Seeing double

 

The scream was truly operatic, the tremendous splash less so.   Both were witnessed by Rose Madigan, adventure-prone journalist, who had seen, from behind her tinted sunglasses, the now floundering, spluttering female whose face she recognised as that of Italy’s best known soprano, being forcibly propelled into the swimming-pool by a slight but determined auburn-haired woman in her mid-thirties.

While others had rushed to the aid of the immersed, Rose had gone to stand beside the aggressor who, quietly voluble in her triumph, told her that Carmellina Contralta was not only a ‘scheming, double-crossing, adulterous bitch’ but also a thief and a blackmailer and thoroughly deserving of the drowning she was too obviously not going to suffer on this occasion.

Intrigued - and bored after two days’ sunbathing -  Rose befriends Alicia and becomes embroiled in an investigation whose life- and sanity-threatening intricacies rival the most wickedly convoluted of opera plots.

[150 words]

This is week #9’s response to Lisa Ricard Claro’s Book Blurb Friday challenge and Christina Claro’s intriguing photograph.   Each week Lisa posts a photograph which represents a book cover.   Participants are challenged to “Write a book jacket blurb (150 words or less) so enticing that potential readers would feel compelled to buy the book”   

http://www.writinginthebuff.net/p/book-blurb-friday.html

If there had been magic

A poem of mine, inspired by Cath Barton's photo of Patrishow church (full colour version in her gallery at the Camel Saloon; I don't have a clue as to why this is reproducing in b/w) is now up at the Camel Saloon:   http://thecamelsaloon.blogspot.com/2011/04/if-there-had-been-magic.html

Friends of friends

Jenny’s friends
five couples.
all who’d heard
of the other four
and knew by name.

All trying to remember
what they’d heard
and which particular
traits and foibles
appertained to each.

Us the latest on the scene.
(colleagues since 1989),
others neighbours,
or met when children born,
and earlier ones since Uni.

And I could see
that some of these
could be friends with me
but others – no,
not ever!

Aaah!

At Folly Farm in Somerset, on Saturday, Maisie all of nineteen months and Jacob - spent quite some time together - he presenting her with endless pieces of broken off dried grass, she brown-eyed, serious faced, assuming his intentions were honourable, if puzzling.

But when it got to watching spiders climbing up and down the door behind them, Jacob ruined his chances by stamping on them ...

Motorway count

1 silhouetted cyclist on a bridge

2 Greek originating trucks

3 knee-cramped head-down arse-up bikers

4 bicycles on top of silver car,

we followed from the A46 to Halford

5 white lit signs above the road

each indicating ‘End’

(though goodness only know of what)

and in the service station

6 fat snackers eating crisps

Awoken to Passion

Her grandparents had called it ‘The Temple’, their son-in-law (her father), mischievously, ‘The Pretension’ but Virginia’s innocent and happy memories, of picnics, summer charades and pre-teen cigarettes within its marble walls had been overlaid with last night’s hard, grasping hands, hot panting breath and a forcing, an invasion, a rape ... except that she hadn’t exactly fought him off.

And instead of horror, her abiding memory is of overwhelming sensation and a transportation of herself into a realm of pleasure of which she had been previously ignorant ...

But who brought her to this state?   Which of her parents’ weekend houseguests found her asleep there, and awoke her to more than the cool night air?   She does not know, but eager to repeat the experience she devises a series of questions designed to eliminate five of the six candidates and identify the perpetrator within the next twenty-four hours.

[148]

This is week #8’s response to Lisa Ricard Claro’s Book Blurb Friday challenge and Sioux Roslawski’s photograph.   Each week Lisa posts a photograph which represents a book cover.   Participants are challenged to “Write a book jacket blurb (150 words or less) so enticing that potential readers would feel compelled to buy the book”   

http://www.writinginthebuff.net/p/book-blurb-friday.html

not quitting, but at least ahead

Today's poem is done for Jo Prescott,
and Thursday plot-changing T10

The Blurb book of Orcadian neolithic
is well on the way to all done

A failed competition submission
has been sent to the Camel Saloon

And I've sorted insubordinate lovers
so they're singing a different tune.

Tomorrow to a wedding in Somerset
re-stocking my notebook again.

If I only had known ...

To base a lusty, loving blue-eyed hero

upon a man known mostly just by sight,

watched for from a bedroom window,

teenage-dreamed about,

imaginary conversations

(and some more)

is not (as Tom Jones would say) unusual.

But I never imagined then

that getting on for half a century later

I’d Google-find a photo of him

and discover that my hero had become

white-haired, pot-bellied,

six inches shorter ... and so old.

Muse takes over

A chapter of a novel

writes itself.

I did not know

that she would want,

again,

to sleep with him,

that she would risk

her marriage

and perhaps her life ...

But currently they

are by the bed,

and he’s undressing her.

Today

The seventeenth of April

One of those coincidental days

which sets up false connections,

statistics say don’t mean a thing.

