-
15.02.22 That Old Chestnut
That Old Chestnut It’s still gnarly-bare,no leaves yeton that old chestnut tree. It’s old.It’s arbitrary.Bang-bang out of order, like a belligerent judge,a rigid thought growing wherenothing near it is its equal. There’s nothing symmetrical about it.Hit by lightning years ago.Blew sprinters and branches aboutas if hit by God’s own fist. But that tree’s dying.Slowly.Bleedingfrom its…
-
Published on Visual Verse
I’m delighted that my ekphrastic poem, A Hundred Butterflies, is included in Visual Verse’s February anthology. A new image is posted on the first day of each month, and I encourage anyone considering a step into publication to have a go. They publish one hundred of their favourite poems or prose each month. ©Misky 2022…
-
for Twiglet #266
Her Godbone What we believeis what we want to believe.Like my sister says a white dove flew over her carwhile she waitedin a queue for the ferry. That was the day Dad died.It was Dad, she said, but she mournedhim even before he was dead. She has a locket with his ashes,and a small silver…
-
16.02.22 A View From The Roof
A View From The Roof That albino pigeon(the one that convinced me it was a dove)has returned. It’s up there on the roof ridge.Slate-grey like a storm,a perched gargoyle,or a wild stone. And it looks down.Left.Right.Wings move,as if shrugging off the weather. And then it’s off,into the air.To the next house. New view.New roof.New pitch.…
-
18.02.22 A Storm Called Eunice
A Storm Called Eunice In front of me, a massacreby dark and crossed arms.But the garden will mendfrom this crystalline damage.From tempest spinning circles, and pitched storm spectres.Phantasm thrumming andrequiem squealing at windows.Our bare ghost trees cut fromcard are yelling and coughing.It’s carnage from a sunken sky. edited 18/2/22 10.43am Image The Storm by E Munch 1893.…
-
17.02.22 Dunes
The Dunes Back then summer waswhite dunes with cowlicksprigs of crabgrass and mounded hills of sandscrubbed the wind. Sand ramped across scrubas if pulled alongon tiny toy wheels. And with wind at your back,you’d put down a blanket,open your favourite book, and expose your skinto as much sunas it could take in. Back then,that was…
-
V.1 C.3 Tooth Fairy
The tooth fairy came last night, and left me loose tooth money. I might stop doing chores for money. I’ll just wait for my teeth to fall out. Why … V.1 C.3 Tooth Fairy
-
16.02.22 dVerse Prosery
Fish Moon New Year’s Eve means cod. Always has. Alway will. So we head for the harbour. The whole family, and a few who aren’t, squeezing into the old Volvo, always bits of Pop’s job in the back. Trowels rough with mortar, buckets, crusty boots, white overalls. Pop’s a bricky. Bricklayer. Muremand. We race down…
-
15.02.22 Flash Fiction
The View We’re back. Forty-five years ago we sat here at this same table, same window, he and I, waiting for the 15.10 ferry. Always the same ferry. Two of them, running back and forth, back and forth. Connections, you know, making connections to the train. The train to visit family. The train to the…
-
14.02.22 Valentine Quadrille
Remembering an Afternoon Picnic Near Steyning It smells of summer, he says.Greenish. We’re sitting at the edge of a field,our feet soaking in a creek, and we’re eating cheese and chutney sandwiches.Drinking milky tea straight from a flask. And I want this moment to last.Beyond forever. A Quadrille for Valentine’s Day. Photo by Kiriakos Verros on Unsplash. ©Misky…
