Story

Lllllllove is again

A warm hand

Like sand

A high wire

a loose thread

the bedstead

All the tears shed

Whatever you wed

The wedge in your head

Time you spend

Pretend

friend

The end

Time in us

Like clocks, we tick,

Taking time,

Our time,

Plus some stolen moments when

We stand out of time,

Somewhere else

other than the contiuum.

A Charm. A Keepsake.

In my purse I keep a charm. Now I come to look at it closely, I realise I'm not entirely sure what it's made

from, except that it's metal of some sort, painted in some way. I possibly was told who it represented when

I was given it by a friend of my partner's, but, to my shame, I've forgotten.

It was long ago, one of those situations when you're a newcomer to a group of people and someone

welcomes you in a special way. His name was Sean and I remember his long hair and his beard and

his quiet voice and gentle presence. It was the mid eighties. He was an unusual presence amidst the

post punk new romantic hedonistic, narcissistic madness of the maelstrom of creative verve we

were all in the middle of for a while. Someone whispered that he'd been to India and never come back.

The first time we met, he showed me some exquisite drawings he'd done of trees and pine cones and other

natural forms all cohabiting on the same plane and scale, giving the seeds and other small things as much

space and visual attention as the very large and developed forms. I was somewhat stunned and charmed

and struggled to make any meaningful comment that didn't sound as though I was judging them rather

than appreciating them. The mind stammers in such moments sometimes.

Some time later, he gave my partner a tie pin in the shape of a grand piano, a lovely, amusing, appropriate

gift, and me, this charm. For no particular occasion, it felt as though he was honouring the

relationship between my partner and I, though they would both possibly snort laugh at this and tell me to

stop reading into things so much. ( My partner once gave me Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

to read, with the accompanying advice; don't read too much into it.)

Well I've kept it with me in my purse as a talisman ever since and I only really ever think about it if I

change purses for some reason, though I've never, until now, thought about who it is.

He reminds me of a character in a Japanese painting such as this

so a little internet research brings me to the 7 Lucky Gods in Japanese mythology and through a process of

visual elimination, I decide he might be Bishamonten, the warrior god, protector of the rhighteous.

I am not dismayed by the fact that he is the only one of the 7 lucky gods to be associated with war

and violence, or that he is often depicted holding a spear in one hand, because he is said to be a

protector of Buddhist temples, worshippers and their offerings and in his other hand he holds a pagoda

containing the gifts of the faithful. Said to have protected the Buddha as he spread his teachings, the

pagoda symbolises the divine treasure house whose contents he both guards and gives away.

Also known as Tamonten, meaning ' listening to many teachings ', he is guardian of the Northern

direction, living half way down Mount Sumeru.

I might be wrong in actuality giving this personality to my lucky charm, but for my own purposes and

situation, it works and I'm very glad to carry him with me. Thank you Sean. ⻚🍀

Whom

I look for myself in my lists,

Long, forgotten piles of thoughts

And good ideas,

Links, between things,

and I.

I is the gap between thinking.

I is the hand that gathered

the broken pieces of the pot,

and poured them into

a space within my mind.

I is on a map somewhere,

One of those drawn up differently,

Connecting places with thoughts,

A cerebral landscape

With colours so bright

The synaptic leaps are astounding.

I is not to be found

in this mirror,

or that.

Even the one that shows me

waving,

Though I didn't mean to be.

That image is so flat

it fades into some other interior

part of its pattern,

Like mottled wallpaper.

Bright window. Haiku

Bright window of time

All our seasons passing by

Our eyes on the sky

Someone else's clothes

He shrugged it on,

It being the hug of a coat

found in the middle of a rail

amongst other men's shirts.

Heavy, the collar gently chafed

the back of his neck

cleaving to its materials.

The weight of another man's coat

Hanging from his shoulders.

Lexicon

Life

Live

Love

Lean

Learn

Listen

Lemon

Light

Leftover

Leopard

Leap

List

Lax

Lead

Lip

Limp

Lope

Liver

Lover

Lump

Lamp

Lone

Loan

Lamb

Limb

Lily

Late

Letter

Latter

Litter

Leave

Lest

Lent

Lisp

Lapidary

Lapis Lazuli

Latin

Lazy

Limp

Loin

Level

List

Laconic

Lurk

Lend

Lascivious

Lament

Last

Lost

Laughter

Lovely

Lawn

Lorn

Love

Line

Linger

My cousin Jack

My cousin Jack,

Wild child,

Looked like Twiggy in her teens,

Gave her coat to a stranger once

Because they said they liked it.

And so when she went missing,

My mother kept repeating,

She hasn't got a coat,

she hasn't even got a coat.

She left without a coat upon her back.

Jack, why did you do that,

Please come back.

Together in the dark cinema,

They eye the neon EXIT signs.

Holding hands throughout the film,

Squeezing hard at scary parts,

They share each other's fears.

Everyone wants to die sometimes, she said, buttering her toast.

Not me, I said, because sometimes, you have to lie.

Why ???? !

Because life's shit then you die, came her sharp reply,

Then turned her gaze directly upon me,

So I began to cry.

All originally written for #satsplat

Why I write

I write because I read

I write to remember

To find myself

To retain my sense of self

To uncover the world

To allow new thoughts in

To expand my thinking

To understand myself

To extend my feeling

To learn how to be

To understand how I affect the world

and other beings

watched you pave the yard with bricks you found half buried in the soil. I watched you toil and pick them out And clear and clean until, You'd made a garden. Then, when the grass had grown, I spread a cloth upon the lawn, And we had tea, You, my bears and me.

Poem

I needed some words,

Something to soothe my poor head,

To stop the spinning

roundelay that played each day.

I found poetry.