Accidental Fiction...'Accidental Death'...

One of my 'rarely-actually-written' pieces of fiction, born of an exercise for the Leeds Writers' Group. The exercise specified a piece entirely in dialogue. So, there's no description of anything outside speech, (between you and me, that's probably why my goldfish-like poet's attention span held long enough to write it!) and the characters have no names as their conversation never calls for them... You should feel free to name them though, if they remind you of someone!


Accidental Death


“Oh my GOD, OH MY GOD! What did you do?!”


“What?! Would you please just calm down?! I can’t change it now, can I? Just shut up! Shut up! I need to think…”


“But…oh my God! I think I’m going to be sick!…oh, yep, I’m definitely going to be sick. How could you? How could you just…keep going like that?! ”


“Would you get a grip, please?! It’s not like I set out to do this! It was him or us, alright? By the time I saw him, it was already too late to brake! You weren’t wearing your seat belt…if I’d tried to stop, I’d have thrown you straight through the windscreen! Would that have been a better outcome?!”


“No! God, no! But, oh Jesus…look at him! I don’t think he’s breathing! There’s…oh God, there’s blood…I think he’s dead.”


“Well of course he’s dead! His neck is broken. I’ve never seen a head at that angle on anything living! But I’m not sure what you expect me to do about it now! It’s happened, hasn’t it?! We just have to calm down and deal with it.”


“We?! You were driving! Don’t drag me into this. I’m not taking the blame for it!”


“You weren’t wearing a seatbelt! You’re the reason I hit him! I’m not dragging you into anything…you’re already in! You owe me for this! I put myself on the line for you here…in that moment, when I could’ve braked? It was him or you!”


“Oh God!”


“Will you stop saying that?!”


“I can’t help it. I think I’m in shock! What do we do now? What do you do when this happens?! Should we call an ambulance?”


“Are you crazy?! An ambulance?! What good is an ambulance? Look at him! What would they do for him? No. We’re not calling anyone.”


“What? Surely we should at least call the police? To report it? We need to explain what happened. Someone will have to move the body. We can’t just leave him here! You can’t just drive away! He might have a family…and they’ll miss him sooner or later. Come rush hour, someone will see him. I’m definitely calling the… Oi! Give me the phone!”


“You’re not calling anyone. We can’t report this. You know how my driving record looks! I’ve got points already!”


“Points?! Screw your points! This is a life we’re talking about!”


“Exactly. I don’t know what they charge you with or not when something like this happens! We can’t report it. What about my life? What about our lives? I need my license for work! No work means no house, no car, no more of those weekend mini-breaks you like so much, no more fancy shoes...!”


“My God, you think I care about that right now?! That I’d be shallow enough to consider how this affects me, how it affects us, above doing the right thing?! Anyway, they’re not going to take your license. This was an accident. A pure accident! It’s dark…there aren’t any street lamps, and he wasn’t wearing anything that showed up in the headlights. I didn’t see him either. Not until…well, you know…and it’s 1.30am…what was he even doing out here on his own? People will understand. The police will understand. Please, just give me the phone…we have to tell someone! What about his family? …There could be kids expecting him home!”


“Oh great! A ‘kid’ guilt trip! Nice one! Just what I needed…because I don’t feel bad enough already! You’re really helping, aren’t you?! If you can’t make yourself useful, just go and wait in the car!”


“Useful?! I was trying to… Stop it! What are you doing?”


“Well, one of us has to be rational about this.”


“No! Don’t touch him! You can’t move anything until the police have seen it!”


“I’ve told you. There aren’t going to be any police. I’ll deal with this myself. Now either get hold of his legs at your end and help me move him, or get out of the way so I can drag him off the road.”


“Drag him off the road? Do you hear yourself right now? You’re like some sort of amateur gangster! What do you think you’re going to do?”


“There’s still a spade in the boot from last weekend. I’m going to bury him in the woods back there.”


“Oh my God…you’re serious, aren’t you?! Who the hell are you? Because you’re certainly not the same man I got in the car with this morning! How can you be so cold about this? Give me the phone! I mean it. Give me that phone right now! He has a family somewhere who will look for him tomorrow, who will miss him! And it’s not a guilt trip…there really could be kids who’ll…”


“We don’t know that! You can’t know that! There could be no one who’ll ever miss him! You have no idea if he has…if he had…a family. What if he has no one to care? What if he just lives out here in these woods?”


“Don’t be stupid! Does he look like he lives in the woods?!”


