aros 31 - final one for January

Forty or more (I started in December)

dilutions of daily observations,

of attempted tight writ lines.

A modicum of success expressed

in an invitation from the Poetry Circle,

and a re-tuning of self.

Thank you for the opportunity.

aros 30 - Effie

Seventy percent grey

(ninety when wet)

it was the heartbreaking quality

of the near white markings

which spoke to me.

aros 29 - Garrick's Lawn

A Thames-side row of gulls
like infants unsure of the purpose
or acceptable behaviour
of a first time theatre trip.
Front seats, no role model,
so each checks out the other,
snacking the while.

aros 28 - daily walk for morning paper

Light in the sky this morning
although while glorying in the pink and gold promise
above the still-indigo Cleveland hills,
I mourned the loss of darkness' secrecy.

Image of childhood

It was big - maybe three and a half feet by two and a half, and would have  dominated the small room had it been the first thing one saw on entering it, but the engraving of Luke Fildes 'Village Wedding' was hung on the same wall as the door into the room, so one needed to enter before seeing the picture in its full glory.   It was above a prickly green settee whose pampas grass embroidered antimacassar gave a small measure of smooth relief.  
Full of interest too - the shy bride and top hatted groom and crowds of villagers, including a cocky soldier and clinging girl, following them, waving them on their way along a rutted street past thatched cottages.   I hadn't seen the image  for some forty years - had forgotten its existence - until I spotted it on a wedding day greetings card in a shop in York.   Bought immediately, and I learnt for the first time that it derived from a painting by Luke Fildes, one of four major Victorian social realist artists.
Seeing the picture instantly recalled the rest of the room:  my parents had married straight after the war when both jobs and houses were scarce and although they tried to buy a house it was too ambitious once my brother and I arrived - accidents both - so they finished up sharing a house with his parents - not likely to have been a happy experience for anyone.   They slept at night in this same sitting room, and during the day it was our living room - overcrowded and dominated not only by this picture but all the other paraphernalia necessary for coping with small children.   I well remember being washed one morning, a bowl of water brought in from the kitchen, the big brown Bakelite radio, round-edged and yellow dial - suddenly blaring out Puccini's 'One Fine Day' and me covering my ears with fright at the screeching sound.   That was something that had another lasting effect - regrettably, the experience put me off opera for years!

[This also appears on Thinking Ten]

aros 27 - all relative

The heat kicks in as I reach the gym car park;
encouraging me to stay in the car,
to turn round and go home.
Conscience
(and the amount of me overhanging my jeans)
stops me.
Afterwards, on the way home
I have to turn the heat down.

aros 26

Sky from drab to drama,

rain arriving from the blue black north

with just a touch of burnt sienna.

South west sun still shining,

Bran-flaking last year’s still-crisp leaves

While seagulls appear and disappear,

testing peripheral vision,

before back again to drab.

aros 25 - friendly support

I'm a stay at home sort of person but on Sunday the friendliness of several strangers, with whom I shared an interest in place, made me feel I should get out more. 
Today an email from a friend who I had assumed had decided to relegate me to the back burner of what must be her pretty impressive group of like-minded friends.   Instead she confessed that she has become shamefacedly stay-at-home, and looks to me, as 'one of the movers and shakers', to perhaps rescue her.   We all have things to offer, we just need to believe it.

aros 24 - In no man’s land

Solitary dog walker

espied from the motorway:

escaped from domesticity

or seeking a peace

from the exclamation

of his silhouette?

[and having written a poem about dog walkers
why does Google feel obliged to spoil the mood
by offering solutions for pet odour
and urine stain removal?]

aros 23 - Warley

Winter bare cemetery

bones of ancestors beneath my feet.

I imagine holding their skulls,

wonder what I might learn,

wonder how deep the graves

to hold so many coffins,

wonder how hard the rock,

on the edge of a Calderdale hill,

wide wide views beyond.

aros 22 - it's a grey day

overnight cloud
       means no clear sky
          means no frost
            means no moon
               means no magic on my walk to buy a morning paper

aros 21 - disappointment

Although one might complain about the waste of money, waste of time, it is the wasteful expenditure of dreams that hurts most.

I Dare You - Spam

She’s been my friend since whenever, probably primary school, but we’ve never had a conversation like this before.   And it wasn’t a conversation I ever expected to be having with anyone, ever.   I’d married as soon as I left school – couldn’t wait, thought I was grown up, wouldn’t listen to anyone, parents especially.   And we’d been happily married for five years and everything had been fine.   OK the sex had waned a bit, lost the hot and sweaty and impromptu but that was only to be expected.   It all disappeared completely though when we had Gavin.   Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say when I had Gavin and he watched.   Had he stayed at my side, encouraging and holding my hand and giving me sips of water when I needed it, it’d’ve been OK but he insisted on having a look at what was going on at the bloody (and I DO mean ‘bloody’!) business end, and being a more sensitive soul than most (he says) it put him off, ‘for life’ he said.    
So her offer of a night in a hotel, wine and dinner first, and her baby sitting, was intended, fingers crossed, to address the problem and get him back on track again, ‘For your mating comeback’ she said.

