Skeleton Architecture

I'm clearly having a bit of a Spenserian stanza moment, because here's another one! You have already had The flame so bright  and Clematis dance , but I wanted to try it again for this poem inspired by something the Dalai Lama said: Judge your success on what you had to give up in order to get it. So the thing in my life that I have given up the most for is my children, my family. It's actually staggering how much I've given up when I try to itemise it, although high on the list was watching Columbo, and I guess I can learn to live with that. If you judge success by what you have to give up, then I suppose my children are my greatest success, so far. I'd best keep at it.  Children came I have forsaken acres wide of time. I've given up on sex and sleep and rest. I have quit smoking and I drink less wine. No longer am I someone of interest. I've given up on cosy sofa nests, abandoned spur of moment trips away. No clubbing now, no going dancin...

I had so much fun with the Spenserian Stanzas in my last poem, The Flame So Bright  that I thought I'd have another go. The prompt from Sara at Mum Turned Mom this week was dance , and that, combined with my ongoing attempts to get clematis to grow in my garden (and hide my ugly fences), gave me the idea for this poem. If you're not familiar with the way that clematis and similar plants find where they'll grow, check out this gorgeous video on YouTube  (I'm afraid I don't know whose is the original). This poem has been selected for inclusion in Forward Poetry's anthology 'The Great British Write Off - Whispering Words', coming out this Autumn. You read it first, here. Clematis Dance Above the leaves a slender tendril lifts, head bowed to listen all attentively. Its neck is pale, and waiting on the gift of music. Delicate it turns to see; in rhythm with the spheres it twists slowly, takes up the dance. The neck proceeds to grow. The dance ...

Since I came across Edward Spenser's epic poem,  The Faerie Queene recently (it was published in 1590, which is an indidication of how far behind I am on my reading list), I've been wanting to try writing in Spenserian stanzas myself. This is my attempt.  I think it's OK, obviously not on Spenser's scale (the Faerie Queene has more than 2,000 stanzas!), and I've found I really like its rhythm.     It's focused on recent events because that's all I can think about.  I don't like how gender binary it gets at the end. I don't like to be gender binary. In my opinion people are people and love is love. A friend was complaining about the news constantly repeating the fact that The Pulse is a gay club, as far as she's concerned that's irrelevant. If it was some tragedy like a fire, then I'd agree with her. But gender did matter to the man with the gun. Sexuality did matter. We don't have to agree with him to recognise his twisted mot...

The prompt over at Mum Turned Mom  this week is Up . You might think that this would bring to mind pretty balloons, or that song the kids sing at school - Build Up (hooray for non-religious school songs), but the thing that was jumping about in my mind was that the people who stay up  at the top, do it not by standing on the shoulders of giants (raising each other up to greatness), but by climbing up on the shoulders of the weak and then making sure they stay weak. The Tory party's attacks on the poor and the disabled are one example, another is the constant stream of nastiness against immigrants. Then there's the dividing and conquering by pretending that there are sexuality, gender, class, and race dichotomies and trying to keep people in their fake boxes. Ugh.  So, here's my cheerful little poem about overthrowing the patriarchy. I'm sure it'll fit right in. The rule of the fathers Do you think they know not what they do seeking to tear out world...

It's been ages. Hot and sunny and dry. We've been hanging out washing, eating outside, and having water fights. It's been chuffing marvellous. So I thought it deserved a poem. I've been working on lots of poems lately - this is my fourth today! The other ones probably get more editing before I'll let them see the light of day, and then they're off on a special mission. I seem to have lost my usual way of wanting to stick within particular meter and rhyme structures, but that's OK. Perhaps it's the heat.  I can share this one, and I'm sharing it on The Prompt too (the prompt was 'window,' and this poem has open windows in it): The Hot. The Hot The hot has come with iris flowers, lawns beset with buttercups, bare legs and freckles, ice lollies dripping, and drifts of kids. Behind open windows we cannot sleep. Legs outstretched like the cat who shelters in the cool, leaving nests of moulting fur. Wea...