“I don’t know…I didn’t see him before we hit him, and I sure as Hell can’t tell now! Just imagine it turns out that no one would ever have missed him? But you had to go and report it, so I ended up with no license, and no work, and we couldn’t pay the mortgage and…”


“And you think you’re the one being rational here?! Look at him! Just look. You killed him and you don’t even care who he is! He has a name, and people who’ll miss him, and you’re talking about dragging him off into the woods, burying him in a shallow grave, and driving away…for the sake of your license?! It was an accident! A pure accident! Everything will be okay. You’re being ridiculous!”


“Me? I’m being ridiculous? I’m not the one getting hysterical about his home life! You don’t even know if he has a family…I keep telling you, it’s impossible to know that! And if I lose my license, all those things I said before…the house, the car, the money…all that is a reality…”


“Oh, for God’s sake, would you just wake up?! Of course he has a family! Can’t you see he has an ID tag on his collar? And seriously, when was the last time someone got charged with an offence after hitting a dog? Put the shovel down, Jason Statham, and give me the damn phone!”

New Commission...

I have a new commission to read at my friends' wedding in December...and they're giving me free rein to compose! (The trust is staggering!) So I'll be posting lots of ideas between now and then, and I could really use your help deciding which ones to show to the happy couple as potential choices. Below are four ready-composed efforts that I might consider. More will appear on the blog as I have time to add them. Please feel free to comment. Or if you like something I post elsewhere as an option, let me know...just remember, choose appropriately...it's a church wedding... ;-)


Talking

Hush.
Fall silently now
among our clear depths of endless time.
We have forever
to do more than this.

Lean your forehead on mine
and hold my eyes,
for this moment
this
instant
just let me look at you
and let us
touch.

If I did only this
for a thousand nights more;
became breathless with it;
I could not tire.
For each time my soul lays
eyes on you
I am astounded
anew.
And I need no food, no water,
only my soul's sight of you,
and to touch;
and I am sustained.

Hush.
Let our souls make endless exchanges,
far removed of courteousy,
and know this,
my love;
we will have forever
for talking.


Sand

In the end
it took only you to show me
that sand allowed to slip through your fingers
doesn't always blow away on the wind.
If there is no breeze
and no will to roam
it falls calmly in a pile at your feet
and is happy to be there.
It is happier still to be swept up, scooped up,
into a bottle or an hourglass-
To be confined inside a molten, cooled,
version of itself
only to be sure that its every grain
may be carried daily in your breast pocket
as close as possible...

And even though loose sand gets everywhere
inside the folds of clothes and sticks
to your skin and hair
It took only you to show me
how content I can be that it's there.

Even though it rubs now and then
gets in my eyes
and makes my skin sore
I couldn't stand
not to be covered in sand
or to leave the house without
An hourglass
In my pocket
Anymore.


While We Were Dancing

There was a time
I would not have thought our ship
could sail so long and smooth
A time, long ago, I dared hope
But didn't know...
And I would have thought, if it would come
Then it would come to me after you
In a dimly-lit piano bar over
midnight Sea-Breezes and Long Island Iced Tea
And the touch of a hand still cool
As the water-crystals
Beading
On my glass...

But it passed, that time,
and as I thought it, it was not to be.

It came though, just the same
as I had always hoped it would.
But love and the precious knowledge
of
its
Ever-presence
Came quietly to me.
No drinks, no lights, no music
Only you
And it came to me while we were dancing
In the silence, with the stars, in the garden,
Under a winter-iced moon.

Shrapnel

You come home with battle-scars
Wearing shrapnel in your skin
And it is only my
humble task
to take it out again.
To scratch my nails across your back
to ooze and fill
each crack in your heart and soul.

I am the one who moulds
against you
Guards the lonely voice of night,
Sinks my teeth into your flesh and
Bites
down hard in healing waves,
that crash across your steel-eyed gaze
and turn it bluer than a summer day
burn deeper than a heated ricochet
from the weapon across your back.

You plead with me to stop,
And I answer
that I love your perfect scars,
and a curse passes your lips as the stars
burst behind your eyes.
I trail my fingers through your day
And tear off your disguise
‘Til you are nothing anymore.
but flawless,
naked,
mine.

Rainbow

You fall on me And shatter, like shards of exploding light
And it is far, far, from the end of the coloured slide
We wondered on
as children hungry for the princely fairytale riches
of castle-lands on high.