But because the seventeenth of April

Was the day of my Dad’s birthday

I noticed and remembered it,

twice incised on a memorial stone

Effie born in eighteen ninety-one in Timaru

Died in childbirth, buried in Ymir

exactly twenty three years later,

The seventeenth of April

[this has been submitted to Jo Prescott, but is also relevant to today so I am including it here]

A couple of blackbird poems

Acknowledgement

Solitary blackbird

soon becomes dawn chorus.

No likelihood of that

in my bed

so I arise and write one for myself.

Joke dawns

That 5 a.m. blackbird is telling frog jokes again

(he’s male so keeps repeating it)

I don't follow the preamble

but get the ‘ribbit, ribbit’ punchline every time.

[both written in response to Jo Prescott's National Poetry Month challenge]

Calling on the seven gods of luck

 A motor-caravan had been fun for a honeymoon but to celebrate the seventh anniversary of a marriage which felt as arid as the river they were camped beside, it was fast becoming a recipe for disaster.

Disaster, however, came from a different direction, providing far bigger challenges than believing that Dan had selected his pretty fitness coach purely for her professional skills, that Leonora really did have to go on all those business trips, and that her suspected pregnancy might make, not break, their marriage.  

Already alarmed by a lone woman fellow-camper claiming to know something from Dan’s past and  concerned about Leonora’s stomach cramps - indigestion or something worse? - the realisation that the overnight storm has created a flash flood which will engulf them unless they learn to trust and co-operate ratchets tensions to a level where failure to adapt will reduce their chances of survival.

This is week #7’s response to Lisa Ricard Claro’s Book Blurb Friday challenge and Lyn Obermoeller’s photpgraph.   Each week Lisa posts a photograph which represents a book cover.   Participants are challenged to “Write a book jacket blurb (150 words or less) so enticing that potential readers would feel compelled to buy the book”   

http://www.writinginthebuff.net/p/book-blurb-friday.html

'Occasional cloud' at Pygmy Giant

For those that would like to know, 'Occasional cloud', a follow-up to 'Occasional sunshine', is now on Pygmy Giant http://ning.it/gLcAZs

Presence not presents

Every birthday of a child

holds a memory of that first day.

for it’s mother

Today an echo of Matthew’s birth,

began early, at dawn.

His serious gaze

meeting mine, reassuring

before we were parted,

temporarily.

[This was finished too late to be included in Jo Prescott's challenge yesterday, when it would have been more appropriate]

Procrastination

Listening to the wind

rattling the drainpipe

rustling flakes of mica insulation in the loft.

The weight of things, of ‘things’, above me

stored and waiting, poised, to bury

should the joists give way, ceiling collapse.

Now rust-corroded pram, unusable,

and a cot which did all right for our three.

but doesn’t meet the safety standards of today.

Tea chest of my Dad’s framed abstract oil paintings

(a label on the side in Matthew’s writing:

“do not attempt to move this on your own!”)

a bedspread which we brought back from Majorca

its green and orange woven fusty dustiness

now a nightmare of potential smothering.

A table and two benches from Scapa

Along with sundry other household stuff

Such as crockery and saucepans, forks and sharp-end knives

We’ve said for years we’ll clear it out

Get rid of stuff no longer necessary, useful

But only when the wind blows do I remember that it’s urgent.

[This was Saturday's submission for Jo Prescott's National Poetry week challenge]

Bella Akhmadulina Day

Master-minded by Russell Streur at the Camel Saloon, today is Bella Akhmadulina Day, richly celebrated at :http://ning.it/dQB48a - please do take time to have a browse - there is much to enjoy.

Russell says:

The Camel Saloon has been blessed and enriched by the poetry, art and photography submitted by the women who have danced through the doors of this establishment.
...

The Saloon marks Bella's first posthumous birthday of April 10, 2011, with a special edition of The Eye of the Needle, celebrating life in the words and images of the women friends of the bar along with forgotten voices of poetesses past.  Please come enjoy the poetry, art, photography and fiction at: http://theeyeoftheneedlebellaakhmadulinaday.blogspot.com/

There's a lot there--from breakfast in Tuscany to the gravestones, and along the way the four seasons, the unpredictable sea, the vine of life, the cage of prayers, and wisteria on glass, all painted in red blush and henna.  Not to mention sex in the library.

This Eye is the third in a continuing series of special issues.  Links to this and previous Eyes can be found on the Saloon’s home page: http://thecamelsaloon.blogspot.com/

Only the splendour of light - Book Blurb Friday

Not immortal, nor even, in truth, invisible, although enough people believed him to be so for it not to matter, but certainly Guiseppe di Angeli was wise enough - and well enough paid - to know when to keep quiet, i.e. forever.

But Maria Simione had to find a way to make him talk, to persuade him to spill not his secrets but those of the man he impersonated, the man who had spent a small fortune in order to live a lie.   And to do that she had to pretend to be someone else, someone who wanted not to be exposed.

Is the Guiseppe di Angeli she eventually meets the man she thinks he is?

Has she convinced him  that she is who she says she is?

Or has he realised that Maria Simione is another impostor?

And have the women done enough to make him care?

