Month: Apr 2021
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Choice Is A Messenger
Choice is a Messenger Some mornings you wake a changed person. Might be a flash of morning light, a mild morning in January, green shoots in a flowerpot, and you think, Aren’t you the lucky one as if life is a lucky draw plucked out instead of snatched. This is a trial on the Verse…
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Day 6 NaPoWriMo 2021
Quadrille IIa.It’s Just a Matter of Taste Wine, its taste is notparticularly kind.Its nose I cannot fathom.Why someone wouldwish to sipa liquid that tastesof pennies orshades of chamois clothor remind one’s noseof a well-worn saddle.Well, wine, it’s just not for me. Twiglet 221 IIb. It’s Not You So toast me, Roast me with your wine.…
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Day 5 NaPoWriMo 2021

I.The First Morning After That first flight of stairstrod on by 500 years of footfall,stones worn, and sunken likesaddles, shaped to cradle each foot. Her old house holds old memories. She makes her way down the stairs,care always, unsure of the uneven risers, and reaches the hallway wherehis hat and coat always hung, and then she…
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Featured on Visual Verse
I am honoured to be one of three featured writers/poets to lead off Visual Verse’s April issue. To paraphrase their guidelines, Visual Verse offers the chance of writing without overthinking. Words inspired by art. Write 50-500 words within an hour. It’s worth reading the guidelines before submitting your work for the Visual Verse team to…
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Day 4: NaPoWriMo 2021
The Local Shop The wife of the local newsagentkeeps her white hair under a scarf.She’s always in the background,in an office with dark stained air, sitting at a desk, calculator at hand,holding a ledger in her left hand.Her words run along her husband’sspine. On a straight and narrow line. He says he runs the shop,…
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Day 3 NaPoWriMo 2021
I.When Lemons Talk A lemon’s voice is a sharp bristled spark.A punch. A fierce argument. Gives yourtongue the hump. Lemon, cold enough to quench August.Lemon, hot enough to cure throaty colds. It puckers. Pulls. It’s a thin lipped laugh,and steals the words from your mouth.It’ll do all the talking, if any’s needed. II. When Lemons…
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Day 2 NaPoWriMo 2021

I.Across the Sea At the end of the pieris a bell that looks likea silver charm. Wind teases the clapper,and its tone leavesmy ears with wingsacross the waves. It passes through light,and travels. I will dothe same, one day. II.These Old Roads Left or rightor straight on,beyond the bridgeor back behind andover Furnace Ridge,it matters…
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Day 1 NoPoWriMo 2021
Poetic Asides Day 1: Introduction to Casual Lapses I.I don’t know where time’s gone.It’s 8-years since we knocked downthe dining room wall. Opened upthe kitchen. Made it all modernwith granite and stainless steel. Replaced the carpets with wood.Believe it or not, I sneeze less. Eight years.Can’t really account for each day,except for when the dog…