Said A to B
I don't like C
He always
Stands away
From me
Said D to E,F and G
Lets sit down and
Have some Tea
H turned to I
And said
Hi
J and K said what a day
I think we should go out to play
L, M,N and O
Went out to a show
Q Qued up, but didn't get in
But instead R,S and T
Took Q on a trip
To the Sea
While
U,V,W,X,Y and Z
Spent the day ill in bed
© Julian Capus
'Write about the flowers,' she said
All colourful and pretty
'Write anything that comes to mind,
Profound, simple or witty.'
But I'm neuro-divergent
I fidget quite a lot
While others talk about the flowers
I'm looking at the pot
The petals vibrant as the sun
She sparkles with delight
'Just write down anything you feel.'
The pot is white
The stems are long and leafy
The flowers scent the air
'Everything is valid here.'
The pot of square
I'd like to write about the flowers
Describe them if I could
But my head wonders to the base
The pot is made of wood.
© Jeanette Holt
I come to the forest
where the poets went to die
I come to breathe
in and out
They thought the air
cleansing cell by cell and
vanquishing demons and
I can’t say it’s had that exact effect
of vanquishing the tangled thoughts of my mind
But it is stiller
For a moment
The wind tickles the trees
The birds call to each other
I take a breath
And move along the path
© Sandy
Why should i write poems,
Why should i bother.
Is it to bore disruptive teenage boys
To inflict on them in lessons
My litarary joys.
To appear in sterile books and anthologies.
That end up in charity shops
For no one to ever read.
What is my need.
Perhaps someone will think
Me clever and point as i go past,
Nudge and say he writes poetry
But im not bloody giving it a read.
Whats the point of poetry.
Its just rhymes and verses.
But then i look to the sky and think
Voice, poetry is a voice.
A flow of words.
A dancing expression of meaning.
A pouring from the heart.
Pure feeling.
Love and depression,
Joy and expression.
It is the authentic voice,
Perhaps stumbling wavering
Inhibeted afraid to speak.
Perhaps too shy, maybe tripping over the words.
But it is the sound of your life.
The sound of what its like to be you.
And that is the point of poetry.
It is as near as we can get
To the authentic you.
© Julian Capus
Here is where the light begins-
With you. That’s you, plural.
It starts with you and the guy in the fish and chip shop who gave you an extra portion of chips.
You and the person who you held the door open for.
You and the chap at the supermarket who made silly faces at your kid and made them laugh.
In isolation, there is no light.
In bigotry and hatred, there are only shadows that are so thick they’ll choke you.
We live in hard times. But that is not the fault of your neighbor, whatever her skin colour and accent, wherever she grew up, whoever she prays to.
Or the fault of your brother, even though she’s your sister now.
Or your colleague, even if he loves a man. Making them carry the burden of your hurt will not lessen the weight for you.
It just makes the shadows a little thicker.
© A C Kass
Mad scientist vibes, or a slightly insane wizard. Wild hair, rumpled clothes, crazed look in her eyes. She’ll pin you against the wall and ramble to you about her magic system.
She’d live in a tower like a character in a fairytale. The walls would be covered in badly done drawings and notes, bound up in red string, like she’s some kind of conspiracy theorist.
Pens are her weapons of choice, nice fountain pens, and they are everywhere. In pots, in bags, bluetacked to the wall, on bookshelves and windowsills. There’s buckets full of ink cartridges tucked away here and there as well.
There are also knick-knacks all over the place- things that look like magical trinkets from kids' books. Oddities that seem like they might come to life to give sassy quips or bestow epic arcane powers or both.
Her little tower travels all over my body. Or maybe it has doors that lead to different areas- a door to my love. A door to my anger. A door to my dreams. A door to my brain and one to my heart.
She keeps my characters, little thumbalina creations, trapped in jars. She pairs them up, or groups them, or isolates them or puts them in arenas and gives them weapons to see who survives. She put them in strange new environments. She gives them childhood trauma and calls it ‘enrichment’.
And what does she need?
Time. Not intruded on by household chores and job applications and money fears. She knows what she can do. She just needs time to do it.
I really wish I could give her that time.
For now, all I can spare are scraps. Stolen seconds full of guilt for not getting the bedding changed yet.
But I have to write, you see. I have to. I have to.
If I let that writer rot away, if her tower fell and all her little experiments escaped, then it would be chaos.
Because if I didn’t write, my head would just explode.
With thoughts and feelings, character and places and moments.
When I opened my mouth to eat, a manifesto about capitalism or politics would escape.
When I cried, faces of unwritten characters would slip out with my tears.
When I slept, imaginary places would leak out of my lips and onto the pillow.
When I sneezed, there’d be scenes in the snot.
Sometimes, my mad scientist has a visitor. She is the queen of the shadows of my head, the unseen power, made of my past, my shame, my fears. My inner critique. She is, frankly, a bitch.
And yet, my writer needs her. For the queen takes care of her. She loves my writer, in her own, nettle-y way.
So my writer allows her into her tower. Not too often, but when the queen makes her way up the twisting stone stairs, she can’t be turned away.
She sweeps around the tower as if she owns it, examining the notes on the wall, occasionally tugging at the red string to see if it’s loose.
She’ll pick up my characters and stare at them, positioned under the protruding lens of a microscope. She looks for cracks and crevices.
She examines the scenes. Demands more beauty. More magic. And for gods sake, your descriptions need work!
She notes the dust coating the trinkets. Then she kneels down and prods at the very boards beneath the writer's feet. They are the writer's ideals. Her beliefs. Her unconscious biases and her worldview.
The queen finds problems. Flaws. Hypocracies. She points out how unstable it is here and here and there, under the window. How it could all come crashing down if stepped on too hard.
And the writer watches her queen with angry eyes and gritted teeth.
She hates her.
But when the queen is gone, she pins up the string more securely. She fixes the problems in the notes. She fills the characters' cracks with gold and makes them shine. She sprinkles beauty and magic into the worldbuilding. Re-does the description- maybe go to that Wednesday poetry thing, maybe that’ll help.
She dusts the trinkets.
Fixes the boards- that’s a lot of work. But she does it. Pulls up the rotted ones. Replaces them.
And begrudgingly admits that everything does look better.
Perhaps the queen would wish the writer didn’t write. That she didn’t pour out such shining pieces of her soul onto paper for the world to see, didn’t scream out demands for eyes to look at her, watch her, witness her. But the shadow queen
knows better than to try and stop the writer. She knows she needs the writer, just as much as the writer needs the queen.
If they didn’t have each other, they’d both go mad.
© A C KASS