It is summer
and through the sliver beyond you
I make out roof-tops
And chimney pots
Against an expanse of vivid blue sky,
And I tell myself, I do not care, one way or another,
if they have eyes.

Carefully covered for me
out of a dignity I did not possess for you, I chide,
“The rainbow was watching”, and I point and smile
as a storm cloud crosses your eyes,
a dawning moment, for I am not far yet that child,
and my frivolous joy
betrays me.

I push back the black bloom
West to go with softest fingers,
and I choose then not to know,
the truth,
as happy, golden sunlight warms us
through my white viscous curtain of hope.

And I roam and play
Restless youth not yet satisfied with enough.
“Another bruise?” I whisper, and you tell me it is time for lunch.
I watch the rainbow’s inverted smile,
Silently,
from a horizontal repose,
And despite myself, am struck with the honesty
Of its insistent stay -

It will rain again today
Only heavier, I suppose.

'The Letters of Abelard and Heloise'...the poetic influence of an 11th-century narcissist?

I've threatened before to start adding other things that interest me to this blog, aside from my resultant poetry, as I think it might start to explain some of my influences and inspirations (to myself as well as anyone else who decides this is worth a read!). I'm aware that a lot of what I write stems from things I've seen, done, studied or read; that a lot of it relates to experience. However, having said that, much of what I've read, studied, and continue to read on a poetic level, is late medieval or early modern, with the occassional dip into the 19th-century. I love Mallory, Chaucer and Donne, Shakespeare, Marlow and Rossetti, so it seems strange even to me, that I should begin an insight into my poetic psyche with a post about Peter Abelard and Heloise!

For those as yet unfamiliar with Abelard (you have no idea what gems of hilarity you've been missing in his autobiography!), he was born in 1079, in the village of Pallet, in Brittany. His father being a manorial lord and minor noble, Abelard, as eldest son, was intended for a career in knighthood. However, as a boy, he found book learning favourable to the lure of violent conflict, just killing, honour, and chivalry:

'I prefered the weapons of dialectic to all the other teachings of philosphy, and armed with these I chose the conflicts on disputation instead of the trophies of war...' 

(Thought a translation might be appreciated rather than the original medieval Latin! - The letters of Abelard and Heloise,  Peter Abelard, Héloïse, Betty Radice, M. T. Clanchy, 2003.)

When a little older, Abelard became a wandering scholar, which during this period, also made you a monk of sorts, as all scholarly persuits and teaching were theological in nature and under church control. Abelard spent some time at Locmenach before heading to the Cathedral School of Notre Dame, Paris, where he promptly decided (on somewhat shaky grounds!) that his intellect and powers of theological interpretation were far superior to that of his peers and teachers. As a result, he resolved to set up his own school in Melun, around 1101, where he royally irritated his contemporaries with a condescending attitude and a fondness for being right!.

Abelard returned to Paris in 1113, becoming a teacher there. Yet he was clearly not cut out for a life of piety! He began a torrid and forbidden affair with the niece of Canon Fulbert; the apparently beautiful and alluring young abbess, Heloise. The pair fell madly in love, and exchanged various amorous, pained and guilt-ridden letters describing their passions, admirations, separations and inability to resist their basest temptations. Various trysts ensued in the abbeys and convents of Europe, eventually resulting in a son and a secret marriage...all prior to the complications of vengeful castration and accusations of heresy!

The Letters of Abelard and Heloise (as should by now be obvious to even the most previously ignorant reader!) are neither late medieval to early modern or, largely poetic. However, they do, in much the same manner as Shakespeare's sonnets and tragedies or Mallory's tales of knighthood in Morte d'Arthur, tell a vivid and engaging tale of gripping desire, an impassioned and destructive affair, and the conflict between duty and love, providing a peek at the results of unchecked human emotion and weakness that is as relevant today as ever. The letters are also soaked with that over-blown and fervent language of high medieval piety, devotion, love, sorrow and guilt that fires the artist in me!

'God knows I never sought anything in you except yourself. I wanted simply you, nothing of yours.'

'I desired to keep you whom I loved beyond measure for myself alone.'

So, after having more free time this week than usual to over-indulge in all things artistic, and finding myself once again retrieving The Letters of Abelard and Heloise from a dusty shelf in the spare bedroom to thumb its well-worn pages, I think I must face the truth. I frequently write in a style very similar to that of Abelard and Heloise, utilising themes of guilt, passion, love, pain, Heaven, Hell, damnation, and futility...and I'm fascinated by the ever-surprising strengths, weaknesses, and inexplicable, unavoidable agonies of people. Somewhere along the line, Abelard and Heloise have influenced my writing.

