marsh on Writing Poetry: Experiments in Choice and Chance. The technique: choose a poem that you do not know well, preferably one that you have never read before. After each line of the poem, write your own in response. Then lift out your own lines and use them as the basis for a new poem.

The poem I used as my starting point was Why Are Your Poems so Dark? by Linda Pastan.

The Moon Woman

(Source text: The Encyclopaedia of Fantasy by John Clute and John Grant)

The Light Under the Door

They are in light.
I am in darkness.
I see the thin strip
of light
under the door.
It is not enough.
I am new
to this world.
I do not know
there is a tomorrow.
I only know
they have cast me away.
I cry for them to come
but they don’t come.
I rock towards them
in my little boat.
They find me
almost at the door.
They tie my cot
to the radiator.
I rock so hard,
I pull it
from the wall.
I am the will to live.
I am a plant
reaching through dark soil
towards the sun.
I will burst through
the hard shell of myself.
I will even burst
through concrete.
Include me.
Include me.
Include me
in the circle of light.

Dream Macaroni

It seems as though the recipe is simple.
When you enter it you’ll be surprised;
the macaroni is a part of you
trying to communicate with water.

You were not really listening at cookery school;
to make a smooth sauce
you have to keep stirring time.
You have to dream like a pro. 

It’s important to have a crunchy top,
light shining through breadcrumbs,
revealing the things that bubble away
beneath the cold salad of your mind.

Bathe in the atmosphere,
in the incredible cooking
of your own depths —
you can’t go wrong.

* * *

The prompt for today's poem came from The Poetry School:

Take an A4 piece of lined paper and fold it down the middle. Write a topic heading at the top of one side of the paper and then write a contrasting topic heading at the top of the other. For each of your headings, free-write as much as you can around the topic. Now unfold your piece of paper and read across from left to right. Can you make any sense? Now write a poem in which you connect two things which might, at first glance, seem very different or not connected at all.

— Helen Mort, from Poetry and the Brain.

My two topics were dreamwork and macaroni cheese.

The Goose Girl

She is returning home,
face proud with blood,
eyes no longer the same.

The geese are my brothers, she says.
This was once my own goose foot,
too tender to walk on sharp stone.

After digging in the soil,
it is light as it rests in her palm.
She will carry it with her, always.

The moon, dark with sorrow,
has the answers to all her questions.
There are too many now to tell.

* * *

Today's poem uses another technique that I learned from Barbara Marsh in Writing Poetry: Experiments in Choice and Chance. The technique: choose a poem that you do not know well, preferable one that you have never read before. After each line of the poem, write your own line in response. Then lift out your own lines and use them as the basis for a new poem.

For my starting point, I chose Loneliness by Meg Kearney. I tried not to read the poem before working with it. (Although I enjoyed it tremendously afterwards!) The resulting piece evokes the world of Grimm fairytales. Working from someone else's poem rather than my own ideas allowed the poem to retain an atmosphere of mystery, even to myself.

Funeral Food

I like to go round to someone’s house
when there’s a funeral going on
and feed myself and my family
with tablespoons of honey
and peeled cooked chestnuts.

It is both comforting and sustaining
to taste the golden centred discs
infused with cinnamon sticks,
molasses, star anise, and bay.

There’s something hopeful and cheering
about the golden yolk
of the egg of mourning
and the solemnity
made sweet with prunes.

Here is the cycle of life —
the end and the beginning in one.

* * *

This poem is a variation on the found poem, taught to me by poet, songwriter and teacher, Barbara Marsh. The words and phrases come from a Nigella Lawson recipe. They have been selected and rearranged to form the poem with minimal changes made by me. This was a great piece of writing to work with, because the text was so rich with sensory images.