'I Dare You challenge - Spam' - received an Honourable mention on Jo Prescott's site

aros 20 - 'Writers' Retreat'

Seven days, three experts, three hours writing per day,
drink included and early nights recommended
- all for two and a half grand.
Can't be aimed at  proper writers can it?

'Occasional sunshine' at the Pygmy Giant

A new story of mine appears this week at this exclusively UK site
'Occasional sunshine' - The Pygmy Giant

aros 19 - at the gym

‘Mrs Paint Head’ was on the treadmill talking to her shorter plumper friend when I arrived.    
An hour later she was still there, and still talking.
On such slender evidence I decide that I dislike her.

aros 18

Basket of stones

collected to remind me.

Dusty

heavy

as the occasions I have forgot.

aros 17 – approaching Ferrybridge

Tight framed by bridge and windscreen

     between ochre corrugations,
         jaundiced grass
    beyond acid reflux,
         salt bleached road

   pale towers' cooling curves,
        steam drifted shadow

The whole windswept of detail:  
    computer simulation graphic.

aros 16

Yet another child
chides me for my poor hostessing.
The blinkered selfishness of solitude
works both ways.

aros 15

Astra Used Books:
blue corrugated metal,
high-ceilinged and rattling,
Confirms other-worldly alien of its name.

aros 14 - to Shrewsbury

Packing for four days away:
one spare pair of knickers
choice of two novels to read
three notebooks, three pencils
in three different places.
Just in case.

aros 13

Helicopter hovering stationary above the Tees.

seagull screams from the roof, a blue-lit siren,

as rare sunshine adds promise to the day.

All three elements combined remind me

of a long ago suicide.

aros 12 - Connie

Will her childhood
be forever reconstituted
by the cawing of the rooks
in Dallinghoo?

aros 11

A social anthropologist

Would have a field day

Examining the contents of the blue recycling boxes

Up our street.

aros 10

Hair salon shampoo smells of pine

And now, on me, like a public lavatory.

aros 9 - online to late night Alabama

Recommending an impressive novel to a friend

(Andrew Greig, ‘Electric Brae’)

I describe for her the sunrise from my window

They both needing to be told.

Write 1 Sub 1 Week 1

Since this first week HAS had some success it is worth boasting about!

'Curve of early learning' was submitted to MuDJoB on 1st January, Michael Brown acknowledged receipt on the 2nd and published it on the 5th - http://mudjob.blogspot.com/2011/01/guest-writer-sandra-davies.html - it is a story I actually began specifically for the site in August but has taken a long while to get the voice right.   I am now in the process of researching and writing two more follow up pieces for submission later in the year.

I have also begun one story for later submission to Pygmy Giant ('Edith, only wife', a follow up to 'Edith, only daughter') and written seven Small Stones, six prompted pieces for Thinking Ten, and three pieces for Six Sentences.

Also 3000 words for the follow up to my NaNoWriMo novel 'Holding Steady' which is STILL undergoing editing.

Submission is the hard bit for me - I have done some research, but it is hard, hard, hard, and I really need to push myself more.

aros 8 - 'and I awoke'

Mildly disturbed and pondering the implications of a dream in which I forgot the existence of my new born baby in order to entertain a visiting virtual writer friend, carrying it around unnoticed in a zipped up blue sports bag.

aros 7 - my grandmother's tablecloth

They say old lace is whitened

When washed and hung overnight

Outside in heavy frost.

Last night would have been perfect.

aros 6 - Damn

My coughing spouse up and dressed at six

Irritating the peace of my early morning hours

My temper now scratchy

aros 5

If I died tomorrow
I'd regret not yet having read
The twenty-seven brand new books
Piled within reach.

aros 4

Today's fresh snow is powdered glass
And to the image of me falling
Is me rising,
Bloody, lacerated knees.

aros 3 - Denby mugs, a Christmas present

Gentle wrapped in unbleached tissue,
Crumpled, softly creased
Three blue green greys and a warm earth red
Now glowing on the kitchen shelf.

Magic moment

Everybody knows that in real life you don’t get musical notes appearing in the air when you sing, everybody knows that hearts don’t quiver in the air between two pairs of kissing lips, but on the day that cartoons came true it was me who answered the unexpected teatime knock on the little-used front door.

He stood semi-silhouetted against the evening-lit fields beyond, he looked at me, he spoke, he asked me “Is your mother in?” but I just stood there, dumb and dumbstruck. Gazing, gaping, gut-wrenched at green eyes, whose impact needed different words to describe than I had hitherto imagined, at thirteen, to be applied to eyes. Words like dirty, dissolute and aching, words like intoxicate, immoral and impure.

And the potent magic of this encounter was authenticated by the golden cloud of top quality sparkling stars which hung and darted and quivered above his head.


[originally on 6S in June 2010]

aros 2 - fishermen

Sherpa equipped
For a Sunday of silent contemplation
On the bank of the now tide-less Tees

aros 1 - Listening to old LPs

The innocent clarity of 'Petite fleur'
And I am fourteen again
My future still to come