'How can it be called repentance for sins, however great the mortification of the flesh, if the mind still retains the will to sin and is on fire with its old desires?'

The man himself, I'm certain, would have rebuffed this 'mighty revealation' with a sniffy "but of course," ...and thus, I must also admit to myself, that my inspirer was a self-indulgent narcissist, who enjoyed pedalling his own intellect and creativity for gains of fame and admiration (who me?!). However, he, and his lover Heloise, were also passionate human beings, great forward thinkers not afraid to speak their minds, and above all else, engaging writers that keep me taking that book down from its dusty shelf over and over again...so in this context, Abelard (and Heloise), my self-appreciating friend(s), I'm more than grateful for your contribution to my muse!   

Confession

I should tell you,
tonight
I have a mind for confession,
and ask your
unholy blessing for I
have sinned.
You see,
some time
recently
I let my guard slip
and
quite willingly
I let the demons in.

How long have I known you now?
They asked,
and how
pray
did we meet?
for they were sure they could not
remember a time
when your
sweet presence
did not dominate
my life.

Hush, I told them,
for shame,
be quiet, hold your baited tongues!
But alas,
too late,
too late again
to see that just like
leaves
turning colour
in the wet autumn
haze,
just like rosy summer days,
and fevered,
gypsy nights,
their impulse and their
basest urges
were right.

All the best things in life
are only summers long,
are subject to whims and
transitory things like
racing hearts
and ticking clocks
and freedom
and faith
not long to be heard,
to be touched or tasted,
or seen.

And just like that it seems
you make a better memory
than truth,
a better dream.

Toys, and Things...

I loved how it approached me,
all colours and codes,
and how the things it said
made sense.
I loved how it observed me when
I seemed to offer
something new
something different
something it hadn’t seen before
something I made it crave and implore
to touch its soul.

Its heart fell wide open, for me,
but it kept its life shut tight,
to the phosphorescent creature
it found
to whisper
wild things
in the night.

It wanted its new pet only
in the moments
when I offered it
clarity
when I was able
to cloud its reality and
deliver freedom.

We shared glances,
had moments,
but they were tokens only;
one admittance,
to the Ferris wheel.
For the whole reel of day tickets
were already sold
a long time since.

A Summer's Eve at Kirkstall Abbey: Sunset in the Nave

Under the banded shadow of an iron gate
That secures the chastity of sacred space
Dances through glassless windows
A macabre incubus of grandiose dust
On lengthening shafts of gilded light.
Behold! – this sudden ecstasy of lust
In the Gothic arch – a provocative sight
The eyes’ rising journey of pillar and vault
Denies the credulous fault of the expectant soul:
For there, above, a termination of scars
An insatiable majesty of stars persists
Where none but a resonant expanse of mauve exists
And a creeping rhapsody of darkness curls
From the deepening transepts of previous worlds
As finally a death of the diminutive sort,
Descends with a gasp of boundless grace
And a simultaneous expulsion of viscous light
Brings forth the rapturous crescendo of night.

I am more than lucky to live within easy walking distance of this wonderful building. Kirkstall Abbey was erected in the latter half of the 12th century, and is one of the best preserved examples of early Cistercian architecture in all of Europe. Its community of monks was disbanded in 1539, during the Dissolution, and the abbey has stood in ruins ever since. I have spent many summers here, grown up here, and drunk many bottles of wine here, on the river bank, with wonderful people. I think this building got into my soul at a very early age and I ought to credit Kirkstall with inspiring a large portion of my interest in all things medieval.

Fallen

My name
is Light-Bearer
and yet they call me tormentor
demon, vision, half-breed inventor of
rebellion of darkness and vermilion soul-food
that none would have known
had I done as I was told and
kept my sword sheathed
but for those beasts that would threaten
revelation.

But I did not darkness become alone,
I was not horror’s salutation –
Such words and situations existed in all your vicious throats
Long before my incarnation as
your scapegoat, hoofed and horned.
And I warn you now
I am still the Bringer of Light,
I am yet your Lamp of Truth.
I force on you
The knowledge of your own
demon harbourage
and you were never
the harbingers
of the word of mighty kings.

So how will you who have never
had wings
fare now
when you fall?
The last I recall is the thump on your
filthy earth before the onset of my curse
when I gazed through the cracks below
into something deeper than deepest blackness
that lives in the soul of my sire
to a place where howling beasts have their freedom in fire.

