Skeleton Architecture

Once a month I get to go to an amazing poetry group at the Glasgow Women's Library (which is also an amazing place). This is one of those things that you do and it feels like the universe has gift wrapped it just for you. I get to work with brilliant women and it is totally inspiring. This month we were looking at a gorgeous poem by Dana Gioia, Nothing is Lost, which someone else has shared here . In it Dana imagines a coin once held by you as a child coming back to you as an adult, and the different ways that you'd understand it at the different times. There is a call there to pause and reflect on the little things and there is also a nod to the things that end up in pockets. As a parent, pockets and bags can be filled with weird things, things that not only you chose for their shape or look or oddness, but other people's little hand-holdy things. The other day I had a blue dinosaur in my pocket. It probably wasn't the one I had in my pocket in my childhood, pull...

This morning I hid real live human beings in drab, contained their hair, but whispered that I knew they were still in there, and I sent them to their undercover work as schoolchildren. This morning I wrestled electric cats into a fairy faraday cage, and took them to the torturer, who weighed their hearts and found them wanting. I rubbed magic potions onto the electric cats gums, and we widened our eyes to each other. This morning I cornered the laundry monster and labelled its parts. It still lives, but the first of its limbs has been wrestled into submission. This morning I bargained with the weather gods and won, for a while, and took the tribbles out to work their way across the grass. And then I stopped for coffee and while I drank the coffee I wrote a tanka on a scrap of paper I've now glued in a notebook and shared it with you. What have you done this morning?

The photo prompt for the Fat Mum Slim Photo a Day challenge the other day was 'favourite'. Favourite is a contentious issue in my house. Miss 7 is desperate for me to admit that she's my favourite and Miss 10 is annoyed that I always describe her as my favourite 10 (or 9, 8 etc) year old.  I know some parents have favourites, and truth be told there are moments when I find a child particularly lovely, or particularly not, but surely a favourite has to be more sustained than that? If so, then I could not possibly say, not even if you hypnotised me! Just a quick note to my favourite sister before you get to the picture... I know you hate fish, and I'm sorry.

Today, for Prose for Thought (which I've just realised, I never share prose on - sorry!), I'm sharing my poem about Chocolate. There's a bit of a chocolate theme to the blog lately isn't there? The last post was all about chocolate too . I'm blaming the Easter eggs which are still sitting on top of the kitchen cupboards. I'd say we're all bored of chocolate, but it's really just the kids. I'm desperate to make it into cakes and sauces, cookies and truffles, but I'm not allowed. 😢 Anyhow, I wrote this poem for the Scottish Book Trust last year, and you'll find it on their website here , but I'm now able to share it right here, so here it is - a bit of chocolatey goodness for all you lovelies. Chocolate All my life I've loved chocolate. The love is in my genes, and some would say (the cheeky ones) it's also in my jeans.  I passed my love of chocolate to my babes in the womb. They drank it in their breastmilk and dan...

Do you do any of those photo challenges on Instagram? I used to do it more than I do now, but I still take part in the So Good in Every Way  fortnightly themes (sometimes), and the Snap Happy Britmums daily prompts (again, sometimes). Todays prompt was words, and I was sitting in my kids' school this morning, waiting to help out with walking a bunch of kids to another school, and thinking about how the rhyme, 'sticks and stones' has changed as schools have become more cognicent of the long term damaging effects of verbal bullying. When I was a kid we taunted bullies that words would never hurt me. My own eating disorder, other self harming, and so much other stuff can testify to the nonsense of that. Now my kids are taught the rhyme 'Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can really hurt me.' and it's true. Physical violence is rubbish, but we should never underestimate the long term harm of verbal violence. Hence my poem today. It's almost a ...

