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The Old Woman’s Weather
A Day of Rest: 442 watts the old womanpegs laundryon the line. the roofdoes nothing. she looks up. rain gone.clouds thinning.washing movingin the breeze. the old womanlooks at the roof again and suspectsit is doing a biblical. a dayof rest. — from The Old Woman’s Weather All rights reserved. These stories may not be reproduced…
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20.10: Dead Men Don’t Drown
Dead Men Don’t Drown: #11 (catch-up with all episodes here) Dear Ms Macleod, thank you for the photographs, which show what appears to be a folded letter secured by a spiral lock, though I agree the name is unhelpful, since the finished packet looks less like a spiral than a paper tongue stitched through its…
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19.10: dVerse Quadrille
A Man with Moonlight she hums sounds of sleep,soothes her child as she observes — behind screened windows,blotched yellowed-whiteby the moonon the gated garden wall, a manwalking in the moonlight. alone. and in her loneliness,she wonders whatthoughts and hungercross his mind. Written for dVerse Poets, a quadrille of 44-words including the word ‘screen’. Some images…
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19.10: A Six – The Alcove
The Heist (episode 4) (a letter from the Soup Gobble) The postman arrives carrying an envelope addressed, with admirable confidence, to The Gargoyle Sitting on the Right. “That’s me,” shouts the gargoyle who appears to every mortal eye to be sitting on the left, but perspective has always been a treacherous little beast and gargoyles…
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19.10: The Liturgy
#11 Liturgy for the Advice You Did Not Want(for the wisdom that arrives disguised as a suggestion) I. The Voice That Speaks Softly The advice came quietly,as a suggestion,offered with the lightnessof someone who knowsyou will not listen at first. It was wise,it settles like a stonein quiet water. But you did not want it,because…
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The Old Woman With No Cat
The Cat on Time(Or: Why Clocks Are Just Decorative Anxiety) The cat sits before the mantelpiece,one paw raised toward the clockas if delivering a closing argumentin a case he has already won. “Consider,” he begins,“the clock.A round face.Two hands.Constant ticking.And for what?To tell you it’s 3:47when your stomach knowsit is now.Now, Old Woman.Now is the…
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17.10: Stream of Consciousness
Pitch the mountains at my back, lace-up waterproof boots crunching through the ice-crust on yesterday’s snow, and the air flying white as fine gauze, the sort of weather that flattens curves and rubs out distance, where light makes no shadow and you can’t quite tell where the ground stops and the sky begins, except there…
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17.10: Crispina’s #108
Senryusuch slender shouldersstill they carry all the bluethe whole sky can spare Haikublue bells in the grasstoo soft for our ears to hear,they summon the rain Haikublue rain flowers ringsomewhere beyond the meadowa cloud turns for home Written for Crispina Kemp Challenge #108. As a child we called Harebells by a different name (folklore) Blue Rain…
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The Old Woman’s Weather
34 Watts rain all day. cloudsthick as wool. the old womanstands in the gardenunder her pink umbrella and looksat the roof. the old manthanks youfor the toast, she says, but he prefers jamto marmite. the roof is speechless. — from The Old Woman’s Weather All rights reserved. These stories may not be reproduced without permission.…
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16.10 Ten Things of Thankful
Not necessarily the ten largest things. Only ten that made me stop long enough to notice. I. Provexity I. Provexity Thankful to learn a new word: provexity — the advanced state of being well grown in years. A seventeenth-century word for great age, and far more elegant than simply saying someone has been around a very long time.long time. II. Tick Tick Tick Thankful for one of those rare…