My white wings beat themselves to grey and my
vivid blue eyes glowed red;
but I had them still;
and the distant voice in my head was gone
the one that talked of right and wrong
and I heard
for the first time
myself:

“Lucifer,” the new voice said.
“You are king here.
Welcome to Hell.”

Forgiven

Without sight of it, dare I call this place;
so sweet an avenue of surrender?
And dare you or I
say
we must see to remember
this pleasant track we meander?
We need no sight to light our way,
Only touch and taste and scent,
And dare I call it ‘sense’,
That leads us where next to turn?

It is rather more insanity…
I follow you, you follow me,
With the soft caress of summer’s grass
Lapping at our backs…
Corn has ears, I hear, but it wavers far from here,
And so we may whisper freely
In our forever-field of barley.

And whisper we shall, but less with words,
than prayers
to worship
only one another…
Eyes closed, we breathe,
I feel, you taste…whilst only the sun is watching and we
bestow a name upon our sacred place.

I dare Heaven to say
This isn’t Holy Hell…
For here only lies greed and temptation,
Fruit and feasting,
fire and satiation,
and if this is penance,
then I admit my crimes…
for here among the wondrous scent of wildflowers,
Witnessed by gossiping waters,
and judged by hawthorn and vines,
I will be anything but forgiven.

Accidental prose shall be quickly poeticised...

Mostly I'm way too lazy to write prose, but I may cough up the odd page of it on here. It seems the perfect medium for 'not going anywhere, don't expect a novel' sort of stuff! However, you should understand that all prose is accidental and shall be quickly poeticised thereafter...

Graceless

Graceless… She’d said it a great many times before, but somehow, it was never less cutting. I’d brought it on myself this time, I reasoned, letting her remarks wash over me like a vexing, tropical wave. A wave that was too hot, and too flustering to bear at 3.30 in the morning when one had consumed this much alcohol. It made me want to pass out with heat, and the horror of a week of the ‘silent treatment’ to come…a lengthy period of disgrace.

“Be more honest with me,” she’d pleaded, last week. “Let me in. We live in the same house, but we’re almost strangers these days. You’ve been closed to me for so long now. We used to talk…I miss that.” She’d cried then, and even though I wasn’t sure that she was right, that we had ever ‘talked’, those words had resounded in my head ever since. Perhaps she was right in some ways. Maybe I was ‘cold’ when it came to her. Maybe I didn’t share as much of my life as our relationship had the potential to warrant. But didn’t I have my reasons?

Openness facilitates judgement, and part of me knew it was a cliché to say, that she just didn’t understand me. To her everything was black and white, right very distinct from wrong, and judgement very simple. Do wrong, disgust her, and then, bear the consequences. There was never an excuse for mistakes, especially not for ones you just couldn’t seem to help but make over and over again.

It was usually easier if she wasn’t explicitly aware of my indiscretions. If she only thought she knew the things that I had done. Accusations were easier to defend than honest, naked truth. You could just feign disbelief in what you were hearing, feign innocence, anger or offence.

But she wanted us to talk now – like we used to. She wanted openness and honesty. So tonight when I came up the stairs, late and swaying, drunk and slurring, and leaned on the bedroom doorframe, I decided we would do just that. We’d be honest...and I would talk.

The bed beside her was flat and empty, and she stirred as I flooded the doorway with yellow light from the landing.

“Are you awake?” I asked, not whispering or trying to preserve her rest if she wasn’t. She rolled over in bed and propped herself on her elbows, squinting at me in the stark electric glow. “Good,” I said. “I’m glad. I sort of think I might need to tell you something about tonight, if we’re ever going to be close again. About all the other nights too…about where I’ve been.”

“I know where you’ve been.” She said, defiantly. “Do you think I’m blind? That I believe you when you tell me you’re out with friends?”

“I don’t lie,” I told her honestly. “If I say I’m with friends, then I’m with friends.”

“One friend?” She asked, staring at me with that same disgusted expression on her face that I’d seen so many times before. It made me tired just to look at it.

“Perhaps.” I said. “Later on.” Then realised I was being cagey again. “Yes.” I sighed, determined to be open. “One friend.”