I've been thinking about family and our emotional bonds a bit lately. Motherhood is often dressed up in pink bows and seems to be seen as something to be argued over, and taken for granted, but that love that you get when you become a mother is huge and possibly violent and all encompassing. Personally, I've only become a mother through having babies, but there are other ways and I'm sure that magically weird strong relationships develop in those too. Anyway, before I start trying to ensure everyone is included I'll stop, because this is about me and how I feel about my kids. Perhaps there will be things in here you'll recognise. The picture above is of me with my last baby, the one who was born in bloood and flashing lights and drama, as referred to in my last poem, Return . I read this poem out today at my writers group, and thought I'd read it for you too. Click below for the recording. Love There’s a fierceness to it. This gentle, pa...

I've been away for such a long time! My last post was about a month ago, and was written when I thought that Katsuma was going to die. I was so incredibly worried about him, and I'm happy to report that he has pulled through that crisis, although he is still a very sick cat. He is now on lots of medication for his heart disease, and he is no longer capable of living the life he previously lived. But I think he's still content. He gets ever so much love, and I know he wishes he could still go out and kill things, but lying in any possible patch of sun comes a close second. He's never going to be fully better, and at some point another crisis will come, and that is when we will stop, because he's done amazingly well, he's walking again and everything, but I wouldn't want to see him go through such a terrible time again. Anyway, what have I been doing to keep myself away for so long? Lots of poems. I have been writing away, with so many ideas that I'm ...

I've been in a people-watching kind of place lately. Maybe it's the cold turn in the weather, but I've been keeping more to myself, and instead, paying attention to the way people are talking to each other and to the stories people tell. Yesterday I went to my friend Rose's funeral. I had written this poem in the light of her death, although of course, at her funeral it was her poems that were shared, and I was so glad about that, because I'd feared I'd never hear them again, and worse, that I'd already heard them for the last time and didn't know when that was. I heard so many stories of the inspiration and encouragement that Rose gave to people. I can only hope to emulate that. I will try. I am very glad that her light was not dimmed at the end, but went out swiftly, so we all got to remember her as the vibrant, exciting woman she was. On Monday I went to my Writing Group's AGM which was busy, with a packed agenda, and I was fascinated to se...

I've been working on a couple of structures of poems lately. The sonnet (as in my poem ' Confusion '), and another structure inspired by Muse's song Butterflies and Hurricanes (I would so love to sing that song in a choir). I mentioned in yesterday's post  that I was using this structure to write a magickal poem which I haven't really finished faffing with, so I'm not sharing that. However, this morning I woke up with a different song in my head - Munich by the Editors: and I've taken that as a jumping off point for another poem using the same (kind of) structure. My kids helped me work it out this morning, so let me know what you think.  I'm joining up with the Prose for Thought linky with this post (click on the picture below to find out more), and also The Prompt (see picture also). The Prompt for this week is 'respect'.  For the last few months I've been troubled by a really chuffing painful shoulder. I thought it migh...

New And you are new! In pink, in blue, and sleep and dreams I do eschew; our days in play at keekaboo, and cows say moo and cats go mew, and my task to  clean up the poo; the unknown goo, and find the shoe,  and gaze at you. You change my view. Completely you, but who ?  And where's your shoe? ©   Cara L McKee, 4th January 2016

We decided long ago in 2006 that we were going to shake up the way our family worked. My husband, Kenny, would go for a job with a bigger salary, with the flexibility which has to go with that, and we would move our family as required. I would look after our children, and make sure that things at home worked, even as Kenny needed to work away for his job. It's worked out well for us. Kenny's doing well in his career, and our children are happy and secure, despite having moved a few times, but nothing is all good. Everyone has something they don't like about their work, and being a full time Mum, while being very rewarding, and completely worthwhile, can also be dull, repetitive, and frustrating. For me, I need to have another focus as well. When we first moved for Kenny's work my other focus was on the charitable organisation I was running (in Suffolk). b.a.b.i.e.s (Babies and Birthing in East Suffolk) was fun and so very useful, and gave me plenty of adult foc...