[148 words]

This is my week #6 response to Lisa Ricard Claro’s Book Blurb Friday challenge.   Each week Lisa posts a photograph which represents a book cover.   Participants are challenged to “Write a book jacket blurb (150 words or less) so enticing that potential readers would feel compelled to buy the book”   

The frustrating bit is that the book we feel compelled to buy has yet to be written.  

This photograph has been on my wall for some fifteen years – I’m looking forward to seeing what everyone comes up with because it’s been challenging me to do it justice ever since.

http://www.writinginthebuff.net/p/book-blurb-friday.html

Searching for a T shirt for a wedding

I’ve got the trousers – black and long and just size twelve

(the website said to get a size too small because they stretched on wearing)

and the jacket is a beauty – one I bought in New Orleans

(and doesn’t that sound good: “Oh! one I bought in New Orleans”)

It’s silk and black and silver, long-line and fits a treat.

I bought a long-sleeved silk-look grey T shirt last week

But that looked dreary (grey often does on me)

So I thought a vivid pink, or even emerald green ...

But nothing in the shops today

And I resisted buying “it’ll do” for once,

not entirely ‘cause I’m at long last learning,

but I know I’ve got my trusty sleeveless black.

This has already appeared on Jo Prescott's site and the brand new Lit Fire begun by Jared Handley - check it out for some absolutely top quality writing.

Important disclaimer:  I do NOT like shopping

West to east and twenty years

Twenty years ago he’d tagged onto

a west coast fresher’s beach week

fancying the fair-haired Emma

Careless immortality and drink and pot

pitch-dark grope into wrong room

into wrong girl,

girl unknown, unnamed and un-protesting

he apologetic
externally enforced hasty exit in the morning

Today east coast Portobello beach,

his yesterday-discovered by coincidence

(she rescued him after drunken fall from wall)

daughter tells him he would benefit from fresh air

before she tells him what he needs to know.

[Another poem for National Poetry Month which is a poetic version of yesterday’s T10 post which will eventually reappear as a short story somewhere, I hope.   The next episode will appear on T10 later today.   I changed the title of this blog, which orginally contained the word recycling because it was attracting some very strange attention!]

Yesterday's offer for National Poetry week on Jo Prescott's site

Anyone can make a mistake

Four has always been my lucky number

fourth of the fourth doubly so

forty-four plus four years ago

I reluctantly returned

from a weekend with a school friend

for a youth club visit.

Fifty-nine club,

Ton-up vicar,

Lambeth

Open-mouthed at Mods

Spotted dresses

Shoulder-twitching

Head down circling

Bags on floor.

Not us!

We laughed together

Danced and smiled and talked.

Snogged on the coach all the way home

Fell into a rosebush

And he asked me out.

My Dad said ‘Prospects?, ‘A’ levels?’

And ‘not on his motorbike!’

And I replied

‘just the pictures, that’s all!

I’m not going to marry the man!’

Woke to find myself at MuDJoB

Boasting - but it is something I am proud of! - 

have a look at my illustrated 'Circle of celebration' 

over on Michael Brown's wonderful MuDJoB

Poem a day for Jo Prescott

I'm not sure I'll manage this every day in April but my struggles with Script Frenzy have inspired the first three for Jo Prescott's Dare which celebrates National Poetry Month:

Frenzy begins before Script
MuDJob celebration
Request for information
Practice nurse to tell me not to drink

Lisa’s Friday Book Blurb
and Lily Child’s ‘Prediction
Amy’s ‘Rightful Place’ has just arrived


Silent movie?
Cast assembled
Stage set
Software loaded
Me struck dumb


Script failure
I can’t make Shenanigans talk
like Sean can talk
Can’t break their silence
as Bridie does
Can’t put words in their mouths
Can’t bring them to life
And can’t even care ...

Smile now darling, just for me - Book Blurb Friday

“Smile now darling ... and try and stop those teeth chattering!   Lovely, darling!   Just one more!”

Poor bitch, whoever thought modelling was glamorous should see her now:  they’d had to use a hairdryer on her goose-pimples, and god knows he was cold enough, fully-clothed, so having to stand around in a succession of bikinis in this draughty, unheated, centuries-old stone manor house on the bitter edge of the Pennines didn’t bear thinking of.  

'Fay' she’d said her name was, just starting out on her career, and photographer Davey Cartwright was starting to wonder whether whoever had scheduled this photo-shoot - for swim-wear, in November! - was malicious or mad.    Given the catalogue of disasters that had befallen them since they arrived, he was prepared to believe it was both.

And the expression on her face, as she looked beyond him, indicated that things were about to get worse ...     [147]

This is my week #5 response to Lisa Ricard Claro’s Book Blurb Friday challenge.   Each week Lisa posts a photograph which represents a book cover.   Participants are challenged to “Write a book jacket blurb (150 words or less) so enticing that potential readers would feel compelled to buy the book”    Reading the varied responses is highly entertaining.- and next week is one of my all time favourite photographs – I’m looking forward to seeing what everyone comes up with as it’s been challenging me for years to do it justice

http://www.writinginthebuff.net/p/book-blurb-friday.html