“Doing what friends do?” She spat sarcastically, cocking her head to one side in mock anticipation of my answer. She feigned an innocent sing-song tone. “For all this time...? Were you talking?! Drinking?!” I lost my patience. Enough. This wasn’t honesty, or openness...she wasn't prepared to listen to my reasons, to try to understand. She'd already made up her mind, and this was nothing but a show trial. There'd be no jury, no defence, just judgement. Her judgement. Well, fine then...I’d give her something to judge!

“You know we were.” I smirked, feigning my own tone of innocence for a moment. “Talking, drinking…you know what else we were doing too…and let me tell you, it was goood! Damn, it was good! It’s always good when it’s bad, if you know what I mean?!” The anger flashed across her eyes now, white-hot and vicious. And something else…was that shame?

“For god’s sake! Have a little grace!” she spat, almost choked now. “What you’re doing is more than ‘bad’! Don’t you have a conscience? Don't you ever think about her? How is it possible that I could breed such a vile little Jezebel?!”




Itching...all...over, must...poeticise...



Based on the prose above, the daughter's battle with her conscience:


Grace

 “For pity’s sake, have a little Grace,”
mocked the haloed one.
“After all that you have done,
dare you
feign Honour
now?
Pray;
tell me how you kept your face
straight?
And to what distant place
you so gallantly strayed for a memory
Just enough
to furnish that display?
SHUT
YOUR
MOUTH!
You have less than nothing to preach about!
Get down from your pedestal,
Mary! Delilah!
Jezebel!

“Cover your ears, Felicity,
turn away, Serendipity,”
purred the Horn-Tail’s silver tongue.
“You are but one,
Stella, among many,
all in far too great a hurry
to hear cruel angels speak.
Lie down at my feet, Ophelia,
HEAR ME.
You
are a rarity; a mad soul truly
Free
who answers the calls of inner beasts
and damns the consequence.
At least you
have
Constance.
Temperance and Prudence only last so long,
correct me if I am wrong in what I expect,
Juliet,
but I know how star-crossed you are,
only ever standing so far from old clarity,
answer to your true name,
Charity,
There’s nothing
more graceful than that.

Ahhh...that's better!

We Are Rich

For my sister, who asked me to read this at her wedding last May:

Put your hand in mine
And we'll walk barefoot
In the sun-warmed back yard.
We'll lie down on hot concrete
And dream that it's grass.
With iced beer in wet bottles
We'll pretend it's champagne.

Put your hand in mine
We are rich.

Autumn

I missed you today,
when my mind and my heart
went wandering among the
fallen leaves of autumn and
along the back-roads of the memories
of our summer.
And my heart called upon you
to hear nought but an
empty echo in the alley
as the evening rolled forth, rumbling, and I
knocked down the ten-pins of life
beneath the strobe lights with my family...
...And I wished you were there
to count among them,
to whirl me beneath the twirling , cascading,
remnants of the summer's splendor
in the park
and applaud my funny, victorious wiggle
as I made all life's empty
wooden wine bottles fall...

...But I pushed you to the back of my mind...

I missed you today,
That's all.

Flight of the Modern Poet

This being my first blog post ever (fanfares accepted!), I shall celebrate it with a large sip of my beautiful glass of Chilean Shiraz before I proceed any further...

Ah! Ceremonies completed, we shall come to what you might expect to read here...

Well, first and foremost I intend to use this blog as an outlet for the ever increasing amount of poetry I appear to be producing at the moment. An online version of my legendary 'Red Book', where only the most share-worthy of work earns its place. Second to this, I may post anything else here that I consider appropriate in the name of art, beauty, humour or good old-fashioned hedonistic indulgence!

Some might say that poets, by their very definition, are of a rather archaic penchant. However, despite the fact it has taken me almost a year of being a member of the Leeds Writers' Group (where everyone and their uncle has had a blog forever!) to start this blog, I am inclined to disagree. I like to think of my general demeanor as being more arcane than archaic, and the same, I hope, applies to my writing style.

It is not considered very relevant or dynamic to be a poet in today's world. Poetry is largely thought of as an 'old' art, redundant, perhaps, in the eyes of some. But for those of us who write it, because we always have and because we cannot help but do so, it is as relevant to life as breathing.

Largely, I've created this blog to encourage other people to find it relevant to their lives too. I don't mind whether you 'understand' it, whether you 'get' what I mean by it...that's not the point. Just so long as you enjoy reading it, and it means something to you... Diverse interpretation is, in my humble opinion, the ultimate reason that poetry is such an effective medium of communication. It is language in its softest, most pliable form...which means almost everyone can relate to it somehow.